salvageandstitchery

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yarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr you greedy fucks

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Favolaschia calocera, on a Quercus agrifolia log in San Bruno, California.

This is the second time this species has been spotted in California - the first was in San Francisco in 2020. Perhaps in the future it will become more common.

Found Jan 1 by Evelyn Chea.

photograph by Alan Rockefeller

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Prototyping some geode bags >:) Here, have some cruddy photos of it lol

#dicebag #sparkle #handmade #recycled #geode

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WIP...it won't look like much for quite a while yet. Loving the process of combining real moss with embroidery, and I harvested and preserved all the moss for this project myself!

#art #moss #embroidery #multimedia #cottagecore #cat #handmade

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A goat, evolution

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I'm in love

My beloved great blue (beige) heron 🪡🪿🌾

ID: Two photos of a hand sewn heron made with beige linen. She has small black beads for eyes. First photo is the heron in profile, against a background of grass. Second photo is me holding her in my arms in front of a log cabin.

#Best

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the remaining miniature paintings (part V)

available for sale here

if you're interested in buying some artwork and you'd like to receive your package before december 25th (if you live within the u.s.), i am shipping orders on monday, december 11th and friday, december 15th. ♡

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i can be trusted on a nature walk i promise. i promise i will stay on the trail and will not run off into the forest never to be seen again i promise

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Even tinier yarn skeins! Still playing with the design of these, so more to come, but they were just too cute and small not to share an initial look, lol.

Use code JUSTBECAUSE for 20% off!

Check out the shop: https://teashopcrafts.bigcartel.com/

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Dust kitties :)

[ID: fist image: a digital drawing of a black fur ball with tiny triangular legs, triangle kitty ears, one cat eye in the middle of it’s face and a small tail.

second image: the same creature as described before drawn with pencil, there are five of them, in the upper left corner it is yawning, showing off the sharp cat teeth it has, in the upper right corner it is looking up, looking interested, in the middle it has a “smiling” eye, lower left corner it’s playing with a yarn ball, pupil dilated, lower right corner it is sleeping, curled up, eye closed. end of ID]

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FREE POETSHIRT PATTERN

Some assembly required

Ok so. I made a sewing pattern that involves a lot of maths on the end users part - this is the only way I, a complete pattern making novice, can make this 100% size inclusive. Luckily it’s super simple and it just a whole bunch of rectangles.

Yes it’s written in cm. Bite me.

So to elaborate a bit:

It’s pretty straight forward. You plug in your own measurements in the places it’s needed.

Body x2: should be twice your either shoulder width or your widest point (if you’re more pear shaped you might want to use your hip width) by the length from your shoulder to about mid thigh* (you can make it as long or short as you want. This could probably also work as a shift pattern in a pinch). In one of the pieces, you should cut a slit in the middle, which as shown above should be about from your neck to your sternum.

Sleeves x2: these should be 2-3 times your bicep measure (this will determine the poofiness of the sleeves), by your arm length. Adding a few cm to the length can be a good idea here. I usually just round up to what seems most logical.

Cuffs x4: your wrist measure + 3-4cm of ease, by how ever long you want them - 5-10cm is a good place to start.

Collar x2: your collar measure** by however tall you want your collar. Keep in mind that it will be folded over.

Gussets

Oh glorious gussets. The whole reason this pattern works! But also where it gets a bit mathy

Sleeve gussets: these are square. The diagonal should be about 1/6 of your total armscye (all the way around). Rather a bit too small than too big - it can fuck up the fit (it did for me)

Shoulder gussets: these will depend wholely on how buff your trapezius muscles are. If your neck/shoulder is at a right angle, they’re not strictly necessary, but if you’re super buff, they’re very necessary. I’d say an average shoulder gusset is about 5-7cm, but it’s up to you.

Reinforcements

Again, these aren’t strictly necessary, but if you want your shirt to last it’s a good idea to put them in. You can choose to use between 5 and 10 total. These don’t need to be very big, they just go at any split in the fabric. About 2,5cm is good.

Instructions

I used these videos for assembly instructions

This is going to be hard without pictures…

*you can also keep the body as one piece, which should then be twice the length you want it. The slit at the neck will also have to be cut in the middle of the piece.

**your collar measure is the measurement at your neck going over your collarbone rather than tight to the neck.

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Every sewing machine I've had that's worked alright for more than twelve to eighteen months has been 40+ years old, with the most reliable being my own 100 year old handcrank. I'm lucky enough to have inherited a 70's Bernina that gives me the speed and features I need to sew professionally without falling to bits every time I ask any real work of it. But whenever I'm able to take my time on something, I use the old cast iron. Built in 1912, she's a dream to work with. If I don't use her often, I miss sewing without having to worry about a single damn thing going wrong.

Sewing Machines & Planned Obsolescence

I've got these two sewing machines, made about 100 years apart. An old treadle machine from around 1920-1930, that I pulled out of the trash on a rainy day, and a new Brother sewing machine from around 2020.

I've always known planned obsolescence was a thing, but I never knew just how insidious it was till I started looking at these two side by side.

I wasn't feeling hopeful at first that I'd actually be able to fix the old one, I found it in the trash at 2 am in a thunderstorm. It was rusty, dusty, soggy, squeaky, missing parts, and 100 years old.

How do you even find specialized parts 100 years later? Well, easily, it turns out. The manufacturers at the time didn't just make parts backwards compatible to be consistent across the years, but also interchangeable across brands! Imagine that today, being able to grab a part from an old iPhone to fix your Android.

Anyway, 6 months into having them both, I can confidently say that my busted up trash machine is far better than my new one, or any consumer-grade sewing machine on the market.

Old Machine Guts

The old machine? Can sew through a pile of leather thicker than my fingers like it's nothing. (it's actually terrifying and I treat it like a power tool - I'll never sew drunk on that thing because I'm genuinely afraid it'd sew through a finger!) At high speeds, it's well balanced and doesn't shake. The parts are all metal, attached by standard flathead screws, designed to be simple and strong, and easily reachable behind large access doors. The tools I need to work on it? A screwdriver and oil. Lost my screwdriver? That's OK, a knife works too.

New Machine Guts

The new machine's skipping stitches now that the plastic parts are starting to wear out. It's always throwing software errors, and it damn near shakes itself apart at top speed. Look at it's innards - I could barely fit a boriscope camera that's about as thick as spaghetti in there let alone my fingers. Very little is attached with standard screws.

And it's infuriating. I'm an engineer - there's no damn reason to make high-wear parts out of plastic. Or put them in places they can't be reached to replace. There's no reason to make your mechanism so unbalanced it's reaching the point of failure before reaching it's own design speed. (Oh yeah there is, it's corporate greed)

100 years, and your standard home sewing machine has gone from a beast of a machine that can be pulled out of the literal waterlogged trash and repaired - to a machine that eats itself if you sew anything but delicate fast-fashion fabrics that are also designed to fall apart in a few years.

Looking for something modern built to the standard that was set 100 years ago? I'd be looking at industrial machines that are going for thousands of dollars... Used on craigslist. I don't even want to know what they'd cost new.

We have the technology and knowledge to manufacture "old" sewing machines still. Hell, even better, sewing machines with the mechanical design quality of the old ones, but with more modern features. It would be so easy - at a technical level to start building things well again. Hell, it's easier to fabricate something sturdy than engineer something to fail at just the right time. (I have half a mind to see if any of my meche friends with machine shops want to help me fabricate an actually good modern machine lol)

We need to push for right-to-repair laws, and legislation against planned obsolescence. Because it's honestly shocking how corporate greed has downright sabotaged good design. They're selling us utter shit, and expecting us to come back for more every financial quarter? I'm over it.

#important #keep

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Little doodle of the PRINCE of the cryptids, MOTHMAN!

Couldnt take out my paints today but pretty happy I was still able to doodle!!:D

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folding a butterfly of autumn

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I remembered

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Men wearing special outfits for the Kukeri celebration in Bulgaria in 1992.