swachter

I am so 100% serious about this: putting little streamers on my bike handlebars has made drivers approximately a million times less asshole. They wait behind me when I’m going up a hill. They let me turn left. They give me space when passing. It’s genuinely bonkers how much nicer it’s made my experience of urban cycling. #bikeTooter

Apparently my ongoing evolution into full crone includes dropping bangers like "it's reprehensible that a bunch of men stole everything we ever wrote and want to sell it back to you" and "aren't you scared that the most unethical people who ever lived know so much about you" and "we eat three billionaires and the rest fall into line" on unsuspecting grad students who are trying to tell me that AI can be used for good

I can’t fix everything, but I can fix these pants. Happy Pride, friends. #handmade #visibleMending #MoveSlowAndFixThings #Sewing #solarpunk #pride

One of the things I like to do to insert some randomness into my sewing is to use small tokens or coins to determine placements. In this case I sprinkled sewing clips over the pre-drawn radial lines, made some manual adjustments, and then marked the clip positioning to turn them into stars. I then stitched around the edges to minimize fraying and tossed all the pieces in the washer and dryer to shrink and wrinkle. A bit of pressing afterwards flattens them back out but still gives it a homey rumpled look. I’m *delighted* by how the thread is looking. Hell yes. #sewing #handmade #StarGazerChoreCoat #hiViz #fashion #quilting

I can’t fix everything, but I can fix these shoes. #sewing #handmade #visibleMending #solarpunk #moveSlowAndFixThings #makeDoAndMend

Eleven. Eleven ways not to make buttonholes and (finally) one way TO make buttonholes. The trick is sheerweight fusible interfacing and not the heavier woven I usually use (which is what I grabbed first because I had so many scraps lying around.) I’m not sure if I ended up at the Chanel method that several folks mentioned but I wound up digging up the Butterick “The Art of Dressmaking” book my mother in law gave me and the directions for dual-sided bound buttonholes do in fact work great even if it took me a few tries to figure out what they wanted me to do. #sewing #quilting #stargazerChoreCoat #handmade #buttonholes

I can’t fix everything but I can fix this #marketBasket shopping bag. (Mended while coaching at BU’s Fixit Clinic!) #handmade #solarpunk #moveSlowAndFixThings #visibleMending #sewing #somervilleMA #MoreForYourDollar

Once everything is quilted, it’s time to cut things out! I traced the pattern pieces onto the quilts and then stitched just inside the marked lines. This has the dual effect of 1) making sure I’m cutting the right lines and 2) helping prevent fraying and making things easier to handle when cut. It also compresses the quilt sandwich at the edge for greater precision. Then cut things out and start assembling! I batched up all the independent pieces (eg, sew the hood together, sew the long sleeve seams, sew the shoulder seams) and then had to take a break to hand-finish the seam bindings on all of them. The pattern called for a single fold bound seam which I cleverly (lol no) cut out of the same flannel I used for the lining. This made the seams extra bulky. I stitched the two seam allowances together by machine and trimmed the far one down to about 1/8”, then stitched another line along the near one (again squishing down the quilt sandwich) and trimmed it to 1/4”, then folded the binding edge over the flannel at 1/2” and sewed it down by hand. So the seams wound up being not too bulky but a bit stiff. In hindsight I probably should have sewn the 1/4” allowance and the 1/8” allowance separately, which would have made it more flexible. #handmade #quilting #stargazerChoreCoat #sewing #hiviz

In the "I should probably notify people of things ahead of time" category, I'll be participating in the citywide YART SALE on Saturday, August 8 from noon - 6p. I'll be selling bags and reflective stuff, I'll have a couple friends from my pottery studio selling their wares, and I'm shooting to have a table set up for folks to add some bling to their bikes and/or helmets. I'm located on Hudson St. behind the Armory, come over and say hi! https://somervilleartscouncil.org/yart-sale/yart/ #handmade #somervilleMA #YartSale #sewing #bikes

Here's a photo of the relevant page, in case you want to follow along. TLDR: Cut a piece slightly larger than the buttonhole, mark the box on the wrong side, sew the box in the correct location along all four sides, fold in the short edges towards the center and cut straight across the sewn box, being careful not to cut into the stitching and cutting THROUGH the folded edges right up to the line. Then cut through the center of the box and shove your fabric through to the back. You should be able to finesse the fabric to lie fairly straight and flat (this is where the sheerweight interfacing made a huge difference), and then double-fold in the horizontal edges towards the center. Press the absolute shit out of it and either stitch in the ditch by machine (if you like living dangerously) or whipstitch the edges down on the back. For quilted fabric, I found it was also helpful to run a line of stitching just to either side of the cut / center line of the buttonhole, to squish the quilt down flat and add some rigidity. #handmade #sewing #quilting #stargazerChoreCoat #buttonholes #vintage

Does anyone have a favored method for making buttonholes on quilted fabric? I thought “oh that’s a problem for future Sarah to figure out” when I started sewing this but somehow future-Sarah’s problem has turned into present-Sarah’s problem and it’s deeply annoying when the timeline catches up to me like this. @inarticulatequilter@mastodon.art @Apiary@mastodon.social#quilting #adviceWanted #sewing

Cool well I now know about eight different ways NOT to make these buttonholes this is fine

Ok but what about Mario mushrooms? With pockets? #bikeTooter #sewing #safety #hiViz

Ok, the load-bearing embroidery in Season 10 of Widow's Bay is one of the best pieces of environmental storytelling I've ever seen. Also it made me laugh until I cried. #WidowsBay

@kang00 Oooh good yes. I was thinking about Over The Hills & Far Away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71U0CPjkUyI

@neil_h I had Reaper Man earmarked for "Let's Go To the Mall!" by Robin Sparkles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mJAsgIIfNM

The Last Continent is a toss up between I Will Survive and the track from Fury Road that makes you want to fight god. https://youtu.be/RYA1X3NBB5s Or possibly both. I make the rules.

@marywordymary@wandering.shop It’s usually about a 14” drop from shoulder to top of bag. I like them to be long enough to go over your shoulder.

@Pterry @matildazq Respectfully, this is a no-minion zone.

@matildazq YES EXACTLY (In all seriousness I was struggling with the Tiffany Aching run, EXCELLENT way to kick things off) (Also Chumbawamba is my special interest it’s fine I’m fine)

@matildazq Ooo strong contender. I was debating between something from Nightmare Before Christmas and Blood Upon the Snow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-32-6FqGW2E

@artcollisions@vis.social @Apiary@mastodon.social And then the creepshow went and started Los Angeles Apparel. It's a whole saga.

@dckim@mastodon.social @gknauss@mastodon.social My god, what a revelation. This changes everything. Thank you so much for enlightening us.

@eobet @cascheranno I was considering "Which Side Are You On" by Pete Seeger or else Do You Hear The People Sing from Les Miz, but OOH I love Freedom is a Verb

@atomicbird @KarenDorman Anything by Buddy Holly ("Imp Y Celyn" literally means "bud of holly") thanks wikipedia

@cascheranno I definitely have “O Death” by Jen Titus earmarked for one of the Death books: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScP5Nv-EhZI

@jztusk Ill be honest I was considering anything by The Postal Service.

@shapr@recurse.social I'm watching the strings of pollen get whipped off the oak three across the street. Weather is HAPPENING.

@ThriftstoreBarbie@pagan.plus Good to know, thanks! it's been a while since I've bought t-shirts.

@artcollisions@vis.social They were definitely good 10+ years ago but their CEO is a creep :(

@aredridel@kolektiva.social That's helpful, thank you!

@beep@follow.ethanmarcotte.com Thanks! I'll check them out.

@wlonk Yeaaaah I know :( That one is a little too on the nose.

@geonz Yep!!!

@swelljoe@mas.to Thank you! Yeah $4-$6 is about my target for something I’m going to sell later, so that’s not bad.

@SnoopJ@hachyderm.io @vathpela.uncooperative.org Yeah big 🙄😬 at the “we will conduct another study of this intersection to improve safety” No more studies. Action now.

@artcollisions oh my goodness this is SPECTACULAR. What are you thinking about doing with it? (Aside from obviously just staring at it and petting it periodically)

@xxv@mastodon.social A friend is making me look at my panniers with a speculative eye....

@aatheus Perfection.

@BackFromTheDud @atomicbird @KarenDorman Yes! it's 100% a recurring line.