at this point im never leaving this hellsite :)

the bottom and side borders of the finished piece are tablet-woven with a mixture of linen and mercerized cotton. the sides are a classic meander motif, while the bottom border includes the "X" square from the skyphos itself. the bottom border was woven directly onto the piece using the remainder of the warp beneath penelope's feet (tablet draft for anyone interested—I designed it to be twist-neutral and everything). the side borders are sewn on because I didn't set up the side borders when I started the project, but ellen harlizius-klück previously executed a stunning version here that has the side borders woven in, as well as a really helpful video on this technique.

I was originally planning to leave part of the black warp threads unwoven to serve as penelope's warp, the way I did a few years ago with the amasis painter vase:

but I couldn't figure out how to execute it well in this version, especially since I was doing double-weave and not tapestry. perhaps next time! overall, this was a complicated and fun project as a first warp-weighted loom piece. I learned a lot of important lessons—chief among them being to actually calculate warp lengths instead of eyeballing them and to increase the loom weights on the warps for better tension. unfortunately, I also learned I want to build a large warp-weighted loom (the one I have now was made by jennifer marcus at fiber paintings studio and it is lovely, but I would like to weave larger pieces.)

the original pot also features telemachus standing over a grieving penelope (I had room only for his spear), perhaps a reference to the scene in book 1 when he reprimands his mother and orders her back upstairs:

Odysseus was not the only one who did not come back home again from Troy. Many were lost. Go in and do your work. Stick to the loom and distaff. Tell your slaves to do their chores as well. It is for men to talk, especially me. I am the master. οὐ γὰρ Ὀδυσσεὺς οἶος ἀπώλεσε νόστιμον ἦμαρ ἐν Τροίῃ, πολλοὶ δὲ καὶ ἄλλοι φῶτες ὄλοντο. ἀλλ᾽ εἰς οἶκον ἰοῦσα τὰ σ᾽ αὐτῆς ἔργα κόμιζε, ἱστόν τ᾽ ἠλακάτην τε, καὶ ἀμφιπόλοισι κέλευε ἔργον ἐποίχεσθαι: μῦθος δ᾽ ἄνδρεσσι μελήσει πᾶσι, μάλιστα δ᾽ ἐμοί: τοῦ γὰρ κράτος ἔστ᾽ ἐνὶ οἴκῳ.

Od. 1.354–359. Emily Wilson translation.

Farah Black:

Treated as the competent cheerleader to the popular m/m pairing. Despite being one of arguably four main characters in the second season, she spends the finale lying half dead in a ditch while everyone else gets to go have interesting interactions with each other and save a world.

She's such a weirdo and a mess in a way I think Black characters and especially dark-skinned Black women don't often get to be. She wants to be normal so bad but she's not. I actually enjoy her relationships to the main guys too, she plays off them really well and even one of them having a crush on her and them hooking up is handled pretty well and doesn't overshadow either of their characters.

Gwen Cooper:

If you go back to like 2016ish or earlier in the torchwood ao3 tag it's like you might as well have gone back to a time period pre women's suffrage. She ofc got the usual "getting in the way of yaoi" allegations and also people hating on her for cheating on her boyfriend (which perhaps pisses me off the most. It was funny as fuck when she cheated on her boyfriend it's what gives her half her swag) but also a lot of people just seem to not get her or her personality or goals or values or relationships to the other characters at all. Which is infuriating considering she's the literal audience pov character. Fortunately people mostly seem to have got more normal about her but I do occasionally see takes in the tag that I cannot believe people are willing to type out and post publicly in big 2026. Anyway all I truly have to say at the end of things is god forbid a woman be messy and toxic and bisexual in the messy toxic bisexual show.

She's everything to meeeee!! Serial cheater AND serial optimist! The heart and conscience of the team except instead of her moral compass making everyone else better they all just make her worse instead. The only person to join Torchwood purely of her own volition without having some kind of tragic backstory to explain why which makes her the biggest freak there. Sniffer dog in human form who will never ever let go of a trail. Wears her big ol bleeding heart on her sleeve and is doomed to forever fall in love with some poor soul she desperately wants to help but can't. Also microdosing Jack's own curse of immortality purely by just being the person who always happens to survive, cockroach-like, while everyone she loves dies. Punches a CIA agent in the face for calling her English. Has a toxic yuri episode. World's first female deadbeat boyfriend who loves blowing up her interpersonal relationships. Loves people so so so much even when she doesn't treat them well. Briefly a wanted terrorist. There's like a million other things I could say about her that I'm forgetting rn but I love her so so much

"gwen cooper bashing" is a canon tag on ao3 with OVER 200 FICS. IN A FANDOM WITH 20K FICS. 1% OF TORCHWOOD FICS ARE TAGGED GWEN BASHING. She is constantly made the villain for "getting in the middle of" the main gay ship even though that ship is canon and her being there hasn't stopped that from happening. People also hate her so bad for cheating on her boyfriend, but these people usually also have the guy she cheated with as their favourite character even though he fully coerced her into it and kept pushing until she eventually gave in. In recent years there has been a push against this but instead of actually exploring what makes her interesting and the nuances of her character people just turn her into a toxic yuri girlboss who totally doesn't need any man in her life and definitely pegs her boyfriend/husband

I entered the fandom pretty recently, and there isn't much hate towards her anymore, but she was villainized for cheating on her boyfriend, and probably other things that I'm not aware of.

At first she seems like the normal one, but she isn't! She tries so desperately to cling to a life outside of Torchwood, but she can't! She's so cool!!!!

fandom hates on her for cheating on her bf and lying to him when the male characters do the exact same shit

shes my beautiful badass action hero boytoy

There was a time when hating on her was like an un-agruable default in the fandom. Even tho she's one of the main characters, arguably - thee main character as we start everything from her pov. It got better now but still occasionally I encounter a post that calls her annoying or bad, while completely misinterpreting her character and that pisses me off. If a guy was like that you'd call him your favourite pathetic meow meow or something, but a woman in the same role gets hate

Yes my girl made so many questionable choices but cmon. that's what makes her interesting, that's what makes her alive! She's stubborn and deeply flawed and occasionally selfish and she's an amazing character not despite but because if it. I wouldn't want her to be any other way

She 'gets in the way' of the uber popular M/M ship, so for the longest time people acted like she was the scum of the earth, super evil and manipulative, etc. etc. To this day there are over 200 'Gwen bashing' fics on AO3, where she gets murdered, 'exposed' as being evil, or just treated horribly.