This video is getting big so I just want to add something-
This video is cute because millipedes are cute. They love nothing more than dirt, cucumber, and each other. They enjoy the walks of life and, even hesitant, continue to explore it. And they don’t walk or crawl, they skip and gallop! Learn something from them and eat some cucumber, talk a walk, and maybe skip while you’re at it.
About ten years ago I decided that the next step I needed to take in my life was to accept and explore what it meant to be a failure and to have failed. This infuriated almost everybody in my life and clearly terrified a lot of people. People do not want you to accept failure. They dont want you to like… Sit with and think about it and pick it up and turn it arpund in your hands and really examine it. They want you to keep throwing yourself against the impossible walls until your body explodes! They do not want you to say “alright then, I’ve failed. What does that mean for me? Im still here. What does the life of someone who has failed look like?”
This makes people very angry and panicky.
My mental health improved in ways it had not in the previous DECADE once I stopped. And. Sat. With failure. And thought about what my failure … Was. And looked at the structures that produced it and examined them critically.
It is so taboo to fail and admit it openly and talk about it. It is so taboo to talk about or think about failure in an accepting way rather than hiding it shamefully until you experience a degree of success in some area which allows you to present the past failure as “a stepping stone” to your current situation. Fuck that. We are put in positions of guaranteed failure by society every day and then punished and shamed for it. Lets fucking talk about failure
I was thinking through what else I’m looking forward to this holiday season and I realized I haven’t mentioned it on here, just on discord, but— MY MOMS BEEN MAKING ME A REALLY COOL ART THING??
I think I’ve talked about it before, but my mom has been a quilter for most of my life and in the last few years started doing these really cool fabric collages, and it was my turn to request one so I asked for a phoenix cause I’m obsessed with this one art piece I did in art therapy ages ago
Anyway, my mom has been working on it and THIS was the last update I got???
I’m so excited for it?? Can’t wait to see where it’s at by the time I get there this weekend
dude holy fucking shit???? this is. beyond insane. i also quilt, though i’ve never tried paper piecing - though this doesnt even look like that. this has surpassed any and every sort of traditional quilt work. i can’t even imagine how this is put together. im just staring at it in absolute wonder. youve short circuited my brain with how beautiful that is, and ‘beautiful’ isnt a strong enough word for what this is
So, as far as I can tell, this is a technique involving cutting tiny pieces of fabric with the colors/patterns you want and pinning and using fabric glue, and then sometimes sewing over top depending on the size of the pieces (this is what I’ve gathered from listening to my mom talk about it, but I know she learned the technique from a specific artist I can’t remember the name of who sells books and classes). My mom also frequently uses tulle over areas with lots of small piecing, usually as a way to adjust color but also I think cause it’s easier to sew the tulle piece than try and quilt aaaaalll of the little bits and pieces.
Here’s some pics from the workroom when I visited in November, and some pics from in-progress pieces before they were finished, if that gives you a better idea of how it works ^^
And here’s some finished pieces!
Update! I asked my mom for the name of the artist who she learned the technique from! If you’re curious about this style, you can find more info on her website! https://susancarlson.com/
Apparently she’s very generous with free tutorials as well as having books and workshops
Update! Re:technique, it’s mostly glued at first, with extra glue as well as some free motion quilting on top over areas that don’t have tulle over them, and tulle stitched over some areas.
Also updates on the phoenix!
You can kinda see the metallic details on some of the fabrics chosen! I love them. Also a glimpse at some of the bits cut out to use in the tail!
I’ll sneak into the quilting room for more closeups of this and other pieces before I leave ^^
Updates! (First, oops I forgot to get more pics of the work room when I was home; family visits are always busier than expected)
I was given two options for background as my mom was finishing up the bird part—
I ended up picking the greener one cause I love all the gold stuff, and my mom added even more gold details for that mythical feel
More babies today… Looking forward to the first bird swap of the year so I can move some of these cuties out. The first ones from the spring hatch just went outside, and soon more will follow!
Even though these guys JUST hatched, they’ll be outside in about 3 weeks as half grown adolescents! Coturnix quail are awesome.
