Elettaria

I have managed to give myself RSI again through over-enthusiastic quilting, so I won't be online much for a bit.

The BBC has just put up a horrendous article about ME which is factually incorrect and extremely biased, and which is stirring up hatred against ME sufferers. Apparently there's some sort of media storm going on at the moment, it's not just the BBC, but I am finding this too distressing to look into further. There are more details here. If you have the energy, please make a complaint to the BBC, tell other people about this, and/or look into which other press organisations have joined in and complain about them too.

I'm a pretty nifty hand-quilter, but I still don't have a clue how to use a sewing machine. I bought one a few years ago, discovered that the manual is absolutely useless (barely shows you how to thread the needle), made a few sporadic attempts to see if I could work it out on my own, and gave up. Because I've got severe ME/CFIDS, I have substantial memory problems and find that if I learn a few things and then go back to the sewing machine months later, I can't remember any of it. I need to be using it regularly, and I need something that's a really good source of information so that I can check up on anything I've forgotten.

Classes, whether group or individual, aren't an option, as I'm both housebound and broke. My neighbour was going to teach me, but she's left the country. (She always used to say that thread tension was more of an art than a science, and seemed to think that I would just pick it up, but I remained completely lost.) This leaves books. I do well with books, I learnt 95% of what I know about hand-quilting from books, although as I have visual problems I do better with the ones with larger print, or at least smaller blocks of print to read at any one time. Since craft books of this type tend to consist of instructions in lots of short paragraphs, often in neat little boxes with bullet points and the like, that's usually fairly manageable where continuous prose isn't. (I don't do terribly well with videos and use them only rarely.)

Anyway, I need recommendations for a book, please! ( Read more... )

Mine was when I was 18, but that's a while ago now. Friend of a friend has just asked for a translation of this:

"Donec aliquet massa sit amet dui. Etiam adipiscing luctus ipsum. Sed quis enim sed erat placerat tristiue. Vivamus id enim in magna mattis elementum".

Anyone?

Isn't this adorable?

You know how most versions of the werewolf idea claim that they have to change form during the full moon? Is there anything out there when they actually change at moonrise, rather than sunset?

I have been relatively chirpy today, but right now I am fuming. I'll get to that in a moment. First point: the UK census has made a vague stab at disability access but not done a very good job of it, and I am currently trying to kick up a fuss about this. I'm accessing the Scotland census, and that is where particular problems are. Dreadful colour contrast on the website (white text on pale pastel backgrounds), and the only way to get an alternative format census is to ring a phone number which puts you through a very long telephone tree. I can't cope with telephone trees due to having Auditory Processing Disorder, and many other people can't handle them either. So I've been talking to the Scotland census people (useless), various disability organisations, and the BBC!

The fuming is because I posted a very careful version of this on a certain nameless quilting board (not on LJ), put up warnings that it discussed female sexuality, didn't show the quilt directly but rather linked to it, and was generally tactful and careful. I got a number of warm responses, including a couple of good artistic ideas. Then the board mod deleted the post, and when I politely asked for an explanation, I got this.

if it requires a warning it doesn't belong here.

you posted it knowing it was going to offend people.

we also do not allow posts of directly or indirectly policitical, socio-political or religious content and/or purpose.

this is a quilting board. your post had no proper place here whatsoever.

Harrumph. The quilt is pretty damn subtle, and even if it weren't, I do not like the implication that the human body is inherently obscene and should not be discussed. I can't think of anything political about the post, let alone religious. And if she thinks that stopping child marriage, FGM and the like is something controversial, then I tremble for humanity.

Better Book Titles.

Does anyone have suggestions for more? So far I've come up with an alternative title for du Maurier's Rebecca, which is His Ex Was Way Hotter Than You.

My mother just sent me this newspaper clipping, from the Independent a month ago. If anyone is truly troubled by the lack of the last line, I will go and copy it.

ETA: My quilting blog has now moved to Lobster Designs on DW, though I will continue to cross-post to elettariaquilts for ease of reading lists and the like. You'll have to comment via DW, though that's easy using OpenID.

As I'm sure you know, I keep a separate LJ, elettariaquilts, as a quilting blog. I don't actively use any other blogging sites, although I have a dormant DW account from ages ago and joined blogger purely in order to post on the 2011 Bead Journal Project blog. I stay logged in as elettaria on Firefox, and when I occasionally post on elettariaquilts, I'm logged in as that on IE so that I don't have to faff around with logging in and out. This has been the case for a long time now. Imagine my surprise when I set up a user account on D's new computer and found that if you're not logged into LJ, a video ad appears on the page and you have to sit through it before you can get to the LJ page. I posted on the BJP blog and linked to elettariaquilts, and someone there who isn't an LJ member said that she tried to go to the link but she ended up facing ads and retreated.

I had no idea LJ had got this bad. The thing is, I've been on LJ for years, and my friends and communities are here. elettaria is more private than the quilting blog, I'm unlikely to refer outsiders to it, and it's my main interaction with the rest of LJ, so that one is staying here. However, I'd quite like to move the quilting blog. I don't want it to be a hassle for other people to comment on, wherever they're coming from, and I'd like it to be easy to put onto a shared reading page, so I don't want to have to start a whole new tab for that blog host. If I go for DW, can I just add it to the RSS feeds reading page? I'd rather have a different name than "elettaria" for my quilting blog as it will probably just get confusing, and it's handy having the DW account as backup for this one, so can I get a second DW account? I don't want to use blogspot, as being able to put the equivalent of LJ-cuts in is important to me, along with threaded comments. I really don't want to lose all my LJ readers, come to that, I want something easy to follow.