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November 12th, 2009

05:31 pm - Augh! So, when I moved into this apartment, I carefully stored my matboard and cutter in my closet, behind my dresser trunk and everything else. I put the cutting heads into a bag with their blades, so they wouldn't get lost. I currently haven't the faintest idea where that bag is. I've been searching for it all day, and have been through pretty much all parts of the apartment. Without packing up, I'm not sure I can find them. This causes some real problems for doing a show tomorrow. After all, as much as I hate mat cutting, it's a world less expensive than buying precuts. And most of the pieces I wanted to take aren't standard, either. Even the standard ones want a margin just a tiny bit smaller than the one on a standard mat. There's a Dick Blick five miles from the con, which could provide precuts, but it'd be expensive and the end result would be suboptimal. Argh! I am trying to decide what to do, now. I may give one more search for the heads, though the only place I can think to look involves moving furniture and a lot of other things. I may be stuck taking old art, which is disappointing. I can see huge numbers of things wrong with all my older pieces, and the brain monkeys are convinced that no one will want to buy them. After all, they've been passed up for this long, no? samadi brought me chocolate, which makes her a goddess. I'm also trying to figure out what I'm going to wear. I could go in everyday stuff, but that's kinda dull, though brightly colored. This is an excuse to wear my victoriana, after all. If only it didn't take so much effort. Geh. - Also, I'm unlikely to be able to finish the Pygmalion. If I'd been able to find the mat cutter and cut everything while there was still daylight, yeah, I probably could have speed painted until I fell over. But there's another big shiny thing what won't be going. I spose I could take it and work on it there. However, it's big and has boobies, and the con crowd, like the SCA, has recently gotten much more "Think of the children!" Current Mood: frustrated Current Music: Gorathorn - Der Ietzte Ritt der Rohirrim Tags: angst: specific, art, conventions, frustration, steampunk

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November 11th, 2009

10:34 pm - Art and mood charting Working on a piece that's a little too hard for me again. We'll see if I can accomplish what I'd like, or if I mess it up halfway through. It's like juggling rats. So far, so good, but they're so -squirmy-! And I know I'm going to drop one any minute now. Sleep schedule is rotating back - I'm going to bed anywhere between 9 and 11 most nights, though I was up till 11:30 last night. This seems absurdly early, but it's enabling wakeup times around 8 to 8:30, so it's worth it. The extra sunlight is making a difference. Of course, after dark I'm prone to lunatic beliefs, severe self doubt and big, dramatic cases of the hacks. So far I've not done too much that I oughtn't. Tonight hasn't been bad. I'm trying to get this painting done before the con, and I had a brief manic period that allowed for a lot of painting. Perhaps I must simply keep myself busy. Having time to kill seems to be a real problem. Must do laundry before the con and hopefully tidy a bit. Housework has been terrible, and I've been eating so much boxed stuff. There's breakfast cereal in my house now. How bizarre is that? Daily monitoring is now required to make sure I eat a non-starchy, non-allium vegetable instead of living on shredded wheat, bagels and potatoes with egg. Caffeine intake is unnecessarily high. But - writing work is getting done and I've done more art in the past month and a half than I did in most of the previous year, so it's not entirely a loss. Progress art up on the other journal again. Current Mood: drained Current Music: Corvus Corax - Fortuna Tags: angst: general, angst: specific, art, depression charting, one foot in front of the other

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November 6th, 2009

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October 27th, 2009

10:03 pm - For Posterity Depression charting under cut. ( Read more... ) Current Mood: blah Current Music: Abney Park - Child King Tags: angst: general, angst: specific, art, depression charting

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October 26th, 2009

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October 23rd, 2009

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October 20th, 2009

01:12 pm - Today is A Very Hard Day I wasn't going to write about it, but then I remember that depression charting remains a priority. I'm moving slowly, doing that edge of tears thing, and having a lot of motivation troubles. I'm stressed out because of various personal stuff and the fact that I haven't gotten my apartment clean yet, BUT that wouldn't be bothering me nearly as much if I weren't wonky today. Hopefully this nasty phase will cease soon, because all I really want to do is crawl into a hole with something passive (book, video game, etc) and not come out. At least I'm getting through the work, albeit slowly. I have to call a client soon, however, and that's stressing me out a lot. I hate telephones so much. Current Mood: anxious Tags: angst: general, angst: specific, depression charting

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October 18th, 2009

12:29 pm - Griffin's Needle Aftermath Oh, we are not eighteen anymore. Five of us (myself, samadi, jmpierce, ladydrake and her boyfriend Cris, who does not have an lj to the best of my knowledge) all went to Griffin's Needle this weekend. This is a costuming deathmarch SCA event about an hour and a half away. Sewing started at 10 pm Friday night, and stopped at 6 pm Saturday evening. The goal is to make a whole outfit from the skin out (underwear on out) in this time period. We decided to make some garb for me. I feel a little guilty about this, because I got a lot of stuff out of it, but no one else wanted to have it made for them. We could just as easily have made ladydrake's purple and green Florentine, for instance. But anyhow - the goal was a full early 16th century German woman's costume, tradesman class, from the Augsburg area. We were not a total success. There are issues with the bodice pattern, and we had to get really creative with piecing because my fabric shrank more than it should have. There was enough to get the job done, if I had not borked the patterning. Let this be said: you should not make your test dress in linen/rayon if the finished pieces are going to be in light wool and very firm silk twill. There will need to be some interesting re-piecing to get the shoulders and arms of the overdress to work, and I'm not totally happy with the undergown, either. This is no one's fault but mine, however. I did the patterning and cutting. Everyone else did lots and lots of hand stitching, and their work is beautiful. It's just that the result isn't quite the shape I expected it to be. The accessories (linen stockings, hemd, and wulsthaube) are beautiful. When I regain my brains, I hope to take photos of them. I was worried about my documentation, because I don't know how to write it. I took the approach of treating it like a paper from school, which left me feeling like it wasn't terribly good, since my logic isn't spelled out as clearly as it should be and could be questioned as faulty, my citations are a little schizophrenic, and I made some blanket assertions I didn't back up with a cite. Apparently, I should not have been worried. We entered as intermediate or advanced, were placed in advanced by the person running the event, and all three of our judges told us that we entered the wrong category and should have entered as Pyxis (an authenticity-oriented category that discourages sewing machines and modern shortcuts.) Also, I have been requested to send copies of the documentation to two of them. I'll probably clean it up before it goes out - some parts of it were written the day before the event, and I'm really rather embarrassed by those. Perhaps I will be able to clean it up enough to web it? I feel a little weird about that, because most of it's not original work - it's heavily based on things I've read online on others' websites and journals, and on the German Ren group, but I can't remember who said what. I don't want to look like I'm taking credit! The rules weren't too clear, so it looked like people in that category were required to make all accessories, including footwear, and we have no leatherworkers, so it seemed inappropriate. This was apparently incorrect. The point is moot, beacuse I've inadvertantly exhausted all my friends, so we shan't be back (I'd be willing to go again, perhaps in several years, but this is not really a "do it alone" event. I don't sew -that- fast!) So yeah, mixed feelings in the end. I had a good time. Everyone with me was really good. The reaction to our efforts was strongly approving. But I feel like I really fell short and messed up in a lot of places that I should not have. All the mistakes can be fixed (to one degree or another) but they should not have been made in the first place, were I competent. No pictures were taken - we were too busy and distracted. If any appear online later (there was an official photographer, but our end result wasn't all that impressive, so it probably didn't get photoed) I'll link them. Also, I really wish that costuming events didn't require improv presentations. I'm a competent seamstress, but I never want to enter anything I make in a con show (and this event was problematic at the end, too) because they make you give a speech and be an actor to boot. samadi and ladydrake were really the only thing that saved me. Today, I will not get much done, though I do need to put some attention to the cleaning of the apartment, since it's trashed. I may spend most of the day poking my new nonfunctional tiredness. So far we've discovered that while I'm well-slept, interesting parts of me hurt, I'm still subject to mood swings (sorry about last night, guys - but it's not like I was the only one who was frustrated, confused, and hair-trigger) and my motivation is made of slowness. Let's see what new damage sleep dep hath caused! If I am very good, I will start on some art in prep for Windycon. Since my monitor went kerput, art has mostly fallen by the wayside (I was being lazy and doing all my practice onscreen). I must try to get going again, so that I can be like a real person. Of course, if I'm working on convention art, I'll still be shirking my sketchbook. I now have a 23" Samsung. It is a widescreen, which makes me feel like I've been cheated of the top quarter of my monitor, but it is at least almost as tall as the old one. No more turning on the computer and hoping that you get more than a blinky flicker. Eventually, I may reply to all the emails I've been ignoring. I've been a very poor correspondent. Ok, time to get off this before I go back into wondering why I have hobbies in the first place. That goes nowhere good. I should work up some clockwork animals, instead. Current Mood: all of them Current Music: hum of refrigerator and grinding of rats Tags: angst: specific, costuming, doing things the hard way, sca

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October 1st, 2009

08:23 pm - Argh! Shiny new monitor arrived. It is huge. It tries to eat me. It also has a full line of dead pixels down the right side of the screen. So, back it must go. The old one has been more cooperative of late, returning to its usual five or so tries to get it to stay on, instead of sitting there and blinking at me. *grump* Current Mood: irritated Current Music: rain, computer fan, rats chewing Tags: angst: specific, traitorous machines

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September 17th, 2009

10:03 pm - I finished something and I don't completely hate it Theoretically I ought to upload this to the other journal, but I'm feeling lazy. This is the first thing I've managed to get far enough to finish in a long time. Paint Tool Sai, using the limited palette I posted a few days ago. Background toned with yellow ochre. Linework in red ochre and lead white. Time to finish - 2ish hours? ( Random 16th cen style 'chalk' drawing ) Current Mood: anxious Current Music: Steeleye Span - Child Owlet Tags: angst: specific, art, one foot in front of the other

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September 1st, 2009

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August 2nd, 2009

11:41 pm - MIscellaney Today I made a skirt from start to finish - about four yards of eggplant linen, nearly a full circle. This was possible only by dint of using my machine on the long seams. I feel rather as though this is cheating, but on the other hand - skirt! Still 200+" of hemming, plus pleating, buttons and buttonholes, etc. Fingers are sore now. It's mostly for day to day use, but will made a decent underskirt for event wear as well. More skirts is always better, after all. I've been doing too little, otherwise. Apartment is tornadoed and some tolerable art remains unfinished (I am still not at a point where I can like anything I make, but at least finishing it would be wise). Was doing okay, but someone important to me has recently been a bit of an ass in a way that remains unresolved, so that's pretty much torpedoed the productivity. Cryptic Grace is cryptic. I've been reading a lot of books, so as to pretend everything is ok. Finished the Gormenghast trilogy tonight. I'd heretofore only ever read the first book. The second is equally impenetrable, and the third is outright surrealism, with minimal continuity (Titus is in it, and some things happen to him. The significance of these things is anybody's guess.) Also read Inventing the Victorians, which is lovely (telegraph spam!) and have been craving some of barbara_hambly's older stuff (the Antryg stuff and the Sun Wolf books are both childhood favorites). Of course, I have exactly two books of this, and neither are in the same series. I used to have more, but a move ate them sometime along the way. There may need to be a bookstore trip. The CSA has finally begun to get going, though it seems to be a bad year or a less generous farm. I remember being buried alive in green beans by this time last year, and the spoils just aren't as good, even if last Friday did yield a mighty borscht. Also, I need to give in and eat some more salad before the lettuce colonizes my refrigerator. Broke down a couple of weeks back and bought some regular yeast for days when I feel lazy or haven't planned properly. Bread in a mere two hours seems almost like cheating now. Haven't managed to put the rest of the stripes on the Bumblebee Dress. I need to dig out the yellow linen again, and I'm not sure where I put it, or the remainder of my giant Ebay thread collection. There are far too many projects in progress! I've figured out how to get more wear out of my combat boots, as well. I wear them all crooked, and cutting them even again with my coping saw takes a long time, but it keeps me from turning my ankles. Must make more things before the summer is out. Winter will turn me into a ball of useless once more, and I want to have gotten enough done before it comes. Argh! Current Mood: quixotic Current Music: Jethro Tull - A Christmas Song Tags: angst: specific, art, books, costuming, frustration, labor saving inventions of the 19th cent, sewing

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April 16th, 2009

01:06 pm - Doing a bit better today It's warm and sunny and I can have the windows open. Art angst has subsided to some degree, and I even managed to do a bit of linework last night. Not going to push it, though. Had a long, long talk with Nghi about what to do on the art front, since things feel so dry. May go back and update some old good ideas with a better skill level. Feels like cheating, but it's at least a contribution to all those bad lines I need to draw before I get to the good ones. Trying to figure out what I like anymore, instead of asking if it's marketable. I have mostly forgotten. Have dropped two of those pesky winter pounds. Remains to see if the rest can be invited to leave, or if they'll stay like uninvited guests. Will have to take all the corsets in again regardless, due to shape changes. There is much to do and little time, and I'd rather be sewing, but rent still needs paid, so I'm off to write some more pizza recipes for other people's websites. Current Mood: hyper Current Music: a lot of Bad Religion Tags: angst: specific, art

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December 19th, 2008

09:26 pm - An Adventure! So, last night it snowed a foot, all at once. I carefully moved my car to the place I thought was the right one, so as to avoid a ticket. Guess what was the wrong choice! So, today I was well plowed in, with probably 4-6 inches still on the road, and a ticket in my car. I also owned no snow shovel. Thankfully, samadi and space_geek_ken were on hand, and were willing to help me dig out. We initially began this project with two cookie sheets and a dustpan, but my building manager was kind enough to loan us 1.5 snowshovels (one was cracked), and not to laugh at us. Eventually, we dug out of the snow bank and got onto the road, but all parking places were taken by then, except the ones we needed to shovel into, and rush hour was on. After much circling, getting slightly stuck, skidding and so forth, we decided that we needed to go buy a shovel for the car and some kitty litter. We went off to walmart, discovered they had naught, and picked up a very small snow shovel (probably for kids) and the litter at Big Lots, instead, since people apparently hadn't managed to raid there yet. Then there was a glorious stuffing of selves and Baker's Square, and the dreaded return. Upon which, we found that the parking space I'd carefully moved out of last night was vacant, and that the car fit nicely. The end. I don't want to go on any more adventures. Also, we are looking into short term garage storage for the car during the wintery apocalypse. Current Mood: cold Current Music: the tappittytap of other writers in my apartment, plus a faulty computer fan Tags: angst: specific, apocalypse, fimbulvinter, traitorous machines, weather

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November 30th, 2008

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October 20th, 2008

07:09 pm - Familial Visit Went back to WV this past weekend, as my brother had some spare miles from his previous job (in which he had to fly to Tampa once a week) and they were going to expire. ( Read more... ) Current Mood: lonely Current Music: Depeche Mode - Black Celebration [Australian Bonus Tracks] - Dressed in Black Tags: angst: specific, lonely, milwaukee, sewing

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October 5th, 2008

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July 21st, 2008

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May 29th, 2008

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April 6th, 2008

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