Where the %^&*^$ did Monday Monday go?

I finally started binge listening to the Blackstar album by David Bowie so "Girl Loves Me" has been circling around my head for days (hence the title).

Busy season at my job has hit in spades so I plan to spend a bit more time relaxing and a bit less blogging about what I'm doing to relax, but I will try not to forget about you all.

Lets see,

Dracula in Real Time is rolling and we're only about a week in so if you're interested now is the time to get into it. There are, as previously mentioned, fully automated Twitter and Facebook pages.

I'm doing a daily pic project on my Instagram called #365Halloween
It is a pic a day series focused on all of the Halloween things which flavor my personal environment.

On a related note I got a new vanity license plate. I wont be sharing it here because that seems dumb, but I will say it's fairly ridiculous and Halloween themed.

I'm merrily chugging along on my current cross stitch piece - HAED's Garden of Delight by William Morris. I found one thankfully small mistake (look for the small spray of pink spots shown on the left but not on the right) and figured out a small tweak to parking method which has made a big difference in how easy it is for me to keep track of my stitches.

After some discussion I think I will be making my own "how to park" post but that will take some real work as I will have to mock up a piece to use as an example since it kind of necessitates showing your pattern and that ain't strictly legal when its a paid pattern.

Heaven And Earth Designs "Zen" Countess and threader set

I've also started using stitch marking pins and am waiting for a really nice set from HAED to arrive (seriously, I've been eyeing them for months and there was a really good sale).

Oh! I also made Q snap grime guards! I took a bunch of pics during the construction process so that will be its own post as well. I already replaced the elastic on the smaller one and will be doing so on the larger as the elastic I had in there was really kind of sprung and it doesn't have the right tension to it. Matching project bags are in the planning stages.

Throwback Thursday - Ootini! Part one of two

Way back in the olden days of Livejournal I had a craft-specific feed under the name Carapax.

I stopped updating that feed in 2010 but it's still there and there are a lot of projects and ideas which I'd like to have handy so I'm going to start reposting them here. Subjects range from historical recreation, to brewing, to cosplay, to interior design crafting.

Posts will be generally left as they were written, though I will likely combine and condense certain things. Unfortunately even in this first post there were links which no longer work - but I have tested and replaced all of them so any links here are functional.

I'm starting with one of my very favourite projects to date - my Jawa costume.

Yes, this is a self portrait.

References:

-td8733 was the primary source I used. Great ideas and closeups of what they did, coupled with plenty of production stills from ANH.

• I have provided a link to the wayback machine snapshot instead of the real page because sadly this page is now SEVERELY broken.

-tk1336.com Site primarily for making a Jawa manikin, most useful for closeups of weapons and accessories (I didnt bother with weapons since they are such an issue at conventions).
-partsofsw.com  Useful for details on the bandoliers and various widgets.
-tk409.com Multiple useful links about halfway down right side of page. Primarily used for hood diagram.
-databank.501st.com: Jawa Just ta - Costume standards for the 501st Jawas
-starwars.wikia.com: Jawa The Wookieepedia entry on the Jawa

Primary Materials:
Two  Brinkmann GO-LED Waterproof LED Mini Lights
Appropriate yardage of a med weight dark brown roughwoven textured fabric - In my case 4 yds of a poly cotton blend
2 amber coloured decorative glass stones (the kind used both for filling vases and as Magic Card markers)
Plastic Craft Mask
About a yard all told of a black, light absorbing fabric (such as velvet) to cover mask and line hood (from stash)
Dark brown or black cotton jersey work gloves 
Amber coloured transparent glass paint
Two heavy duty cable/zip ties to hold the hood open. A package from Home Despot or Lowes is relatively inexpensive and infinitely handy for costume and home uses so I always keep them around. (in stash)
A few inches of black rubber shelf liner for eye camouflage. You want the stuff that looks all nubbly like rubber droplets sprayed onto a rubbery mesh. (super cheap by the roll from most S-Mart type stores)

Materials and tools I found helpful:
hot glue gun
black paint
sewing machine
serger
matching brown thread
a few inches black ribbon
pliers to break apart light casings
wire
elastic
exacto knife
pin vise with small drill bit
duct tape (of course)

The Robe:
My extensive "historical recreation" T-Tunic experience saved the day here.

There are two typical ways to do T-Tunics, one is the way recommended in the TK409 diagram which I disliked for my purposes because since I had fairly wide fabric that would have meant cutting the entire length of the fabric to the appropriate body width. This also involves cutting and attaching the arms separately. If you have narrower fabric or require more fullness in the robe this might be better, but for my circumstances it was not the way to fly. Finally it was unclear who this diagram was supposed to fit so the measurements were mostly useless.

I made the arms straight (not angel winged) and I pretty much just traced around a T-Tunic I use for Pennsic which still seemed to have about the right amount of fullness over a sweatshirt (which I knew I was going to want for warmth). Looking at the movie stills from td8733 it seemed that the sleeves were straight and very deep (the "armpit" is clearly nearly at the waist of the actors) so I made the sleeve extend down about 12" from the shoulder seam.
Here is the robe I did folded in half and laid out (as it would be to cut the fabric) and here is a closeup of the same with a tape measure over it. For size reference that was well enough fullness to comfortably accommodate a 34" chest measurement plus a rather bulky sweatshirt.

Here is a pretty good description of how to do this sort of T-Tunic though you'll want a lot more fullness in the body, though I used the sort of angle-y side hem I just left the bottom straight like the second diagram (IE I did not curve it to account for the side length as the robe is supposed to be puddly and draggy).

Robe construction was done entirely with a Serger due to time constraints (and having gotten a new sewing machine which is complicated enough to actually freak me out a bit). Arm edges and bottom hem was left unfinished to hopefully develop the desired ragged appearance over time. Because the fabric was not wide enough to make sleeves which extended to pretty much cover my hands with my arms down I ended up having to extend both sleeves by about 8 inches at the forearm (which I can detail if requested but I don't see much utility in it here).
I did not bother with the split down the center front of the robe as it seemed pretty superfluous to the appearance of the design and would have added several more seams and closures to worry about.

The Hood:
I made the hood pretty much exactly as diagrammed at tk409, however I used a slightly wider piece of fabric (I just used the full width of the fabric so the folded length was probably closer to 25" then 20).
I originally did not line the hood and used bias tape to hem the hood and make a channel for the zip ties I used to hold the hood open, but I quickly realized that it did not have enough weight to it and that the inside of the hood needs to be black for the mask to blend in.
I ended up top-stitching a roughly 8 inch wide piece of stretch velvet just to the inside of the hood edge (this is same fabric I used to cover the mask) and tacking down the other edge a couple of places (I did not want an obvious line of stitching right in the middle of the hood body). Here is a pic of the hood laid out inside out as flat as possible, and here it is from the side on my lovely dress dummy+octopus model.
The bottom edge of the hood was selvage and did not require finishing.

The closure of the hood was a small snap but it was mildly annoying to have so light a closure as it came open while I was adjusting it a few times so I believe I ended up adding a small hook in the long run.
The stiffener to keep the hood open was simply two long cable ties with the closure ends cut off which I duct taped together in the middle to make one long (approx 26 inch) stiffener. I located the middle of the hood and stitched a channel on each side wide enough to insert the cable, but left the center open. I slid the cable in from the center and got it completely centered on the hood and then stitched the channels closed right at the ends of the ties so that the ties could not shift around.

My lovely assistant.

Next up: the Mask!

Monday Monday Part 5 - A New Beginning

The Friday the 13th reference is apropos of absolutely nothing, that's just where my brain went this morning.

Not as much to report this week as I would like.

Tuesday night was game night, so unless you have interest in my very bare surface understanding of the Dungeons & Dragons 5e system there's not much to go into there.

Lvl 2 Goliath Barbarian, in case you are wondering

Wednesday was colour session one on my Halloween inspired bat sleeve with John Lally at Masquerade Tattoo. It was a bit gruelling but so cool to watch the piece start coming to life bit by bit.

At our first break I texted this pic to my husband and it was the first time I had gotten to see it from the "proper" angle. What looked like some nifty shading from my perspective practically jumps off my arm in 3D from the right side up. There is, not incidentally, an entire BACK of my arm to this project as well.

Interesting note; I am apparently more upset about the movie Prometheus than I am about someone repeatedly and painfully injecting ink into my arm over the course of several hours. Anyone who feels like having a captive audience to talk about horror hit me up for when my next appointment is scheduled.

I'm not entirely joking. It really helps.

Thursday I got to hang out with the family, my Mom is doing better every day and seeing my brother is always a pleasure.

Friday was kind of a crappy day at work so when I got home I buried myself in TV and crafting. My husband eventually went out to a local music show leaving me to my own devices.

These devices apparently didn't involve hitting the bathroom until about 8:30... which is when I found this Limecrime lipstick I've been eyeing for months casually taped to the mirror! Because my husband is the ginchiest I now have Velvetine lipsticks in Beet It, Utopia (the color I wore for my wedding), and Pansy. I just realized all three of these colours are LEs, woo!

I will probably continue eyeing Red Velvet and Wicked (both reds) for some time to come. My current go-to red is NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in Monte Carlo. Not that I have any lack of red lipsticks but when you got one that really works it can be hard to commit to an untried product for a night out.

Craft wise I switched up working on the Blackwork piece to get some work done on Shades of Red. So far everything in this piece has been a study in extremes. Huge blocks of slightly mind numbing unrelenting black background or incredibly fussy "confetti" stitching of no more than three stitches of one colour at a time. Thankfully the next section should be a much larger section of colour which will hopefully be a bit more laid back.

I'm realizing as I get further into this project that I like the higher count fabrics more and more and I think I will be sticking to 1/1 on 25 count and up from now on. I thought the lower count would be easier on the eyes but it's not really until you get to 18 and the annoyance of dealing with two strands of floss for proper coverage on a full coverage project is NOT worth the small amount of relief.
I don't think the dark color of this fabric is helping much either.

I'm sort of gearing up to work on the Bowie piece. I FINALLY settled on a fabric but I prefer to work with floss cards and making your own floss cards for intricate designs with upwards of 75 colours is possibly even fussier work than much of the cross stitching itself.

Controlled Chaos

There used to be a system available from a brand called LoRan with little soft binders and pre-punched cards, Dritz has taken over the cards but they don't have enough colours on each card for the sorts of projects I do and they are small for my needs (also SPENDY). I am strongly considering altering some kind of 3 ring datebook to be a project floss holder. Come to think of it I should have a really nice pink leather one lying around somewhere that would probably be just perfect.

As far as the #yearostitch project I am really hoping to get that underway in the next few days. I just haven't taken the time to find the first entry (um, nevermind... check) and take stock of what fabric I will need. I kind of like how Instagram user @Queenofslacking has laid it all out in 20x20 blocks so I'll probably do something like that.

OH! I sort of idly mused last night that I hadn't seen a ship notification for that cone of thread I mentioned buying last week only to dig back through my emails and realize I never.... actually... ordered it.

I know I hit submit on Paypal but I'm pretty sure I must have closed the browser before hitting the final submit on the full order, so I went to do it aaaaaaall over again. I missed out on the shipping coupon but happily the cones were still half off, and threw in a clip on magnifier to boot since I've resigned myself to staring cross eyed at impossibly fine evenweave for the next decade or so.

Oh also, Cheeeeese Gromet!
My Cheese of the Month delivery came on Saturday. I've already tucked into the Dubliner and the Mellville and can highly recommend both on their own merits.

Monday Monday 2 Electric Boogaloo

Ch ch ch ch changes

Easily the most obvious change this week - the end of a nearly year long run of variations on silvery white undercuts. Blue is my go-to grow out colour but I've never done this silvery denim blue.

I started the silver process in April '15 (it took a few months to get to white - finally NAILED it in June) and this is easily the longest I've ever kept it up. The silver has been a lot of fun and I know I'm going to miss it, but it's expensive and hard to keep up. It may be time to change things up when you've started using Manic Panic as a Leave-In.

The undercuts, mohawks and between I've been wearing since the wedding have been a LOAD of fun but it's been a while since I did something softer and more feminine (that wasn't growing out length for my wedding hairdo) so once the lightened portions are cut out I think I'm going to go a bit longer, in front at least. I have a pretty tenacious crown swirl so I prefer to keep the back short.

Cut and color by Fran Nordstrom of Waves Salon in Sayville
(scroll down a bit and you might see a familiar face!)

I have a pretty big change in my current embroidery project as well.
I finished page two of Heaven and Earth Designs Portrait with a Spiderling and decided to change up projects so I started Mini Shades of Red in 2/1 on 22ct Navy blue fabric.

I'm about 600 stitches in as of bedtime last night and pricing out cones of DMC 310 as the ENTIRE background is solid black. The 22 count goes a lot faster so far than the 28 I'm working on Portrait but stitching 2/1 eats up thread and I find laying the stitches makes a big difference in stitch uniformity so I'm trying to consistently use a laying tool (some people like railroading but it doesnt seem to do much good on 22ct), which leads me to...

I really wish I was comfortable enough with this page to just order one The thing itself costs all of seven dollars but I cant even imagine how annoying the shipment would be.

I might actually make one of these when I get home today. There is a type of fingertip laying tool I never see on English language embroidery pages - only pages written in Cyrillic script (presumably Russian?) and I WANT ONE - that page has pics of a bunch of different home versions (and in many cases step by step pics). Here is another link of same.
I have a mass market one called a Trolley Needle but its WAY too clunky for my use.

Chopped my nails off (by necessity) and took of my nailpolish without refreshing it, so it's been interesting running around with bare nails for the first time in a few years.
My cuticles are A MESS so I may do some much needed hand care before my next polishing.

Improve your designs with Science! PLEASE!!!

Science! has indicated that symmetry is both more attractive and easier to process by the human brain.

With this in mind, why do pattern designers helpfully designate the center of the design and add a handy darker line for every ten stitches on the grid on to the pattern to make it easier to count but NOT LINE UP THESE GUIDELINES WITH THE CENTER OF THE PATTERN?!?!?!

I assure you it will be just as neat and satisfying IF NOT MORE SO to have even margins around the edge of the pattern as it is to start with a full ten by ten grid on the top left.

Your design could reap the benefits of sweet creamery cognitive neuroscience!

It's not even like you even start the design in square zero most of the time. If it really freaks you to not have a full grid on the edge just extend the empty part of the graph a little bit! Is it going to mess things up that much to start stitching on column six instead of column two?

I can't show you the grid for this because it is a copyrighted design from BlackBird Designs, but this is the first prep stuff I do for any new piece. I blanket stitch the edges for stability and lay out my pattern space using a counted running stitch every five stitches (aka ten threads since this is a 28ct linen and the design calls for over two stitching, like THAT won't make it more likely for me to mess up).

The white thread designates the dead center of the design while the blue thread designates the graph guidelines already laid over the design to help you count and they are WILDLY out of alignment to each other. The vertical line is off by six stitches (or four depending on your starting point, I guess) and the horizontal is off by five.

I can assure you (*cough* having done it before *cough*) that if I do not clearly mark the orientation of my fabric and separately designate both grids I WILL shift my design over at one point or another, typically early and devastatingly. Taking out an entire day or so of stitching is no fun.

I'm actually considering taking the center markers out entirely on this as soon as I get it on the stretchers to avoid any potential confusion.

I see your true colours shining through...

Jo-Anns Craft's 20% off coupon + 30% off sewing baskets + cute black cat pattern means of course that Papa's got a brand new ba... sket.

I've really needed something I could use as a project basket; I have a giant utility basket for materials/tools storage and a smaller essentials/travel kit in a Cadbury tin, but nothing I could functionally work a PROJECT out of while sitting on the couch or hanging at a Stitch and Bitch. It has a nice big open bottom and a plastic top tray with a little pincushion and pocket attached to the lid.
Also Black Cat, which is very important as I have one, and I luuuuuuuurve him.
Not that I don't also love my other two cats, but he's my heartcat.

*cough*and.i.also.got.some.aida.cloth.and.a.bunch.of.DMC.floss.and.a.halloween.patterns.magazine*cough*

Speaking of DMC floss, I got a practical lesson in dye lots today!
Thankfully one that didn't come to light in the middle of a piece as that's usually how it goes for me.

I went looking for a pale silvery-grey colour to do a sort of tone on tone piece and grabbed a handful of this DMC 3024 Very Light Brown Gray (which is totally NOT what I'd name the colour).

I thought at first that someone had mixed colours together as one half of the skeins had a cooler shift and the other had a slightly greener shift but the skeins all had the same code on them. THEN I thought I was being kind of crazy about it until I checked the dye lots.

I separated them by the apparent colour and sure enough every single one of the cooler skeins had the # 6609036Q on it, while the rest of them were split between about three other numbers - leading me to believe that that Q lot was the off one.

Hopefully you can see the difference in the pics above. It was pretty subtle so I don't think it would be an issue on a multi-colour piece, but I wanted these specifically to do an all one colour piece so I'm REALLY glad I checked.

I also picked up some brass stretching tacks and an octopus needle minder at a local Needlepoint shop called Ladybug Stitches, so I'm all set to get a planned project going. I was hoping to find fabric but the shop isn't really stocked for cross stitch stuff. Jane the owner(? I think?) was however super nice and actually remembered me from the last time I was in, which had to have been at least six years prior.

I now have more needle minders than I could possibly ever use in my life (with one more on the way) and I'm perfectly okay with that because octopus and pumpkin and spider (and mystery thing TBA because I know some seriously cool crafters).