please ignore how hilariously not symmetrical it is 😂 i'm not DONE.
but i'm wondering about how exactly to taper the ends into points like the cutout on the right. getting things pointy is something i haven't really figured out how to do with needlefelt...
just finished up this as a birthday present for my dad! our last cat loved sitting in his lap every night while he watched TV and one of our latest kitties seemed like she was going to continue the tradition...but then she fell out of the habit and doesn't sit with him :(
sooo i made him a new TV buddy!
the popcorn bag was...surprisingly hard and i might redo it but for now i'm happy to be done, this thing took way longer than i thought it would
I have broken at least 8 42 gauges. Three from stabbing or catching on my armature. Three from dropping them. Two broke off IN MY FINGER when accidentally poking myself.
I'm struggling to find packs of just 42 gauge. I do not need a variety pack, I just need a heap of 42s. IDEALLY I'd really love the needles to have colored handles or some other visual indicator of size because I'm awful at remembering what gauge I'm using if I set down my needle and come back, but at this point I'm willing to sacrifice that for peace of mind knowing I have plenty of backups.
There's a starbucks I go to all the time and all the baristas there are so nice <3 I'd like to make a cute little needlefelt craft for them just as a "thanks for being cool" but I wanted to know from people who work at starbucks if that would be like...idk, an annoyance? I don't want to make extra work for them by making them have to figure out where to put it or something 😅
I just had my second botox shot on friday and OOF the slow swallow is rough this time. My biggest issue is that I am getting soooo much phlegm...it's tolerable during the day but at night I'm really struggling to sleep because I have to clear my throat constantly/struggle with swallowing. I'm thinking about taking some mucinex to thin it out but I'm worried that might backfire and just make things worse 😅 anyone have thoughts on if that's a good or bad idea?
And second, I'm REALLY hoping it will work this time. Last time I never really progressed beyond microburps. Right now I'm getting...bigger microburps? But I seem to go most of the day without ANY then I suddenly get them in the evening. It's making me so paranoid it's not working. Is there any kind of...technique?? I should be learning to go from microburps to actual burps?
I've had a paper wasp nest in my yard for a month or two now and I have become obsessed with them. Their nest was destroyed but they've rebuilt and have a bunch of little grublings wiggling around and two of them have cocooned up!
They don't seem to mind me coming out to stare at them every day, but they are totally ignoring my attempts to make friends. I've left them apple slices, sugar water, regular water with plenty of rocks to perch on, bits of lunchmeat, and cardboard scraps. It all goes untouched! I've tried holding stuff out or placing it on the wood beam below the nest, they've never shown ANY interest. Are my wasps just so resource secure they don't want my help? Am I giving them the wrong things? Are they stupid? Am I stupid?
ALSO BIG NEWS, I forgot to hit send when making this post and have since discovered a bunch of hives across the yard! I left some lunch meat scraps for them and THOSE guys went for it. There's an enormous one, a small one next to it, then another small one further away, then a liiittle itty bitty one. Also a chunk of nest hanging by a spiderweb that some of them still seem to be tending to?? Thrilled by this discovery but I am still curious why the ones I'm emotionally invested in don't want my gifts.
This has been a thing for me for like...ten years at least. My resting heart rate is often over 100. I only learned about this when I went to my primary care, they took my heart rate, took it again, then the nurse left...came back with another doctor who took it again, and then they asked me if I was on drugs.
I've had multiple EKGs, had a heart monitor attached for a week, another kind of test I can't remember...none of the doctors have ever been able to tell me what's going on and none of them seem have really made a point of figuring it out or fixing it.
I know I have sleep apnea and I'm currently waiting on a referral to get a new study done so I can get a CPAP. Has anyone else had similar issues and if so, did getting your sleep apnea treated help bring your resting heart rate down? I know it can be helpful for blood pressure but the thing is my blood pressure is totally fine, it's just my heart rate that's crazy.
I had a tooth extraction today and it just occurred to me that I can't have jolly ranchers tomorrow😭 Anyone have ideas for small snacks that are compatible with healing gum stitches??
edit: the primary problem with hard candy is sucking on it, i can't be suckin on things. during pride month too can you believe it 🙄
shout out to The Missing: JJ Macfield and the Island of Memories!
I can't even play skong right now due to wrist pain but I've been thinking a lot about the game and feel the need to ramble.
Metroidvanias are one of my least played genres. Just not my thing for the most part, I'm not very good at them nor am I good at tight, precise platforming.
But I bought Hollow Knight on a whim because I knew it and Silksong meant a lot to my friend and wanted to try it out...and something about it made me kind of insane. I was pretty bad at it but didn't feel so defeated that I put it down. It really drew me in and made me want to keep going even when I hit walls where I'd be losing over and over to a boss. There were very few times where something ever felt truly unfair to me.
I don't know if I'd go so far as to say I'm good at the game, but getting all the steam achievements feels like it's a doable task for me. I beat the coliseum of fools, did 112% completion, under 5hr speedrun, under 20hr 100%, could consistently kill NKG, GPZ, Pure vessel, and am working my way through the pantheon of hallownest. Which I'll be honest, making me slog through pantheon for the chance of unlocking the opportunity to actually gain the ability to practice the final boss before I have to go through it AGAIN is not my idea of fun and fair gameplay, but whatever.
All that to say that I went into Silksong a little worried but my friend assured me that based on my Hollow Knight credentials, I would be fine.
Well, I got to the point of defeating bell beast and haven't been able to play more since and it didn't feel fine. Double mask damage feels so needlessly punishing. I'm hoping eventually I'll hit a stride like in HK where earlier areas become a breeze, but according to my friend the game never really allows you to be comfortable. She's fully completed it and is a huge fan of soulsborne games, so when she says sections of the game feel unfair and overly difficult, I believe her.
And to be clear, I don't have a problem with hard games. I wanted to get into Elden Ring but found it way too difficult. It was disappointing but I knew going into it that it was A Really Hard Game from a long line of Really Hard Games.
But HK never gave me the impression it was meant to be one of those types of games. It felt challenging in a way that was satisfying and accessible. I became really attached to it and was excited to dive in to Silksong to experience more of the game's world and characters...but my first impression left me feeling frustrated and like nothing I learned from HK was carrying over.
I didn't have to wait seven years between the games and I'm really glad for that, because I think if I were a diehard HK fan who waited that long for this, I would feel incredibly awful. Silksong is a beautiful game that I really want to play but it seems like such a strange move on Team Cherry's part to follow up such a widely beloved and accessible game with something that they surely knew was going to be too hard for a sizeable portion of those fans.
Anyway yea sorry I know this has been brought up a billion times but I am having feelings about it 😞
EDIT: ok I am going to bed but thank you to everyone who has offered perspective and/or encouragement! I still have my thoughts about skong's difficulty in relation to HK, but it does seem like I need to approach the game with a different mindset and I'm finding myself looking forward to trying again when I'm all healed up! ❤️
Thanks to everyone who helped identify these guys before! I am 99% sure they're paper wasps and convinced my dad not to kill them! I tried to put out an apple slice for them but they didn't seem interested...my dad decided maybe they needed it to be, uh. Suspended by a wire and created this situation?? Still no interest. I have only seen a wasp actually leave the nest about three times, they're always just sitting on it not doing anything.
I wish I could get better pictures but they've been incredibly chill and I don't want to ruin that by shoving my phone at them. They're my little buddies now :')
EDIT: oh no it suddenly started raining really bad and i am now worried for my buddies :(
EDIT 2: NOOO THE NEST DISAPPEARED....no idea what happened, it was fine after the rain but this afternoon i noticed it's gone. nobody sprayed it as far as i know and the nest is nowhere to be found on the ground, i assume an animal came along to eat the grubs or something. there were some wasps still buzzing around the fence so maybe they'll rebuild ;A;
I'm trying to figure out what these guys are, sorry for the awful quality but I didn't want to get too close! Some look like regular old wasps to me but there are others that have more black and some fuzz on them I think? I don't really know anything about wasps but I love to watch them. I'd like to get a closer look at these ones but I'm scared of getting them riled up :'D
I thought I had a plan for how to do this, but have since forgotten it lol. my main issue is the head is felted enough now that i can't easily stick a wire in it...i'm thinking maybe make a cut in the head, stick in some wire then felt around it + add some neck to then attach to the neck I have going on the body? Final pic is a reference for what it should (ideally) look like!
I'm thinking for the hands I may end up using polymer clay, but I'm not quite sure how I'll go about attaching them once they're baked. I could try inserting some wire beforehand to leave exposed but...would the wire still be workable after being in the oven? I'm worried maybe that will make it become brittle or something, I dunno I've never baked metal wires before :'D
Got into needle felting like...over a decade ago but never managed to finish anything...I bought a kit a handful of years ago, proceeded to start a bunch of things I never finished....
And now I finally picked it up again and have a finished piece to show for it! I don't love how it came out but I knew I would never ever finish it if I kept restarting. I swear I trimmed this guy down but taking photos seems to have summoned more fuzzies.
I really struggle to finish projects so I'm honestly just really happy to have him done! I didn't use any support structures and made him purely out of roving...I have since discovered wool batting and am thrilled by how much easier it is for making a base lol.
I've picked up a little mini iron to use on my next piece and am having some trouble finding tips - can anyone here tell me what the best temperature is to work at? I'd like to use it for smoothing and hopefully for helping to shape some sharp, tapered points in my next guy :)
For some reason my freecash app had me logged out and I didn't notice. I completed the goal of hitting level 50 in paradise paws, went to the app to check and that's when I realized I wasn't logged in. Now I'm logged in and the goal isn't completing, am I just screwed?
EDIT: okay it did go through thankfully, it just took way longer than usual!
Finally finished this guy! I'm not totally happy with how the body came out but I was so tired of stabbing spheres and redoing parts I just wanted to be done so I could begin pursuing my delusions of grandeur (making Hollow Knight's Pure Vessel)
I am really bummed out by this bug :( I like the DLC so far but it's just painful to interact with because I have to carefully consider when I feel like dealing with fixing the camera and the other issues it causes.
Blizzard? Basically blind due to the misaligned camera.
Want to manage literally anything? May or may not be possible because the janked camera messes up the ability to interact with things.
Wolves? Have fun dealing with that with both of the above combined.
Having to spend time fixing it every time I leave woolhaven just sucks and saps my enjoyment because it breaks the rhythm of my routines. Those load screens from travelling or even just approaching ??? to reset the camera adds up. Is this fixed on the steam version yet? I'm on switch and I know patches take longer to get implemented...
But yea. Does anyone know of a way to NOT trigger this when exiting woolhaven? Or at least a quicker way to fix it that doesn't involve a load screen or swinging by ???