Rugs, Recs and Nothing Else Starting with 'R'

[donutsweeper]

I have managed to go through all of the links I'd saved to Pocket. It was honestly interesting to work my way backwards through fannish interests (the big ones like Sherlock, MCU, SPN, Merlin, NCIS, SGA, Mag7, and DW/TW but also random ones I dipped into like Sleepy Hollow, SouthLAnd, Haven and so many more) via fics and anon meme comments saved, different research rabbit holes, and general hobby interests. Out of the 1.5-2k links I've kept a little over 300 or so (many articles/fics were read but didn't need to be kept and probably at least half the links were dead). About half those kept were genealogy links-I used to be massively interested in that but mostly researched backwards as much as possible (quite far for a few ancestors including some of hub's to late 1600s/early 1700s Sweden on his dad's side and his mom's to 1500/1600 France->Quebec; many of mine I can't trace before they arrive in the US 1900ish but there's a few I've traced back to late 1700s/early 1800s in the Pale of Jewish Settlement) - generally I've lost the shine of the whole search process but I kept the links just in case. The other half is pretty random, but includes a good dozen or two things I'll be adding to various of my useful links posts so keep an eye out for that.

The Hurt/Comfort Exchange announced due to unclaimed pinch hits (there were still two unclaimed last time I checked) that there will be a delay in opening so instead of going live tomorrow, it'll be July 4th. Kind of bummed about that.

I've made two more rugs out of prepped strips I'd made a few weeks back:

a big, give or take 37" by 27" rusty batik(ish) one and

a smaller, 27.5" by 17" ish blue/green plaid and grey one, out of the rest of the strips left over from the rug I posted about 2 weeks ago and a pair of old grey flannel sleep pants

I'm pretty much out of places I can put rugs here, but I still have lots of prepped strips and whatnot. Not sure what I'll do about that.

Here's two week's worth of tumblr art recs at recthething (due South, DMBJ, Doctor Who, Guardian, MDZD/Untamed and Merlin):

due South
- Let’s pretend the Rays are in the basement of an all girls school again okay (hilarious would-be reaction of the Rays responding to Fraser, and his action, in the ep he was posing as Ms Fraser)

DMBJ
- The coolest guy ever (absolutely incredible art of Reboot's version of Hei Xiazi)
- Zhang Qiling doodle (amazing take on UN's Xiao Yulang's Xiaoge photoshoot)

Doctor Who
- Two (absolutely darling)

Guardian
- Something dramatic for Weilan (this is incredible and so tender)

MDZS/The Untamed
- Modern mdzs series: 1) Wei Ying, 2) Lan Zhan, 3) Wen Ning, 4) Wen Qing, and 5) Jiang Cheng. (Love the whole series, especially Lan Zhan and Wen Ning's looks)
- sometimes I think about older Mianmian meeting Jin Ling and I just. have to take a moment (a comic/bit of animation with a little meta/thoughts about Mianmian and Jin Ling, hits you in the feels)

Merlin
- Treating myself with some soft Merthur (tender, beautiful kisses)
- my first offering to the merlin fandom, good god i'm so obsessed. look at what i've done to my boy. (amazing use of color and lighting in this)
- (tw suggestive) Lap dance (yes, good, thank you)

Comments

[trobadora]

The Weilan art is amazing! Dramatic indeed. :D

Thank you for the recs, as always. And the rugs look excellent!

[donutsweeper]

Thank you!

It's so nice that Guardian is still producing content, such a great fandom for such a good canon. :)

[trobadora]

I love a fandom with staying power! :D

[profiterole_reads]

Awesome DMBJ art! Thanks for sharing.

[donutsweeper]

We're so lucky to have so many good DMBJ artists, glad you liked!

[awanderingbard]

Genealogy stuff comes in waves for me. I usually have a go of it for about a month each year and then get stuck and give it up. I was so excited about the 1931 Canadian Census being released, but they used AI to transcribe it and I cannot find a single member of my family without going page by page through the areas where they might have lived. I get they wanted it up fast, but I had hoped they would go through with humans later and correct it. I mean, even humans misread previous censuses, why would AI do better?

Your rugs are always so cool! My nana did those, I remember she had a huge one in the living room at her house from all sorts of scraps and it lives very vividly in my mind.

[donutsweeper]

Yeah, I briefly tried to get back into it when the US 1950 census was released but it was similarly terrible and useless thanks to AI usage. Considering the handwriting of some of the census takers the human-attempted transcribed ones were sometimes bad but that one was just dreadful and a waste of time.

Glad you like the rugs! Your nana probably made braided ones, they were much more common to have done 30+ years ago. I made a few of those ages ago, I find them more finicky and annoying to do and aren't as easy to just reuse/upcycle old shirts and whatnot as materials for them.

[awanderingbard]

I used to do volunteer transcriptions for a genealogy site and some of the handwriting is atrocious. I would write what I thought it said and the person correcting my work would change it to something else, even if didn't make sense, because it looked more like that. That seemed to be the rule. It would definitely say, for example, 'Smith', but it looked like 'Smuth', and so the editor would change it to 'Smuth' even though that was much less likely to be the actual word. Or you would have a whole family of Smiths, but one looked like Smuth, so the editor would change that one last name. Basically, you weren't allowed to guess, which I suppose is reasonable. I'm assuming AI does the same thing, but using even less logic.

Yes, I think it was a braided rug. She was a crafty lady. The ones you do are woven with a kind of needle, right? I didn't realize they were categorized differently.

[donutsweeper]

I looked into doing volunteer transcription once and saw comments about that- which made no sense to me. Sure, if it's a brother-in-law or grandparent or niece living with a family they could have a different last name but if it's a married couple with kids (other than places with different naming conventions like Quebec etc) the whole family is going to have the same one!

Amish Toothbrush Knotted rugs (the kind I make now) often do use a needle (or safety pin or something to help guide through to make the knot). They supposedly get their name from when people used to file down old toothbrushes to made the needle, but most people don't do that anymore. For plastic bag ones I use the one I made out of some bent wire and tape but I eventually bought a wooden one for using with cloth strips because it glides through easier.