Rupee's Ramblings

I don't know where it came from, but several years ago this idea popped into my head unbidden, and for some reason it tickles me. I don't know if it's funny, but I like it and I made it into a zine, I hope you enjoy it.

It lays out really nicely as 3-up spreads on A4 paper, so you can print, staple and fold it, then cut it into 3 zines. It made it really easy to print up 20 of them to trade at this art social thing I went to

micron, rotring and sharpie on printer paper, coloured and screentoned digitally, 2024

This is magnificent and I love it.

My fucking cat has figured out how to gently dig his claws into my eyelid and pull my eyes open while I'm sleeping. He does this. It does not hurt. He is remarkably precise and gentle. I however am asleep when it happens and do not appreciate being clockwork oranged by a needy clingy goddamn animal who thinks he needs attention.

I would like to clarify that this animal self feeds and is not being denied breakfast by my sleeping in. He doesn't do this to anyone else. Everyone else simply gets increasingly invasive headbutts and even thats a fairly rare occurence. This fucking cat needs to cuddle with me specifically, And he is decided that the best way to do it is to gently shove his claws underneath my eyelashes and pull. There is no way I can train him out of this because believe it or not shoving your fingers in somebody's eyes to wake them up has the desired reaction.

We have come to a compromise. One that neatly illustrates the reason I'm not wearing an eyemask.

If I have a hair tie on my wrist, my darling sweet baby boy, love of my life and apple of my eye, can gingerly dig his teeth underneath and grab it in his mouth and then back up. and pull. And Snap the hell out of me with the elastic. Again, he is very gentle and precise, there are never teeth touching my skin. This is not a fluke, he managed this several times in various circumstances and positions.

This is worse than a toddler. We are approaching diabolical machinations hitherto undreamt of by domestic felines.

Behold, Prince Shithead himself.

All hail the prince

Several weeks ago one of my coworkers called me over into her cubicle and gave me a very unexpected gift. Her mother passed away recently, and she'd been packing stuff up at her condo to give to relatives and sell, so the home could be sold. The mother was an avid knitter and crocheter, and when my coworker came upon her stash of equipment, she told me, she "immediately thought of me as someone who might get some use out of it."

So, I have inherited a varied collection of knitting needles and crochet hooks, cable needles, sewing needles, and, best of all, now-out-of-print pattern books, mostly for blankets, because that was what this lady loved to make most. Plus, I also have a bunch of gauge swatches she made, pinned to little bits of card covered in perfect schoolteacher handwriting setting out the patterns they were made to test.

And also...

My coworker brought another bag, full of yarn and...knitted blanket squares. Her mother's last started project, before she got too sick to continue. And she asked if there was anything I could do with it.

It turned out, there are twelve completed squares, and I quickly located the pattern book they are from amid those given to me. It's a book of 60 patterns, meant to be put together however the maker wishes into blankets of 20 squares. I figured out which of the numbered patterns were already made, and selected eight more that I thought might go well with them.

So now! I am working on completing! My coworker's mother's last knitting project!

And I really am feeling very good about doing it.

Whoa this blew up a lil' bit huh! I've been so happy reading the notes and seeing other people's similar stories and such. And I've received some very sweet messages about this too. Thank you so much! <3 Crafting is such a bonding experience--across families, with those who've passed, just in general a very communal thing. I'm happy if my post brought some nice feelings to people's days, too.

I come bearing a small update! I have completed three of the eight squares I picked to make and just started a fourth. Here’s what the project looks like so far:

(Why yes I did stand on my bed to take this photo.)

The squares are in big need of blocking to get 'em to a uniform size, of course, but this is what we’ve got! Mine are the one at top right and the middle two in the second row.

My coworker told me her mother especially liked to make blankets featuring a popcorn/bobble stitch, but I didn’t find any squares like that among those she’d made for this project, so that’s why I chose to make the one to the left of the book. <3 Otherwise, it seems like she picked a mix of squares with cables and not, with graphic motifs versus repeating textures, so I chose mine to reflect that and have decided on a layout that I hope shows off the variety.

Apparently Mom's usual blankets were knitted all in one piece; coworker said she’d never seen her make a square sampler like this. Meanwhile samplers are MY favorite kind to make, so I’ve been having a lot of fun.

Oh! And I wanted to share this, because a few people in the notes have done so: If you're a crafter and want to help out finishing people's projects, or you have a project you'd like to see finished but can't work on yourself, try checking out Loose Ends! It's a volunteer program where you can submit projects that need finishing or sign up to be a finisher. They match volunteers with submitted projects based on location and other factors. It looks really fun and, like I said up there, a great way to connect with people through crafting.

‘Nother small update, I showed my coworker some progress photos and she immediately zeroed in on that one square with the popcorn stitches. She said she recognized that one because her mom had once made an entire blanket like that (as in, not in separate squares, she repeated that pattern across a whole blanket’s width).

I told her why I chose that square, like I told you guys up there, and she said she was so glad she gave her mom’s stuff to me because I’m “making sure her work is finished beautifully.” Ahhh, my heart, it grows.

(Also! I’m on the last of my eight squares! And then I have to put them together, which is less fun than making them, but I’ll do my best!)

@noirandchocolate is this tue booklet?

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/sources/leisure-arts-leaflet-932-60-easy-to-knit-pattern-stitches-combine-to-create-sampler-afghans

YES!! And cool, it looks like it CAN still be bought! That’s good news, thanks so much for finding it in case anybody else wants to check it out!

Aaaaaand I have a big update tonight! All the squares are DONE!!

You can compare the final layout to what is posted up there to find my squares. :D

I had to fix the crochet borders on several of Coworker’s Mom’s because they didn’t have a uniform 48 stitches per side as called for in the pattern book, but now that’s taken care of, I can start…

ASSEMBLING.

IT IS COMPLETED.

For more photos and a little more info, I’ve made a new post here!

This set of Alt Arts follow a Palmon and an Alraumon growing up together!

I love when card games have side stories

chuckling indulgently.. oh go on... i suppose a LITTLE bit of monica in my life wouldn't hurt

Bowser respects gender non-conforming Mario even if he WASN’T INVITED

i like when ventposts self censor in a way thats completely incomprehensible to anyone else like 'im so sick of ****** ******* ******' . im sorry that youre going through it. can i buy a vowel

I like counting the asterisks and guessing what the words are. Yours says 'im so sick of gnomes fucking people'

"A crab can be huge if it expands very large. I can not let tha thappen"

wheres seasons greasons

its that time of year again

It doesn’t have to be

its not optional

You know, even apart from the intricate worldbuilding about the talking rodents and what their deal is, the part of The Secret of NIMH that's like "working single mom trying to obtain medical treatment for her sick child discovers that her late husband was basically a high-level Dungeons & Dragons character and never told her about any of it, and she keeps tripping over elements of his unreasonably complicated backstory whose context and significance are never fully explained to the audience because the particulars aren't relevant to her journey" is a really fun premise all on its own.

I think the part that best illustrates this point is the confrontation with the Owl. Our heroine goes to see a creature from whose lair no-one returns, a creature which is for all intents and purposes a god of death, and the moment she drops her dead husband's name, the Owl is like "oh shit, really?" and agrees to hear her out – but when she asks the Owl what the story is there, the Owl just says "that's not important", and the film literally never brings her late husband's history with the Owl up again, because the story ain't about him.

The Smash Bros. cast swapping anecdotes about their various evil doppelgangers and Mario getting into an argument about whether Wario counts.

Surprisingly, Mario is arguing that Wario does not count as he has literally never made that connection in his life. You can’t just say every fat italian in overalls is a Mario counterpart, he’s his own person with hopes and dreams. Evil hopes and dreams, but still.

Daisy, meanwhile, manages to argue very convincingly that Peach should be considered her evil doppelganger.

Wario is playing Devil’s advocate because being Mario’s evil doppleganger is great for business. If he was just some guy, nobody would buy Warioware.

@kamenriderhamo i am not going to let you hide this in the replies

Looool

that fucker's not using his turn signal

Juvenile gazebo migrating to a new farmer's market.

When I was a teenager and still on Neopets I was part of a pretty big Star Trek guild and eventually became part of its council, with the solemn duty of creating weekly polls. Well one day I created the poll "Which would win in a fight? Borg Cube or Death Star?". Naturally, since this was a Star Trek guild, the answer was overwhelmingly "Borg Cube", but someone did have the rationality to point out we were biased.

So I look up a pretty prominent Star Wars guild and message one of their council and ask them to poll the same question and get back to me in a week. They do, and naturally the fuckin geeks said "Death Star".

So then I look up a Stargate guild and messaged the lead council member, saying the same thing, and they get back to me almost immediately saying that the Death Star would immediately one-shot a Borg Cube but they would never be able to do it again to another Cube. And I took that wisdom back to my guild and we were mollified, and for one moment the Nerd World was peaceful.