professional grumpypants

I don't know where to start this post so uh.

The very basics is that we're being evicted from the land that we've been working for the last five+ years to turn into a profitable farm (*mumblemumble generational trauma and family infighting mumble*)

The good news: there's options near by and I'm relatively confident we can qualify for a farm operations loan to secure new land!

The bad news: since goImagine closed, we've had to completely rebuild the store on a new platform and traffic/sale have cratered because no one knows where to find us. That's where you can help!

Please signal boost this post and check out our store!

We have soap, fiber, stickers and BRAND NEW lip balm! Our stuff is made from things we produce right here on our farm, and other ingredients and equipment sourced from local businesses.

Our current goal is to build up $2500 in capital and use that to fund purchases of more supplies and equipment for operation.

Big ticket items include:

A drum carder

New spinning wheel (in case I can't recover my old one)

An electric milker (I'm milking all of our sheep by hand currently!)

More soap molds

Getting the current back log of fleeces to our local mill to become yarn

This winter's supply of hay

And just various other supplies that are in constant need of reordering I have a LOT more planned, so please reblog this post and add our store to your watch list.

THANK YOU!

To keep us progressing, we've decided to break the larger goal up into smaller chunks to move forward with.

Right now we need to restock some of our staple soaps (Dad Hugs, Fragrance Free) and get the seasonal summer soap out (U-Pick, Campfire S'More)

AND

Add the remaining planned flavors of lip balm (Lavender, Maple, and Orange Vanilla) to the shop!

To purchase all the supplies, were trying to pull in $300 total by the end of the week. Current sales are sitting at $81, already almost a third of the way there cuz y'all rock!

Other ways you can help: reblog this version of the post. And, if you've bought anything from the shop, tried it and loved it, please leave a rating and review, it helps boost our store on Storenvy's platform and prompts their algorithm to recommend our store in their market place.

More than half way there in just a day, THANK YOU!

(There are)

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The Fence has published an exposé on Stuart Semple (of Anish Kapoor 'feud' notoriety) which they have been working on for six months.

investigation reveals Semple / his studio / his partner Emily Mann (who's described as acting as his 'enforcer' in his business) :

mishandled £400k grant of public money intended for a public gallery, allowing the money to flow freely between the public project, his own personal studio and personal projects such as Culture Hustle (his online business selling paint etc)

underpaid or failed to pay many of his assistants to the tune of several thousand pounds each.

former assistants have taken him to court and he simply hasn't bothered to show up and he's threatened to sue former assistants who asked for their back pay

repeatedly funds ambitious projects that never see release eg Abode, an 'Adobe-rivalling' suite of creative software (he claims he still intends to release this)

encouraged a cult-like atmosphere at his studio in Bournemouth

was frequently in debt and having to negotiate with bailiffs etc for his debts while at the same time crowdfunding various projects

ran fake social media accounts boosting Semple and his work

The portrait that emerges is one of decades-long scam artistry tbh and someone who's juvenile, manipulative, narcissistic.

The Fence btw is a decent fairly small-circulation quarterly magazine from the UK which specialises in satire, investigative journalism, culture, and fiction. You can read the piece in its entirety if you register (which is free).

a few links:

The Fence's newsletter from April discusses this article & how Semple has tried to muddy the SEO waters

Semple threatened to sue The Fence for publishing this story - many of you are American so here's the relevant UK law on defamation.

The first thig that put up a solid red flag was the shipping material. It's cool that he has custom boxes for his studio, it looked really neat. Then I opened it and sae things like "Not for bean boy" printed all over the inside of the box.

Between Mirror, hyper pigments, and black 2.0, none of them were as extremely out there as the videos on his site made them seem. The colors are vibrant, the black is dark, and the mirror is shiny. But the level the videos showed them at are not levels I can recreate.

So like, he exaggerated as an advertising scheme. Alright, shame on him.

I know what I am doing is wrong

I know there is an activity that looks similar that is not wrong

FINALLY FINISHED !!!

I’ve been at this since like September. Originally the plan was to do five panels but by the time I reached three I realized it was absolutely going to be too heavy. If the back bothers me then I’ll just buy some black fabric and sew it on.

I pinned it excessively since I have been warned the feathers won’t flatten unless blocked aggressively. They still don’t behave themselves 100% but again, if it bothers me I’m willing to steam block it in the future. Super fun before and after pics.

Pattern is of course the feathered wings shawl by my favorite pattern designer craftyintentions.