Crafting report!

[soc_puppet]

I'd host an entry at justcreate, but I don't have the spoons, bleh. Anyway!

I've completed the crochet business part of the three large brain slugs for our family Xmas card this year. Now they just need eyes and hair clips, and they'll be done! ...And then Mom wants me to make a little one for the dog, but those take much less time and energy.

I also decided I was finally ready to go look at buying feed corn for heating/cooling bags this weekend; I was hoping for a bag of less than twenty pounds, but the farm store I went to only had forty pound bags. Luckily, the most expensive of those was still less than fifteen dollars, so I went ahead and bought one! I'll have plenty for however many heating/cooling bags I want to make (at least one for me, one for each of my coworkers, and my dad has requested one), and then the rest I can just... make more bags until I run out of fabric and/or use to feed local wildlife. Squirrels and birds won't be turning down a little extra corn in the winter, I can tell you that much.

I made sure to dig up all of the flannel I have stashed in various places in my room, and I've got ten fat quarters from the clearance section of Joann's, as well as some remnants I picked up today, and around two yards of generic winter-themed flannel I got on clearance in, what, January of this year? It's a fairly cute non-denominational pattern that I think at least a few of my coworkers will love. The fat quarters will get me at least one bag each, so even with just those I'm well set, but I think I'll probably have an excess with the others 😂 Guess I'll try to hit up some of my more distant coworkers as well!

I was hoping to make the update to kittens_and_spitefic about mixed rating posts today, but, well, spoons. It also occurred to me not two hours ago that, for the same reasons people might want to post prompts anonymously, they might want to post fills anonymously, so I want to set up a post for that as well. Damn community needs half a dozen pinned posts and I only get two; I wonder if I can increase the number with a paid account... I'm hoping to knock those out tomorrow evening, since I submitted the community to copperbadge's Radio Free Monday announcements. Fingers crossed for me! Maybe I can start drafting the posts out on scrap paper during breaks at work tomorrow...

Is that all for now? Yes, I think it is.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

mark the other four as don't show on reading pages, then set their dates to like 2053

[soc_puppet]

I don't know if that works with communities, but I'll have to do experimenting later. For now, it is time for teh sleeps.

[satsuma]

for fills, couldn’t you just turn on anonymous commenting? or is there a reason you specifically want mods to know who wrote each fill?

[soc_puppet]

The problem is, the majority of prompt posts are community locked, and I don't know if it's possible to comment anonymously on those. If I'm wrong, of course, then there's no problem, and that much less for me to do!

[satsuma]

oh hm, well since one can comment anonymously while logged in (and therefore able to see the page) i’d figured it was possible but i’m not sure. happy to help test if necessary!

[soc_puppet]

As you can see from Alex's response, it is indeed not an option; I just checked myself now that I have a few minutes of downtime, and yeah, Dreamwidth explicitly says "You cannot leave anonymous comments on a protected entry." So I guess I'll be going through with that little extra bit of work. Good thing I already have anonymous prompting set up and can work backwards from there!

[alexseanchai]

not possible to comment anonymously on locked posts

[which_chick]

I have never heard of heating/cooling bags using shell corn. How does that work? Does the corn hold thermal mass usefully? Like, you just sew it into, I dunno, kind of... "beanbag" style things and then freeze/nuke for the thermal you want as needed? Seriously not being sarcastic, is that how this works?

[soc_puppet]

That is precisely how it works, yes! You can also use rice, but I'm given to understand that rice can burn people, while feed corn doesn't have that issue. I have no idea if beans work. The heating/cooling packs can come in various different sizes and shapes, but the ones I'm planning on making are going to be in the range of 6"x21"/15cm x 54cm or 18"x10.5"/46cm x 27cm (a "fat quarter yard" folded in half). The long ones will be divided into four "pockets" of corn, and the larger ones into six pockets. This is mostly because the first one I got was divided into pockets, but it does also mean I can use less corn when making them, and they're easier to roll up to fit in the microwave than if I just... fill it all the way up.

They're very useful! Pretty comfortable, in addition to holding heat or cold reasonably well, and, as I've just discovered, really cheap to make 😉 They do have a faint "popcorn" smell when you heat them up, but I find that's part of the charm. I like to use them to heat up my bed before I get under the covers, or leave them to warm up my car seat while I'm scraping frost off the windows in winter mornings. I haven't used them for cooling just yet, but that's mostly because freezer room is at a major premium in my house, and I kinda forgot they had that function until quite recently 😂

Oh, and cotton flannel is the fabric I usually see used for them; possibly because it feels warmer and/or can kinda... fluff the chilliness? Anyway, they're great! I've been wanting a second one for absolute ages (one for each knee while I'm driving!), but I haven't had any luck ordering them, and the person who made the first one I got is no longer with us. So I guess that means it's my turn!