So I washed a bunch of one of the fleeces today but

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So I washed a bunch of one of the fleeces today but like. uh. A fleece is. Uh. A lot. It’s a lot. It’s just. A lot of wool. The garbage bag isn’t any emptier than it was. Every level drying surface in my house is covered in wool and the garbage bag isn’t visibly any emptier than it was. 

But I got my carders out. And there was some assembly required. Fortunately Dude had had half a bottle of wine and was excited to get out the electric screwdriver he bought like a year ago. “I’ve used it twice now,” he said, after attaching the two handles of the carders. 

Then he noticed one was on backwards, so he removed and reattached it. “I’ve used it four times now,” he said.

Then the screw hole was stripped so I had to add glue to that one to reinforce it, so that’s drying now.

It suggested I start off by carding greasy wool to condition the wires. Well, as it happens, I have some greasy wool. I have two garbage bags nearly full of greasy wool, and every level surface in my house covered in drying-out hanks of less-greasy washed wool, so uh. 

Anyway I got a couple of handfuls of greasy wool and those are now sitting in the carders while the glue dries. 

I don’t even knit, guys.

Though, I read the box. “Ashford,” it said, “Looms and wheels,” and Dude inadvisably said “Oh you should get a loom,” and I was like “should I now,” so, he’s on the hook. 

(I said “really what I want is to weave linen” and he, even more inadvisably, did I mention he’s had half a bottle of wine, “I love linen,” which is true, he’s a Balt and it’s like in their blood or something, he owns a grand total of one linen shirt and he loves that thing, so he’s on board, at least until he sobers up. What’s horrifying is that even though he hasn’t ever spun any more than I have, he’s so coordinated he’d probably be better at it than me if he tried. He once fixed a sewing machine of mine simply because he remembered messing around with his mother’s as a little kid, he knows a lot more about fiber arts than he lets on.)

In other news I also cleaned my entire kitchen today so I deserve some sort of cookie. The one thing I wanted to do this weekend I didn’t do, but, the kitchen table is immaculate, so. Cookie.

gowns: evidence that ancient paleolithic venus statues were...

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gowns:

evidence that ancient paleolithic venus statues were made by women who were examining their own bodies and sculpting them from their own point of view, not, as previously assumed, exaggerated features from an outside perspective

source: toward decolonizing gender: female vision in the upper paleolithic, catherine hodge mccoid and leroy mcdermott, 1996

Hm Fidelis just called me. Sent them to voicemail, the guy said something about the social media...

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Hm Fidelis just called me. Sent them to voicemail, the guy said something about the social media department saying I needed help with my account.

Creepy, but I guess my real name is on my twitter account.

I don’t do business on the phone for a variety of reasons (mostly caused by getting lied to, and an undiagnosed cognitive disorder of some kind, and anxiety, and it’s all a hideous stew, but think of this: when you do business on the phone it’s verbal, there’s no record of it, and there are no witnesses. I can’t abide it.) But I’m still almost tempted to call back.

Because what possible help can they give me? “You still have access to family planning, you just gotta bill a third party for it.” No fucking thanks. If I have a choice I’m going to go with a company that doesn’t treat my reproductive organs as second-class citizens, bargaining chips in a disingenuous culture war.

aimmyarrowshigh replied to your post “I spent

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aimmyarrowshigh replied to your post “I spent yesterday doing laundry and assembling a box full of clothes…”

I’m sure you’ve talked about this, but what sewing machine would you most recommend?

Oh, actually, I don’t know if I have! I did my Big Sewing Machine Shopping Research like, five or six years ago now, I think. So I probably haven’t talked about it much!

I suffer from the problem of visibly sewing pretty often, which means people keep thinking I’m An Expert. (An acquaintance was asking why don’t I just set up shop doing alterations? Bruh I suck at alterations by any objective assessment. But if you can hem a thing, people are like, wizardry [insert gif of guy from movie i never saw doing the thing]–) So, I’m not An Expert, but I do have, I guess, more than the average base knowledge of Sewing Stuff. So I might as well share it. 

#1 all sewing machines suck. That’s just the truth. The modern ones have a lot of conveniences that make them a joy to use except that all the fiddly little plastic pieces break if you sneeze on them and sometimes you didn’t even sneeze, and sometimes they just plain don’t work ever. The old sturdy ones are reliable as fuck but take an advanced degree to thread, and will straight put a needle through your eye and never miss a stitch. Until for some reason they just don’t work anymore and you can’t figure out why. So it’s just. It’s inescapable. 

#2 cheap sewing machines suck more, because they combine the flimsiness of modern machines, as explained above, with the stubborn user-unfriendliness of antique machines, also explained above. Plus they’re uncomfortable to use and probably can’t do whatever cool thing it was that you wanted to do in the first place.

HOWEVER, sewing is a joy and a life skill and used to be ancestral knowledge and has been stripped from us by capitalism demanding two wage earners per family when one used to be sufficient, and making the materials for crafts now priced like finished luxury goods instead of the raw materials they properly ought to be. The joy of being a thrifty housewife and sewing clothes to save money has been replaced with a dull sort of faux-chipper veneer of upper-middle-class Preciousness because uncut fabric costs three times as much as a comparable finished garment imported from a sweatshop overseas. [Hence my mania for hoarding old clothes and cutting them up.] 

But. 

SEWING MACHINES. I can explain their features! I can’t give a wholehearted rec for anything, though. Alas! The most important like #1 A+++ tip I can give you is that if you buy from a place that gives you a free class with your machine, DO THAT, it’s incalculably useful, and #2 is if you have a friendly old lady nearby, a relative or acquaintance or something, who would give you a Basic Course In Sewing The Way Our Ancestors Always Did It in return for you bringing her lunch or something, DO THAT. Because it really doesn’t matter what machine you have; they’re all totally confusing and impenetrable, and all the YouTube tutorials in the world won’t prepare you in the same way that seeing it done in front of you on the machine you’re going to use will.

On to more specifics, and I’ll cut for length.

ELECTRONIC vs MECHANICAL

There are two basic types of sewing machines. Antique machines and cheap modern ones (and a few high-end modern ones) fall under the MECHANICAL category, because all of their movements are governed by simple mechanical processes. Your basic antique machine, like the ones in all the old pictures, are straight-stitch only mechanical machines, meaning they only do one type of stitch, forward and backward. (Like a Singer 15J; I have one in a cabinet-mount that someone gave me, nonfunctional; my dude’s mother has a cabinet-mount one that’s treadle-operated, and the owner’s manual is in Latvian because it came with her family from Old Country.) You can do a lot with a straight stitch, but there’s some stuff you just can’t do. (Like… anything with stretch. You can’t sew it.)

The earliest multi-stitch machines (like the Elna Supermatic, you gotta scroll down to see it, I have one, it was my grandma’s, and it’s amazing) could do your basic fancy stitches– zig-zag, crucial for stretch fabrics, but also ornamental featherstitches and things. The way they did them was with Bakelite cams you physically had to take out of a box and put into a compartment on the machine.

Modern mechanical machines are basically just like the Supermatic except the cams are built in, and you can select them with a lever. But that’s really it– the needle is moved in programmed ways by physical gears. The advantage: it’s simple, it’s sturdy, it’s not likely to break. The disadvantage: Really really really limited and not very adjustable. However, if you’re used to the limitations, just like with any art form, you’ll find you express yourself better within them, and you just can’t beat them for sturdiness. Heavy-duty machines are almost always mechanical. Computerized machines just aren’t that sturdy.

Fancy things like buttonholes and ruffles and eyelets have to be done by purchasing exterior attachments that go on instead of the normal needle foot, and allow the machine’s motor to run a smaller machine within the adapter. 

Which brings us to ELECTRONIC machines. Instead of cams, the needles are governed by electronic programming. This means the machine can be lighter and more sophisticated. It means you can have 100 different decorative stitches. 

And it means you can, with a simple little plastic foot, have a machine that will do custom-sized buttonholes in 2 or 10 or 50 different shapes, and all you have to do is push a button.

From there it’s a smallish upgrade to get machine embroidery. My embroidery machine works like this– it’s a regular electronic sewing machine, and then you attach a C&C bed that moves the embroidery hoop according to the program directions in the files you can download from a computer. Incredibly sophisticated, but given modern technology, pretty easy. 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

It means you gotta think about what you want to sew before you decide what kind of machine you want. If you just want to hem jeans and skirts, a straight-stitch is plenty for you, though you’ll probably want to get a machine with a free arm rather than one built into a table. (Free arm? Sounds fancy, isn’t– just means that the bed the needle sews into is narrow, so you can slide the bottom of your jeans leg onto it. There’s a good explanation in the link to the Elna machines above.) 

A straight-stitch might be enough for quilting too, but you might hanker for some decorative stitches. It’d be nice to zig-zag, at least, if you’re trying to applique, so you can catch the edges better. If you hem a lot of jeans, you’re probably going to want a mechanical machine. If you mostly quilt with cottons, you might want an electronic one for fancier patterns.

If you’re sewing, like, t-shirts, you can’t get by with a straight stitch. Anything modern will at least have a zig-zag. For elastic, and especially for lingerie, a lightning stitch is preferred– it’s a specialty zigzag that not all mechanical machines will have programmed in. You can get by without it, but if you’re making really nice, fiddly things– you see how I’m going with this. The more stuff you want to do, the fancier the machine you probably want. 

And if you exclusively want to sew t-shirts, and almost everything you want to work with is stretch material, well. You know, you probably need a serger. I have one, and there’s a lot of stuff I can do with it that I really couldn’t do without it. (Your t-shirt surgeries, no matter how well you do them, will have a certain air of shittiness unless you have a serger. It’s inescapable.) So… but there are a number of very basic things you absolutely can’t do with a serger, so it can’t be your only machine. Just, be aware, if that’s what you sew, you’re going to want one, so, maybe start saving up now, and just accept what you’re going to become. For putting garments together, and finishing raw edges of fray-happy fabrics, and making seams on knits that aren’t wavy, you really need a serger. But you can’t topstitch, can’t quilt, can’t hem, can’t baste, can’t really pleat– the way to tell if you can use a serger for it is to remember that a serger has blades. It trims and binds edges. Which is like 90% of garment sewing, but uh, approximately 0% of quilting. 

BRANDS

When I looked at sewing machines, I did peek at the higher-end brands. Singer has a terrible reputation now, and it’s deserved; my highish-end Singer broke three times in the first year I had it, and needs refurbishment again after only moderate use. This is the one where I learned that i cannot lower the feed dogs; even though there’s a lever for that express purpose, if I ever do it, they won’t come up again without a trip back to the factory. It is a defective machine, and cannot be repaired, oh fucking well. What? Exactly. 

That said, the thing’s a joy to use. The drop-in bobbin thing is so simple I’ve literally never fucked it up. It’s so easy to thread, it’s easy to fix thread jams. The thread cutter, how did I live without one? The needle threader, holy shit I don’t know why sewing machines exist without needle threaders. It’s so easy to change the needles. It’s so easy to sew buttonholes. It’s so easy to change stitches! And it fails really gracefully, for a sewing machine– if I try to sew something too heavy, it stops rather than breaking itself, and beeps sadly at me, and I can almost always just turn the hand crank and get the needle through on my own rather than burning out the motor. It’s great. I can get so much done so fast on this machine. It helps that they gave me a class when I bought it, so I knew how to use all the bits, but I could have figured a lot of it out probably; still, I love using it and it does a great job.

Except that it’s fucking defective. I don’t touch the feed dogs and that’s fine, but now it skips stitches when zigzagging left, and that’s a pain in the ass and means a shitload of the decorative stitches look really wonky. They work ok, but what’s the point of bothering with decorative topstitches if they look wonky?? Ugh. I gotta send it out for repair but it’s gonna be at least a hundred bucks, so I’m procrastinating.

The embroidery machine I have is a Brother SE400. It’s basically identical to the Singer, but with the C&C machine hoop holder thing. Similarly a joy to use. Similarly, a lot of the parts are made of really flimsy plastic and I forsee them breaking unfortunately at inopportune moments. And the needle threader is… not intuitive, and it has taken me a lot of time to try and figure out how to use it properly. (Including stabbing myself with the fucking needle because there’s nowhere to put your hands. it’s cramped and hard to change needles. But I mean. Why fuss about that when the thing can draw pictures??) 

There’s a machine that someone gave to my sister, and I can’t find it online. It’s a Euro-Style Intelli-Sew. It’s really similar to both of the above machines (no embroidery, a zillion stitches). I can’t figure out how to use the needle threader on it. I just honestly can’t figure it out. It looks like it should be simple, but it’s. Not. It doesn’t. Go where it ought to? I think the previous owner did something to the needle and it’s not installed right and I gotta take it apart and fix it. But, other than that, I love it and it’s just as easy to use as either of the others. 

The other machines I have are straight-stitch antiques and i use them for heavy-duty stuff. If you can find one, pick it up; it’s super handy to just have a no-frills no-fuss old beauty like that. But, lift with your knees, because they’re really fucking heavy. (Which makes them pleasant to sew with; modern machines tend to jump and chatter, being lightweight. But heavy and substantial has a time and a place, and if you have to use your dining room table for sewing and put the machine away afterward you’re probably never going to sew if the machine weighs fifty pounds.) However– they’re usually Basically Free in yard sales and such, and since they’re made of cast iron, they’re usually functional. (NOT ALWAYS. Caveat emptor.) You just need someone over 80 to teach you how to thread them and load the bobbin, because it’s super not obvious and you’ll forget. 

WHATEVER YOU BUY / FIND / ACQUIRE: 

It will have limitations, you’ll probably wish you got something else, there’s no perfect machine. But, if you learn how to use it– and if you don’t have a little old lady, YouTube can teach you a lot, and there are a lot of little old ladies on YouTube now which is great– you can probably do whatever it was that you wanted to do. The most important thing is practice and consistent use, because you have to do it a lot to remember how to thread the thing, and what settings to use, and such. So it’s like anything, really– you have to let it in your life, and what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. 

I don’t do it enough, so i get paralyzed over maybes a lot. But I went through enough of a phase early on that I got the basics down pretty pat– I grew up with a mom who sewed, I got an elderly auntie-not-in-law to formally teach me what my mom didn’t, and then I sewed a ton of outfits for a re-enactment thing, and then when I got my Fancy Machine I got a class in that too. So I can at least pick up where I left off pretty well, and build on it, instead of having to start from scratch every time. So that’s the main thing– get your basics mastered, and then you can learn stuff and keep going. 

(If you expand to sergers there’s literally nothing to learn there, except for threading the machine which, God help you. They come threaded and if you play your cards right you can just tie the new thread on the old one and pull it through. But someday, one will break, and then there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. The only upside of me breaking my serger is that i rethreaded it so many times I can now do it easily and don’t know what the fuss is, it only takes two pairs of tweezers and some blind faith, whatever guys, easy peasy, I sold my soul to the devil to do it but that only hurt a little and I’m fine now.) 

lieutenantbae replied to your photo “Oh you guys

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The horchata drink sounds amazing, I love horchata! D:

Oh it was deeply weird. I liked it, but it was deeply weird. I just looked it up on their menu, it was called a SUAVE SUAVECITO: mezcal, amaro, house made horchata, lime, ginger oil. 

I should also note, mostly for my own reference, that we also had after-dinner mezcals. Both Dude and I like mezcal, but the liquor stores around here don’t stock much of it and it’s hard to come by and neither of us knows much about it, so we figured we’d sample some. He had some Bruxo No. 2 and it was really smokey-sweet and strong tasting. (Huh, I didn’t realize the full name included Pechuga– I knew that some varieties of mezcal are made with like, raw chicken breasts in them for flavor, and that’s what this style refers to, but isn’t– this one has roasted maguey [the plant that gives the sap it’s fermented from] heart instead. Fascinating.) I had Illegal’s Joven, which was much sweeter-milder-lighter, but also burny. Both were very pleasant. I remain pretty ignorant about mezcal. Which is just as well, as it’s expensive.

Kind of like how I’m ignorant about scotch and reluctant to experiment too much, because it also tends to be expensive… 

That one video with Diego Luna and the weird blond American chick in Mexico City at least taught me that I’m drinking it right, though. Neat, no ice, and you just kiss it to your lips so you get the flavor and heat to dissipate across your tongue– very fragrant, very strong, extremely warming. I could use some now, it’s freezing in here. 

Wait, I think I turned the heat off yesterday when Z left a pan on the stove and there was smoke… holy shit it’s like 45 in here, ok, mezcal is called for while the furnace kicks on. LOL. (The only kind I can buy in the store is Scorpion, so I have that.)

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Oh… great. I’m fucked

You’ll probably be OK! If you have Fidelis you can still get contraceptive care through Planned Parenthood or by following their directions to submit your claim to the third party insurer they use! I just made that post because if you have a choice, you can use that information to make a selection that doesn’t involve giving your business to someone who thinks your reproductive health is optional! 

But if you don’t have a choice, they’re still required to give you access to that kind of care. Just… they don’t have to make it easy, because insurance companies don’t ever have to make anything easy. Their job is to turn a profit, not take care of you.

csevet replied to your post “Hm Fidelis just

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dont call em back atleast until you have your new insurance set up. i for one support never calling them back bc FUCK EM AND FUCK PHONES

Yesterday I was talking with Dude about something unrelated and he articulated, inadvertently, precisely what my problem is with phones. 

He was at work and a coworker messaged him, “can you take a call?” and he was like, you know what, fuck taking a call, it’s always shady shit. It’s private, there are no witnesses, and there’s nothing in writing. The caller can say whatever he wants, there’s nothing documentable. Even someone acting in good faith is going to find it much easier to mislead you over the phone, because there’s no record of the conversation. 

Anyway the coworker wanted to call to tell him they were firing the guy who shared an office with him, just to prevent awkwardness, which is yes the kind of thing you do in a phone call, but– that’s the kind of thing you do in a phone call.

Official business via phone is shady as fuck. And when you factor in my whatever-the-fuck is wrong with me– I’m very easily confused, I have basically no working short-term memory, I can’t keep details straight in my head, I need everything in writing so I can refer back to it constantly– and add in the other shit, like, I get anxiety and will replay everything awkward I’ve ever said for literal years– you wind up with there is no fucking way I’m doing it over the phone: if it is important you’d better put it in writing. Because I have been fucking lied to by companies that took advantage of my confusion, so many times, and most recently with Wells Fargo– I was in tears on the phone, I said, I have trouble understanding directions let me repeat back what you told me are you positive this is everything let me write it down and those smug fuckers said yes and then held onto my money for six more weeks and forced me to call them again even though I wrote and said I will do anything if only you let me conduct this via writing. No; I think largely because of that, they forced me to call them again. Smug ratfuckers. (And I’d written it down, so I know they told me they had what they needed, but what kind of proof is that? “I wrote it down, you said X.” … That’s not legal proof of fucking anything.)

Unfortunately, I also have trouble understanding things in writing, though in my defense they’re often ambiguous. Currently when I go look at the new york state of health page, it’s ambiguous whether I have any coverage at all. I didn’t think I’d cancelled my current plan, but it’s greyed out for some reason, which it wasn’t before. Combined with them stalking me to get my phone number which I emphatically did not give them on Twitter, I’m really fucking creeped-out now. 

Sigh. It’s sort of maddening that phone-phobia is Such A Millennial Thing, because I’m not a Millennial, and I really don’t think whatever the fuck is wrong with me is a product of cultural weight. I’m just really stupid okay can the entire world of business things stop conspiring to reinforce that all the goddamn time???