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.
It was inevitable that the neural network, having named all kinds of internet datasets, should turn its talents to naming cats.
And what an occasion! The AFK Cat Rescue of Huntsville, Alabama contacted me because they had an exceptionally adorable bunch of kittens (plus one magnificent Persian) who need names and homes. June is kitten season here in the USA, so shelters are inundated with new kittens right now, and AFK takes the very high-risk cases, kittens who are too small to survive in regular shelters, or who are sick or injured, or have neurological disorders.
To be sure, the AFK Cat Rescue’s kitten-naming game is strong. They’ve got a black and orange kitten pair named Shere Khan and Bagheera, and they have another pair of cats named Grindylow and Pooka. With their full list of the several hundred cat names they’ve used over the years, plus the list of several thousand cats registered in Toronto (thanks to Tumblr user @maverick-ornithography), I had comfortably enough to train a neural network with.
I fired up my trusty karpathy-char-rnn neural network framework, and sat down to watch it learn.
“Very good,” I said. “Coming right along. Nice work on Aarla, maybe not try so hard on Teaw Mos Tilypsronvynkor.” I said all this to myself, of course, because the neural network operates entirely without my input once training starts. I can shout “No, you fool!” at it all day if I like and it ignores me perfectly.
Soon, however, I began to notice that quite a few of these cats had last names, and sounded actually rather grand.
Jarlag Argon Mankith Cuttim Aeggerooy Jozga Andend of Karlans Irtenda of Tiyra Sittrobt Torg? Arten Sword Lord Magian Welu-the Manwys Parihen the Thawk Haldir of the Saleword Barga Mr. Yetheract Belfine Bracken Belis Goodbrook Bentone Ballywood Grim Wyyne Gorihand Molgo
I had, as it turned out, accidentally trained the neural network on another dataset, a list of character names from Tolkien, George R. R. Martin, C. S. Lewis, Robert E Howard, and Terry Pratchett (sent in by reader Thomas Pugh).
AFK Cat Rescue, however, decided to roll with it. First neural network kitten: Parihen the Thawk!
Parihen the Thawk: This guy was surrendered to an animal shelter after he hitched a ride in the engine of a car. He had a dislocated leg but it’s healing well with rest. He’s shy, tiny and misses his bff who is in the hospital right now for her much worse injuries. He’s got a lot of energy and loves to show off his belly.
I finally got the neural network training on the proper dataset, but I was worried when, by the time I went to bed it was producing literally the following names over and over:
Hurter Hurler Hunty Hurty Hunter Hurker
Some who are not so fond of cats may argue that these are in fact the best cat names. Fortunately for the AFK Cat Rescue, the names did eventually become more suitable. I present to you:
Jexley Pickle – This little girl is a hoot and a half. She’s full of energy, bounce and comedy. She loves to nurse on ear lobes and finger tips. She’s about 6 weeks old and was found after being chased up a tree by a dog.
Mag Jeggles – When you touch him he rattles from head to tail with purrs. He’s so sweet. He was simply too young to be made available for adoption, and was rescued from a shelter that could not care for him.
Snox Boops – He was in a room with a lot of kittens that were too small to place up for adoption and even much smaller than the others in the room. When you pick him up he capsizes in your hands and starts purring. He’s got a huge voice and a huge demand for love and attention.
Mumcake – She was brought into a shelter as a stray, but she was too young for adoption and if she wasn’t pulled by rescue she would have been subject for euthanasia. She’s adorable, loving, outgoing and shoots sunshine right out of her butt. (Sunshine ejection not shown; you have AFK’s word for it.)
Tilly Mapper – This little girl also took a ride in a car engine and her rear leg was nearly completely severed as a result. She’s been stitched up but she’s had an infection set in. She is only around 8 weeks old and she’s in very poor body condition from having tried to make it on the streets. We hospitalized her yesterday and she’s doing much better. We hope to have her back to foster home by Friday.
Big Wiggy Bool – He is a doll-faced persian that was surrendered to a kill shelter when his family could not take him on their cross country move. He’s five years old and has obviously been doted on. He’s super affectionate, very easy going and a talker! He’s been recently groomed and trimmed up by Robyn Warner with Goin to the Dogs and Cats Mobile Grooming Service. And he loves belly rubs. Rubbing that fluffy, soft belly is an experience so wonderful it can only be discussed in breathless whispers.
Photos of the above cats by volunteer Amy Harrell.
And, since it IS kitten season, the neural network is happy to provide a list of cat names (some more usable than others), for use in naming cats, computer servers, firstborn, etc.
Jeckle Elbent Jenderina Roober Snorp Snox Boops Cylon Sookabear Frere Sonney Mrow Jexley Pickle Marper Foppin Toby Booch Snowpie Big Wiggy Bool Macha Boo Mr Whinkles Timble Macfallon Machaka Licky Cat Mr Bincheh Macnaw Maxy Fay Tim Hike Mr Gruffles Grips Liony Oli Lingo Lingley Conkie Lasley Goo Mr Took Linky Marvish Mag Jeggles Corko Maggin Mcguntton Mara Tatters Mr Tiggie Mr. Skuffles Mr. Hinkles Mush Jam Tilly-Mapper Mr. Jubble Mumcake Muppin Mr O
As a bookseller this is my favorite book selling site, both as a buyer and a seller. Everything you see on the site comes from an independent book seller. You can even search their site for book dealers in your state or country!
All the shipping is carbon neutral. you pay nothing extra. They purchase carbon offsets through Native Energy which invests it in alternative energy projects, farm methane reduction, and reforestation, with a focus on projects in Native American communities.
When you check out, you’re given option to click box that says “round up for reading” and round up your purchase to a whole dollar amount. That goes into BiblioWorks library program. They build and maintain libraries in Bolivia. why Bolivia? The founder’s sister worked for Peace Corps in Bolivia and it was what local community most wanted. They’ve now built 14 libraries and expanded into hosting a reading festival in Sucre.
That’s nice, but are prices competitive for used books? YES. Like with anything, they won’t always have the lowest price, but they’re always worth checking out. Generally they tend to have better described books than Amazon, if the quality of the book is your primary concern.
Now, as a book dealer, they are also My Favorite sales platform. Are you thinking of selling books for a living. START HERE. They are very nice people, their tech support is very good AND proactive. If they know something is going wrong, they generally send out an email telling you about it and what they’re doing to fix it before you realize anything is being weird.
So what’s it cost as a dealer? No monthly fee, commission only which is 12% plus $.25, so likely the lowest you’ll pay anywhere. There is an additional credit card fee if they process it, but you can have it run through other payment systems if you wish. If you’re participating in their dealer discount program, dealer to dealer sales have NO commission on them.
TLDR: these are nice people making it easier for your local independent bookstore to sell online. Look at them first when you’re in market for higher quality or uncommon titles.
Reblogging this from my business account as the Amazon strike is going on.
The folks running Biblio are fantastic. All their books are actually coming from individual independent bookstores, so you support two different independent businesses!
You can also use their bookstore finder to find dealers by location or specialty. They also have a UK, Australia, and New Zealand site. You can also browse stores that are members of specific organizations.
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor | Johann Sebastian Bach.
I wonder how long it took to practice this shit
DRIFT COMPATIBLE, BABY
i just want to zip back in time and show this video to Bach like look at this shit some day hundreds of years in the future there will be a gigantic flat piano made of lightning and processed dinosaur juice and two future girls will be so passionate and talented that they play your song by dancing it out and people all over the world will see it and be so fucking excited isn’t that the coolest thing ever
Nogling 