OTA Mingle || Stitch & Bitch

[can_fight_ugly]

WHO: Anne
WHERE: House 53
WHEN: Forward dated to Saturday
OPEN TO: OTA - but specifically those who expressed an interest in joining Stich & Bitch
WARNINGS: Stitching & Bitching. Should be a fairly tame log but will update as needed

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Network Post Here

The first thing Anne had done was make a mental list (since she couldn't make an electronic one - or even a pen and paper one) of the kind of space she was looking for. Open floorplan, fireplace, multiple rooms, yardage. Eventually, she'd settled on House 53 - a soft yellow bungalow with three bedrooms, a fireplace, spaced farther from its neighbors than some of the other housing units, and with a sizeble plot of land behind it before it butted up against the houses in the next street over. Check.

Second, she would need chairs. She borrowed whatever furniture she could move from the surrounding empty houses, marking the underneath of each one in order to return them to their proper houses afterwards - if that was necessary.

Chairs arranged in a loose circle in the house, she went out to borrow a hatchet and go out to collect some firewood - this took the most amount of time, because she wasn't exactly built for this kind of labor. She's been working at it over a few days, though, and she knew that necessity would mold her far better than any CrossFit or Krav Maga class ever could. She spent enough time on this endeavor to ensure there'd be enough wood to last them a bit, then returned the hatchet. She'd have to ask Tony for one of her own at some point.

It doesn't matter if you're the first one here, or if things have been under way for a couple hours and you're just rolling in; Anne greets everyone as they arrive, already near the door or getting up from her chair to offer a warm handshake and introductions.

Today's inaugural session was meant to be a little more free-form, and let it grow from that organically, but at some point when a number of people have gathered Anne will stand to get their attention;

"I wanted to thank you all for coming. Unless I've somehow missed you, you know I am Anne Weying; I can teach knitting, and I would like to learn how to spin.

I know we're all from different worlds with different levels of technological advancements, but here we're all on the same footing. And that footing's about to get cold if we can't knit a sock, first. This idea was born from a practice in my world called "Stitch and Bitch", where people would gather to knit, and crochet, and generally complain about things in their lives. Here, I think it would be important if we used this time to share our skills and help each other establish a line of production in order to harvest and spin fleece and knit it into usable goods - or weave, or crochet, what-have-you.

We're definitely not in a tropical climate, and without knowing just how cold it can get here, I think it's best if we start preparing for a cold winter now."

She sits down and takes a look at each of those gathered around, "So; what can you teach, and what would you like to learn?"

Comments

this hoodlum | ota

[scathefires]

Jason doesn’t have much skill in stitching, unless it’s knife wounds. Bitching, though? He’s got that part down. However, he’s quiet at the moment - not sitting in a chair with the rest of the group but standing near the door, leaning back against the wall, arms folded across his chest, silently debating with himself on whether showing up here was a bad idea. Positioning himself near the door means he can make a strategic and speedy exit if needed, but so far, it appears that such evasive maneuvers are not necessary.

Not yet, at least. Having attention turned on him with the expectation to speak? That definitely increases the likelihood of Jason bolting. He sighs, rubs a hand over his mouth, and shrugs.

“I don’t know how to do any of this.” And it really sucks to be in a position where he has to admit that. “Only thing I can really teach is how to fight, and I dunno how much interest this kind of group would have in that.”

[can_fight_ugly]

She's not about to force anyone to sit and this guy certainly seemed squirrley enough that she doesn't want to make him feel obligated to do anything he didn't want. It was perfectly acceptable if someone wanted to just lurk on the edges and observe.

Still, she wants to make everyone feel as welcome as she can, and that means at least one tiny interaction. She doesn't approach him immediately, waiting for a natural lull in her own conversation that's picked up by someone else and easy to extract herself from. She approaches him and crosses her arms loosely, keeping a certain distance out of respect.

"You might be surprised. I don't think it's a bad idea at all to set up barter and trade of skills. I could probably use a few self-defense lessons myself; I'm not sure how useful knowledge of taking out a mugger is going to be here, but knowing how to fight a bear? Might be worth trading a few knitting lessons for."

[alittlelonger]

"I already appreciate you offering to teach fighting though, if anything happens here I'm going to be unprepared." Rinoa hadn't wanted to come out. Her life was miserable at the moment, but if she didn't come out, she would lock herself inside forever. She had to try. Plus this was something she was actually good at. That was one way to make her feel better about her being stuck there. She could be useful. She was adding to the community.

Rinoa smiles at him, her first smile in a few days, slightly shadowed and sad, and goes over to lean against the wall next to him. This isn't her first time wrangling someone who is hesitant. But he's there. That means something. "I'm sure that having good quick hands to fight in combat will help you. A lot of it is the same kind of memorizing, on a smaller level."