picked a handful of violets in my name

• Things I Don’t Have to Think About Today

  Today I don’t have to think about still not being equal.
  Today I don’t have to think about what it takes to keep going.
  Today I don’t have to think about how much I still have to hide.
  Today I don’t have to think about how much prejudice keeps hold.
  Today I don’t have to think about how I’m meant to be grateful that people tolerate my kind.
  
  Today I don’t have to think about all the things I don’t have to think about.
  But today I will.

• The Slutcracker
  Boston/Camberville-area people! We should make plans for this. I quite enjoyed it last year.


• NaNoCraftMo
  I don't think I'll be officially participating, but I could certainly do with some effort in the craft arena. (I'm still undecided about NaNoWriMo, too.)

• mizubyte: Master List: Bandom Timeline


• via multiple people: Avatar Remix - A.V.A.T.A.R. (Anglos Valiantly Aiding Tragic Awe-inspiring Races)


• denise: (no subject)

  Meanwhile, I'm on the lookout for Dreamwidth users who have Etsy shops -- it doesn't matter what you sell, as long as it's handcrafted of some sort. I'd like to put together a showcase of DW users' creativity -- it's really easy for us to show off writers (of both fiction and nonfiction) on DW, since the tools we have for sharing and promoting writing are fairly well developed, but mark and I always wanted DW to be a place to showcase all kinds of creativity, from writing to craft to photography to just plain chronicling your life, and I'd really like to start doing some work to promote the non-written forms of creative work our users get up to.

• Related to the above: etsy! My comm, which I have thrown into the ring in support of Denise's endeavor. Join, tell me what kinds of things you would want out of such a community, make posts... I will gladly take on co-mods if people want to get involved on that level.

... was on Saturday. Posting this on Tuesday. I have done worse.

Ellie and I left the house late and picked up shadesong late as a result, but traffic was very light and we still made it to Wyrding Studios a bit early.

The morning activity was spinning, first from combed top and then from a batt. I seem to spin faster from combed top (easier to manage the fiber) but more consistently from batts (I find drafting easier). Although, as you can probably tell, I'm not very good at it yet. But between how satisfying it was and how many of Kythryne's art batts I've purchased already, I will continue spinning and, I hope, improving.

After lunch, we went up to the studio and picked out things for either a pendant or a pair of earrings. I made these earrings. We also got to pick out things for a take-home project, although I wound up with some spare time and made this before and after the fused glass portion of the day.

Fused glass! No photos of that yet. But now I have learned how to cut glass, and that dichroic glass looks different before and after it's fused. I did wind up with a small scrap of silver dichroic glass that had gone through the kiln all by its lonesome, so I made this pendant for fun.

The last portion of the day was a demonstration of making jewelry from found objects. I brought a set of dice, a silk flower that fell off Cameryn's set for Phone Whore, a shower curtain clip, and some blobs of solder. The blobs turned out to be too fragile for wire-wrapping, but Kythryne got everything else in there. And the d20 pops out the back of the pendant.

Here's all the photos from the art retreat. And there is another one in October, for those of you who can make it to Concord, NH.