💚👁️🕸️ In Honour Of The Magnus Protocol Releasing Today, Here Are Some Book Recommendations

💚👁️🕸️ In honour of The Magnus Protocol releasing today, here are some book recommendations based on The Magnus Archives Fears!! 🕸️👁️💚

Detailed list of books below the cut!

For more book recommendations, especially queer horror, check out my Bookstagram @hauntedstacks

The Buried ⚰️ - Into the Sublime by Kate A. Boorman - Stuck by Ben Young - The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling - The Deep by Nick Cutter

The Corruption 🦠 - What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher - Green Fuse Burning by Tiffany Morris - The Honeys by Ryan La Sala - She Is A Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

The Dark 🌑 - Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes - Nightfall by Jake Halpern & Peter Kujawinski - No Power by Todd Kirby - The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

The Desolation 🔥 - Firestarter by Stephen King - Burner by Robert Ford - Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta - Burn the House Down by Kenna Jenkins

The End 💀 - Funeral Girl by Emma K. Ohland - Pet Sematary by Stephen King - Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune - This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno

The Extinction 🦴 - Lost Signals by Max Booth III - Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy - No Safety in Numbers by Dayna Lorentz - The Rules of the Road by C.B. Jones

The Eye 👁️ - Video Palace by Maynard Wills - Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie - A History of Fear by Luke Dumas - The Watchers by A.M. Shine

The Flesh 🦷 - You’ve Lost A Lot of Blood by Eric LaRocca - Carnivore by Justin Boote - A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers - Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

The Hunt 🏹 - Hunt by Alexandra Nisneru - The Woods Are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins - Survive the Night by Danielle Vega - The Hunger by Alma Katsu

The Lonely ☁️ - Red River Seven by A.J. Ryan - Solitude by Michael Penning - Dark Matter by Michelle Paver - We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

The Slaughter 🥩 - Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin - Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine - American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis - The Summer I Died by Ryan C. Thomas

The Spiral 🌀 - That Darkened Doorstep by Catherine Jordan - Mind the Mirrors by Amanda Leanne - Grey Noise by Marcus Hawke - Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling

The Stranger🕴️ - It Looks Like Us by Alison Ames - My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix - The Deep by Alma Katsu - The Outside by Stephen King

The Vast 🪂 - From Below by Darcy Coates - Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant - Floating Staircase by Ronald Mafi - Nightmare Sky by Red Lagoe

The Web 🕸️ - The Taking of Jake Livingston - The Fervor by Alma Katsu - The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig - Come Closer by Sarah Gran

If You Like The Magnus Archives 💚 - Thirteen Stories by Jonathan Sims - Family Business by Jonathan Sims - Gas Station by Jack Townsend - Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

Why "Universal" means "Equally bad."

So you go to the store to buy needles for your sewing machine. You are going to find one of two things: a few "Universal" needles, or a large section with dozens of needle types.

"None of these say my machine brand on them," you think. "What do these numbers mean?"

I'm here to help you out!

It turns out that needles for sewing machines have amazing specialties to help make the work easier.

Ball point/Jersey: these needles have a rounded 'ball' point so that they don't accidentally cut the threads in a knit fabric. Ever cut a thread in a sweater? We don't want that to happen in a knit fabric either. Knits are used for t-shirts, Sweatshirts and the like.

Sharp/Microtex Sharp: My Beloved. If you sew on any woven fabric, and see "puckers" along your seam, you're not using a Sharp needle. Developed for micro-textiles, these are brilliant for printed quilting cotton, satin, woven silk, and the like.

Jeans/Denim: larger eye, bladed tip. The Sharp is a stiletto; a Denim needle is a sword. The bladed tip makes it easier for your machine to power through densely woven fabrics like canvas, upholstery fabrics, brocade, and old-fashioned denim.

Stretch: this needle is designed to sew on Elastic fabrics with minimal skipped stitches. Spandex and Lycra can stretch so well that they're carried by the needle into the bobbin area of the machine, preventing the stitch from completing. Stretch needles pass through the fabric easier without punching holes.

Quilting: Yep! There's a needle for this! Great for piecing, these really shine while sewing through the layers of fabric and batting. They make free lotion quilting a lot easier, and you won't have to fiddle with the tensions as much!

Leather: perfect for Vinyl, pleather 'vegan' leather, actual leather, and suede, this needle is like a Denim needle with a twist; a twisted blade, that is. It makes a perfectly round hole to prevent the dreaded "Tear along the dotted line" effect.

Metallic: yes, all needles are made of metal, but this type is gentle to metallic threads for decorative work.

Topstitch: this needle has an extra large eye and groove to accommodate heavier threads. Great for high-contrast visible topstitching with heavier threads.

There are others, but this is a good place to start. "Universal" needles don't have any of the specialized features listed above. They aren't sharp, aren't ball-pointed either. They have an average sized eye and groove.

They will sew. They will form a stitch, and they can be a lifesaver when you're not sure what kind of needle to use because you're sewing with more than one challenging fabric simultaneously. However, they aren't "good at" anything. They're kind of "equally bad" at everything.

Do yourself and your sewing machine a favor: Use the right needle for the right project.

One final pro tip: change your needle every 8 hours or so of actual sewing, or at the beginning of every major project.

1K notes View Post

buggybugblog

2 years ago

btw I've found these stretches from the WAK blog very helpful when knitting a lot:

Plus make sure to take breaks regularly - and stop if anything starts to hurt!

especially with gift knitting I know it can be tempting to push through it for a deadline, but it's really not worth causing long term injury. (And anyone knit-worthy should be understanding of that, imho.) Stay well :)

Buzz, Sting, Bite by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson

I so enjoyed this book. It's not about any specific insect, but it's a delightful tour of a bunch of cool adaptations and the like in the arthropod world. I think it'd be a good choice if you're new to the whole thing as it's fun, light, and has lots of different groups represented. I learned about a wild interaction between ground-nesting bees and blister beetles from this one that I ended up making a little video on.

Do You Have Any Reading Recs For Someone Who Wants To Learn About Bugs?

Never Home Alone by Rob Dunn

I love the household ecosystem! This book isn't just arthropods — it also covers bacteria and other organisms you might find in your home. But it's so neat! And tonally it's refreshing because it doesn't attempt to scare you about what's in your house. Rather, it invites you to engage with your fellow home inhabitants.

Honeybee Democracy by Thomas D. Seeley

This is such an interesting deep dive into honey bee behavior. I think a lot of people know bees are smart but don't quite realize how complex their social behavior gets. I also am charmed by any book that includes a chapter on incorporating another animal's behavior as a lesson to our own human society (the last chapter is basically "what can we learn from the voting system of honey bees?", an adorable thought).

The Sting of the Wild by Justin O. Schmidt

The Schmidt pain scale is a bit infamous. Dr. Schmidt made a whole collection of insects sting him, and rated them on a scale based on the pain he felt. With descriptions like "someone has fired a staple into your cheek," it's definitely not the most objective, but it is a good time. And following his journey getting stung by everything (including his grad students that followed in his footsteps in some very funny ways) is entertaining.

82 notes View Post

buggybugblog

1 year ago