Paul Bloomer. Gathering, 2019. Etching.

It has been hard for me to talk about how what is going on with Israel and Palestine is affecting me personally, but I grew up in Gaza and most of my family still lives there. My father did not survive the bombings last week and I have not been able to contact my younger sister in days. I am try to being understanding that most people do not have personal connections to what is happening and therefore are justifying their silence, but is heartbreaking to see this misinformation being spread. What’s happening there is a genocide, not a war. It is not antisemitic to support Palestine, it’s not even antiemetic to criticise Israel. There is no grey area or neutrality regarding this, and it is so easy to find resources that will educate you on the subject. It is my people and my home being destroyed so I will never be silent about this, but I please urge everyone to get informed and start speaking up and finding ways they can help.

decolonizepalestine has tons of information on Palestine’s history/propaganda that has been spread throughout the years

UK citizens can email their MP asking for a ceasefire

US citizens can call/email their local government officials asking for a ceasefire

Jewish Voice for Peace also has many resources for ways for US citizens to get involved, including protests

Donate to Palestine Children’s Relief Fund

Donate to Medical Aid for Palestine

Donate to help get food and hygiene kits to Gaza

idk how everyone isnt hopelessly infatuated with chickadees. they say their own names. got real close to one yesterday and it was so small and round. it looked like a toy. no way you’re real, i said. but it was. and it did a sick lil hop down to a new branch

I made a cross stitch pattern from this illuminated manuscript, here it is if anyone wants it!

Fiddlehead Bowl

Taking Flight, 25”x25”

crochet tapestry designed by me, bordered with a granny square frame.

some sweet little gifts (crystalizations of all the love that surrounds me)

if I could fold my life in quarters and give 12 year old me a slice of cake and bounce baby me on my hip I would. I think we'd be a good little family.

rewilding my desktop computer

Viscid violet cort, one of two kinds of purple mushrooms I saw yesterday.

(source)

You know what I'd like to see more of? People romanticizing making your life good in the cities and suburbs (as opposed to moving to the a rural area and having a farmstead).

Like, how cool is it that I can walk to the grocery store? That a library, a farmer's market, and a plant store are all a short bus ride away? How wonderful that I can engage with a community of gardeners, foragers, circus folk and more without having to drive half an hour or more each way? That should I need it, a hospital is less than 10 minutes away?

I think we could stand more imaginating about changing zoning codes so that more neighborhoods are mixed use, so we no longer have vast spreads of suburban houses with nary a grocery store or library. I would love to see more posts about how people are working to actively build community in their neighborhoods, building mutual support networks, and engaging in what's already there.

Are there down sides to living inside of city limits? Yes, of course. But there's downsides to rural living that get washed over, and more than half the population lives in suburbs or cities. So maybe we can do some daydreaming about how to make life here good?

THERE ARE ANIMALS OUTSIDE

had a full-on photo shoot with this miso caramel spiced apple cake

Just found the word 'luxuriance' describing the herb layers of the appalachian mixed forests of virginia on a wayback page from 2007, how have yall's day been

Pawpaw spice cake

Beachcomber’s Gold, 2023, denim, hand dyed quilting cotton with textile discharge painting, perle cotton and metallic thread, and cotton batting

an experiment with hand appliqué and my first time using blanket stitch in embroidery! wanted to make a quilt about the feeling of finding fossils washed up on the shore of beaches. All the fossils/patterns of the rocks were drawn by hand with a tiny squeeze bottle of textile decolorant and bleached with a hot iron. added some tiny seed stitches of metallic thread to tie into the idea of rarity and a good rock find