ashohlow

[ashohlow]

The closest experience I've ever had to discovering "the vitamin" was buying a 100% wool outfit and wearing it in the winter.

Not only was I not freezing anymore, I was not sweating and overheating either. The horrible sensory nightmare of winter clothes disappeared.

In particular, I bought a pair of wool pants. They were a thrifted pair of fancy dress pants like you would wear at an important office job, and they were easily the most comfortable pair of winter-appropriate pants i'd ever worn. I wore them Every Single Day.

From that point on I realized a lot of my clothes were making me feel bad, and the common thread was polyester. Especially polyester blends.

It's a trap because the polyester clothes are the ones that always feel sooooo silky soft when they are in the store, whereas cotton, linen and wool can feel comparatively rough and scratchy. But when actually wearing them for hours throughout the day, it's the natural fibers that feel more comfortable.

Maybe the secret to sensory comfort is not about the presence of softness, but the absence of overloading sensations. Or maybe the sensory stress and agony is not triggered by texture of the fabric, but by how it breathes and regulates temperature.

Then there's the problem of clothing life span: polyester blends, no matter how soft they seem at first, become rough and scratchy and covered in hard, itchy pills after wearing them 10 or 20 times, whether or not they have been tumble-dried or even washed at all. (I tested it!) Linen and cotton become softer and more comfy the more you wear them, polyester but ESPECIALLY polyester blends become a constant stressor. Polyester blend t-shirts I used to love for their softness now feel bristly and irritating.

So now I'm trying to change my wardrobe to as many natural fibers as possible, and the more natural fiber clothes i have the more I realize that the plastic fibers stress me out. It's so easy to overheat or freeze in them and they're always degrading and becoming less comfortable and it sucks.

[ashohlow]

I have just learned about Roxanne Richardson's sock knitting videos and for maybe the first time in my life I understand the urge to just like sit next to someone and listen to them talk forever bc every single word they say is gold

I KNOW my socks don't fit exactly right but have never known WHY and oh my god. Well now I know why

[ashohlow]

everyone say thank you to black trans women and black trans men

[ashohlow]

Fun new sweater knit (choosing the pattern as i go) almost immediately put on hold due to running out of brown yarn midway through the beetles.

[ashohlow]

been working on christmas and birthday gifts while i'm unemployed and i did my first lace pattern !!

green leaf mittens by spicyjellybean kids on ravelry

[ashohlow]

12 frames of animation I made using knitting! I spent a long time on this and I’m so pleased with the results, really looking forward to trying more ‘yarnimation’ in the future. Process video out now too! 🐑

[ashohlow]

where can i find this pattern ??

Finished the yoke chart and separated the body and sleeves!!! I can't wait to see what it's gonna look like blocked

[ashohlow]

it makes me sad the way cis women are so terrified of and disgusted by their own body hair. and i'm not talking "i have to shave for sensory reasons" i mean i keep seeing videos of women using hair identifier spray on their faces and hands so they can shave the tiniest barely-there bits of peach fuzz that came free with their bodies. hair that serves a purpose and that purpose is cleanliness and protection. i mean when i was in elementary school girls who had barely hit puberty were talking about shaving their arms. i mean full-grown adult women who will have a breakdown if they see two days of stubble on their legs/crotch/ jaw/pits because god forbid you don't look like a perfect plastic barbie doll. god forbid your body that keeps you alive comes with hair that may not be soft and glossy and photogenic. some women are so afraid of having any hair apart from their head and eyebrows that they've uno reversed themselves into six different kinds of gender dysphoria that they can't recognize as such because they're convinced that this unnatural state of highly-groomed capital-informed beauty is how women have always been. you're so scared of looking "gross" or "ugly" or "mannish" that you can't even look at your body in the mirror and recognize what it is. sister you are an ape. why are you so determined to deny your nature.

[ashohlow]

i was on here at 11 years old (2010) and i'm pretty sure i was trying to use tumblr for a school project or something

If you guys were on here at 11 years old what would you be posting about

[ashohlow]

btw the katy perry/bezos' girlfriend/other four irrelevant billionaires 10 minute space stunt was not the first all female expedition no matter how much they try to market it as such. the first all female mission was in 1963 with soviet cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova, Irina Solovyova and Valentina Ponomaryova - all three of which were working class and had to pass incredibly hard exams to be chosen from 400 potential candidates. just in case we started falling for the propaganda machine again

[ashohlow]

The mechanisms of self-hatred that capitalist white supremacy install in people are INSANE.

Like I absolutely hate myself right now. I feel like a useless slob who will never be beautiful or attractive, who will always be "fat" and unwanted and lonely and worth-less and obviously all my friends hate me and ALL OF THIS IS A LIE BUT I'VE BEEN INDOCTRINATED INTO IT SINCE BIRTH SO I CAN'T GET RID OF IT.

I'm a 300lb 6ft tall woman who can deadlift almost 400lbs and bench 220lbs and run a mile in 8min. I have a loving family and good friends and I make a difference in the lives of the people I work with. I'm weird and funny and I go to punk rock shows and I have cool tattoos and I make informative content about international education and I grow great gardens and my friends ask me for help and advice and to embroider flowers on their jeans and read their tarot cards and bring them wildflower jam and ALL OF THIS IS TRUE BUT FOR SOME REASON BECAUSE I CAN'T BE COMMODIFIED IT DOESN'T MATTER WHY DO I JUST WANT TO BE SEXY???

So this is me yelling at myself, and at you in case you need it:

DON'T LET THEM WIN.

Even if all you do today is yell "YOU FUCKING MATTER" at yourself in the mirror, fight the capitalist white supremacist colonists and remember that you matter.

[ashohlow]

early homo sapiens b like help i cant stop making bowls . help i cant stop domesticating plants and animals. help i cant stop developing language and architecture and religion

[ashohlow]

Hey sock babes

I just made a free "tv knitting" level sock pattern compilation. My genius plan is to knit down the list in 2024, marking them as done as I go.

But since it is the season of Yule, Christmas, and general gift giving,

If you would also like 32 sock patterns to go ham on (without spending 2 hrs of work finding patterns) here's the Google Drive.

Merry met, my friends!

[ashohlow]

every time someone says ‘oh, you knit? do you like it?’ i have the marrow-deep urge to tenderly take their face in my hands and press my lips to their eyelids and telepathically transmit the full overwhelming awareness that i carry just beneath my skin every moment of every day of how important fiber crafts and textiles are and historically have been to humanity. every stitch i work is a thousand billion stitches that have already been worked and will be worked in the future, from the farthest reaches of prehistory until time immemorial. every spindle i spin is spun with the same flick of uncountable fingers from ages past, all united across history in the deceptively simple movement that has shaped history, and art, is the context within which every single person on earth has ever lived their life and lives their lives still. everything from our phones to our homes is given shape and form by the overlooked but utterly important textile arts.

‘of fucking course i like knitting, you jackass,’ i say gently. ‘i wouldn’t do it otherwise.’

[ashohlow]

The one bizarre thing to me about textiles is that warp-weighted weaving is at least 6500 years old, but our oldest knitted artifacts are only ~1000 years old, and crochet 200 years old. Even though you need less equipment to knit (two sticks) or crochet (one hook) compared to warp-weighted weaving (frame, loom weights, batting, heddles). Why the big gaps between these inventions? And why did each one appear and spread when it did?

[ashohlow]

Free hand Palestinian chest panel from Beersheba area & Sinai | Front and back