The Thing That Goes Doink

So. For those of you who don't follow me on Twitter, here are the photos of my completed Steampunk costume:

The Back
The Front
The Side

Huzzah, I'm done. I still need order my shoes, which is probably what I'm doing tomorrow.

Since I'm going to sit down in earnest today and start sewing like a mad woman, background noise is a must. With only the lining and interfacing sewn together, I still have quite a bit of work to do. Since it's been a while since I've watched Fruits Basket, I'm going to put that in while I work. It makes for great background noise, and since I've seen it enough times that I don't need to actually watch it. Other than sewing, I really only need to poke at the dishes, make the beds (both master and guest bedrooms), and run to the bank since I got paid yesterday.

I think I'm going to finally order my shoes today, but I'm debating if I get the sevens or the eights. I suppose with the eights I can wear socks over my tights to pad around my feet or easily put inserts in that won't crowd my feet...I think the eights win. I could theoretically wear the sevens - my Doc Martens are sevens and they are by far the most comfortable shoes I own. At any rate, I'm planning on ordering my shoes from Clockwork Couture, since they have by far the most reasonable price on the shoes I want and since they're based of out California, the shipping isn't atrocious. What I'm looking forward to is telling my husband that I put another $50-$60 on the credit card. XD No doubt he'll just sigh and roll his eyes.

Anyway, I should get going. Steamcon is in mid October, but in mid-October I hope to be mostly done with the dress I'll be making for my husband's company Christmas party - though part of me kind of wants to do it off the rack this year. And while I do have a whole two months to get this dress sewn, I'd prefer to get it done sooner rather than later, as I am horrible about procrastinating.

So, with my parents all over the local (and even non-local, is some cases) news, I'm expecting some chaos tonight. Probably not helped by the fact that when I used the Captain Mal's Wisdom app on Facebook yesterday, my dear Captain said, "It never goes smooth. How come it never goes smooth?"

I really hope that it's just a fluke and not a prophecy for tonight. :/

Anyway, I really should be eating a light lunch (because dinner will be early because of what time I have to get over to my parents' house to help out tonight) but I'm not really hungry, coupled with the fact that I have no idea what I even want to eat. At any rate, I'm probably going to spend the rest of the afternoon doing some tidying up around the apartment because I'm going to invite my parents over to watch the Seahawks game tomorrow because they won't be able to really watch it tomorrow. Not that their house lacks TVs, but I just figured I'd extend the invite to come watch it in HD at my place because their usual TV (the behemoth that lives in the corner of the living room) is currently covered by Halloween decorations.

All things considered, what I should do is have a quick bite to eat, followed by doing a little cleaning (mostly picking up odds and ends from around the apartment and dusting), and then sitting down and working on the slip stitching on my dress.

Speaking of my dress, it's more or less fully constructed, with the final bit being to slip stitch the bodice lining to the rest of the dress. I finished hemming it yesterday, so aside from the slip stitching and making a few tacks to get it properly fitted (and maybe a little clean up on some of the edges and folds), I'm practically done. Because Lydia is a series of straight lines along with the spider webbing being drawn on by hand, she'll take me all of an afternoon to complete.

Of course, I also need to start thinking about NaNo - which will probably be all kinds of fantastic, as the first couple of days will be combined with sewing in some way, which may mean my first couple of days aren't very productive. It also means that the first couple of days will be spent writing on the couch when I'd rather be writing at the dining room table. Ah well, not much I can do about that until I get everything cleared off the table and that won't happen until Lydia is done. So.

High time I find some food so I can get on with the rest of what I should be doing. Even if I don't get all of the cleaning done today, I really should get as much done as possible so I don't stress myself out trying to get everything done before tomorrow's football game.

I had forgotten about how much I love Last Exile. When I finished Saiyuki RELOAD I browsed my collection to find something else to put in. I decided that it was high time for Last Exile, though that was mostly fueled by, "The show was done in 16:9. I have a 16:9 TV. The Blu-Ray player automatically up converts anything it plays to look something akin to hi-def. So that means..." *cue wide-eyed fangirl stare* "Dude, it's gonna look AWESOME."

And I was right. Last Exile in standard def is pretty freakin' amazing, but in hi-def (or up converted to high def) it's STUNNING. Breathtakingly beautiful. I plowed through all 26 episodes of the course of a few days, watching two or three DVDs in a day. The thing about Last Exile is either you love it or you hate it. The pace is on the slow side. Rather than hitting you with non-stop action or plot twists, it goes along at a more subtle pace, allowing for character development at a more natural momentum. Personally, I loved that it went a bit slower than traditional action/adventure stories. I loved the the artwork by Range Murata. I loved the music by Dolce Triade (I have both soundtracks on CD - the official US releases - if that's any testament to just how much I love it). I loved the English voice cast. I loved everything about it, so naturally I bought the DVDs.

Now that it's done I feel a little sad, and will have to pick out something else to watch. Maybe I start up Outlaw Star again, and go with something faster paced and bit raunchier.

In other news, I spent most of the afternoon fighting with the zipper, and finally managed to install it ten minutes ago. It's not pretty but it's in, meaning that tomorrow I'll finish the lining, attach the back and possibly hem it. I always save the slip stitching for last, mostly because I find it's relaxing to finish a project by sitting on the couch watching movies while I absentmindedly poke my finger numerous times. (Hopefully that is now a thing of a past because I now own a thimble. It's purple.) My major goal is to get this done before November, I've done sewing and NaNo at the same time, and while it's possible, I really don't like spreading myself thin like that.

Speaking of NaNo, I'm still working on characters. I'm going to try and pound out a few more this evening, just so that I have a completed cast list. Last year I was still working on the cast list as I started writing and I really disliked wasting time I could have spent writing on minor character profiles.

I'm raging a bit about something inconsequential, so we'll get to that in a bit.

Today was probably not my best day - I didn't want to exercise this morning. However, I did spend twenty minutes dancing around the apartment to Katy Perry and Ke$ha (my shame, I know) to the point where I'm pretty sure that if anyone had seen me, they would have thought I was having some sort of fit. Hee. So I got my heart rate up and worked my core and butt/hips/thighs, proof that I don't have to do Wii Fit Plus every morning.

Once I got that out of the way and showered, I made cookies because I had been putting them off and I don't think that my husband wanted a candy bar. So the lucky S.O.B. got fresh baked cookies before heading back to work. Once I finished baking, I had various errands to run.

Most importantly I needed my wedding band and engagement ring inspected (as per the warranty's rules), on top of desperately needing them cleaned. Since I decided to have a nice, long cleaning done, I wandered around the mall, where I picked up some scented oil from Bath and Body Works as well as checking out Barnes and Noble. Lucky me, I managed to get in and out of B&N without actually buying anything. :)

From there I stopped off at Rite-Aid to get some hair styling supplies because I have to not only get my hair done up for my husband's company Christmas party (never mind that the dress is sitting half done on the dummy at the moment, waiting for the zipper, the finishing on the bodice and a hemming) but I need to do a faux Georgian hairstyle for Saturday. I bought some flat pins, a couple of those circular tooth combs, some flat roller clips (which can be used for things like pin curls) and some small hair elastics. With the right amount of styling products and dirty hair, I should be able to come up with something.

Cue insane rage as I try to figure something out and because my hair is clean it won't hold anything, plus I'm not about to put in a ton of product to try and get something to actually work. Admittedly, I'll have to try it tomorrow night with my dirty hair and see if it holds a bit better (and I can put in a shit ton of product that will be washed out the next morning). If it's still not cooperating, I may have to have sideshow_ericka give me a hand Saturday afternoon. Or my mother. I may just go with whomever isn't busy. Anyway.

My hair isn't cooperating (it's super straight and relatively fine, which is weird because all things considered my hair is on the thick side) and it's starting to piss me off. Hence the mad rage. Also I have to figure out how one shortens a zipper and then install said zipper onto a dress without utterly fucking everything up. At times like these I wish I still lived at home and my mother could deal with them. >_<* Yes, being a grown up sucks sometimes.

I suppose I really should try and figure out what exactly is for dinner tonight. I honestly have no idea what is actually do-able, other than leftover split pea soup from last night, though given the weather that works just fine for me.

Though, my guess is a lot of you on LJ aren't set up the way that I am. Our county does the bulk of our voting via absentee ballots, so everyone in our county votes by mail. EVERYBODY. This means that if you're on top of things, you can vote by mid October and be done. Today I sat down with the voter's pamphlet and my ballot and read through various measures and initiatives and filled out the ballot as I went. Now I just need to run over to the local branch of the auditor's office and drop off the ballot in the drop box out front. I refuse to pay forty-something cents to vote. Would it kill the county to pay for the postage? (Probably, now that I think about it.)

I should probably sew some more, but part of me kind of doesn't want to. I don't know if that's procrastination due to fear of the upcoming zipper installation or a general lack of interest, but either way I look at it, I'm really not all that enthusiastic to finish this dress. Which is weird if you know anything about me and my sewing. The minute I get going, I can't stop until I'm done. I will sit and sew for hours on end finishing a project and for some reason, with this particular project, I'm more than happy to put things off. Which is very unlike me.

Maybe I'll just run out and put some gas into my car, drop of my ballot (in that order, maybe), and then run to Jo-Ann's to take advantage of the 50% off coupons I have to get the fabric for my Sunako cosplay. She's wearing a pimped out dress, which I will sort of be recreating with this pattern. As you can imagine, there is a LOT of fabric involved in this dress, and while it won't be nearly as floofy as the illustration, there will still be plenty of poof and floof to it, especially since I'll be wearing a crinoline under it. And because of the type of fabric I'll be using for the dress is on the expensive side (it's a fairly heavy weight satin), I need to take advantage of the the fact that the coupons will take half off. So yes, it'll be kind of pricey, but less so than having to pay full price for all of the fabric. It's going to be a soft blue and ivory, with minimal lace embellishments. I want the dress to be elegant in its simplicity, and there aren't a lot of lace embellishments on the dress to begin with (mainly on the sleeves).

Needless to say, this project will probably be spending quite a bit of time on the back burner before I officially get around to making it, though having a dress maker's dummy will help quite a bit.

I suppose I should get going. I'm not going to accomplish much by just sitting on my butt.

I forgot how fantastically puntastic ADV's dub of Saiyuki is. Geneon's dub of RELOAD is much closer to the original script, and in some cases the casting seems a bit...off. Not that I don't like the cast - I actually quite approve of a lot of their other roles - they're just not the ADV cast who took their characters and put their own life into them. At any rate, got through the first two discs of RELOAD today. My husband sat and watched them, much to my surprise. Anime as a general rule isn't his thing, so I rather enjoy it when he sits down and watches my shows with me. :)

As to the dress, the bodice is half way constructed and I officially started on the skirt. Of course, as I was making marks on the fabric for construction purposes, the pencil lead broke and I couldn't find my sharpener. After turning the guest room inside out I decided that I would just have to go and buy another. Since I was going out, I found a black dress for Lydia, spray in black hair dye for Lydia and Sheena, red and black eyeshadow for Wrath (the black eye shadow will also serve as eyebrow coloring for Sheena and Lydia), and false eye-lashes. Mostly so my eyelashes show up in photos for Sheena and Lydia, but I'll probably end up wearing them for the Christmas party. If I have them, might as well use them. ^_^

When I got home I decided that I would put the newly acquired pencil sharpener in the all purpose art drawer in a set of storage containers that live in the guest room closet. Which is when I found the missing sharpener sitting right next to my jewelry box.

Head, meet wall.

But I've decided that this isn't totally for bust. I'm going to put the spare sharpener into my sewing basked so I can always sharpen my fabric pencils when need-be.

Anyway, I should figure out what I want for dinner tonight. Part of me is feeling really lazy and thinking that leftovers are in order.

So. Today I watched more of Saiyuki pausing occasionally to check in on the rescue operation of the Chilean miners. I'm happy and relieved that all of the miners have been rescued and that for all intents and purposes, they are doing well as can be expected.

While this was going on, I was sewing the underlining to the main fabric of the dress. Tomorrow I'll start the actual construction on the bodice and if all goes well, quite possibly the skirt. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to get done - the rouching on the bodice might take a bit more time than I'm anticipating, so we'll see. I may only get the bodice done tomorrow, leaving me to do the skirt on Friday. I probably won't work on it over the weekend only because I've already got plans and I'd also like to be able to watch the football game without worrying about trying to get my sewing done.

And also, at some point this week, I need to get Lydia sewn. I may try and get that done between the bodice and the skirt. It shouldn't take too long to get the poncho sewn, and then I'll just use my fabric markers to draw on the spider web design. I had thought about getting my husband a Beetlejuice costume to match me, but I've realized that trying to get him dress up for any occasion is like pulling teeth. I've decided that it's not worth it to fight him on it, so he won't be dressing up. Further more, I have to try and figure out if I'll be matching my parent's house, as they want to run the haunted house for two nights, using it as a food drive - first night for sure, and possibly the second night as well. If that's the case, I may use the Duchess and do up my hair in a semi-period style and help out on the first night. But the second night will be in Sheena. I didn't spend two weeks getting that costume just the way I wanted it (though I need to starch the crap out of the bow to get it to proper stiffness) not to wear it for Halloween.

At any rate, I should probably get going to bed. I hope I can get an early-ish start tomorrow morning. Not that I want to set a speed record on this dress (which usually leads to shoddy construction), but I'd like to get it done in the least amount of time possible.

And with that, g'night y'all.

So the fabric for the dress is now cut out, leaving just the lining and underlining for tomorrow. Hopefully that won't take me too terribly long and if I'm lucky, I might even be able to start sewing tomorrow. However, if I don't get the chance, I'll just start sewing on Wednesday. Once the dress is finished I'll move on to Lydia's cape. I've decided that I need to find a black tunic of some kind to wear under the cape. I also need to order the Beetlejuice costume and mask for my husband. As I've said before, I have enough on my plate without making that particular costume, so I'm going for lazy and will be buying it. I've looked on various costume websites and I can possibly get both the costume and the mask for less than 50 bucks. Works for me.

In other news, I'm seeing a lot of buzz about the Supernatural animation. I don't actually watch the show, but I'm familiar with Studio Madhouse's work, as well as with a good chunk of the cast. Also, Raven, I'm going to screw with your head a bit and inform you that Sam's Japanese voice actor is the same guy who does Dr. Franken Stein in Soul Eater. You're welcome. Have fun trying to shake that image from your brain while listening to Sam talk. The main cast (Sam, Dean, Mary and John) is pretty solid, and I'm sure they'll round out the secondary and tertiary characters with some other fairly well known names. Well, well known if you watch copious amounts of anime. (Like me. Hi, guilty as charged. Just look at my icon for cryin' out loud.)

Third, I have no idea what to do for dinner. The plausible options are still way too frozen to be cooked, leading me to believe that I should just settle for "whatever" I can find. We've got a few options, but they're not really all that appetizing right now. Hmmm.

Finally, there's this:



Yes, that is Grover. Yes, he is parodying the Old Spice Guy. Yes, it is awesome, why do you ask.

I exercised for fifteen minutes today. Which is better than the zero I was thinking about when I got up. (This is what I get for going through my hard-drive to weed out unnecessary files until one am.) After spending a couple of days not losing any weight, I've started a slow crawl towards my goal. So either I was eating a shit-ton of junk over the last couple of weeks, or my body has decided that it's going to plateau early. I shouldn't hit my plateau for another month, thank you very much! As it stands, it'll probably be another month before I really start seeing results, though I have noticed that my pants are feeling a little loose.

The oven is now all clean, thanks to nearly five hours at nearly 900 degree heat. There's a little bit of ash at the bottom that I need to wipe up, but that should take all of two minutes. I also still need to do all of the usual cleaning, but aside from that, things are pretty laid back today. I'm planning on going and buying my fabric today so I can start on the Christmas party dress next week. I'm serious when I say that I will not be sewing during NaNo. I got the pattern cut out while the oven was doing it's thing (and watching discs two and three of Saiyuki), so now all I need is the fabric.

Now that it's fall here, I've started the tedious switch out. The bulk of my tee shirts have been moved into storage while the long sleeved shirts have moved into the bedroom dresser. I've long since moved all of my capris into storage and the bulk of my jeans are also now in the dresser. I'll probably move the lighter fabric pants as well, and just keep the jeans for the winter. Any idiot to says that living in a desert doesn't get cold has obviously never been to a desert in the middle of winter. We get cold. Really cold. Most of the time without snow.

Anyway, I should get going, even if my body is telling me to flop on the couch and stay there the rest of the day. Memo to self, go to bed directly after the season finale of Haven tonight.