Interesting

I’m using six colours in the piecing, which should make it 92”x109” (unless I mess with the pattern even more and take one of the rows out completely) which will technically be a king size LOL The seventh colour pink is gonna be used on the binding so I get to use alllll the colours we had in stock in the shop 🎉

Okay, blocks done and middle rows complete!

I did take one row out of the centre so there are only two red centre blocks instead of three. 109” is too big for my queen bed, but I can work with 101” LOL

Technically this will still fit a king at 92”x101”, but I am a blanket hog and that feels like a really skinny king to me.

ALSO??

Because I altered the amount of rows (downsizing) but did not alter the amount of blocks I made, I ended up with just enough left over to make two matching pillow cases! They are even on point like the quilt.

And it’s so fucking big LOL

Not as big as the greyscale king for my brother, but still. It feels big.

As you can see a little from the roll on the back of the long arm, I found a fun rainbow universe print to put on it with all the colours on the front.

I’m quilting the pillowcases too, though in a tighter pattern so they can handle more washing.

The pillow cases look so good too. As I mentioned, I quilted them much tighter than the quilt so they can be thrown in the wash a lot more. Same pattern, just smaller design.

It’s so busy, I could stare at it for hours finding things in the prints.

Also? I love the pink binding. I really did want to use every colour, so this was a nice compromise to having to resize everything LOL

The backing is also so busy LOL You can hide a lot of pet fur on both sides of this thing.

The pillowcases turned out great. I used the leftover from the backing to back the pillow cases so that everything matches. And they’re envelope style so the pillows won’t slip out. Hate it when the pillowcase slips off my pillow.

I was on the phone with police the other day describing someone and he was over here talking *over* dispatch to give me details I already knew... because I had paused.... to give dispatch time to type.... and I guess he thought I didn't know???

Like man I appreciate the spirit but I literally taught YOU how to do that, do you think I forgot??

Like I bequeathed unto you my Stone of Power and in doing so lost all arcane wisdom???

and while I USED to think it was because I was a girl and they thought girls were stupid, I have come to understand that really, it comes from more of a benign and congnitively youthful void where "other people know things that I don't" and "sometimes things don't make sense to me because there are things I am not yet aware of"

and this can be directed towards anyone they haven't subconciously identified as a Wiser Authority

Because if "people who might know more than me" is an unspoken category that applies only to Professors, Guardians, Role Models, and Peers- and NONE of those hypothetical persons LOOKS like "girl", in their head, they aren't treating girls like they're dumb- they're treating girls THE EXACT SAME WAY they treat EVEYONE ELSE...... who isn't more intelligent.

No wonder they're always so blind to it! They're looking for a big solid block that says "BELIEF THAT WOMEN ARE STUPID", and they're COMPLETELY MISSING the big, empty hole where "BELEIEF THAT ANY WOMEN MIGHT KNOW MORE THAN ME" should go

Like, Luke your father was a drug smuggler and so we don't talk about him. Your father was a drug runner and he crossed the line from Good Person to criminal and drug peddler and brought shame on our family. Luke, your father was a drug dealer and he was involved in shady things and it really hasn't been that long and people are probably after him to this day and we have to keep our heads down and stay safe. Luke, your father made it so that we have to pay the consequences of his actions. Made it so that you, Luke Skywalker, can't sing with the stars that call your name because of what he did whilst racing among them.

Luke, your father was a bad man who did bad things, but they were choices, and you can make different ones. You share his last name but you don't share his greed. Luke, addiction is genetic but your father wasn't a drug addict. He was a drug smuggler. He chose to became part of a system that exploits pain and fear, but his decision isn't running through your bones. Luke, you're kind and good and have reached nineteen, on a planet made to break things, whole and gentle.

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

* (I'm collecting them.

* (Right now, I'm 1,762 parentheses deep.

* There’s some guy who keeps opening them.)

* Right now, they think they’re 1,762 parentheses deep…)

The important thing about wool is that it continues to keep you warm even when it’s soaking wet.

Other natural fibers don’t do this. In fact, quite the opposite. Campers and boaters are usually familiar with the phrase, “cotton kills.” If you’re wet in cotton or linen, your clothes actually sap heat from your body.

If you sink in a lake in late October like I did today, staying warm is important. I was rescued long before I would’ve actually died, but cold makes your muscles seize up, which isn’t good if you have to swim to land.

Which brings me around to life jackets. If the water’s cold enough, you may only have five-ten minutes until your muscles seize (today I probably had 40-60, more than enough time to get to land if I hadn’t been picked up), and you’ll drown.

In a life jacket, even in extremely cold water, you can float semi-conscious for perhaps another 30 minutes or so before you actually freeze to death, which is usually when someone rescues you.

What’s more, you probably know that moving around on land warms you up. Jumping jacks, jogging in place, etc.

In water, moving actually makes you colder. You need to stay still curled up in a ball, which you can only do in a life jacket.

In wool AND life jacket, you’re warm, and your head’s above water, which is pretty much your only and entire goal.

Yep! A really simple “experiment” I learned as a kid and now use in my own courses is sticking your hand in ice water. Compare moving it around in the water to curling it up in a fist. The contrast is stark!

To increase your survival time in on cold water, you want to curl up! If you’re with others, you want to huddle!

I explained very clearly to the manager my issue with the meat section not having the price tags listed, and they claimed it was only going to be for the meat, since meat is by weight, and the price of each item is printed on the packs of each item.

Sure. That’s how they get their foot in the door. Fast forward not even two weeks, and here we are:

Bar codes. No prices, no item descriptions. No price stickers on the individual items. Heck, not even the name of the item that is SUPPOSED to be there.

No. The only way to see the price is to scan it on your phone app, which is also recording what you looked at recently, as a way of gauging what you might be looking for in the future.

So here’s what we’re gonna do gang:

Every time you go into a store that has implemented these price-less tags:

Take 1-3 items up to the cash register. Ask the cashier for the price, or hit the price check item on the self checkout, which will likely call over the attendant.

Express that you didn’t actually want it, you just couldn’t see on the shelf how much it was.

POLITELY, AND WITH A THANK YOU FOR THE PRICE CONFIRMATION, Give the items to the cashier or attendant to put back.

When they inevitably try to push the app, politely decline. If pressed for why not, say you don’t want to have to carry your phone in-hand the whole time you are shopping in order to see how much things cost. (Not having cell service or data to use the app is NOT a valid excuse, as stores already often have complimentary WiFi AND more stores will provide WiFi rather than give up on this push for surveillance pricing)

If it’s a shelf-stable item, the cashier will have to set it aside, taking up room in their limited operating space, and eventually pass it off to someone to put in a holding area to put back later. If it’s a fridge/freezer item, it might have to get tossed due to food product sale regulations.

In either case, you are making it a pain in the ass for them to have these digital bar codes. Tie up the checkouts. Give the employees more busywork that the company has to pay them to do. Hurt their bottom line having to toss the pint of ice cream you carried around in your cart for 20 minutes before giving it back to the cashier.

Natural Black Hair Tutorial! Usually Black hair is excluded in the hair tutorials which I have seen so I have gone through it in depth because it’s really not enough to tell someone simply, “Black hair is really curly, draw it really curly.” 

But that can’t impede you from helping them when they need it. And that means they need to be able to talk to you. And you need to be able to talk to them. This is where the dreaded small talk comes in. It is social lubricant. It is an irritant barrier. It lets two people talk who would otherwise have nothing in common so they can ask each other for help if they need it.

So start saying hi. Maybe drop off a loaf of banana bread. Get on speaking terms with them. That way if a Crisis comes, the first time you are speaking to each other isn’t as strangers. 

Your community includes people who make you uncomfortable. And their community includes people who make them uncomfortable as well, and those people are possibly you.