Sometimes I have to step back and remind myself that counting and textiles is the actual reason we invented computers and struggling with it is not something I should be ashamed of.
Struggling with color choices for a new tunic. I hate that every piece of garb I make is such an investment of time and money. I love having beautiful tunics to wear, but why can’t I be happy with my two hour, fifteen dollar, poly blend and bias tape tunics anymore? weh.
Trying to write a novel but I only want to write the exciting parts and not the boring bits which tie them together.
I'm teaching someone how to sew, and some basic concepts are completely alien to her, no matter how many times I explain them. Don't floor it on the sewing machine. Ten minutes later I hear WRRRRRRR and "oh shit!" and she has to unpick some seam. Fifteen minutes after that it happens again, and she has to unpick another couple inches of seam. How to cut with a rotary cutter. Press straight down with solid force, cut away from yourself, cut slowly and neatly, move the fabric or move around the fabric as you cut so you're never cutting at an uncomfortable angle. Then I leave her to do a line and it either looks like a mouse chewed up the edge or she veers off at the end and cuts off the entire seam allowance. Is cutting fabric with scissors a difficult skill? I've never felt like it, or like my cuts were wonky or crooked. I found my first sewing project recently, and all the edges on it are clean and fairly straight. She says she's comfortable with my small scissors, but her cuts look like they were done in the dark.
Mechanical skills like this are genuinely difficult for some people, and the only solution is practise, not verbal training. Having said that, mechanical learning difficulties can also be a sign of mild dyspraxia which is often comorbid with ADHD, and no amount of practise will entirely solve that different wiring.
I have been using scissors for, conservatively, two decades, including for fabric projects, and my scissor cuts look like I went at them in the dark while piss drunk at two am unless I take ten minutes for each individual line of the cut and that's just not viable. I just hem the nasty edges and slice off any truly untenable excess with a craft knife. Your craft student may just have to work out which of many technical failures she can live with and what wrong way fixes work best for her. For things that are not stuff like "how the sewing machine actually works", it might be more viable to explain how you do a thing and what your end goal is/why something like smooth cuts are important, so she can decide how much effort and where she wants to put it, and where she can just go "eh it'll come out in the wash".
Physically figuring out how to control sewing machine speed took me a long time, as soon as there´s mechanical skills trouble, that sort of thing just isn´t as automatic. I also had a lot of trouble getting my seams straight and still do, bc of the three different things (Pressure on pedal, what each of my hands is doing to the fabric) that i need to pay attention to while sewing. Like chtonic said, the only thing that helps with that is practice, there´s nothing you can do except be kind and patient, because there´s probably nothing she can do either.
I’m so tired. This person keeps commenting shit like this on my fics, and I’m just sick of the whole thing.
Seriously! This is like their third time doing this shit on my fics too, like...they should know how I interpret that whole thing by now???
started a new worldbuilding project a bit ago, and today on twitter i see a person who's general level of complexity and cool, nuanced what-ifs are almost exactly what i aspire to do...and then i find out they're a studied mathematician and engineer and write their own scripts to simulate stuff like the behavior of orbital payoads and such for reference. i have officially forever given up hope on doing anything more substantial than a meandering pseudo-narrative with some obviously not fully understood references T,T
me, getting insp for a nsfw fic: it's time to Get Steamy >:D the fic I actually write: no horny, only angst now
Same hat!! The same hat #I WAS TRYING TO WRITE DARK PORN AND IT BECAME VERY DISTRESSING WHUMP #THE SEX JUST!! WOUND UP STOPPING BC ONE PARTY WAS SOBBING AND VISIBLY DISSOCIATING!!!! #WHY ACEY #WHY R U LIKE THIS
I want to start drawing/colouring again but I don't have any art stuff and waiting for the markers I ordered to arrive is annoying.
Its not on the level you want im sure, and might only be a me thing, but when i absolutely Must draw and don't have the right supplies in the moment, i just doodle and erase over and over on a little white board. I don't know about your side of the ocean but theyre really easy to find here, i got one for like a dollar at a dollar store a while back. Its good for hashing out designs, and if you draw something that hits you right you can take a picture and expand on it later when you've got what you need!
Rant Why does this have to be my special interest? The book with some of the most incredible world building I've ever seen, with exactly the emotional notes to get me invested and keep me there, with a fandom of ten people and no one else writing fic for it. This is the most I've ever written for a single fandom, the first time I've ever finished a work of fiction longer than one chapter, and it's for an audience that barely exists.
