iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 3h

Moving my database into Threadloop, which does stats, which is fun

A colorful graph of "patterns by type" showing over half to be dresses, tops & coats.

A colorful graph showing fabric colors by length, mostly black

A colorful graph showing fabrics by fiber, showing mostly cotton

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Almost finished, but then Goblin wanted a nap and did not want to nap alone.

a grey cat, on a blanket under a laptop.

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I like this lining fabric

a swatch of fabric. It's a busy print of dark scribbles on light fabric. The scribbles for flowers, like daffodils and leaves

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Tarantula coat is going more slowly than I wanted it to and honestly more slowly than it should, given how simple it is. I really should unstitch & re-set the right sleeve, but it's already taking too long.

Spiderweb embroidered on a patch pocket, stitched to a black fabric printed with large spiders.

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

A better use for #FirstTuesday (Also, the burger of the month sounds great!)

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

This #FirstTuesday is World James Bond Day. You know you want to wear your Bond girl boots.

The James Bond barrel thing from the title credits, but it's a flier for First Tuesday at Carol's Pub

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I was today years old when I realized that's a gun barrel, not a camera shutter, in the 007 opening credits sequences.

The opening sequence of the All My Circuits movie from Raging Bender. With a robot taking a swan dive off the barrel of a laser pistol.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Mom sent the cats a present. I think they like it.

A large grey felt donut with an opening in the side. It is hollow. There is a black cat with alert ears sitting on top of the donut. There is a grey cat sitting inside the donut. In a few seconds, they will return to play-fighting.

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This is what the spackle was covering in the floor of our 19th century building

A hole in a concrete floor, next to a door, beneath the hole lurks some plumbing: a drainage pipe with an enormous hole in it.

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Goblin: what's new to be anxious about, what's old to be anxious about and how great climbing a pole is when you're anxious. Gremlin: how late breakfast was, just how many birds were doing that crazy-ass bird stuff in his yard, how great Goblin is & how mighty Gremlin is.

A grey cat stands next to a sisal-wrapped pole. He is looking anxiously at the camera.
A black cat stands a few feet away from the grey cat. His stare is boring through the camera.

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

One of the worst things about traveling in the US is how hard it is to take pictures of great things (like the Mississippi River) without cars being prominent

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

It's the dining car we're sitting in but the cafe car they're serving!

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

As we are soon to board The train they call The City Of New Orleans, it seemed a good idea. And it was

A stylized painting of a locomotive and automobile and an aereoplane near an Art Deco skyline

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

This is a very very fine Sazerac

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Apothecary Lounge. Finally.

Four cocktails on a table next to a tall green bottle full of water. One is frosty, one has foam and fruit, one is pale blue with a flower stuck to a fancy ice cube, one has a giant sprig of mint and so much ice.

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

It was this floorplan, more or less. I would have had to use the whole second bedroom as a closet.

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Teen Witness on an Episode of Columbo: mini skirt only, to match the poncho made of the same wool

Pattern sleeve for Vogue 7865, showing a tunic with hemline pockets over a mini skirt

An in-progress cape with shawl collar, made of a bright yellow mustard colored wool

Pattern sleeve for Miss Vogue 7670, showing three views of a zip front poncho with rounded hem and large collar

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Widow #1 on Another Episode of Columbo

The pattern envelope for Simplicity 5320: a knit dress with raglan sleeves and raised neckline with front slit opening, in knee length or maxi length

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

but also sort the following UFOs: Widow #1 on an Episode of Columbo

The pattern sleeve for McCall's 2949 showing three views of a dress with a Nehru collar: maxi length, knee length and tunic with slightly flared trousers

A swatch of a black & white & grey dappled Liverpool knit

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

The whole reason I started this was so I could queue up the Halloween sewing (which I am now very behind on) so I needed to get these coat supplies ready. I have now touched EVERYTHING in the sewing room & not found these two fabrics.

A black fabric with giant tarantulas & webs printed in grey & white on it

a black and white print of tiny flowers which looks grey. It's a lining fabric.

A pattern sleeve for an EASY on five main pieces coat and dress. The fabrics were supposed to be for the coat.

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

When I was a teenager (pretty much all of the 1980s), my dad's yearly salary was roughly the equivalent of 110k today. Even so, my sister & i bought clothes only a couple times a year. I don't think it was really the *cost*—These 1985 Gap Ads have a $32 ($99 today) sweater—tho I can't say for sure

The cover of a The Gap catalogue from 1985. There's a vaguely Princess Di looking woman featured.

An inside spread from the catalogue. The same vaguely Princess Di looking woman is advertising a $32 cotton ramie sweater

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Opposing the PATRIOT Act is one of the first times I called my federal elected representatives about pending legislation. It may have been the first?

A highlighted quote from Radley Balko in the NYTimes which reads:

Six weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Congress passed the Patriot Act. The vote was 357 to 66 in the House and 98 to 1 in the Senate. Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, the chamber’s lone dissenter, said later that many of his colleagues hadn’t bothered to read it.

***

Well, welcome to the worst-case scenario. We now have a president who is using the post-9/11 counterterrorism powers for his own ends. He is declaring national emergencies where none exist and is targeting his political enemies as if they were terrorists. He is carrying out reckless, extrajudicial executions on the high seas, while members of his administration joke about the possibility that some of those killed were innocent. He and his administration have encouraged officers from the Department of Homeland Security, created after the 2001 terrorism to stop attacks by foreigners, to engage in racial profiling and harassment of Americans. In the name of national security, he conflates criticism with treason, protest with terrorism, dissent with sedition.

***

The powers previous presidents amassed are now being turned against us. We’re here now because we were too arrogant, or naïve, to think that was possible. We’re here because we thought the Oval Office was too revered and stately — that we were too exceptional — to be co-opted by authoritarianism.

I often wonder if 9/11 is what made Trump possible. It certainly broke plenty of people’s brains. Those who had seemed relatively liberal were suddenly right-wing hardliners (looking at you, Dennis Miller & Ron Silver), and despite zero evidence that Iraq had any involvement whatsoever in 9/11 the Bush administration used the attack as a pretext for war. The US killed an estimated 461,000 Iraqis before it was all over. Worse, Americans seemed to develop a real taste for engaging in wars that never threaten those of us back home on the mainland.

That’s not to say that there weren’t remarkable acts of heroism on 9/11—Todd Beamer and the passengers on United Flight 93, Wells Crowther (known as “the man in the red bandana”), every cop, firefighter, and first responder who ran towards the towers while everyone else was running away—all of them acted with extraordinary courage & are well worth honoring.

But lost in all of the ultranationalism of 9/11 is that America could have made a different choice in the wake of the attacks. We could have taken a long, hard look at what the US government and military were doing in our names that engendered so much hatred in the Middle East. We could have become more transparent, rather than more secretive. We could have, as Alan Jackson said, remembered that love, not hate, is the most powerful force in the world. We could have built bridges instead of blowing them up.

In hindsight, September 11, 2001, is the day that the America I grew up in, and the one my children grew up in, diverged wildly, and everything that came after was dark and ugly in comparison. It’s shocking to remember that the biggest story in the country the week before 9/11 was the prevalence of shark attacks. What would you give to go back to those days? At some point, I realized I’d been telling my kids “This is not normal” about politics for more than half their lives. It’s normal to them.

I don’t mean to police how people get through the anniversary of 9/11.

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

This is how far I've gotten. Such profligacy.

Two of those giant blue Ikea bags, full of clear zip top bags of various sizes that have fabric in them: one is all solid black fabrics, one is solid navy fabrics.

The interior of a large step-in closet; there are a bunch of cubes and storage bins. There are more zip top bags with fabric in them, spilling out.

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Look at this glorious stretch cotton twill.

A swatch of black fabric, it has a large print of robin's egg blue mushrooms and flowers, with large violet leaves and blue-violet flowers.

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

(12 year old not pictured)

An emotional puppet sings into a microphone. There's a man there, too he has Robert Smith hair

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

First live show in an age

A puppet plays a bass guitar. There is a man with him

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Blocking the bus stops. Delivery robots suck

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Also, reminded I have the stuff for this project: a 1935 Molyneux Dinner Gown, advertised "BIG PRINTS on dark crepe make the simplest dress quite elaborate enough. The Molyneux frock needs only an important print, a splash of contrasting color and a charming figure underneath.'

Apple green satin with pintucks in a diamond pattern

a swatch of a rayon fabric. it's greenish with stylized green and purple starbursts

a green velvet fabric with a large print of leaves draped on a dressmaker's form.

Illustration for the pattern for a 1935 Molyneux Dinner Gown. It's a cut-on-one kimono sleeve bodice and a column skirt with a sash and contrast band along the side.

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Ha! When I changed from "sneakers" to "gymshoes" I swapped from DC/Baltimore to Detroit/Chicago without changing anything else and without much shift in the heat map.

A heat map showing a hot swath from DC to Chicago

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I try to pronounce names like the person whose name it is. Until it's a David Bowie knife, I'm notchanging. It's a parkway. Actually, I use "tenny-runners" but it's not an option.

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Post a 90s photo of yourself without comment or context

A woman in an extremely1990s hoody looks at the camera. Her arms are crossed and her eyebrow is cocked. Behind her, a man in large cargo pants is making a showing gesture at swans in a pond (with his back to the camera)

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Goblin is spending the morning at the vet. Gremlin is wandering around, whining. (Goblin is not peeing appropriately. Hoping it's easily treatable)

A black cat is stretched out on a blue blanket. A grey cat is stretched out on top of him.

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crush @lizzyisi.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

BUT i didn't rehang the shelf & rod in the closet because I hadn't the tools, the supplies, nor the wherewithal to do it properly. And not even the right ones to do it half-assed. For one brief shining moment, I almost had it.