Autumn Zebra

I've been too tired and busy to update my blog once a day! I'm currently trying to draft a sleeve for an Edwardian top; the sleeve will have a close-fitting undersleeve and then a top sleeve with a poufy top and close fitting below the elbow. Unfortunately the pattern instructions for a close-fitting sleeve I have ends up creating a sleeve that is far too tight at the top. I think I might actually have to make a sleeve that is BIGGER at the top than a NORMAL sleeve pattern to make a close-fitting one for me! My upper arm is too big. Here is my pattern drafting table, a hive of activity. Wine is important. Two pattern drafting books, 3 rulers and 2 triangles (not all visible), a giant roll of paper, tape measure, smaller paper, pencil case with pencils and pens, more books and papers with instructions and notes, thick cardboard to sort of "extend"the table. Out of view - calculator, folder of drafted patterns, box of small paper, paper scissors, cellotape, masking tape

Using the pattern we used in Industry Skills to make a hat I haven't shown you yet, I decided to make a paddington bear hat for my Mum. I was sure that paddington bear had a yellow hat, but when I looked it up it tended to be red. My family remembers it as yellow however, which is all that matters because it supposed to be like a paddington bear hat to Mum; other people don't matter. To my delight I found the following materials. A cotton with yellow ducks on it, and a water proof (resistant?) yellow material that I was hoping existed, and did, and wasn't that expensive. Then, here is Plucky the duck modelling the hat front and side.

I don't know if I'll have time to write anything later, but I am too tired now to do anything proper, so here is a picture of the two giant monitors I have at work. (It is like having walls, of being at the stock exchange, or something.) And the ergonomic keyboard I inherited. And the mouse which annoyingly has to have a cord because the keyboard is already wireless and the mouse that came with it is decidedly right-handed and I need to even out the pain caused by computer usage by using my mouse left-handed. Everyone else at work hates if they have to do something on my computer (like check out some Vistarism because my computer is the only one unfortunate enough to have Vista installed) because they can't use the keyboard or the mouse properly. Ha ha. The wallpaper on the monitors is some kind or massively magnified photo of some chemical crystal, but I forget what it was now.

The NYU Child Study Center in the USA ran a series of ads, briefly, fashioned as "ransom notes" from mental illnesses. The ads were pulled after numerous people complained and a petition was started to end it. The purpose was to raise awareness about childhood psychiatric illnesses, but the people who complained were adults with the illness as well as parents of children with them. This is the text of the ads: We have your son. We will make sure he will no longer be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives. This is only the beginning…Autism. We are in possession of your son. We are making him squirm and fidget until he is a detriment to himself and those around him. Ignore this and your kid will pay…ADHD We have your son. We are destroying his ability for social interaction and driving him into a life of complete isolation. It’s up to you now…Asperger’s Syndrome We have your daughter. We are forcing her to throw up after every meal she eats. It’s on

G doesn't like buying Christmas trees and stuff, and last year we didn't have one. It was very sad. So this year, we didn't go and buy one early enough, and I didn't want to wait any longer so on Tuesday evening I made one out of three small branches from a tree in the yard. It is very sad looking. It is about as high as the mantle piece. The cat was initially scared of it, but now she likes getting the decorations out of the bucket holding the tree. I need some lights for it because I love the lights. A few years ago I made something better. A wreath. I seem to be completely incapable of using any medium other than fabric for any activity, and it took me a long time to get even remotely good at that. I had tried to make wreaths out of branches, etc, but it didn't work (and the bases you can buy are ridiculously expensive) and I found inspiration and instructions for one of fabric. One doesn't really need instructions, which is good because they were either wron

I thought maybe I should do a post a day until the end of my holidays, thus catching up on all the non-posting that has been happening. I've been busy reading stuff on Live Journal (if there weren't so many talented people in the world I wouldn't have this problem) and also I have a new forum I really like that I've been posting to instead. This is what I wore to my work-do; we went to the races. I've been wanting to make a 50's dress for a while, and this seemed like a good opportunity; races are a good opportunity to dress feminine, even if it is just your average boring horse races. Obviously I needed a new thing to wear since it was an EVENT. And all EVENTS need new clothes. It's the meaning of life. Generally planning and making the clothes is more fun than the EVENT itself. First off, I drafted a new bodice pattern and made a mock-up. It worked great. I copied and modded the pattern so I could make something like a rereleased pattern I had a picture of

Do you think one could bake a cake/batch of biscuits/whatever every day for a month? The main problem, it occurred to me, is that you would have to eat a cake every day as well, which might be a bit excessive. One could bake a cake every weekend for a month, but that is only 4 times and not terribly exciting a goal. One could bake a cake every week for a year, but maybe that is too long? What about other experimental cooking; it wouldn't be good if it was neglected. It could be one of cakes/biscuits/bread/similar foods each week for a year I guess, that would be good.

I made some bread from my Moroccan cook book; this is half the recipe and you are supposed to make 3 loaves, but still they are not very big. Perhaps they eat small amounts of bread in Morocco. It worked out well though.

I'm not entirely sure about the validity of this.... :D I do believe that the happier people are the better off everyone would be - but it is true happiness, not superficial. A happy person makes others happy, behaves responsibly and helps others because they want to share. A happy person sees the pleasures of life and enjoys them consciously and mindfully. Happiness is on the approach to enlightenment. I don't think this would classify as hedonism, but my interpretation of the questions in the quiz led it to this conclusion on my beliefs. What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03) You scored as Hedonism Your life is guided by the principles of Hedonism : You believe that pleasure is a great, or the greatest, good; and you try to enjoy life’s pleasures as much as you can. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!” Hedonism 85% Existentialism 75% Utilitarianism 60% Strong Egoism 60% Kantianism 50% Nihilism 30% Apathy 30% Justice (Fairness) 15% Divine Command 0%

Here are some photos of me and G at the Oamaru Victorian fair. In my case, the bodice needs some boning which I did not have time to add before going. Doesn't my darling look lovely!! I didn't make any of his clothes. He bought the hat while we were there.

Why is it that if you have a "No junk mail" sign on your letter-box, real-estate agents feel that this does not apply to them and they can give you fliers about open homes or their business or some free booklet on how to tidy up your garden to make it more sellable? I'm thinking of collecting them all and emailing all the companies to complain. Surely it is better for them to not have to pay for pamphlets that just get thrown straight away and annoy people in the process?

This is what I was thinking about today whilst walking down the hill to work. Most of the time when I am particularly tired, but also at various other times, I will be existing pretty much inside my head, without interacting with or receiving much input from the outside world. These are a couple of examples: When I am walking to or from work, or really anywhere, I am sometimes completely unaware of my surroundings. I don't notice anything, but still get where I am going on auto-pilot. I am looking at the ground in from of my feet, but not really LOOKING because I don't notice anything that I see - I assume some part of my brain is checking for obstacles or something. My eyes aren't focused at this stage; everything is blurry. Sometimes I look around and I still am mainly in my head rather than "out there" so my eyes remain unfocused - everything is blurrier than normal and I still don't see anything any more than a cursory survey of my surroundings. Sometimes

You should go to Oamaru on Sunday between 10 and 4 so that you can go to the Victorian fete. There's food and performers and shops/stalls and people dressed in Victorian clothes. Website

I don't really have much to say ABOUT vegan* food, I just wanted to say that I had a samosa and some chocolate cake for lunch and I believe they were both vegan, and they were both VERY yummy. I don't *think* they were gluten-free as well, but they might have been. I've had a vegan gluten-free chocolate cake from this same place before, and, well, making a good one must be damn near impossible surely, but it was the best chocolate cake I've ever had. If you're in Dunedin, the place to go to get these things is Circadian Rhythm. I guess I'll tell you a bit more about them, and then tag/label this as a "review". They also do an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet of rice and 3 vegan curries and a simple salad. It's more-or-less the same each time, but there is a bit of variation between potato curries, curried brussel sprouts, curried cabbage, and chickpeas, mainly. There's always a dahl. G always gets the buffet :D My sister swears by their vegetables.

In this xkcd cartoon *, the "alt" text (mouse over to see) is so true. I bought the Kill Bill 1 CD maybe a week ago, and I have already listened to that 2 1/2 minute song about 50 times. *Of course, you should be religiously checking this website for updates in any case and thus have already seen it.

It's not finished yet.

I quite particularly like this one. I wonder what when I do it again. There were generally 2 or 3 answers to each question that seemed particularly appealing. But maybe that is to be expected if I am a CHANGELING! I always liked the stories of changelings, they are some of the best... What type of Fae are you?

Today's junk mail started: Finally you will never have a problem with your size any more. I immediately thought of short people and dwarves. I'm not convinced that's what they meant, however.

I like this error, given by Expression Blend (used to make and markup a user interface): The character "}" is unexpected at this position. It's nice and polite. It doesn't sound terribly upset about it, and it's not trying to make any trouble. It's merely letting you know that it is a little surprised about your choice of placement for this particular item. Perhaps you would like to reconsider? There is a certain hidden firmness in the question however. It is not so much a request as a delicate order. It will not compile with such unexpected positioning.

Is it part 1? Or part 2? Or 3? I can't remember if I wrote about it before. In any case, I was going to take pictures of the draping of the jacket. But, I only ended up taking two pictures, one of the back and one of the front. Draping is where you get a piece of material, and lay it over the dress dummy or whatever, and then make the pattern by drawing lines on it and cutting it where you need to to get the shape you want. Here are my pictures. I did the back first, first the centre back piece, then the one to the side of it, then the one to the side of that. With each piece, I pinned the material on and drew lines where I wanted it to stop, or where it connected to another piece, or where it would need to be cut in order to make it lie flat. The front piece came after, but I did actually then change it completely later. The black lines are the seam allowance lines, waist line, darts, and where to cut for the lower edge, the cut out front, etc. The problem is that although it may

Just because you are driving a four wheel drive doesn't mean driving one wheel up onto the pavement should be part of your parking strategy. Learning to park properly should be part of your parking strategy. Thank you.

Yes, another test, see here . My results were: Your Brain Usage Profile: Auditory : 56% Visual : 43% Left : 64% Right : 35% I might try it again a few times sometime, apparently the questions can be different, and get an average result. I have just recently had it suggested that I might be good at learning in an auditory manner, which I never considered before. Many people have a much lower auditory usage than I in this test, so it is something I should look into more. Remember to click on the link to view the summary.

I saw a sign today that went a bit like this (with actual pictures, instead of words saying there are pictures): Which do you pet, and which do you eat? [picture of cat] [picture of pig] WHY? GO VEGETARIAN and keep the spirit of Christmas alive. Does anyone get this? Not withstanding the problems with people who really like pigs, and those who are happy to eat a cat, I don't get what it's got to do with the spirit of Christmas. (Although, Jesus was Jewish, and they don't eat pork, and probably don't eat cats either, but I don't think that's what they meant.)

Please answer this question for me in the comments (which you can do by clicking at the bottom of this post on whatever it says there that has to do with comments). When you do/did exams with a length of 1.5 hours or more (eg. up to 3 hours because that's the longest I've done) with a majority of written answers, did your arm start to hurt? And if so, was it sufficient for you to leave the exam early, attempt to write with your left hand or waste time sitting there not writing in an attempt to have the pain dissipate? Something I read today made me think that perhaps this is not normal. If you answer yes, please also say whether your writing is/was considered messy or illegible (although, everyone says their writing is messy, so I'm not sure this is a useful piece of information).

There were two fish in a tank . One fish said to the other fish , "How do you drive this thing?" That is all. :D

This quiz wasn't as fun as the other one, and I'm not entirely sure I agree? You are a Spatial Thinker Spatial Thinkers: Tend to think in pictures, and can develop good mental models of the physical world. Think well in three dimensions Have a flair for working with objects Like other spatial thinkers, Leonardo had a talent for designing buildings and machinery. He also invented a new style of map making Other Spatial Thinkers include Pablo Picasso, Michelangelo, Isambard Kingdom Brunel Careers which suit Spatial Thinkers include Mechanic, Photographer, Artist, Architect, Engineer, Builder, Set designer Thinker Quiz link I shall have to think about the results of the thinker quiz and see what I think.

I think this will probably be mostly pictures of the finished item, but I shall try to write some details. Earlier in the process, I had made a black rectangle and put darts in it at the top to form the base for the bustle - the darts help make it fit better to a butt. I just did this on the dress dummy, but if you didn't have one, just chuck in the same darts as in a fitted skirt, or make it up. Then, I tried to calculate how big the stuffed channels should be which you can do by getting some material and pinning it on how you think it should go and then taking it off and measuring the material. Or you could make it up. I also wanted the material to be gathered horizontally, because this makes it curve as the gathered bit is longer than the base material it is sewn onto. I thought if it curved by itself that would be good as I wouldn't have to think about how to create a curved shape. Once again, either try some gathering or just make it up to work out how wide to make the mat

The description of the bustel I decided to make, said it had a cushion in it that could be used separately as smaller bustle pad as well. So I made a cushion. It's stuffed with scraps of material. I put buttons on the back of it, which will attach it to the main bustle and also to a waistband I made to wear it by itself, as mentioned. To make it, I had already cut a piece of material to be the base of the main bustle, and I had that pinned on the dress dummy and bascially thought, hmmm, how big should the cushion be as compared to that? The yellow bit in the next picture is the waistband with flap to attach the cushion to. This is it without the 3 buttonholes. And that's that. It actually works really really well on its own. Even though it is ugly and boring and silly to look at :(. It is bigger and better than that other white one I made ages ago and restuffed recently, so far more suitable for my existing costume. The old one would be ok however for the middle Victorian more

I wanted to make a larger bustle for Victorian dresses requiring more of a "bum". I got lots of pictures of those available from the pattern companies and a few I found on online auction websites. I am going to make a wired one at some point, but I thought it might be quicker to go with this one first: (The image is from this great page comparing the different bustle patterns from various companies .) G remarked that the bustles in general looked like caterpillars crawling over someone's bum! To me this obviously meant that I should try and make MY bustles look like caterpillars. I did a bit of caterpillar research. (Click on the image for a fascinating larger image) There were a few that I liked - well actually I liked all those pictured which is why I drew them- but I thought the easiest one that adapted best to the medium was simply the striped one in the lower left corner. I have noted there that the orange is really more yellow :). This page contains a picture of bo

I popped into a second-hand shop last week for a bit of a browse and something interesting to do, and although I was actually looking for trousers, I almost immediately found these two great items of clothing (and no trousers, although G found me some cargo pants). The first one is a bit big, but otherwise is pretty cool as it is a '60s kind of shape with interesting back shoulders and it is an awesome colour with an equally cool looking but different blue lining. The second is the exact kind of jacket I've been wanting, and in fact intending on making. In fact started making, although single-brested and a different type of material. It is the same length, has the collar points at the same height as I wanted and the same rounded lower front corner. And it fits really well. Amazing how I found the prefect jacket! I think it is a bit darker in real life. Altogether they came to $14. The first one is good because since it is big I can wear it over lots of things and over looser th

There's a shop that opened not long ago, that I can't remember what it is called now or I'd tell you. It is basically a kind of dairy/small supermarket that sells Oriental food. Mainly Korean stuff. So we went there and it was great. Here's what we bought: Kimchi, rice cakes, sweet bean steamed buns, and some snacks. We're going to go back soon and buy more and more things! I should be able to find ingredients for recipes that I haven't been able to get before. The other nice thing about this store - other than being filled with cool stuff - is that it is not a dark store with no windows (or windows covered up) in a run down building in some odd place in town like most of the other Asian food shops. No - it is bright and tidy and fairly normally situated. I was going to post a recipe, but I have been on the internet too long now and i have things to do!

For playing a certain game, Warhammer 40k , one needs terrain pieces for the little models to have to move around and shoot around and so on to make the game more enjoyable and interesting. So G made this yesterday out of some board and felt we got from Spotlight and some model trees we already had. I think it's very good. He cut the board and cut the felt and stuck them and stuck the trees one and it cost $2.50 (since we had the trees) and makes a very good piece of terrain to represent, obviously, a forest. The simple things are best.

We got a letter from the council telling us that our hedge was encroaching vegetation, and that encroaching vegetation, in general, can be a danger to pedestrians and motorists. Our hedge wasn't encroaching much. It had blocked some of the pavement in one section, but the pavement is rather narrow there in any case, and there is a metre or two of grass beside the footpath before you get to the road, so I think it was fine. This is our hedge before: And this is what G did to the cable of the hedge trimmer. Luckily, we had an outdoor surge protector thingy, otherwise bad things might have happened. His confidence was shaken initially and he wanted me to finish the hedge ;) but he went and got another cable and then resumed cutting. G did the road side, and I did the house side and most of the top:

This is pretty much my first patchwork thing. I had other stuff I was going to sew this weekend, but the container my pins are kept in is breaking, both the lid and the bottom of the plastic case, so they kept escaping. So I thought I should deal with the pins first. The centre: The whole top: The whole top backed by another piece of sturdier material, pieces edge-stitched: The back because I thought the coloured outlines looked interesting...: Close-up of edge-stitching: It all sewn up, sewn onto the bottom to make something stuffable: Stuffed and finished: Not the most exciting thing ever I know, but it is cool and functional and didn't take long and used scraps! It is stuffed mostly with that white stuffing stuff, with a few small material scraps also in there. It is bigger than most pin-cushions, but my table is busy and I would lose some of the normal sized ones. It looks better in real life, on the table in its natural environment ;)

Well, I thought this was going well, but I'm not really sure now. This is the outside layer, pieces all sewn together. Remember that there are 2 layers, each made out of two layers of fabric themselves. I can't remember if I mentioned before, but I pressed all the seams on the lining layer one way, and all those on the outer layer the other. This means that when they are sewn together down the seams then that stitching actually goes through some material and is stronger. If you press the seams out to either side like one normally does then when you sew together down the seams then you are basically just joining stitching to stitching. After sewing both layers together, I graded the seams. This means that you cut all the seam allowances of a seam back different amounts so that they are no longer all the same length (see picture). Since all the layers no longer end at the same place, they will not create such a ridge under the material. Initially, this might not make much sense -