Inspired by @Daojoan@mastodon.social's recent writings about the gluttony of capitalism, I've decided that any gifts I give this year will be handmade. Here is the first, of many.
@velocykel I've been doing the handmade gifts for all birthdays, holidays, etc, for 4 years now. Highly recommend. Enjoy doing it! Beautiful pillow!
@tommysgrowingup Thank you! It's an idea that I've had a few times in the past, but I never really took the time to act on it. Welcome to micro.blog, btw. Reading your profile piqued a million questions for me (all good and interesting), so I'm looking forward to following your journey on here!
@velocykel I actually have on my list to get to eventually - "make a leather pillow". Any tips, tricks, etc appreciated, especially for the filler.
@aa Funny you should say that... I've been perfecting my "filler" for a long while. For many years, I just used poly-fil, which is an extruded plastic that in some ways mimics cotton. I found that over time, poly-fil became "lumpy" and I have sneaking suspicions that it breaks down and that we are breathing it in... so I'm trying to get rid of it in my home. Long way of saying, I keep a box of tiny fabric scraps in my studio. Any "soft" textile scrap goes in it-- little pieces of thread, string, feathers, cut up old socks and t-shirts, the tiny little bit of cotton that comes in the top of pill bottles. Amazingly, the box fills up very quickly, and that becomes the "base" of anything I need to stuff. It gives pillows a weight and presence that commercially made, poly-fil ones don't seem to have. Then, I round out the pillow with a little bit of cotton (which you can find at an upholstery supply place), and boom: pillow, stuffed and done. I'm sure it would work exceptionally well with leather. Let me know how it turns out!!
@tommysgrowingup you piqued my interest when you posted about organizing your books in an online database. When I was in college (a couple of hundred years ago), I worked in a library, and when people would donate books, they put them aside for a booksale. After the booksale, whatever remained was hauled off to a dumpster... so I took carloads of books home. At one point, I had a full on library in my basement, and it was cataloged and arranged by Library of Congress classification. I've streamlined significantly since then, but still think back to having my own private library, and how much fun that was.
@velocykel Ooh, that sounds really cool. I love getting books from library sales, but nothing beats free :) I've been working in my school's library for about a year now, and I have to come to, if not love, at least appreciate the LoC system.
At the moment I'm reading a lot of classics as part of school, so my shelves are filled with books in a very disorganized fashion. Just to try to get an idea of what I have, I've been building my own system with Logseq's query functions (which is working really well so far, but I prob wouldn't use it for more than a few hundred books. If it gets worse I'll prob switch over to Airtable or similar). Actually organizing the books on the shelf will have to come soon, though.
@tommysgrowingup Neat! I will be interested to hear how your project progresses!
Good idea, BTW, putting your phone aside. You won't regret that... learning to live without it is time well spent (though not easy.) Good for you for giving it a try!
@velocykel Thanks! It's been good so far, just a bit inconvenient. And I think the dividends will be worth it.