Update:
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An awesome follow just recommended by Dale: @limericking
I am not a fan of the National Post but they have a winner with this account.
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Canada, China, what the heck is going on guys?
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The Biebs one doesn’t surprise me, given what an ass he was in Dubai, and given his neighbours in California tried to have him deported because he was so shitty to live beside.
The first one doesn’t surprise me either. Pot smokers forgetting it’s a restricted substance are dismayingly common.
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Beaver Boy isn’t ours anymore anyway. We sent down a fairly normal (if nerdy) teenager. The Americans know our returns policy: you break it, you keep it.
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On finding the car.
Dude
Sweet
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I feel the need to apologise on behalf of my fellow Britons.
(Despite multitudes of recent evidence that, yes, collectively, we are indeed as ‘dumb as a sack-full of hammers’)
It’s doubly odd as the knitters, embroiderers and stitchers I know hereabouts are some of the more enlightened representatives of our kind.
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Oh, no need for that, though I appreciate it. I’ve been doing needlework long enough to know that needleworkers don’t get a special pass.
Politically, very broadly speaking, there are two camps: progressives who often see doing needlework as an anti-corporate stance and pro-green, and conservatives who see it as part of being properly submissive wives and mothers – or, if they’re not comfortable with those terms, at least as an expression of traditional feminity.
Neither of which means any given individual will have a good grasp of geography. I’ve noticed people who use the term “America” a lot tend to forget it’s comprised of multiple countries.
Ditto for North Americans who overuse “Europe” or “Africa”.
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When I started crocheting and knitting, they were pretty much only being done by old women, and it seemed the crafts would die with them. I hadn’t thought of having needle skills as being a political expression. I tend to use my skills to fill the gaps left by “consumer trends.” For example, I knit my first hat because I lost my hat in February, and you can’t buy a proper winter hat in February because the stores clearanced them out in December.
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I’m similar – my grandmother taught me how to knit when I was 5, but I didn’t get into it in earnest until I was 13 and realised there weren’t any age-appropriate clothes in the shops for an adult-height (and tall at that) 13-year-old.
Once I realised the power and freedom of custom-made, I just kept going. Not to mention the obvious part about the making itself being fun 
.
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With sewing, it’s even worse. I seem to want decor that can’t be purchased when I want it. So, I’ve sewn entirely too many curtains and pillows.
I was slightly later to knitting (age 9) than I was to crochet (age 7), but my grandmas taught me, both noting at one point or other that their daughters (my mom and my dad’s sister, respectively) never wanted to learn.
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My mum knows how but it never took. She says it skips a generation.
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My mom did not want any reminders of the Depression, and refused to learn because it’s what people had to do in the 30’s and 40’s. (My mom’s mom was permanently mentally scared by the Depression - “thrifty” doesn’t even begin to touch Grandma’s quirks.)
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I taught myself to crochet from a booklet during a time when I was dealing with some stout anxiety and agoraphobia. I didn’t know anyone who actually did it, and I probably stumbled onto some wrong techniques, but I’ve been doing it for 25 years and I ain’t changing now.
The counting and repetition are soothing to me, but I am bad at making something that looks just like the photo on the pattern. Screw it, I’m making the wonky thing that the yarn leads me to make, because otherwise it would never exist in that form. Also, because I started as a thing-to-do/practice rather than as a way to make a object to own, I was able to cut my (perfectionist) self some slack. That’s probably what allowed me to continue with it long enough to be good enough that I am happy to make objects to keep, give away or sell.
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This was printed in Canada, but revised for the US in 1962. Even Erma Bombeck mentioned it in one of her columns about her husband exercising according to it; as for her, she figured if she wanted to touch her toes, she’d grow long fingernails.
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I believe that is the routine (or one of them anyway) that Ruth Bader Ginsburg follows.
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Public art in a suburb – neighbourhood freaks out and claims cow statue frightens children:
Re: the frightening children part – some things you protect your child from. Other things you talk it out with them and help them handle their fear. IMHO a metal sculpture of a cow on land that has transformed from farmland to suburbia solidly falls in the latter category. Otherwise you’re teaching children it’s okay to be afraid of non-animated, non-violent, public art depictions of damn farm animals.
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If a child is that easily frightened, they need to be helped to get over it. It’s really important, because if they don’t lose it, they might end up being cops.
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Zing!
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I have XBX (the RCAF Pamphlet version) in PDF. My version is for women. I can upload it and give a link to people who request by direct message.
Fun fact: Copyright for XBX is owned by the Crown, as the Queen’s Printers in Ottawa pubiished the pamphlet. Funner fact: My dad used to work in the Queen’s Printers office.
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