hebrideansky

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There are good people out there. Some of them are even state senators.

[hebrideansky]

This a a reminder to not fall victim to the sunk-cost fallacy. Just because you invested time and energy into something, does not mean you should indefinitely waste more time and energy on it, if you decide it’s not what you want anymore. This goes for anything, from books, to relationships, to jobs, to hobbies, etc.

If it’s not serving you anymore, move on.

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I love microwaves. I love that I can put a raw potato inside and push a button labelled "potato" and some time later it will beep and there will be a baked potato in there.

[hebrideansky]

anyone ever: from the get-go

me, nodding sagely: from the gecko…

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Mobile tickets are all very well, but most train stations in the UK will give your infant train-lover a pretend ticket if you ask (if it isn’t commuter hours and you’re not holding up the queue.) on the train the guard usually handles these with tremendous respect, knowing they are in the presence of a truly serious baby.

today we were given a Frog One which Mouse is beyond pleased with.

[hebrideansky]

Mouse, aged two, is a night owl and a train fan. But lest you think they are a one-trick pony, their activities so far tonight involve:

Placing a Jump Nappy on their rocking horse prior to riding it ferociously all over the house. I’m not sure what the Jump Nappy does.

This is not conducive, at 9 pm or any other time, to the sleep habits of their siblings. One sibling has chickenpox (fabulous, thanks) and Mouse hasn’t broken out yet (I thought they had, but they haven’t) but is almost certainly a carrier and is CERTAINLY climbing the walls AND WHIPPING THEIR HORSE INTO A FRENZY, so I have taken Mouse out in a socially-distanced habitual evening wander around town.

Purchasing a small pint of milk and a single scratch ticket with cash from their third-favourite corner shop, where you can make purchases by tapping your phone against the glass window.

Waiting for, greeting, and hailing farewell to three whole trains.

Dropping by the pub’s open doorway, to eavesdrop on the live music.

Musician plays not just When You Were Young by the Killers but Dancin in the Dark by Springsteen and then starts in on Mumford and Sons.

“More,” Mouse says deeply, unbuckling themselves and climbing into the pub, “I NEED MORE.”

“Everyone,” I say, hovering apologetically in the pub doorway, “is just about to go to bed! We had better go too.”

The pub says obligingly, in more or less agreement, that it’s certainly bedtime.

I might be able to get away with this if everyone agrees.

Shhhhh. It’s bedtime.

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I did not sign up to be on site for holiday club this year but I am very much still involved on the home front and I have a pretty mad to do list for tomorrow for someone who has taken the day off which includes buying stickers first thing to transport to site along with my family's lunches and doing a large amount of laundry

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every day i wake up and i have to come up with foods to eat

[hebrideansky]

Drop spindle dangerous. Accidentally spent 6 hours spinning yesterday.

[hebrideansky]

Oh no, don't give him better ideas! I've only just as of last week perfected the mouse rope creation that makes the most useable ropes and now have some really lovely ones

Slow boring meditative unglamorous bit of weaving: un-wasting the loom waste! This is optional, I don't always do it and I haven't seen it described in any book, I just made it up as I went along. I haven't taken photos of the process so this may not be very clear as a tutorial, sorry.

"Loom waste" is the unweavable section of warp at the end of a project. It's unavoidable on shaft looms like mine - it's just how the loom works. Some leftover warp must go through the reed and heddles and be secured on the rear apron rod, and eventually the "shed" (vertical space between upper and lower threads, the space you pass the weft through) becomes so small and tight that you can't weave anymore.

The amount of waste varies by loom - bigger looms, more waste - and by weaver - more patience for a tiny shed and increasingly many tension issues at the end of a warp, less waste. On my loom the minimum would be about 1.5, maybe 2 feet but I usually quit at 3 feet left, cut off the fabric, and twist or braid the waste into climbing ropes for my partner's pet mice. Nothing is wasted really.

But! Sometimes I want more warp per warp! Maybe I cut the fabric off early and 4 feet of waste feels like a bit much, maybe it's silk and I don't think the mice would appreciate that much luxury, maybe (as in today's project) it was a super wide warp so there is a lot of waste just because there were so many warp threads to begin with.

So when I tie on the warp to the rear apron rod at the very beginning of a project, I don't actually cut and tie it in little knotted clumps like most instructions say - instead I just insert the rod through the folded loop of the warp bundle and that loop keeps it in place. Then my loom waste at the end of a project isn't 1040 threads 3 feet long (to use today's example), it's 520 threads each 6 feet long, once they are unfolded. And 6 feet is short for a warp but it's enough for 3 or maybe even 4 feet of weaving, which is nothing to sneeze at.

So I can now do the tie-little-bundles-onto-apron-rod method to create a new warp with all those threads. Then comes the slow, slowwwww process of threading them into a "cross" which will comb the warp as it is wound on. In normal warping this cross is created while you make the warp, but the loom waste process doesn't have that, I have to recreate it thread by thread. I've tried skipping it and the tangles are Not worth it. This is the stage I'm at in the top photo; 120 threads down, 400 to go.

The loom waste warp is necessarily half the width or half the density of the original warp, because it has half as many threads. But given that this was originally a quadruple layer blanket 8 feet wide, once I have finished warping I will be able to do a little double layer blanket 4 feet wide which is a very respectable sample anyway. Its purpose in life will be to be felted so I can see how the fabric changes, before I commit to felting the 8 foot blanket all at once.

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This postbox on my commute gets a new topper every month or two and apparently this is the piece for May

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did I tell you guys how much my boss spent on food delivery apps last year

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I know that the UK censorship laws are evils and fucked up on the face of them but I feel like we kinda blew past the part where it uses a phrenology machine to check your age.

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romance is a type of friendship and im sick of people pretending like they're two seperate categories. your romantic partner is Supposed to also be your friend like at the very least why are we pitting romance AGAINST friendship when they r intertwined???? romantic partners are also friends and u can have romance with ur friends stop acting like these bitches are seperate forces

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No way out

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do you ever start writing a comment on the internet and then think “oh what the fuck am i going on about” and delete it