Autumn Zebra

I spent two hours in the last two days trying to buy a bra and came out with nothing. To start with I need a 16B. Less than half of styles seem to go up to a 16. Of those that do, 90% start at 16C. Then, 90% of those don't have long enough straps over the shoulders. In fact, they're also barely big enough in the band at size 16, although I normally wear size 12-14 tops. 95% of size 16 bras only come in black, white or beige, and not that much black actually either. So I found one style that came in black and white that had long enough straps and was just big enough in the band to be comfortable, but it unfortunately wasn't one of half a dozen styles that wouldn't drive me crazy in less than half an hour. If we say that a bra with the greatest amount of uncomfortable, itchy features* is at 100%, most t-shirt bras come in at about 20%. There was one really good one that probably would have been only 10% or less, but the straps over the shoulders were way too short. So the...

At the University, when they have the flu vaccinations for the staff, there is also a stall selling stuff to raise money for the University Chaplains, apparently. I spent some money. That's a a bag made in Wales, where the fabric is double woven, in that the weaving creates two joined layers of fabric; two pairs of gloves, one of leather; a leather glove case; an old pattern for a slip which is quite interesting.

At work, I decided I wanted fancy tea, so went through the building, briefly outside, and then into the organic food shop. I'm wearing my paint splatter effect tights, nearly-knee-high very expensive brown leather boots, orange dress with the purple striped top underneath, and a red and blue tartan cloak (so I figure I don't fit in anywhere). (They are my favourite clothes.) I ended up doing some very expensive grocery shopping, getting only 5 teabags as I am trying the dandelion and burdock flavour, no-salt NZ peanut butter made from Aussie peanuts, organic yellow yams (oca, from South America), organic cha soba (green tea noodles) and spicy blue-corn chips. I have some crackers at work that I might try some peanut butter on as I work late this evening. The soba luckily have a little recipe on the back for an appropriate soba sauce, which I might make, and somehow I will cook the yams and mix them with salady things I got from the Farmer's market last weekend, and that...

This is what I got this time - 10 SF books, 8 magazines, and 14 non-fiction. There's pictures of the books below the list. The best ones: "Simple Dressmaking" which is in near-perfect condition, and from what I can find on google, appears to have been published 100 years ago - pretty cool. "Smocks and Smocking" which is about smocking but specifically as derived from English smock-frocks rather than just generic smocking with no history. This is the book they couldn't find at the library when I went to get out books on smock-frocks 2-3 weeks ago, so that is an interesting coincidence don't you think? "Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire" which is a biography about the woman played by Keira Knightly in that film recently and lots of people complained that Keira is neither buxom nor sensuous enough to play such a character. David Brin's "The Postman" - I always liked the movie based on it, and David Brin is good. Others: To Your Scatte...

Near the Farmer's market on Saturday was a woman with a small stall of things apparently made by indigenous Mexican people. I think she was also Mexican herself. There were some fabrics and some jewellery, and also lots of Frida Kahlo postcards and some bags with her on (which hadn't been made by the indigenous people, she just really liked her). They also had these beaded animals where brightly coloured beads are stuck onto a wooden form. For some reason Mexican people like bright colours, whereas in NZ no one particularly likes colours at all... There were wooden turtles where the shell lifted up like a lid so you could put stuff inside and the top of the shell was beaded, which I considered getting as a present for Mum, but I thought they'd be very expensive. Instead I got the first thing I liked, which was a beaded deer, and when I said I wanted to get it, she said "Really?!" and seemed very surprised, and said NZ people didn't buy those ones usually. I th...

I went to the 24 hour (runs from noon Friday to noon Saturday) regent book sale with my Mum on Saturday, 2 hours before it ended (we seldom go at strange and interesting times), and got some books, as follows: The Weaver's Craft by LE Simpson and M Weir, 10th Edition, 1967, Hardcover. There's numerous other editions of this listed on Amazon (but not available), including a new 2008 edition which is available. My one is a nice solid book with a sewn binding (not glued). It looks good and covers different types of weaving. 50 cents Weaving as a Hobby by M Ickis, 1972, Hardcover with a proper binding again. Aren't old books nice? The pages are nice and hardy too. This one only covers weaving on a large loom. 50 cents Step-by-step Weaving by N Znamierowski, 1967, Softcover. This is mainly about weaving on a large loom again, although it talks about frame looms, and has useful stuff on different types of weaves (eg. twill, basket weave, etc) and about natural dye plants. 50 ...

A couple of years ago, I set up a search on Trade Me for the corset books that were generally regarded as pretty good, so that it would email me if someone was selling them. The likelihood that someone would first buy and then actually sell on TradeMe one of these books was low, but I was patient, and recently "Waisted Efforts" came up and I got it at a fraction of the price (like a half or a third) that it would cost to buy it from overseas, thus making it a price that I would reasonably pay for a book here if I really wanted it. Woohoo! It arrived today and it is thicker (fairly chunky), slightly bigger (about landscape A4), and a lot more readable than I thought it would be. I was sort of thinking of it more like a reference book only, but it looks like you could read through it rather than just flick to relevant pages. This is good. For some reason I thought it was written by a woman, and read through the overview and preface with this in mind, before seeing that the pref...

Random pics of things I made or liked or whatever... It seemed like a good idea to follow the inspiration in the Spotlight catalogue and make food covers out of mosquito net with fabric around the edge as a presnet for my Mum. However, I discovered I don't really understand about getting a wide fabric border around a corner, and it was a total mess and really annoying. I wanted to sew one edge on, then fold it over and sew the other edge down on the other side like you can do with bias binding (as this seemed like it would be like a giant binding, essentially), but out of 4 sewing books, only one gave instructions for this kind of thing and those instructions were more-or-less "when you reach the corner, leave enough fabric to mitre it" and then when sewing down the other side "mitre the corner" - ok, not very specific there. I had the most success folding it in half first and sewing down both edges at once, and just messing with the corners when I got to them,...

The Mill in Dunedin is selling some Polish vodka, surprisingly. It comes unflavoured, and in cherry, ginger and chocolate flavours. We got cherry and ginger ($40 each, normally $50 I think). It comes in really cool bottles, they're quite big and look like they hold a lot more than they do, because they are very tall I guess. Anyway, they look awesome, and also have indentations on each side exactly where you would hold it. presumably to make it easier to hold - good design then! The labels are cool, they're labelled as if they were elements, which you can also see on the bottles above (Im - imbirowa - ginger; Wi - wiśniowa - wild cherry). I'm not sure Gary likes the ginger one, but I thnik that's mostly because it isn't very strong flavour (which is good because strong ginger flavour can be very bad) so it tastes like... vodka, ie. like alcohol. The cherry flavour is stronger so the vodka taste is less. I think they are both fairly good, but not as good as the unfl...

I cooked an artichoke today. Unfortunately it was too old, so most of it was inedible. Stupid supermarket. They often sell things that are not really fit for sale. In some cases however, with exotic things, I suspect it is because no one has a clue what they are supposed to be like. Sometimes the staff cannot even identify them when you get to the checkout But otherwise the artichoke was good - the edible bits were nice and I understand it now so if I find more I can get them and try them. I have concluded, from my dissection of it, that it is a giant thistle head. Well, not actually a thistle I guess, but the same type of plant. Pretty cool. I am eager to get more. This is my new obsession. Today we went to the Asian food shop (like a small supermarket/large dairy) near my work. Why did I not go there before?! I love Asian food shops because they smell yummy and are filled with exciting things. I am wondering if there are any cooking classes in Asian food at the high schools that do e...

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...