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Official Splotch Summer 2025 post!

Hey all, it's back! It's the season where I share a couple random paint marks/splotches and offer it up for anyone to use them as a base to create something new! It's a good exercise in creativity and design, or can just be a little warm up!

The first two splotches for the year are here:

You can either reblog this post and share you creations, or make your own post and @ me. Please use the hashtag "#Splotch Summer" and/or #SplotchSummer2025. I will see it! Thanks for drawings with me!

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my contribution to make a terrible comic day

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I showed the kids at the library this comic and they didn't laugh.

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Keeping up my Make A Terrible Comic Day solution of incorporating fun stationery. This one is autobiographical. Desmond Dekker does not deserve this

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When you work in a creative field there’s a mental trap you can fall into where you think that if you can’t be the best and most famous in the whole world that there’s no point but really there’s a million ways you can do your thing either as a job or as a hobby that are just as important if not more so than the most famous people in the field

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if you're writing and find yourself thinking 'this is too weird/gross/offputting/esoteric/ambitious/catered to my specific interests + sure to push away a broader audience' that is the devil speaking and it is a lie. you are already firmly on the right path and you need to double down

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23 Layer Chocolate Cake (via Instagram)

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silly seals from outer space

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The word you are looking for is an ensemble cast. You like the ensemble cast. Not found family.

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By popular demand coelacanth will be available to purchase separately!

Link

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"South African entrepreneur Phumla Makhoba is on a mission to solve the “global south housing crisis.” And she’s doing it by using clothing waste.

Her invention, Texiboard, is a material that combines fibers found in textile waste with lime cement to create a durable, affordable, and circular building material.

The result is a textured, white square, almost tile-like, that is created with recycled materials — not emission-generating wood or concrete.

“It can be used to make furniture, flooring, walls, or even your entire home,” Makhoba said in a video for social media account We Got Earth.

The first iterations of the Texiboard included colorful cotton threads that were compressed together, with multiple attempts to remove cracks and seams and perfect the ratios of size, shape, and material mass.

With her design firm, Studio People, Makhoba has been working since 2022 to perfect the TexiBoard. 

Makhoba has since created a solid panel, with shredded textile fiber and natural lime cement fully cured. Finally, it can be formed into a full sheet of building material.

Once realized, the Texiboard will confront the estimated 92 million tons of clothing waste generated around the globe each year. But it will also provide safe and stable housing that Makhoba says only 20% of South Africans can afford.

“Growing up, I saw two worlds: one with polished buildings, and one built from scrap,” she said in a video. “I always wondered, why do some people get homes that last and others get homes that leak?”

Now, the Texiboard design is available as an open-source resource, and Makhoba and her team host in-person workshops for locals living in shacks to learn how to build their own supportive and sustainable housing.

“Just having a roof isn’t enough,” Makhoba said. “A real home should protect you from the weather, work for your daily life, and not fall apart in five years.”

Her approach includes a full theory of change. Right now, Studio People is in the input process, building partnerships and funding to scale their operation. From there, they hope to develop a fully sustainable supply chain to manufacture and sell Texiboards and help build affordable housing for people in need.

Once that dream is realized, Makhoba outlines the tangible output of this work: Economically inclusive waste management, circular building materials, green jobs, and a sustainable housing and manufacturing market.

“Informal settlements can be transformed when we all work together,” she shares on the Studio People website. “Texiboard is the seed of innovation that will create updated trade jobs in the innovative building industry.”

Although the Texiboard is still being completely perfected, the goal is to provide a weather-proof, cost-effective, and circular way to house people by democratizing the act of building.

“Our goal is to create an egalitarian and sustainable urban environment, helping shack dwellers and youth out of poverty,” Studio People shared on LinkedIn.

“We empower the underdog, including people and businesses, to co-create solutions in our fight against the housing crisis, unsustainable building materials, and unemployment — one board at a time.”"

-via GoodGoodGood, May 28, 2025

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New sewing patterns <Pinguïn> & <Walvis> Accessory bag / Novelty bag

New 2 patterns are just released from Waffle Patterns. Meet the Accessory bags <Pinguïn> and <Walvis> sewing patterns. Fun and playful penguin and whale-shaped novelty bags. And they have pockets! My shop mainly designs functional garments, but why not just have fun? I always wanted to design vibrant and whimsical items, too.

I hope you enjoy and have fun by making those as well. They will be your special pieces for your special occasions or fun unexpected presents. They can be made with relatively small amount of fabrics. It is nice to use up your leftover fabrics from your stash, too.

<design>

-Pinguïn Lovely penguin-shaped novelty bag. You can store small things like candies or coin purse from the center back zipper opening. The opening width is about 15cm, the height is about 27cm. It has a small patch pocket on the front bodice, too. Use a hand strap as a pouch or clutch, or a long strap for a shoulder/crossbody bag.

-Walvis Whale shaped accessory bag. The bag opening is on the center top and you can store small things like a mobile phone. The opening width is 18cm and the body length is about 55cm. It has a zipper pocket on the side and a front patch pocket on the mouth part. The zipper pocket is about id-card size. It has handles, but can be skipped. The yellow sample in the photos is without handles design. The strap can be attached as a side type (on the center top) or a shoulder type (both sides on the body) .

Both Pinguïn and Walvis are shaped with fiber fill stuffing. The inside bags are small, so not suitable for serious luggage. Also, they are not designed for children's toys.

<fabric recommendation>

<Shell> The patterns are drafted for woven fabrics. Mid-heavy weight woven fabrics are suitable, like duck, twill, denim, canvas, or décor weight fabric, etc. I normally like to recommend functional fabrics, but they are fun accessory items, so please use your imagination and play with the design. Choosing lovely looking fabric as your design intention will be the best.

Depending on your fabric, please consider using additional interfacing on the whole bag panels for adding extra strength or body.

<Lining> Lining fabrics are used for the inside of the bags and the pockets. Plain cotton or linen will be suitable and reasonable.

<Sample fabrics in the photos> Here is a fabric list I used for the samples. I used only my old leftovers from my past projects. So I could not list the shops which I bought from.

- Yellow and White samples Shell ; Both faux leather. The white one is the leftover of Kaneel rider's jacket. I think both fabrics were originally intended for decor/interior purposes. Both cannot be interfaced nor ironed, so I skipped interfacing, but used thin ribbon on the zipper places for adding some extra support. I really love the looks/textures of the faux leathers, but those are a bit difficult to handle. Pins or rippers cannot be used for these materials, so I used clips or scotch tape instead.

Lining ; plain cotton. The colours are matched with the zipper tape colours.

- Smoky pink samples Shell ; mixed twill. Leftover of Kanoko bags. Like Kanoko bags, I used woven mid weight interfacing on the whole body to add strength and body. Lining ; plain cotton. The colours are matched with the zipper colours.

- Red plaid samples Wool coating fully interfaced with mid weight woven type. The lining is plain cotton. This one is also the leftover of the Kanoko bag.

<Other materials>

The bags use various webbings or tapes for the handles and straps or other details. If you cannot find the perfect colour or width, making those with the same or contrast fabrics are an option.

The small parts like the flippers or fin are supported with a light stabilizer. Fusible fleece or thin quilt batting will be suitable. I used fusible fleece for all the samples.

Please choose suitable interfacing/parts for your design and shell fabrics. I strongly recommend checking actual material samples as much as possible and experimenting with your fabrics before starting the project. If you cannot choose some details, please remember making actual samples with actual fabrics is the best way to confirm.

<Other>

Although the bags can store only small things, the bags themself are about shoulder bag size. If you want to make it bigger or smaller, I think printing the pattern pieces with scale will work. But you need to adjust the seam allowances or other details.

I used the shoulder strap from readymade bags, but you can make them by yourself, too.

Please check the listing pages for more details. > Pinguïn bag. Walvis bag

********************* The sewing patterns include the fully illustrated instructions (Pinguïn 9 pages, Walvis 10pages) and all the sewing processes are described with detailed pics. The pattern files are available for both home printers (A4 or US letter) and copyshop(A1 or A2 format).

You can check other photos of these models on my Flickr page.

The Accessory bag <PinguÏn> , and <Walvis> PDF sewing patterns are available here. Also in the Etsy shop.

Special discount price until 9th Apr. 2025 (CEST) with other popular patterns. No discount code is needed! The sale page is here.

Happy sewing!

(Japanese post here 日本語ポストはこちら).

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Y'all ever open a book on a new subject, read a little bit, and have to put it back so you can process the way in which your mind was just expanded?

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(Sound on.) Bonus clip today: Penguins navigating stairs.

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the years have made me weird and strange to talk to. but still i must post

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i don’t know how to explain to you people that no matter what a country’s government is like i do not and will not support the US indiscriminately bombing that country’s civilians and i don’t know why that’s a controversial take tbh