okasen @ okasen @slrpnk.net

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12

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57

Joined

2 yr. ago

Yessss cloth diapering. I've been working on sewing some even (including for years before I was pregnant) because I'm extra and ridiculous. But I haven't found a local diaper service... might be smart. We don't have a tumble dryer, so everything line dries, and while sun is good for stains and disinfecting and it will be Summer... it won't be summer forever, and pulling a frozen nappy off the clothes line will only be funny once. Or twice.

God I'm so afraid of (inevitably) becoming consumerist. Even if I'm 100% prepared for the Needs, there will be a tenth, hundredth, millionth time a kid just Wants something and I will not be able to say no lol

Oh trust me, I have long since infiltrated my buy nothing groups. But duly noted regardless, because I need to start utilizing them more! And thanks for the advice on checking about recalls, I hadn't thought of that!

Oooh I like the friends taking on a role of gift..... gatekeeper? Because on one hand, it lets me maintain the surprise, but also my friends are based where most of the gift-senders would be (The US) and it'll be way easier for them to text a fellow American than god forbid texting the UK at international rates.

I also like this idea of approved companies/websites. Thank you!

That's a really good point on donating, nothing like Baby's First Charitable Donation.

I had admittedly completely forgot about birthdays and christmas. Oops. Yeah this is gonna be a long task, isn't it?

Also, thank you! And duly duly noted. I feel one step ahead now, because I also have no idea what I'm doing!

I like the "ask for advice" idea. I can ALWAYS use more advice (and it's way easier to dispose of when it's junk....)

I do hear you on not wanting to rob people of giving, it's a nice feeling and I don't want to suck the joy out of this experience for other people just for my personal Amazonian battles. I'm wondering if giving a nice card gives people the same level of joy (it does for me on both giving and receiving, anyways).

And yeah, that's fair about it being hard to beat Amazon 100%. I figure it's an uphill battle but I can at least sisyphus my way up a way meters.

I just want to say that I love that this book isn't on Amazon (or is but I just can't find it). I'm an author as well and the amount of focus there is on "get your book on Amazon!!!" drives me bonkers. Evil evil corporation, as we know (here anyways).

Anyways that aside, cover is gorgeous, and the blurb is super intriguing. Like, a murder in a place full of things you can murder someone with? That's a neat premise.

I'll set a reminder to grab it from smashwords on the 8th!

On top of echoing what others have said-- you need a dumb sewing machine, and that socks are best darned by hand-- I'll give you some advice for finding a sewing machine workhorse. Long post ahead!

Do not get a new one. Get an old one from wherever people sell used stuff near you (For me that's gumtree/preloved). I'll be honest, I don't know when the quality drop off started decades-wise, but at some point they stopped building last-forever workhorses and planned obsolescence showed up. I think anything pre-80s is safe, and the good thing is if it's still around and working after 40-50 years, it will likely continue to do so another 40-50 with proper maintenance and possibly without.

Here's what you want to look for in your vintage sewing machine, apologies if you already know some of this:

• a straight stitch setting, which I don't know why I'm mentioning because literally every machine since dinosaurs does a straight stitch. But, this is what you'll use for non-stretch sewing. The length of the stitch can usually be adjusted.
• a zig zag stitch. This might come in the form of a dial you can use to adjust the "width" of the stitch, so you can have a narrow zig zag or a wide one. Honestly, you might find both the dial-adjust kind and a machine that just has the zig zag as a thing to select. I'd always go with an adjustable one. Zig zags are how you get stretch.
• If you're lucky, your machine will have a weird little hooked blade near where the needle goes. This is a threadcutter. It is second only to automatic threaders when it comes to "funny doohickeys they put on sewing machines". But you're way more likely to find a threadcutter.
• in general, a machine will be heavy (they had metal parts in the good old days), will have it's own motor and cable (you can find some old old singers with motor attachments, but I can't vouch for them), and it might be ugly on the outside, dented/scratched/etc, but it should function relatively well when you test it.

The last point being to say, test out your machine before you buy! It might not run perfectly the way the person has it set up, especially if this is just someone selling grandma's old machine, but there are some tests you can do. You'll want to bring your own thread, a new needle (these fit pretty universally AFAIK), and two pieces of fabric: stretchy and not-stretchy (woven).

Fit the new needle, wind a bobbin (or have one you brought), thread the machine yourself, put the bobbin in and try sewing a straight stitch on the woven fabric. You might end up with some weird stitches (looser on one side of the fabric for example) but this is probably that the tension isn't set exactly right for that fabric and not an indication of a bad machine. If you're getting big wads of the thread on the underside and/or the machine is jamming, it might be an indication of something dubious with the machine, but it's also likely something is threaded wrong or the bobbin is having a bad day. Honestly, I'd err on the side of "the machine is dirty or it's user error" if the machine is sewing, but poorly.

Next you'll want to try sewing on the stretchy fabric. See if you can set a zig zag stitch, and see how easily the machine feeds through the fabric under the needle. I'm out of my depth here on why, but some machines just feel better on stretch fabric than woven and others are the opposite. I'll note here that I think you'll be fine testing slightly stretchy fabric with the same needle you used for woven, but when sewing for stuff you want to last, you'll want to use a ballpoint or stretch needle. (Stretch needle comes out for any fabric with a lycra/spandex content over 5%. Ballpoint is anything knit (not woven essentially) but that isn't too spandex heavy.)

So assuming you find a good machine, I recommend getting it serviced as soon as you have it in your possession. It likely needs to be oiled and cleaned, and there are professionals who do great jobs at this, and they might even give you pointers on how best to keep your machine clean and happy.

Once machine is home from the sewing doctors, go forth and sew! Keep it clean of fuzz and loose threads and occasionally take it back to be serviced (I can't say how often because It Depends). Also, heavier material like denim = needle with a higher number in front of it on the pack. With the right needle, you'll be surprised what you can sew through.

Also, welcome to the hell of "I don't want to use polyester thread because plastic is a scourge but my machine hates cotton thread very much." I swear every machine hates cotton. Good luck.

Also also, because I am a creature of hyperfixations, you mentioned FOSS and sewing in the same sentence so I'm obligated to link you to freesewing.org. FOS sewing patterns that scale, theoretically, to any size!

It would be really helpful for further discussion if you backed up your reasoning with a direct refution of something they said. Even if it's just an example. It's a lot easier to keep discussing where we need more intersectional viewpoints if we know what you find lacking.

It's tricky. I'm bipolar, and I need my medication to thrive, so we'll need ways to compound those kinds of medications that aren't at odds with solarpunk. What that looks like, I don't know. I'd need more knowledge on how aripiprazole is created and a definition of "solarpunk" enough to combine them...

But also, I used to have severe issues with social anxiety. I still have the underlying anxiety predisposition, but improving my surroundings and the people around me helped with the anxiety.

I think a more solarpunk society will benefit the general mental health of a lot of people, but there are still going to be mental illnesses that need medical intervention.

But I think it's also important to note that Solarpunk isn't handed down from any governing body. There's no strict dictation of what is and isn't solarpunk and what does and doesn't fit. We have general consensus, but it comes from the ground up, and it comes from what we talk about and how we talk about it. In short: If you want to discuss how mental health will be handled in a solarpunk society, the ball is in your court. It's up to mentally ill folks and our advocates to determine our futures here.

Final caveat: I think there are some people in the solarpunk community who overlap with the... "natural is better" community. The "anti-chemical" community, or the "the only antidepressant you need is trees" community. That's a problem we as individuals should definitely address. But again, how? Up to you and us.

Considering my electric shower is hell bent on boiling me unless I turn it to "cold", I feel reasonably confident I could build one of these! Oh boy new project! Time to convince my partner that it's not crazy...

I'd never heard the term manarchism but god yeah this resonates. I have some immediate reactions, as much as I want to sit with this material longer before commenting. All I can think of is all the cis dude activists I've seen who just seem to be there to be angry. Like it's an outlet, like it's one of those rooms where you pay to go in with a sledgehammer and break junk. The anonyminity is just the fee they pay to rage.

I don't necessarily want anonyminity. I want connection and humanity. Anonyminity is for safety in a world that criminalises change and protest. Maybe I'm clinging to random threads of thought in that article, but I feel like cis men have a lot less to lose when they shed their identities. They didn't have to fight for them. On one hand, I've had to assert my identity as a trans person to a world that thinks I don't exist. On the other, if I DO go anonymously, then some cis dude is gonna take credit for my actions. Do I need credit? No, but neither does he.

Anyways, long ramble over, this made me think a lot and I appreciate it.

I've got a few projects in the works, one of which was graciously donated by universal entropy over the weekend! The normal projects are fixing up a very overgrown back garden and redoing basically every surface of our soon-to-be main bedroom. The "spontaneous" project gifted by reality is redoing the inner mechanism of our toilet, along with fixing one of the seals.

More details on the garden: I've just been pruning stuff WAY back for months whenever I can. Despite the slow progress, it's definitely a huge improvement. My goal is to have the back garden (or back yard as my American heritage calls it) ready for planting a proper food oasis in Spring. So far, I've got the flat space for garden beds cleared, as there was a truly massive hedge covering most of the garden. I've also pulled up some paving tiles and started removing gravel from the main walkway. More space to plant without these silly rocks. I hate gravel.

On the bedroom: My wood floors have been "acclimatising" for like, months, which concerns me a bit... hopefully no warping! I pulled the old baseboards/skirting boards off the wall ages ago (and then spent forever filling the holes and gaps underneath with plaster) in preparation for painting the walls a lovely azure colour, and it's just been fighting to get the time to actually paint the dang walls. We haven't even done the base coat yet, but maybe this weekend. I just started a new 4 day work week job, so hopefully that extra day becomes a DIY day properly.

The dreaded toilet: On Friday we woke up to no water because a main pipe burst in town. And then when we got water back, the toilet's fill valve decided to compensate for lost time by never stopping filling. Doesn't matter how high the float goes, it just doesn't stop. We've also had issues before with the toilet seal leaking, so we're killing two birds with one stone by fixing the seal as we replace the fill valve. Fingers crossed. Right now the two birds are killing us instead.

Thank you! Honestly writing "just to write" is new to me, after trying to monetise it for so long. So I appreciate the support there because it IS a wonderful thing to create without expecting anything in return.

I wonder if you could have the charger plugged into a timer (like the kind you use for making lights go on and off when you're not home) so that it only charges long enough to keep it in the happy 20-80% zone? Surely some clever timing could make it work. Only keep it on long enough to charge up 60% (from 20 to 80), and have it off long enough that it drains down to 20%.

grow something. Doesn't have to be via digging in the dirt (though that helps), even a houseplant or hydroponics setup or a jar of herbs on a windowsill can remind you that you're a part of the planet, not just a guest. And I think that mindset shift that comes with caring for greenery is of utmost importance.

This also scales: You can start out with a gardening kit or hydroponics kit, then you can maybe grow some herbs from seed on a windowsill, then one day you're hoisting up a grow light over some tomatoes in your bedroom and all the sudden you're growing food to feed yourself and your community. All very solarpunk in increasing intensity.

...the "growlight in the bedroom for tomato plants" might just have been a me thing though. (It didn't work so well)

Not the OP so can't say why they're doing it, but in the UK at least it's really common practice for people who grow gardens because we'll frequently have "hosepipe bans" which means we can't hook our hoses up to the mains to water our gardens. So, you either have stored rainwater (like OP is doing) or... a very dry crispy garden.

I don't know how much it saves money wise, but ecologically using water from rain instead of the mains offsets the amount of water that needs to come out of treatment plants. After all, plants don't care about water treatment really. So they don't need the fancy drinkable tap water. They can have rainwater and that means more for the humans.