Swap-bot Swaps

2025-02-17T01:20:32Z

If you've never heard of Swap-bot.com , you aren't alone. It's a Ye Olde Anciente Website done in Markup forever ago... and it shows. It's long been abandoned by the creators although it's paid for every month via all the ads that pop up. Usually on my phone, since adblockers are necessary for internet security these days. I really wish SB had like, a CashApp or something I could just toss $5 to now and then. But it is what it is.

Swap-Bot allows people to send each other postcards, penpal letters, happy mail, any kind of art or book swaps, etc. I mostly do stickers, washi tape, and small paper or collage supply swaps. I used to do ATCs, sketches, scavenger hunts, and all sorts of things. It's a great way to use up the craft supplies you have *for a purpose* and meet people who share some of your same hobbies. It's also a great excuse to try new things in small, manageable amounts. Break out those pens + pencils and make a sketch the size of a business card! Paint some cardstock you hate. Decorate it. Cut it to under a certain size. Now it's a postcard! Try out those new stamps and stencils. Be silly. Have no "point," make mistakes, get messy!

I have a Livejournal where I host information about swaps and etiquette, post about my own upcoming swaps, announce winners, etc. I used to do Blogspot but Spectrum, one of the largest ISPs here in the South, decided to start blocking google-owned Blogspot as a 'security risk' and people would have to configure their security settings to be allowed access. Ridiculous but okay. So I switched to Livejournal. It's very easy.

Slowly, I would like to start populating a Dreamwidth group as well ( swapbot_notes ) which could also have it's own circle. Anyone who has a name on Swap-bot already is welcome to join. Once I have enough members, probably 20+, I can start doing the Fun Things in the group such as host bonus swaps, surprise gift swaps, things like that.

In the meantime, if you'd like to join Swap-bot.com, be sure to read the rules, check the Help! section, learn to spot bots, and meet some new people.

I also run a group to help new people get into starter swaps. All a group member has to do is read the rules listed in each individual swap before joining. I curate the group once every few months to ensure that members still adhere to group requirements (like no bad ratings recently, "double profiles" where people sign up twice to get more stuff, things like that.)

Last year, I often ran a full rack of 20 swaps at a time. This is 20 swaps across 3-4 groups plus my public swaps, so I pretty much had things scheduled every few days. I haven't been able to do that this year but I hope to get back to it.

comments

Small projects completed

2025-02-15T23:41:32Z

This weekend-ish, I completed a few small projects. I have so many "little things" to do and untreated ADHD means... everything is partially done. Almost never fully completed. Or lots of things are made with no particular use in mind, just to keep my hands busy.

For example, I have a stack of 6.5 x 6.5" muslin squares that I cut some years ago, which are easy to take anywhere and I can stitch down fabric scraps to them at any time. If I want to, say, practice an American embroidery stitch or something, I can (Victorian crazy quilt style.) I have no particular plans for these. They can be made into... whatever? later. Pieces for a small blanket, scraps for an interesting bag, textile art, whatever.

I would source bags of scrap and remnant fabric from local sewists and crafts people who usually sold on Etsy, so these are all different shapes, sizes, colours, etc. I prefer secondhand materials, including thread. Most of my needles are also from thrift stores or other people. I use as many reclaimed or secondhand items as possible.

The stigma on using thrifted or secondhand items is still quite strong, with people imagining that these items have "something wrong:" smoke smells, stains, dog urine, mildew, I don't know. Only recently, the past few years, has this eco-friendly thrifted fad become something widespread. Many of us Old People from the 90s and early 2000s can tell you that thrifting was second-class, if you weren't one of those people considered to be these granola crunchy hippies who smelled like they'd been at a festival for a week. If you were, that was just expected. Not always liked outside your subculture, but expected.

We had a local store (accessible by bus!) that sold exclusively secondhand art supplies of all kinds but it rapidly closed. I miss them quite a bit. That might have been around 2012? Another one has opened about an hour away and has been successful despite some MASSIVE setbacks, like devastation and flooding from Milton/Helene. They are now opening another location only around 45 minutes away- but the route is much, much easier. This is a place where ... I have to say... for "secondhand" supplies... a LOT of them are NEW. Piles of skeins of yarn that people bought and never used, piles of remnant fabrics in cubes far outmassing JoAnn Fabrics, a shoebox of just buttons with little packets you can fill for a flat rate... it's quite nice.

Last night, I had so many important things I absolutely need to do, including some with looming deadlines. Did I do ANY of those things? No.

Instead, I got annoyed by this half-size pillow I have which was sold without a pillow case, and there are no pillow cases available for that half-travel size. If I put a "standard" (US) size case on it, it's fine, if I fold it in half first. For some reason that bothered me. I have metres of fabric and a drawer of different threads. Surely I have things that will go together.

Annnnnd... this is where the ADHD usually shuts me down.

I can SEE the items. I know the steps. I have the skills. The perceived effort in completing those steps is suddenly So Exhausting and Boring, it is almost a physically painful sensation. Like a creeping migraine paired with the aching of shoulders and neck from doing too much lifting. It isn't even HARD to make a pillowcase. It's a rectangle.

oh but the rectangle has to be perfect, and the cotton fabric isn't "squared," and even if I did it wouldn't matter because the pieces I have are literally like 20 years old now and the fibers... ::sighs:: jfc just do it. Also my cutting mat is... 14", I think? So I have to be pretty careful about measuring longer sections and whatnot. But I got the basic rectangle done, hand-sewn. It went fairly quickly using a combination of running and back stitches. Then I folded one edge and blanket stitched the raw sections to keep it from unravelling. I didn't fell the edge. I was going to stop there and pick it up today, since it was about 10pm and my computer was dying.

::sighs:: And yet. I knew that if I stopped when I was ALMOST done, my brain would keep telling me I could finish it "later" and it was SO easy and I only had to do a little bit on that, but I have to do a lot on this other thing, so get the other thing done and then I'll get back to finishing THIS...

or just finish it. ugh. i had to 'transition' from comfortable sitting to going to another room, setting up the iron, waiting for it to heat, folding and measuring the edge that got turned, iron it, finish it, iron it again... ADHD doesn't like 'activity transitions' and will resist them. This is another point of being a neurological condition. If it were possible to just Think Your Way Out of It, it wouldn't BE a problem. Would it.

Once that was finished, I cleared supplies and a few things here or there that had been left out. I didn't actually put things away fully.

Today, after poor sleep and lots of waking up periods, I eventually got around to sewing again. I have some patchwork pieces going. It just feels boring and like I'm wasting time because there's no finish point and I'd really like one of those today. Some kind of accomplishment.

Tried to wind more silk embroidery thread (from Zelkova) but it was such a Task, my brain wouldn't let me continue. I cut the thread I had on the spool already, bound what was left of the skein, and put it away.

Went through the drawer of half-finished projects. Found a small scrap of patchwork done ... probably some months ago. Figured a needlebook would be easy to make. All straight lines, finished in an hour at most, and I have all the stuff I need for it already. ~ 7 x 4", 6.5 x 3.5" when done and turned for the needlebook cover. Cut scraps of felt to 3 x 3.25" max.

Paired it with another piece of thicker cotton, which I normally overthink. Colours, patterns, all that stuff. It has to be "perfect," whatever that is. Feel coordinated "best" out of the available things I have- which are hundreds of pieces that might work. Normally paralyzing. I was able to just Pick One today.

Found a button, which I normally also overthink and give up on, and something to tie it shut with. A piece of cotton yarn is used for the tie. The button is a shiny grey plastic, acquired from Bottom of the Bin in Seminole, FL.

I have a large ziploc bag of felt scrap pieces, which is perfect for a patchwork scrap this small. They're all slightly different sizes but the colours coordinate with the patchwork. Because they are all different pieces, they had to be bound together first, then attached to a "spine" sewn in using 6-strand embroidery floss. There were a few inches left over so I wound those into the binding, too.

I haven't filled the book with anything. I'm not planning on keeping it. That's the harder part of 'being creative': I need to make the money for basic stuff like medicine, but also no one else has any, and also I don't have a "point" in making these things. They go nowhere and everywhere I know of is saturated with mass-made $1 needlebooks anyways. Nothing seems important or useful. Not compared to the efficiency and features that anything factory-made can offer. I try not to let myself think when making things or I'll end up stopping. What does anyone else do?

Now that I've accomplished Something, maybe my brain will let me do other boring things, like sorting this endless pile of paper around me. Or organizing the tiny things in the crafting closet. It'll be difficult. Eris the Destroyer is on my lap, purring up a storm. She gets aggressive when disturbed. Hoomans were made to serve cats.

comments

daniel

Swap-bot Swaps

Small projects completed