I just came across this post from a crafty whumper! It got me thinking…. We have lots of community members who write and draw… but what other hobbies do you all enjoy?
Me, I like to sing, crochet, scrapbook, and take pictures (I like to consider myself an aspiring amateur photographer).
I do a little cross-stitch/embroidery, some calligraphy, and the occasional efforts at knitting and crocheting. I also dabble in scrapbooking sometimes, and occasionally try to draw. My roommate and close pal also taught me how to do Viking wire weaving a year or two ago, and that’s VERY fun! It comes out looking like this picture:
In the past, I’ve also sometimes messed around with woodburning and leatherwork. (I’d love to do some leatherwork again, but a relative across the country owns all the tools I learned on. :p)
As for other crafters around, I know @whump-it makes many lovely crafts, and @newbornwhumperfly does some cool things with miniatures! (No pressure to reply if you don’t want - just wanted to offer. ☺️) Edit: Also, @orchidscript does some gorgeous historical costuming I think!
I sew fancy outfits for art dolls, I used to be a set dresser and props builder, and I do art and play several different instruments.
Working on Lute Music transcribed for the Ukulele. No really- it works. (insert long spiel about history of stringed instruments, the Portuguese guitarra, and the uke, vs renaissance music)
I am also a Medieval Reenactor when the Plague permits me to be, performing music, sewing and embroidering, some light leatherwork, and Domestic History in general.
I spin wool now! With a lot of various spindles, Viking Style to Txoatile to Turkish. Gotta try them all.
I’ve ALSO joined the “reptile keeping hobby” with an incredibly tiny snakeling.
Sorry I’ve been relatively silent for like a month, but I can explain why. Not only do I have a baby snek who will not eat (apparently he can do this for weeks and be fine, the punk) so I’m a bit distracted, but the week before he arrived I had what I call a Crash.
TL:DR: A Crash- my immune condition gets aggravated so badly that I more or less collapse from VERY abrupt onset of Fatigue at noticeably heavy levels and have to go directly to bed and stay there for a while. Generally caused by overexertion a day or two beforehand. Which happened: while I was already i a Flareup period from an infection, the dog made me chase her down the block and then carry her back to the house. I am not supposed to do that kind of exercise. Cuz it does this. *gestures at all of April*
Bed rest fixes it, eventually. I get baseline activity level back gradually but spend a lot of the in between days in bed. Exceptions being feeding self and bathing, and looking after doggo. And TRYING to feed the snek. Punk Shoelace.
Still kinda ongoing. I am still slowly recovering from that April Crash, the hitch being that
1-Punk Shoelace ESCAPED and was missing for 3 DAYS, made a journey to the basement but was caught by his love of warmz- and is safely home and is STILL being picky and refusing food, giving me lowkey stress.
2- got a sinus infection over the last weekend. Body No Likey. Pain wears me out, then immune response knocks me flat. Some more.
Two steps forward three steps back, so often we are doing a Cha-Cha. *shimmies*
Still, got stuff to do here at the house, so I putter around then lie down for a few hours. Cleaners coming tomorrow.
I painted this as a demo for students at a Zoom event recently and since I get a lot of questions about how I paint shallow water, here’s a step by step! It’s honestly a really fun subject to paint and pretty accessible even for people who are newer to painting environments.
If you like this type of content, I have an artbook on Kickstarter right now with tutorials just like this!
This is a bit of a different thing than usual, but I recently came across something that’d be very interesting to those of you who follow me for the posts on genetics.
The Eastern Michigan University has a project dedicated to identifying the genes responsible for color morphs in ball pythons, with the end goal of developing genetic tests for said morphs.
If you don’t know, ball pythons have dozens upon dozens of color morphs. Here are only a few examples:
For the longest time the specific genes responsible here have not been identified. With the amount of different mutations causing changes in both color and pattern, it’d be fascinating to know how exactly each mutation works to create this change!
The samples for this project are crowd-sourced: If you’re a ball python keeper or breeder, you can send in your python’s shed skin via mail. Here’s some more info on this!
well, boys, it’s been a month, and i’m glad it’s nearly over. october tends to be the time of year when i am at my fullest power, both for goth reasons and for climate reasons, so here’s to hoping. i wore a hoodie the other day and it was delightful. now if only i had an excuse to light the woodstove.
the days move on. i don’t remember the week i missed; it probably was just me being exhausted, stressed, and sleep deprived, because that’s kinda how my september has gone. the rain is starting to creep back into my life, which is forcing the urgency of the completion of all of the outdoor projects before i can no longer work outside easily. my burnout is still here but lessening, and it’s helped that have less animals to feed on the daily. or at least the things i have to feed aren’t spread out all over the farm like they used to be, because thinking about it i have three more nests of kits and a new snake so ;p
look at this snake though. he’s worth it.
this past week my parent were in town, which is a whole situation in of itself. i am a routine-oriented person; having it thrown for a loop isn’t my favourite feeling in the world though i do usually handle it fairly well for a few days, anyway. it’s nice to have help with sewing, a new serger (well, it was my grandmother’s, so an 80s model, and not new to me, but now it stays at my house,) and another set of hands to direct at some kind of farm chore. there’s nothing else to really do since most activities are either not open or unsafe, so dad helped kyle put in fenceposts and wire the braces, mom directed us in the manufacture of about twenty more masks that won’t put pressure on my still-healing earrings, and i got some free food out of the whole deal.
now they’re gone and the house is silent once more, which is a weird feeling now but one i have missed. but now my fingers itch because i know i need to go hang more cages (they leveled part of the barn, it was nice; they also hung me a hammock and cleaned up the wellhouse which i had been dreading myself,) but my body is rebelling against me.
i don’t know if it’s a capricorn thing or an intj thing or just a me thing, but it is impossible for me to relax. i say that mondays are my day off but really that just means that i would tell myself i can’t do anything other than daily chores. unfortunately the way it’s gone lately, that all i can really do is daily chores, which means my day off isn’t a day off at all, and the only way i will truly get a day off is if i go to work with kyle one day and am physically unable to do anything but lay on the floor and read a book. because otherwise i WILL either do something, or be frustrated because i could be doing something.
for example: i was going to write a paragraph about how i hope things are going to ease up now that most of my checklist is marked off, but then i realized that it would be better to sell my awkwardly-sized rabbit cages and just buy new ones that are less awkwardly sized, which means i would have to build more cage racks anyway. which is more work for me that i would need to get done before november-ish ;p
anyway, it’s time to go make some tea and do chores. it’s sunny today after a week of rain, so i better enjoy it while it lasts. that is the one plus with having so much outdoor work to do - at least it’s nice outside while i’m there. sometime this week my snake eggs will be hatching and i am EXTREMELY excited about that as you may imagine. i’m not sure how many are still alive, but they all seem to have good veins, so here’s to hoping there’s pips soon!
