Friday:

Australia has so much electricity from solar power that it is going to start offering free electricity to everyone for at least three hours during the day as the wholesale price of power goes negative electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...

A commercial… for a font? Yes! For letterform design itself. Have a look — I’m lucky to have this one, created by Darden Studio for my Birra Lambic typeface — youtu.be/mQTsILs3SdU?... #font #typedesign #birra #fun #commission #veraevstafieva #uk #openforcommissions #original

Autumn is still rocking hereabouts:

Finished polishing the family silver (not a euphemism); boxed up all the polishing equipment; tomorrow I'll dismantle the polishing booth in the corner of the workshop. The collected dirt, grease, fluff and polishing compound of a decade of silver polishing is f.i.l.t.h.y.

Hahahahaha

Secretly here — as I've got only a few followers so far :) Wrote it in preparation for a talk. Warning — it is slow, real time. #calligraphy #demo #intersections #home #brushlettering #veraevstafieva #unique #cmyk

Hello from 2009 — when I played with scripting a bit. found on my abandoned flickr #font #play

The wealth of the 10 richest Americans has soared by $700 billion since Trump was reelected. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are going hungry because Trump is illegally withholding contingency funds that would keep food stamps funded during his shutdown. Two Americas.

Incoming...

Gonna sound like a weird request, but does anyone know where I can get the audio fx of a large parrot yelling?

Monday:

Hey.

Well strangely I just sold that pair of round bottomed tumblers to a visiting Australian friend 😲 I did regild them since I was in that mode. Hallmarked Sheffield 2003 and 2004, sterling #silver.

You can practise on-on-on! or no-no-no! depending on whether optimist or pessimist you are 😀 But look for the purple shapes here! Why do I write with a brush and use translucent ink? — to watch this. Privately #cmyk #calligraphy #brush #letters #no #veraevstafieva #cambridge

One of the most used typefaces of mine is ALS Direct, designed in 2006 for way finding, focusing on Cyrillic — for that scale of signs like in shopping malls, airports and in the streets. I already left ArtLebedev Studio, when Direct was chosen to be the default way finding font in Moscow #font

Anyone on a LNER train today from Scotland to Newcastle - my mum took the wrong suitcase off the train. Her case is somewhere heading southbound. #Newcastle #LNER

Blackletter s

While I was regilding the chalice I gold plated a few of the EPNS spoons from the kitchen drawer :) I'm THAT fancy.

Is this the most beautiful thing @britishmuseum.bsky.social? Whenever I visit, it takes my breath away - pure magic. Gold oak wreath with a bee and two cicadas, 350-300 BC. Exact provenance unclear (unethical trading and collecting practices in the early 20thC). www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...

It was just like the old days today, polishing silverware. I need to re-gild the inside of the chalice.

Turn off Gemini in Google! It's been turned on by default. Go to your Drive, click the gear icon, click settings, go to "manage apps" and uncheck that nasty "use by default" box. www.zdnet.com/article/how-...

Beyond the point that it’s the hobbits who save Gondor, not the other way around, Tolkien also points out that the “gentlefolk” of the Shire are not immune to being taken over by a populist who sways the venal to his side and cows the rest with thugs.

Tom's new wood (planted 30 years ago) looks lovely at this time of year: #autumn #fallfoliage #autumnfoliage #foliage

This has been my earworm for nearly 10 days now, so I'm so so sorry, but now I have to inflict it on you: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHsp...

My favorite preservation technique in Duxbury is the re-carving of stones in the 1850s. Maybe someone worried that the older stones would not last, but ~250 years on, the originals are still completely fine and we have these weird doubles. @graveyardarch.bsky.social

Algernon Softness had a sister called... Wait, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Fanny Softness. Sophie Softness and husband Isaac had at least 12 children, some born in their native Russia, others in London: Anna, Abraham, Harry, Hyman, Fanny, Mary, Sarah, Michael, Mayer, Jacob, Algernon, Cecilia.

It has to go. I've got to offload a LOT of stuff: youtu.be/sLOnY6dT6J0 Single phase, the lathe is in very good running order. Comes with: 3 & 4-jaw chucks (with spare reverse jaws), tailstock chuck, centres & drills, face plates, spare thread cutting gears, parting tools, etc etc

My Myford ML7 is cleaned, refixed to the stand and ready for reassembling and photos. It is going to make someone very happy for another 1000 years.

No lettering, just typos. 'You Spelled It Wrong' goes meta in Mexico. Kindly shared by Breno. #lettering #mexico #humour #humor #fridayfunny

Just a thought: How about we stop shaming the poor for buying things that may not be essential, and start shaming the rich for making a profit off things that are essential?

Fucking Ada is sold. Going to a good home in Warwickshire.

As we crawl towards downsizing, I'm offloading underused equipment. Today I have mainly been stripping down and cleaning my 1954 Myford ML7. Gorgeous lathe but someone else will get more use out of ot than me.

My Birra Lambic typeface and calligraphy pages in Letter Exchange yearbook, a couple of years ago. I write with a flat brush — and actually the Birra Lambic design was based on some of my calligraphic sketches, a blend of Celtic and Italic #typedesign #calligraphy #original #font #veraevstafieva

Day 18 of 30 days of FUCK. I am crocheting a FUCK a day for 30 days and make a Throw of FUCKS. #Swearing #Crocheting #Crochet #TwinMade #Crafting

SalivaryGlandCancer.uk fundraiser time 😃 25% off everything in the shop, and I'll give a further 25% to SGCUK in your name. Starts now, ends Sunday noon. UK only, first come etc etc. www.poorfrankraw.co.uk/shop Please repost for max coverage. Thank you x

Presumably Andrew, with the help of the French, will then raise an army and march south, to be met in battle by the English army somewhere around Leeming Bar Services. As is traditional.

#OTD 1966 • Aberfan Disaster 🥀 On Friday the 21st of October 1966, a wave of coal waste slid down the Aberfan Valley, taking the lives of 116 children and 28 adults with it. #Wales #History

Another lovely thing about this stone is the subterranean carving (exposed when the stone was rest). Some gravestones do have practice carvings under the ground line (don't waste the opportunity to practice on finished stone), but the single letters/numbers may be inventory marks.

How important is lighting to photographing a gravestone? Here is the same stone at 11:55 am and 12:28 pm on the same day. Raking sunlight picks out every detail in the carving (and even the texture of the stone). grave of silversmith Timothy Dwyt [Dwight] d.1692, Granary Burying Ground, Boston

ttt — tidy-up Tuesday today t — from my Birra Lambic font fonts.adobe.com/fonts/birra #fonts #typedesign #veraevstafieva #typography

I almost never regret not having a front yard, but I do have more than a dozen of these foam gravestone signs, and need to figure out how to get them into a Halloween display. Maybe I can figure out how to attach them to my house?

Say after me, "I don't do house signs", "I don't do house signs"... OK, lovely neighbours, so just this once.

"Historians for the Right to Work: We Demand a Continuing Supply of History" Banner from a 1980 march against cruise missiles in London organized by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Production today. These colourful bits are actually left-overs from cutting — I'm preparing for my calligraphy workshop in November, cutting paper shapes on which participants will write — and I use the margins for this treats Cyrillic 'de' and 'a' from my Amalta www.myfonts.com/collections/...

I was searching for a book about lettering in wood and accidentally bumped into an interview with Martin Wenham (I also watched his lecture in June at Letter Exchange) — John Neilson talks there too (and a lady, I'm sorry I don't know her) vimeo.com/74475120?fl=...

Maybe “Be,” or not to be... Or maybe Be in Cyrillic — the first letter of my name, Vera, written as “Bepa.” Cut during a workshop with Eric Marland and Tom Perkins. The last time I posted this was just before a car crash — not repeating that, just sharing it here now.

How are these pieces of stone hung safely on a wall? Well a masonry nail in the wall takes the weight at that end. On small stones I just drill a hole in the back which hangs on the nail - bigger pieces though - ~4kg up - need a more secure fixing on the back: www.youtube.com/shorts/zcXox...