Julie the Cranky Crone
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juliethecranky.bsky.social
Julie the Cranky Crone
@juliethecranky.bsky.social
1.3K followers 490 following 7K posts
Brooch Warfare, Story Time, and the occasional designer overview and so forth. Writer, knitter, trying-to-be artist. I run on art supplies and yarn.

#CRPS late stage. I had a support group I'd love to replicate.

Do no harm, take no shit.
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juliethecranky.bsky.social
Don’t worry about it. Life’s been too weird to get worked up over strangers on the internet. 🙄

Have some Zen.
An image of Jupiter, from the Juno mission. Swirls of grey ans tan and dozens of others swirl and I bet video would be like a LavaLite. Just stare and feel the universe.
December 20, 2025 at 1:13 AM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Also, pie weights.

We’re doing a pumpkin pie, and my oven is weird so we’re trying to blind bake the shell first, then put in the filling and bake some more. Will report back.
An image of a clear glass jar, lid open. It is full of pea-sized ceramic spheres that are used to keep the bottom of a pie crust (unfilled) from puffing up and burning.
December 19, 2025 at 11:56 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
The baking cupboard.
An image of a two-tier rotating shelf for in the corner of the kitchen. Visible is a bunch of spices, yeast, scales, cookie cutters, and so forth. On the bottom and in the back are sealed containers of sugars, flours, and so forth. I’ve been baking for forty years (dear gods), so it’s not like I bought it all last year. There’s also a drawer of candy making and other super fussy tools, silicone liners, and so forth.
December 19, 2025 at 11:40 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Chaumet is the best high end jeweler no one has heard of. And they also do tiaras.
The peacock tiara by Chaumet. It is all in diamonds, with either white gold or platinum. The front motif is shaped like the eye/end of a peacock feather with a central marquise cut diamond. There are waves of diamonds on either side, criss-crossing back to smaller feather motifs on each side. Really eye-catching with the obvious peacock feather inspiration, but all in white. Supposedly made for one 20th century coronation or other. I believe Chaumet bought it back and it is now part of a very cool wall of white tiaras in a museum installation.
December 19, 2025 at 10:51 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Funny you should ask… I found out recently that a nail polish color offers three or four different types of “Mega”, based on pigment size. I’ve no idea what those measurements are, but they’re visible. It’s wild to me, but there it is.
An image of ILNP nail polish Mega, with X sized pigment particles. The pigment is silver with rainbow scatter, known as linear holographic. Spectraflare is the trade name. Another bottle of ILNP Mega, a silver linear holo. This bottle, the pigment size is called small. The polish looks smoother, less grainy than the X size.
December 19, 2025 at 10:25 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Me too. I like a lot of the older cuts, my favorite is the briolette which has been around forever. Basically a faceted drop.
Image of transparent pink stones. Could be rose quartz, or pink beryl, or pink diamonds though that’s unlikely. They are drop shaped and then the entire surface is faceted, mostly in diamond/kite shaped. Yum. These would make amazing earrings.
December 19, 2025 at 9:50 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Hub told me yesterday I look like Agent One from
Monsters Inc, with my cat eye reading glasses on and my hair up in a bun.

I’m pretty sure a jury would acquit me.
Agent One, from Monsters Inc. green, roughly cone shaped, with a poof of grey hair on the top of her head, black cat-eye glasses (mine are purple), wearing a brown shirt or sweater.
December 19, 2025 at 8:52 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Scarf of the day! I call it the Sargasso Sea scarf, because it looks like the Sargasso Sea tile from a scenario in Civ 3. Knit in seed stitch on the bias with mystery sock yarn from a friend. #knitting
December 18, 2025 at 8:08 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Guess who popped up on my phone again.
A smol, insanely cute brown and white lop-eared bunny in a bed of straw. Taken at the county fair years ago.
December 17, 2025 at 8:25 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
It’s all legitimate bunch of receipts from test kitchens whose only job is to make their stuff taste good.

And it’s not all canned tuna and cream of mushroom soup. It’s GOOD STUFF. I’ve never had a dud recipe.
Image of a recipe for pesto, from the holy tome of bakening. It’s a very solid recipe with no processed ingredients. I think it came from Kraft to sell Parmesan cheese.
December 17, 2025 at 6:59 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Baking strategy meeting. #StoryTime #Miscellany

At this point we’re just baking for the hell of it, and today, we got out The Tome as kid calls it. Three inches thick, good paper, full color printing, gilded pages. Like a grimoire.
An image a book, the cover printed in full color of all kinds of food. In a white window is “Great American Favorite Brand Name Cookbook.” May all the gods save us.
December 17, 2025 at 6:59 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Cool gradient tree at the hospital where I’m getting my port flushed.
December 16, 2025 at 8:34 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Popped on my phone, Queen Margrethe. Haha. I still want that aigrette.
December 15, 2025 at 7:32 AM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
I LOVE their animals. Their attention to detail really comes through, and they're so CUTE.
An image of a Mikimoto brooch. Three penguins made of black and white diamonds play on two ice floes made of big, irregular pearls. Under the pearls is 'water' made of diamonds and either aquamarines or paraiba tourmaline. There's also a light yellow marquise-cut stone that is probably a diamond.
December 14, 2025 at 4:54 AM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
OMG Mikimoto and their little baroque pearl animals.
Image of a rooster made by Mikimoto from a baroque pearl. The pearl is irregular, not round, and makes up the body and neck of the bird. Little gold feet, head and tail feathers done with diamonds and enamel.
December 13, 2025 at 11:20 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Whoever thought to put rule lines on the back of wrapping paper, deserves a Nobel Prize. This is up there with sliced bread, ballpoint pens, and the slip differential.
An image of white paper with grey lines marking out square inches. On the left edge you can see the front of the paper, red foil that says “ho ho ho” in white and silver.
December 13, 2025 at 10:35 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
The rare stone is sugelite, and I don’t know if it works as an abrasive, but the color’s right?
Image of a chameleon brooch from Vhernier. The head is blue opal, the body is a purple-pink sugelite, and the coiled tail is platinum inset with diamonds. Over the whole thing is a thin layer of rock crystal, carved with detail for eyes and scales. This technique is what Vhernier is known for. The quartz is useful for protecting softer stones, in this case the opal and sugelite.
December 12, 2025 at 6:19 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Lovely. I also love how they share their dresses around, and share with Sophia who is married to the girls’ brother. (Prince Carl Phillip, the hottest royal dude of that generation, forget Wil. He seems to be nice, too.)
An image of Prince Carl Phillip and his wife Sophia. The image was taken outside, and both are dressed nicely. Carl Phillip is wearing a suit and looks like a less muscular Henry Cavil. Nom.
December 11, 2025 at 10:19 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
I do buns and braids a lot. For buns you want a French Pin. I’ve been delightedly buying them for about a year, since I figured out the name and know what to search for online.
An image of a long, black, U shaped piece of metal in a woman’s hand.
December 10, 2025 at 1:47 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Kid sent me this, the characters are from kid’s favorite anime, Lupin the Third. I’ve watched one of the movies and it was a ham sandwich. But this is pretty funny, in one movie they steal the Mona Lisa.
December 8, 2025 at 3:08 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
My phone kicked out another image of Honu the Tortie, who passed on over the summer.

That is an aluminum knitting needle she’s chewing on.

Detail in alt text. I got a little carried away.
An image of a smallish tortoise shell cat, sitting on a brown couch (actually olive green but color accuracy in the Information Age is a joke). She has a pink stick/knitting needle, with toes around to hold it in place. She’s investigating more than chewing, but she’s chewing, too. In the background is an Ashford Kiwi, and beyond that is the little bureau I keep my spinning stuff in. There is an entire drawer of glitter (sparkly, shiny, and so forth, that you can add to the fiber you have. I have glow in the dark fake cobwebs I keep meaning to make a Shetland shawl or similar.) (Yes, parentheticals are a problem.)
December 7, 2025 at 6:18 PM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Yes. I love Mughal design elements anyway, and this has a really nice balance to it.

Since her mom had the Oriental Circlet, QE had another made for her, with rubies from Burma. I call it the Action Movie Tiara because it looks like explosions. It's awful.
The Burmese Ruby Tiara, locally known as the Action Movie Tiara because those roses and festoons look like explosions. There are five central motifs made of small rubies, surrounded by diamonds that are meant to be five-petal Tudor roses. Then between the flowers are curved swoops, festoons, of diamonds. The whole thing is very chaotic and not the greatest. The rubies were given to QE as a coronation gift, from then-Burma. Eighty-eight rubies to fight ill health and negative energy and so forth. The last time QE wore it was to a state dinner with rump. Others insisted it was a coincidence, but she hadn't worn the damn thing for over a decade when she decided to pop it on to deal with an overgrown asshole. You be the judge.
December 7, 2025 at 6:06 AM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Well, the cost of gemstones was going up and fewer and fewer Indian and Saudi royals were asking to have their rocks reset.

I don't think most people consider, when it comes to high end jewelry, how hard it is to just lay hands on decent stones of enormous size.
An image of a brooch from Boucheron. It is in the shape of a betta fish, gold set with diamonds and 'opalized' enamel. The enamel is a trade secret. The fish is wrapped around a 71ct stunning opal, bright aqua with lavender and pink sheen. You can't just walk into a Kay's and pick up a stone like that.
December 7, 2025 at 5:56 AM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
I want Camilla to waltz out in that sapphire tiara that's been missing, and have Russia go completely apeshit. (This is either a recreation or an AI image.)
What is probably an AI image of a lost Russian tiara; it is purple-ish sapphires, big ones, set in scrolls and festoons. Really pretty, enormous rocks, missing since the Bolsheviks ran through Russia.
December 7, 2025 at 5:52 AM
juliethecranky.bsky.social
Utterly horrifying.
An image of an outfit made of white and pink rags. White rags with pink rag flowers on top, pink rag flower skirt. Shoes like bags of white satin. Who in hell thought this was a good idea?
December 7, 2025 at 4:38 AM