@sinituulia@eldritch.cafe
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sinituulia

@sinituulia@eldritch.cafe

She/her. Art, TTRPGs, people, history, science, human rights, sustainability & nature fan, serial perfectionist. Hippie goth, gray ace gay, cat mom. Chronically ill, disabled, ND. Traditional media artist, dressmaker, crafter, photographer. Handwriting enthusiast.

Profile photo description: Photo portrait of a bony white woman with shaved brown hair and ice blue eyes, wearing chunky glasses, red lipstick, dangly earrings with cartoon guillotines and a simple black dress.

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sinituulia, to Cats
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I have washed and ironed the new quilt and a sir has gracefully accepted it as a surface for cats!

Edit: note for eye contact from the cat, chill and undemanding but nonetheless!

A photo of the same cat, now napping. He has laid down in the little spot of diffused sunlight, his fur once again luminous with golden highlights and copper shadows. Truly just a very pretty cat colour, ginger. The quilt looks like it was very nicely pressed just moments before a cat walked and napped over it. The colours are in greens, teals, blues and pinks, but there is also a print with sienna and burnt ochre leaves, and these are the same hues as the cat.
A more close up photo wherein the same cat has curled up to be a little cat croissant. But of note is that he has curled up into the cat croissant in a way that almost perfectly mirrors an element of one of the quilt fabrics, a tile of it right in front on his face... In the print is a little napping mouse, midst oak leaves and acorns. In the photo it looks like they've curled to nap together, face to face. It's pretty cute.

sinituulia,
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In reality any and all surfaces in my flat are for cats. Whether I want them to be or not. But it's nice when they use the surfaces that are not forbidden to them!

sinituulia, to Cats
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A three boy sighting!
They are having a nap on my bed.

sinituulia, to random
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You know how Mastodon/Fediverse has Everything? Truly you can hear about any old thing that previously existed but you didn't know existed, and lo and behold there's a hashtag for it. Last night's insomnia offered me videos and there is, indeed, a hashtag for it!

(If you didn't know, it's just the type of boat people used to and still use to traverse the massive system of canals criss-crossing the UK. And you live on them, either all year or some of the year, depending. Look up photos, they're kind of amazing from the inside!)

sinituulia, to Cats
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I apologise for the slightly artistic framing, but I was stuck under two sleeping cats and my arms are not very long.

sinituulia,
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The slight wonkiness of textures on the bottom left that you probably didn't even notice is because it was really truly so badly framed that I had to quickly and badly composite together two nearly identical images to make one that didn't make my brain hurt. But looking at it now, I really should have done a better job. But I'm too tired to fix it, so just live in the knowledge of my shame!

sinituulia,
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@Triffen God, I probably still have my old logo somewhere, but I fell out of the habit of slapping it on things

sinituulia, to FiberArts
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I have finished my first quilt! Well, nearly! There's still a bit of hand finishing to go but since the sun might set before I have that done, I took photos now.

Here it is in situ, the only place it will fit dimensions wise. 😄​ There's a bunch of things I'd do differently now that I know, but all in all a decent end result?

Portrait orientation photo with focus on the vase and its flowers. It has dark green and less saturated green leaves and pink and darker pink flowers. These exact same hues are in the quilt, especially the flower prints therein. The quilt is a bit crinkly.
A closer up photo with the entire frame filled by the quilt. It is mostly random, but with pieces of it aligning in a geometric little wave of squares. The colours are greens, teals, blues and reds, with a little bit of brown, earth tones and the tiniest bit of yellow. Also gray! It looks pretty nice, though it has obviously not been ironed before this photo.

sinituulia,
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@Triffen That's his yoga mat and he loves it because it's right next to the air purifier, which he adores for some reason! Cats are weird!

sinituulia, to random
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Have done all the top-stitching on the quilt and trimmed out the edges. I only have the binding to put on and I'm both completely ready to never see a quilt in my fucking life and very keen to get it on there, so I can do something other than work on it. Every five minutes I tip between "oh it looks nice" and "this is the worst thing ever created"

Process fatigue is real 😐​ Perhaps it is another break time. I'm so glad I made the binding earlier and don't have to make it now.

sinituulia,
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It's the first one I've ever made so it can NOT possibly be perfect, but I keep running into annoying things that could be easily solved if I had endless money to throw on the problem. I could have chosen a different thread if I'd ordered four huge spools of it instead of one, etc. Or if I had one of those silly digital machines with embroidery stitches, which cost quite a lot. And so on.

sinituulia,
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@Triffen Oh yeah there's definitely the hardcore white middle-aged lady contingent that spends hundreds of dollars on quilts every month and casually hop onto a 3000 dollar machine for a bit of finishing...

But also there's the ones who hold up a massive thing of beauty and are like "I made this quilt out of trash and perseverance" and it's amazing!
My old machine does straight stitch very well and that's about it. 😄​ This is the first time I've really wished it did something more, but I checked and the cheapest alternative would be a cool 300€ and I don't think I want it that much.

sinituulia,
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@Triffen I've seen some crazy quilters use the embroidery stitches to go over every wonky edge, and when they do quilt-as-you-go. I've done it by hand for mending, so I can see the appeal, it's really a very good way to make seams flat!
I watched a lot of just basic skill stuff to figure out what I wanted to do and needed to do, but it's definitely not all accessible.

sinituulia,
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@Triffen It's when you sew the piece straight onto the wadding+backing, and encase the seams in there. Instead of making the quilt top, putting in a layer of wadding, and the backing, and only then attaching them together. A lot of crazy quilting projects use QAYG straight onto the final size they want when making smaller things, or super weird blocks.

I figure it takes a lot more space to finagle all the different layers so they don't bubble or warp, so I did mine partially quilt-as-you-go, the horizontal strips one by one straight onto the backing

sinituulia,
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@Triffen Aren't the hexagons whipstitched together by hand? English piecing or something. Probably could be done with zigzag like appliqué, too

sinituulia, to random
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It's great when a website makes you click several times to even get into the menu to decline all cookies, and then even more times to decline them. You can just sagely nod to yourself, mutter "not today, you fucks" and close the tab as fast as you can.
It's a sort of litmus test for bastard websites, and in comparison it's very nice when a website just let's you deny everything with one single click.

sinituulia, to photography
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You know what's cool? Pedestrian bridges over the river delta going out to the sea onto a little island in the middle of a city, completely closed from car traffic.

Photo from 2011, but still holds true.

sinituulia, to australia
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Holy shit, Australia, get your shit together! How am I 36 years old, a bug fan and a nature trivia hog, and only TODAY found out about The Teddy Bear Bee (Amegilla bombiformis)??

I've been told about so many horrible insects you have but not this one, the most beautiful little bee friend I've seen in a while??? I feel like I've been robbed!

sinituulia, to Cats
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Sir is assisting me with the top stitching portion of the quilt.

sinituulia, to sustainability
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Your periodical reminder that all clothing is hand made by humans, usually underpaid!
Polyester doesn't breathe and sheds microplastics when manufactured, worn and washed!
Cotton farming takes immense amounts of water and pesticides!
Viscose can be made from recycled fibres & waste cellulose, but it's a fairly toxic process!
Linen is more ecological to grow but expensive!

"But what do I wear then, Sini?"
The garments you already own, until they fall apart or someone else needs them!

sinituulia,
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More granular data:
There are some garment making processes that can be automated most or all the way through, like knitwear and socks, but most will still be finished, assembled and/or packed by hand. Crochet is always human work.
Wool is pretty good to wear and when certified and from a good source, can be pretty sustainable if you wear it until it stops existing. This can take decades. Yarn can be recycled, mending is great!
There are fabric recycling initiatives, but the best option is to not buy it if you don't need it. Secondhand is more expensive than it used to be, but you can find older, better quality garments than the crap of today!

sinituulia,
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I do also have a bunch of laundry tips and opinions in me, but unsure if there's an audience for that. 😂​

sinituulia,
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Laundry tips and opinions which were requested:

Using fabric softener will make cotton feel clammy and greasy, and give it a mildewy smell. Fabric conditioning helps with staticky plastic fibres but isn't necessary for natural fibres! Just wash without. Never put it on towels, it stops their absorption powers. You can use a little bit of vinegar instead of fabric softener, it will have a mild smell when wet, dries odourless.

Line drying is less wear on clothes than dryer but live your life if you have no place to dry them!

Bedding needs to be washed super hot occasionally! Towels, too!

If your shirts smell terrible because you've been sweating into them, soak them in the sink with a cup of vinegar in room temperature water, rinse, wash normally. This kills a lot of mildew and helps break apart organic residue.

Liquid laundry detergent is silly! Just get detergent in powder form, you're spared the plastic bottles and no heavy liquids are ferried around.
Soap nuts are great if you're allergic to everything but soap nuts. They're not even nuts and are compostable!

A lot of the washing instructions are LIES. You can literally boil 100% cotton and it's fine! You'd be amazed how much dry clean only is not! Polyester and cotton will be just dandy in 60 Celsius - the manufacturers play it safe because some dyes fade in hotter temps. Cheaply made clothes may shrink, but if it's stinky, take the risk!

sinituulia,
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@xgebi I'm happy to report that there's a pretty significant culture that is on the rise. And creative and joyful often elevates it to an art form. We used to fix our clothes instead of getting rid of them, all we need to do is appreciate everything that goes into them!

sinituulia, to Cats
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Cats are such delightful little weirdos. Pörri has decided he really likes the air purifier. He'll go lounge on the windowsill behind it and stick his face in the air flow, sniff it and close his eyes, sit there for a bit and then lean back for a nap.

Does he like the purified air? Does it smell nice? Does he enjoy the air flow, the white noise of the fan?
Who knows, he just seems to really like it.

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