A few years ago, when I was still in an all-girls catholic high school, one of my teachers told us in her weekly “it’s just a phase” lectures that lesbian relationships are toxic because unlike a man and a woman, two women understand each other completely, thus, making it harder for one to break up with the other, resulting in them being trapped in a lesbian relationship for the rest of their lives just because they got too cozy with having a partner that supports and cares for them.
Anyway can you imagine being straight and thinking that people understanding their partners needs are toxic im so glad i cant relate
I am so damn proud this country, the good that is evident every damn day. Those who want to drag the US back into the kitchen, force it back into closets, put their hands where the want, ignore the tired, poor, hungry, needy, and disabled … well they better get out of the way because THIS is the United States of America.
They’ve already lost; they just don’t know it yet.
1 yard of patterned fabric (I suggest a polka dot-type pattern so it looks like suction cups)
1 medium piece of black felt, 1 medium piece of white felt (for the eyes)
white thread, black thread and thread of the same color as the felt you’re using
pins
about 5 lbs. of stuffing
a couple big sheets of paper to draw your pattern
First, you need to draw out your patterns. Here’s a basic template to get you started, although most of the measurements are reasonably fudgeable. If in the likely event you don’t have any four-foot-long pieces of paper lying around, just tape a few pieces together.
Once you’ve drawn out your eight patterns, it’s time to cut the fabric. Pin the pattern to the fabric, laid flat, and cut out the following, leaving a half an inch or so of extra fabric around the edge of the pattern:
FOR THE ARMS: 8 felt and 8 fabric cutouts of piece 1
FOR THE, UH, LONGER ARMS: 2 felt and 2 fabric cutouts of piece 2
FOR THE BODY: 2 felt cutouts of piece 3
FOR THE FIN: 4 felt cutouts of piece 4
FOR THE HEAD: 1 felt cutouts of piece 6
FOR THE EYES: 2 white felt cutouts of piece 7 and 2 black felt cutouts of piece 8
So now you’ve got all your pieces ready, it’s time to start sewing them together. I did mine by hand because my sewing machine is busted and I get a kind of Zen buzz from sewing by hand, but if you have a non-busted one I recommend that you use it as it will be MUCH EASIER. You’re going to be sewing everything with the nice side of the fabric facing in, then turning it inside out to stuff it.
THE ARMS: (To make a quilted pattern that looks like suckers, see this other post). Pin together one patterned fabric piece 1 and one felt piece 1 (with the nice sides facing the inside). Sew down around the U-shape and back up, leaving the top open. Then turn the arm inside out, stuff it (it’s easiest to do both of these things if you sort of scrunch it up like you’re trying to put on a pair of tights, excuse the non-dude-friendly reference) and sew the top closed. Do the same for the other seven arms and rejoice in the fact that this is the most tedious part. Same deal with the two long arms, they’re just harder to stuff.
THE FINS: Pin together two of your piece 4s and sew together the curvy outer edge. Turn the piece inside out, so the seam you just sewed is on the inside, and start sewing up the other side, stuffing gradually as you go along. You should end up with a triangle-ish puffy thing. Repeat for the other two piece 4s.
THE BODY: Put down one piece 3, then place the two fins you have down with the point up and the curvy side pointing in, then make a sandwich by putting the other piece 3 down on top. Pin it all together and sew around the edges with the two fins still inside, as shown. Turn it inside out and move on to…
THE HEAD: So take piece 6 and the ten arms you’ve already done. Lay the arms, fabric side facing you, out with the arms’ top seams in a line half an inch from the top of piece 6. The order should be arm arm arm arm BIG ARM arm arm arm arm BIG ARM. The legs should be almost entirely covering piece 6. Pin them in place and sew a straight line through the individual legs seams to attach the legs to piece 6.
When you pick up the other side of piece 6, you now have something resembling a really weird untied hula skirt. Sew together the two 9-inch ends of piece 6 with the fabric side of the arms on the outside, and keep it inside out for the moment.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: Fit the open end of the body through the arms (still fabric side facing out) and pull the edge all the way through the felt cylinder so it’s even with the edge that DOESN’T have arms attached to it. Sew around the diameters of the head cylinder and the body cylinder to attach them, then pull the legs down over the head and you’re almost done!
Stuff the body, then seal it off by sewing piece 5 over the open end (even if you do have a functional sewing machine, you’ll probably have to do this part by hand).
THE EYES: Sew the black circles on the white circles and whipstitch the eyes onto the head. You do this last because you can’t tell where they’re going to end up on the end product if you put them on before stuffing the body.
I have been deeply in love with the seemingly nonsensical answer for such a long time, this is unbelievable and wonderful and I adore it so much- what a paradigm shift!!
As it turns out, this is more like a halfway house. Prisoners usually begin their term in a prison more like one we’d typically recognize – bars on the windows, locked in their cells. But the emphasis there is on successful reintegration into society.
As their sentence progresses, with good behavior, they can move into a facility more like this, where their freedoms are still restricted, but they can do things like network with people outside of prison, search for employment, cook and clean and look after themselves, and begin making plans for their reintegration into society.
As a result, Norway has one of the lowest rates of recidisvism. 20% as opposed to America’s 76%.
It seems like a shocking idea to us because of where and how we live, but apparently, Norwegians are addressing the real problem. When you take people who can’t function well in society, and then…help them do that?…they….do. Without the crime-ing.
Turns out treating people like human beings makes them more likely to act like human beings….
QueerGalaxies 