AND having got that out of my system [which title references an access-locked post]

-- two recommendations, of a craft persuasion, given that I'm currently placing orders and such for the first iteration of Celestarium I'll be making--

Woolstack are online-only and do knitting needles, crochet hooks, embroidery supplies, and lots of fantastic yarn including being the best UK supplier of Malabrigo I found in a poking-at-the-internet sort of a way. On top of which I e-mailed to say, excuse me, I'm after this particular colourway of this particular Malabrigo yarn, but you don't list it, are you willing to order it in? And they e-mailed back to say, Malabrigo is currently out of stock but if you're willing to wait I'll get in touch with them and ask when they next expect a supply, but we've got it in in a different size so here's a photo of the four colourways you wanted next to each other so you can see how they look. And I e-mailed back and said yes, please do ask them; and they e-mailed back to say it should be coming back in stock sometime in the next couple of weeks, but please do place an order now with an extra skein of a different colourway and leave us a note that you're wanting the Abril when it comes in, because that way we definitely won't sell out of any of the other things you want while you're waiting. To which I say: CUSTOMER SERVICE YOU ARE DOING IT RIGHT.

Secondly, there is a small independent beading supplies shop in Cambridge called the Beaderie. I've bought small quantities of stuff from them in the past, and they've done some excellent repair work for my mum; I know they do good quality and good customer service. Anyway, the point is I've been having heaps of fun over the past few days poking around the various supplies (seriously just look at all the semi-precious stones and tell me I'm wrong for wanting an excuse to use the labradorite and rutilated quartz as stars), and in particular it's cheered me right up just now.

todo/tada

( todo )

( tada )

An articulation about terminology

I react to being described as "in" a wheelchair (as opposed to using a wheelchair) by snarling, and I've just (in response to a Sociological Images article The NYC subway to a person in a wheelchair) worked out some more of the why.

There's part the first, which is that it's inherently passive terminology that obfuscates or elides my agency. But the thing I've just noticed, the actual big deal, is that it makes it sound as though me being in a wheelchair is a permanent and unalterable state, and that in turn contributes to the idea that if I can stand or walk at all I shouldn't be using one, and that by using one I'm faking -- in a wheelchair precludes the possibility of being out of it. I'm pretty sure this framing contributes directly to strangers' horror if I stand up to reach something on a high shelf in a supermarket, or get up to carry my chair down a flight of stairs rather than taking a sloped half-mile detour, or what have you.

(There's other issues - who's surprised? - with that SocImages article, including the part where actually level and step-free access is important to all sorts of people. It's genuinely very important not to conflate "accessible" with "level access", or to conflate "level access" with "wheelchair accessible"; the former erases a very great many disabilities, and the latter assumes that all you need is flat surfaces and doesn't stop to think about whether aisles are wide enough or there's space set aside for wheelchair users to sit, or what have you. ... but there we go.)