Honk-jour

Just don’t use too much…

The conservatives where I live shit blood absolutely any time any changes are made to roads to make them even slightly more pedestrian and bus/bike friendly. Preventing accidents/deaths and generally having a more usable, inviting environment for anyone that isn’t a car is unacceptable if it adds even a second to their commute. Go live on the fucking highway if you like it so much.

Every time I end up on Reddit the amount of ads makes me recoil. You’re free now!

I was a teenager during 9/11, and watching nearly every adult in my life go absolutely stark raving mad from both fear and blood lust was a real wake up call for me, I can tell you that much. If you aren’t old enough to remember it there’s nothing recent I can really compare it to. 9/11 and the Iraq War are what really got Fox News off the ground, so just imagine living in Fox News land, because it was absolutely tapping into some primal response a lot of people had.

Because sadly AAA games are produced on the basis of how they perform vs putting that same amount of money in the stock market, not whether they are good 😔

Info dump incoming:

It does require a bit of speciality equipment compared to regular embroidery, I thought I could get away without the sashiko thimble but it kills your fingers after a while. It’s a ring that you wear at the base of your middle finger with sort of a shield that the needle is braced on. Sashiko needles are longer and thicker than a typical sewing needle as well, because sashiko thread is fairly thick. You can get away with substituting sashiko thread with size 8 perle thread or something similar in size if you can’t find sashiko thread locally. But I like using the sashiko thread because it’s wound so that you can make a single cut in the skein through all the threads, and then they’re all a good size for stitching! It’s super convenient, just yank and go.

I definitely recommend watching some people on YouTube do it, it’s very different from what I think of as a typical embroidery technique. You sort of pleat the fabric onto the needle and then pull the needle through when you can’t really fit more fabric on the needle. I found this video pretty useful when I was figuring everything out.

There are also a lot of cloth kits with preprinted designs that wash out after you’re done. There are a few good companies but Olympus seems to be the most popular. Coaster kits or hana-fukin/handkerchief kits are great to dip your toes in.

If you try it out I hope you enjoy it!

My latest obsession is sashiko, a Japanese form of embroidery with beautiful repeating geometric patterns. It’s a folk art that evolved to strengthen cloth, extend its lifespan, and repair torn clothes. Rather uniquely it’s also intended to be stitched with the fabric in your hands rather than in a hoop.

One thing I really love about it from a technical sewing standpoint is that traditionally you don’t use knots at all, but it’s still a strong stitch. Quilters do something similar with what’s called a waste knot that gets snipped away, but this skips the knot step entirely.

There are specific paths you follow while stitching these patterns so that you don’t waste thread. They vary in complexity from simple lines, triangles, and curves, all the way up to tiny repeating patterns that practically replace the cloth with thread.

I don’t have nearly enough patience to do the complex ones like that, but the more simple stitches are so relaxing.

And a disaster kit, tailored to the most common disasters in your region. If you have a first aid kit you already have a large portion of what it needs!