stuff and things that make me smile

i'm so, so excited to share this painting with you. i have officially been making art for 20 years, and i thought it would be fun to repaint the first digital work i ever made.

Had a family wedding to attend and wanted to look my dapper best. I purchased a couple of bolts of this brushed cotton herringbone with the intention of making a three piece suit out of it.

Did a test run on scrap, cut out my pattern, sewed in my darts, and added the first pocket. Isn't it beautiful?

Reader, she should have stopped there.

I added the pocket to the other side, placing it the same distance from the top of the dart, not the bottom of the vest.

Grievous error that I didn't notice until I put it on after buttons, buttonholes, and topstitching. The pockets don't line up.

Curses.

So I did what any sane and normal person who is most certainly not under a deadline or anything and obsessed about it for a day before making a whole new vest, this one with one waist pocket and one chest pocket.

Final look, complete with pocket watch and purchased jacket (because I'm still trying to fit a jacket pattern).

It's my birthday, so you know what that means! It's Giveaway time, baby! To celebrate my completion of another rotation around the sun, I'm giving away 5 copies of the eBook and 5 copies of the audiobook. (You can listen to a sample here)

If you’re new here, Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites (Phangs) is the first novel of my queer, polyamorous, paranormal romance series featuring a deaf, disabled werewolf, a neurodivergent, mad scientist vampire, and all other manner of creatures that go bump in the night. You can read more about it here.

Set in a pseudo-regency meets fake-Victorian Gaslamp Fantasy world, complete with gothic castles, enchanted forests, and just a smidge of industrial coal dust, Phangs has been described as “like reading the queer, goth love child of Terry Pratchett meets Jane Austen.”

There are two editions of the novel, a high-heat version (Flirting with Fangs) with depictions of sex and kink on the page and a medium-heat edition (Fluff and Fangs) containing elements of kink with the sex scenes swapped out/faded to black. You can read more about the differences in rating here.

If you’d like to win an edition of your choice, type either “ebook please!” or "audiobook please!" into the replies or reblogs. If you'd like to try and win both you can feel free to do so.

The giveaway will run from March 13th - 15th, 2024.

I’ll select the winners using a randomizer. You don’t need to follow me or spam reblogs. Once you’re in, you’re in. Good luck!

A friend showed me a great way to keep my circular needles organized. Well, at least those not currently busy in various projects.

I got one of those writing journals with a flexible cover that used a tie to keep it closed. Flexible cover is needed to accommodate the bulkiness of the bundles.

Mine came with a zip lock baggie included. I removed all the paper pages and replaced them with the zip locks I got separately (they are called A5 binder pockets). I stuck my needles in different pockets, with a sticky note indicating the size. I’ll get some proper labels in a bit. It’s a good idea to vary the orientation of the bags so that the zip tabs don’t all stack on the same side.

Ta-dah! No more rat king mess of circulars!

—don’t work for startups, they’re always one ‘innovative idea’ away adding ‘sell your kidneys on the black market’ to your job description.

—keeping a collection of basic OTC medicine on you will save your life one day. I recommend Advil, Imodium, and TUMS.

—those little single-use glasses cleaning wipes are 1000% worth the money

—overly self-depreciating jokes just make people uncomfortable, wean yourself off of them

—you can buy dehydrated mini marshmallows in bulk online and they’re a godsend for hot cocoa

—people don’t care if you have fidget toys on your desk they just want to play with them

keep on not working for startups

sometimes there comes a point where the thing (fandom, hobby, friendship, romantic relationship) you loved no longer brings you joy. And that's okay. Try to mourn the loss, take joy in the memories, and don't burn any bridges in case ten years go by and you find yourself back in that fandom/hobby/relationship again

it turns out that (ugh) moderate regular exercise is (spit) good for you. The sooner you make it part of your life, the easier it'll be

related: if you throw yourself into a new exercise regime too hard and too fast, without stopping to rest or consider whether a particular move is good for you ... well, shoulder injuries are painful and consults with orthopedic surgeons are expensive

knees are bastards too

don't even get me started on ankles

there may come a time when your digestive system is too fragile for ibuprofin. I'm sorry

one day you're gonna wake up and realise you no longer give any fucks about some things that used to bother you

on the other hand, you might be alarmed to realise what you still give a fuck about

"loving yourself" is less of a feeling and more of an action. you can start doing it any time and it will make your life better and better as you go on

this will happen incrementally - be patient

along those lines, if you haven't started making an active effort to quit shit-talking yourself, suck it up and do it

no, shut up. do it. "but it's haaaaard!" don't care. do it.

whether you like it or not, you are mortal and you need to go to the doctor for an annual checkup

stretch regularly - your future self will thank you

at some point you will encounter people much younger than you arguing passionately and incorrectly about history you personally remember and experienced

this will be infuriating and annoying

otoh, most other things just... will not matter to you as much

at some point you will shift from wanting to go out to being like "eh" and deciding to stay in. this is okay.

you will have absolutely no idea what The Youth are talking about and you will not care

but if you keep your mind open to new ideas you'll never be irrelevant

your company still doesn't love you - don't give them more than they pay you for

Find joy, every kind, it's always worth it

I'm talking that massive, never-ending Discord chat with your bestie? The one that makes you giggle through the day? It's not a "waste of time," it's what time was made for

If that's fanfic for your favorite characters who never even met on screen celebrate that!

If that's building a tiny fleet of snake villagers for your snake town and they just cover your mantel hell yes!

If that's collecting pillows and making a fort of them every weekend I'll be right over

Please keep stretching and exercise enough NOT to need an elaborate strategy to get up from the floor. IT MAY SAVE YOUR LIFE

Say bye to your employer as early as you possibly can, unless you really love your job. You won’t be sorry.

Keep doing the annual checkups 🙏🏼

I am aspiring to make a ghost army

These aren’t enough ghosts tho

Tell me what expression, accessory and (optional) color u want ur ghost to have

you will be added to the army

reblog so we can have two whole pages of ghosts

thank you

That one melody from Spirited Away. I didn't know it had a name, Always With Me. The baby stopped, she froze in the middle of fussing like she forgot all about it, like she completely forgot whatever she had been mad about, and stared at the laptop playing the music, eyes wide, in awe. We have played her music before, she's heard me play the keyboard, but she's never done that before. I don't know if she's attuned enough to language yet to recognize that she has never heard japanese before. She listened to the song in awe, and we looked at her in awe. She's done that several times now, with different recordings and covers of the song.

I've made a site where you can make your own

I learned to knit a while ago specifically to make cool braid patterns with cable knitting and I'm also a web developer

So I made this

You can make a braid and it will create a cable knitting pattern out of it

It starts with this here, you can change the size with the inputs above and when you hover over crossings you can click and it will change how it crosses (right over left, left over right, or parallel)

Every time you do it updates this pattern down here that you can follow to knit that braid

There are notes and abbreviations listed on the site for the specifics