platybelle

They might tell their children and grandchildren of this, how the old hunters would tell them of a spectacular beast that one might see only three times in a lifetime, and perhaps kill just once. It must be true, since the clan still has the tusk of one, but no-one alive has seen one.

Knitting finished as of last night! Still need to weave in a few ends, wash, and block.

But consider:

not opening the comments

letting people be wrong

letting people be wrong about YOU

letting people have a bad impression of you (see above)

knowing when your input isn't needed

spotting bot comments

Anyway, she really, really loves it when I tell her stories. She loves stories anyway, and at first this manifested as "stories about Tad-Cu Bryn", aka my father (her grandfather) who died before she was born. This has been a lovely way to keep his memory alive, and she adores every story - she has her favourites, which she will request.

Then it became apparent that she specifically loves me telling her stories. She'll happily ask others for them too, but from me she just wants any anecdote at all; which of course is wonderful and demonstrates that she is a child of impeccable taste and wisdom and brilliance, but also she has ADHD and the energy reserves of a seven year old and so this gets Tiring very quickly

Yesterday, in the car on the way back from the wildlife centre, she asked for one of my longer stories, and I was like hey, how about we try something different?

And she was like, no, tell me a story about Tad-Cu Bryn

And I was like, this will be a brand new story and you get to play it and help me tell it

And she was like, explain

So I gave her three characters to choose from. The first was a warrior with a sword she could name, who was nonetheless dyspraxic. The second was a gymnastic elf who could commune with trees but was afraid of heights. The third was a dyslexic witch whose spells sometimes go wrong when she spells the words wrong.

She picked the witch. I pulled up an online d20 on my phone. I went to start, and she insisted my mother had to play as the elf.

So I told them that the new queen of the kingdom had called for them, because their palace treasury had been robbed - specifically, a single enchanted coin that brings luck and wealth to a ruler's reign had been stolen. And tales of enchanted coins were suddenly emanating from across the land, so each one needed investigating until the right coin was found.

It turns out kids who like stories will absolutely lap this shit up. She was enthralled. It was the simplest story - they had to get into a bank, revive some unconscious gnomes, then enter the vault, find the coin that had been deposited into it, then get back to the queen. Enough to fill a half hour car ride, basically, but she managed to fill it with all the wacky hijinks you get from a ttrpg, particularly when she tried to smash a door down with a hammer but rolled a 1.

We finished with the queen saying it wasn't the right coin, and then my niece demanded we go again, this time with her playing as a sapient reticulated python. That time we made it all the way to the final boss fight, which was a sorcerer who created a big coin monster out of loads of coins; I asked my niece what she wanted to do, and she described graphically how she wanted to constrict and eat the sorcerer and immediately rolled a 19. So, sure! Okay. The sorcerer is now very dead. The coin monster, though, was still there, and as my niece tried to say she would do the same thing, I was like, no, you're a snake and you just ate. You're now immobile.

At this point, my sister advised her to regurgitate the sorcerer.

Great! said my niece. I'm going to do it at the coin monster.

And rolled a 20.

So she projectile vomited a dead sorcerer into the coin monster, and won the day.

Anyway, today she immediately demanded we play "the game with the story where we choose", and my brother in law is now asking me how he can do this with her ("Are you making it all up as you go along??"). But yeah, turns out, this is a fantastic way to entertain a seven year old. Vague ongoing quest, then three steps: get into (place), resolve (minor puzzle), boss fight to finish. Boom. Easy.

Your regular reminder that any actually crocheted items you see in stores like Target are 100% being made for terrible wages even taking into consideration average incomes in the countries where these things are made. This bag is 14 rows of plain double crochet, 22 (I think) rows of double crochet, ch 1, double crochet, 2 more rows of double crochet at the top, then a strap that Target calls "braided" but looks to me like double crochet and slip stitches.

Absolutely 0% of this bag can be made on a machine. So, this was hours of work of someone only using their own hands and body to make a bag. This was NOT someone being able to set the rules on a machine and let it run with minimal physical work on their part.

So, $30 is a fucking travesty.

BUT WAIT. THERE'S MORE!

WHAT'S THIS?!

I've never heard of Nest. Let's go to their website! Oooh, what a pretty non-profit website about helping handcrafters make real wages! What criteria must a company meet to get the pretty sticker???

OH! THERE'S A VALIDATION PROCESS!

Who's doing the validating?

"...validators independently conduct validation of their production process and receive confirmation of handcrafted."

So....the companies seeking to claim their products aren't produced in horrendous conditions for sub-par wages are validating their own products are totally handmade and that their employees are totally not being exploited?

And this bag that would take several hours (I stitch faster than you; it takes several hours) still only costs $30???? REALLY?!

Oh, but here's a whole explanation of how Nest identifies handcrafted items, including lists of tools that may be used.

Let's see what they say about knitting/crochet:

Oh, wow! A whole list of supposed crochet machines! That could, if real, benefit crocheters by allowing them to create crochet with the use of a machine that would take some of the stress of the artform off of their bodies! That's neat! Let's duckduckgo these, shall we??

The Crochet Galloon Machine patent info. Which does not describe crochet. Nothing described here is crochet. It's just using hooks to pull yarn where it wants. That doesn't make it crochet. This is a knitting machine creating knit warp (or warp knit? I'm not sure on the lingo, I admit).

Okay, let's try this "Multi-Needle Crochet Machine." First link is an amazon listing for "crochet machine":

The crochet hooks ARE for crochet, but everything else is a knitting machine. So, NOPE!

For the Raschel Crochet Machine? How about this blog debunking that it crochets at all. Whoopsie, doodle. An excerpt:

"Here’s the short answer: there is still no commercially deployed, fully automated machine that makes hand-crochet stitches the way a human does, stitch by stitch, with one active loop and a single hook. The fabrics you see marketed as “machine crochet” are almost always warp-knitted on Raschel or crochet-galloon machines, or they’re other kinds of needlework (like chainstitch embroidery) that visually imitate crochet. They are not hand crochet, and the stitch geometry (the topology of the loops and their interlacing) is different."

This is important because the point is that to get ACTUAL HAND-CROCHETED ITEMS LIKE THE BAG AT THE TOP, YOU CANNOT REPRODUCE THE LOOK WITH A MACHINE.

So, again, $30 for a supposedly ethically sourced tote that takes hours of work to make with ONLY YOUR BODY.

Moving, on the embrodiery-crochet combination machine?

None of these crochet. And, if you go back to the previous link about the Raschel machine, that post includes an explanation of how embroidery machines can make stitches look crochet-ish but aren't actually crochet at all.

We all know how this is gonna end, but let's see what lace crochet machine brings up:

Knitting. Knitting. Lace maker that is NOT duplicating crochet lace. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Lastly, let's look at what Nest considers to be non-handcrafted crochet items:

::seventeen minute sigh::

Let's just start with if you use a knitting machine, then it's not crochet, so that takes bullet point 1 and 3 off the list.

And now let's remember none of these so-called crochet machines Nest has listed actually crochet or even come close. So, that's 2 and 4 removed as well.

So, in short, Nest knows nothing about crochet and appears to be making bank allowing companies to greenwash their terrible labor practices by letting them or their suppliers be their own validators on whether or not their work is 1) handcrafted and 2) done in a way that does not abuse the skilled laborers who are making them.

600+ bags bought, if you look at that first photo again. Each bag crafted by hand by a person who cannot use a machine to lessen the amount of work/effort/stress on the body to create it. For 30 fucking dollars.

His mental health problem was wildly exacerbated because he was put on a new anxiety medicine and did NOT respond well to it.

The doctor ended up switching him to a different medicine and he's already improved so much from the last two weeks.

Trying to get him a new bed in the next week-ish though so he'll be extra comfortable if/when he gets fatigued once he starts radiation treatment.

My brother is doing great on the new medicine.

and it’s not because I have the same name as her or anything (even tho it’s definitely a factor - because how cool is that?!? - and I kinda used - and sometimes still use, let’s be real here - that as an excuse to call myself a queen because reASONS and shut up you would do the same)

but because that shit is like the stuff of legends and there is a whole myth surrounding their love story and the supposed place where she was killed - on the king’s orders near a fountain in the farm where she secretly lived with prince Pedro - because there’s a red stain there and it’s said that when she was stabbed she cried for the king’s men to spare her children (if memory serves me right) and her tears landed on the fountain and turned red because she was terribly devastated and in pain thinking only of her children and how she was going to leave them without a mother when in the last moments of her life…

and also, you know that prince? before he did that thing when he exhumed her just to make her ~officially~ his queen - and have everyone who ever opposed to them and their love kiss her clothes to pay her homage and the respect she did not have in life?? like that shit savage bro - he did another thing, even more savage than that

he searched the whole country for the two dudes who stabbed her (there was a third but I think he died or smth), even went to spain because one of them fled the country after the king died, and he fucking RIPPED their hearts out (one from the front and one from the back, because Inês was stabbed from both sides too) and tortured them in public, y'know, as you do

and that, my dear friends, is why the story of Pedro and Inês is considered one of the best love stories on our country (and I would say the world too because that shit better than anything Shakespeare or Nicholas Sparks ever wrote and it was fucking real)

my boy Pedro didn’t fuck around when you fucked with his lady, and you lyin’ if you say you don’t want you a freak like this - this Extra™, this ride or die, this savage - when it comes to love.

listen up, girls and boys, take note: follow their example and get yourselves a freak who would crown you queen after you were killed

Lynx and salmon, an Ivan Bilibin-inspired piece for the Polar Lights 4 charity zine!