Wanderlust

I listened through Aether Shanties and got hit with an inspiration-spaz partway through wanderlust and turned out a painting in the following two days!

Ta-daa!

(click for bigness)

The painting is in watercolor and acrylic (and crayon). The universe bubbles are in acrylic to make them hyper-real, unlike the real world, which is in watercolor. Yes, the foreground is a basketweave. You can figure out the symbolism yourself.

The painting is also only tangentially related to the song, due to a misunderstanding of the lyrics. oops.

Spats

They make me feel spiffy.

I came up with the idea, totally, and then checked the way to do it against the threadbanger guys (link at bottom)- and I was right!

What I made:

My thought process:

• I need to get these beige pants off my desk. I want spats. This seems like a good match.
• pattern? nah. I’ll just make stuff up!
• but if I mess up, I can’t just cut a new piece to fix it…
• pattern it is. Has anyone made one that I can steal?
• threadbangers
• cut up old tee-shirt to make pattern.1. Pattern.1 is held together with masking tape and has none of the divisions between parts in the right spots.
• make pattern.1 flat by cutting down the front and back and side where the buttons go and tracing it onto paper to make pattern.2
• add seam allowance and spaces to sew buttons on to pattern.2.
• figure out where the patterns fit on the pants (and take out the seams on the pants for seam allowance sharing. That’s how close it was…)
• cut, stitch together.
• find buttons, create buttonholes in outside piece, sew buttons on underside piece.
• discover that they’re too big because of liberties taken in the patternmaking and sewing process and fix that

A note on stitching- It is a good idea if you hem(get the raw edge of the fabric turned under and inside a seam) these, especially if you are using a fabric that sheds a lot. I didn’t and my universe is full of beige corduroy fluffies. Sigh. Also, stitch the pieces together, then do the button flaps, then do the top and bottom hems.

There is a strap that goes under the arch of the boot. Because I didn’t account for that in my patterns and plans, I have a rather embarrassing piece of yarn and a safety pin.

I have just enough fabric left to make matching gloves, so that’s my next step. Then I might work on a skirt I bought fabric for last winter… DO EVERYTHING ELSE LIKE SRSLY

This post moved up from three weeks from now to nao because fern is awesome and asked pretty. Hi fern!

Fern~

Here are all the patterns and stuff. I don’t know how useful they’ll be, though.

The three patterns together. The middle one goes on the inside of your right leg, the other two on the outside of the same leg. The ruler is a standard 1ft/30cm with HOLOGRAPHIC DINOSAURS. (It is the best ruler ever)

The button side ones. The strips down the middle get folded under and sewn down.

and the button side patterns with the button side of the spat to maybe make it a little clearer.

Threadbangers: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfxGVQ3WpSc

PocketWatch

I’ve had a fully mechanical pocket watch for several months. I got it at the Stormville Flea Market back in August when Kelly hauled us all out there because I had never been. I know nothing about it, not even how often I should wind it.

Everyone loves my pocketwatch. My father thinks it’s ugly. I don’t care.

It makes me philosophical when I can hear it ticking- twice a second, 120 times a minute. It’s made me hyper aware of how time passes, how fast it passes, how much time I’ve wasted. It’s depressing.

It’s exhilarating. The swirls on the case have taken me on adventures to far away places, other times without limit or continuity, places without constant time even as the second hand moves relentlessly onward. It’s beautiful.

It’s terrifying.

It’s the best motivator I have. There is nothing like being able to hear each wasted second disappearing. There is nothing like being able to hear my life wasting, falling away, unable to be recovered.

Pictures!

Video Link Dump

Since I haven’t done anything cool recently, you get a bunch of stuff that may or may not be video related  that I found in my browser (because I need a place to stash stuff yes I do)!

…Stuff I Can’t Do On My Bike…

wouldn’t it be fun do do that?

This I got from Elric. Both There She Is and Elric are pretty awesome. I highly recommend watching all of There She Is because it is very touching.

I had a Really Awesome Video courtesy of Abney Park, but between the time I found it and the time I got around to posting this, the link died. That means I’ll actually have to make a full length post about the thing in the video while Making Stuff Up when I start finishing the project instead of having a picture of the thing I’m making. I can be more vague if I try.

I really want one of <a href=”http://www.sciplus.com/singleItem.cfm/terms/15761″these</a> because the basement doesn’t have one. frealz.

Things I do when I have hw to do: watch http://live.lmgtfy.com/ Today, about 10 iterations of Jose Miguel Steigmeier ( http://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=Jose+Miguel+Steigmeier ) went by. Nevermind, make that like >20 because his name is *still* going by and I am …still… …writing… ….this… …sentence…