February 25, 2007
Snow
It snowed all of Friday night, but stopped by Saturday morning. It started up again early on Saturday evening and it was still coming down in driving sheets of snow when I went to bed around 1am. It also thundered and there was lightening during the snow storm, which I've never seen before. It's still snowing this morning, although not quite as hard as last night.
I like snow. ^_^
February 22, 2007
I worked up a pattern and mock up for Alan's shirt for the Girl Genius LARP at Intercon G last night. It's not quite what I wanted it to be, but it fits and looks like it will probably match the source material, which is more than I expected. I'm going to try to get the actual shirt done tonight, although I expect the closure will cause some issues. Since I've already spent about 4 hours pondering how to make it work in the back of my mind. Assuming I get my own costume finished (damn you straw hat!) we should be very well dressed for that game.
I'll spare who ever reads this thing from my ongoing rant about how much I want to strangle Foglio with his own intestines and simply summarize by saying I love Girl Genius, but as a costumer it drives me up the wall.
I'm hoping I can also get through a mock up for the bodice of my Regency gown tonight and get that done this weekend. Then I'll almost be back on schedule.
Update: The Regency gown bodice is being postponed to Sunday when Katie will be free to help me with the major fitting issues it has decided to wallow in. I wish my squishy form still fit me. ;_;
February 20, 2007
I am now 26. I am too busy to have a birthday party. This sucks, but I will cope.
I can tell you the year that Butterick went public. They published an appeal to their readers in an issue of the Delineator (which I now own) explaining the move and asking them to buy stock.
I now know that Lane Bryant started out making maternity wear and clothing for "stout" women in the early part of the 20th century. I have a period advertisement for one of their maternity corsets I need to scan for Wikipedia's article.
I have learned the hard way that I remember finishing details I have previously completed wrong. After ripping out the back 6 inches of waist band in my new skirt, I've fixed it to actually fit. It's very pink. As a corollary, I now have example pictures of the same Truly Victorian skirt with and without hem facing (something I would have wanted to see when deciding if I wanted to put that facing in). The pictures will probably make it online some time in March. As a secondary corollary, in the future I am machine sewing the damn facing in and putting pleats on the skirt to hide the seam line. It took me 6 hours to hand hem and my fingers still hurt.
I have reaffirmed that I am a push over when it comes to scary things. Some of the scenes from Pan's Labyrinth are still freaking me out occasionally.
I have rekindled my interest in Poe and Lovecraft, which considering the previous revelation probably won't turn out well for me. I have decided that once I make my Victorian mourning gown, I need to go visit Poe's grave for pictures. Additionally, I now own a hat with a raven on it.
Out of five costumes for Intercon G for myself, two are mostly normal clothes, one I don't know who I'm cast as, and I have finished 0.5 of the remaining 2. Out of three costumes for Intercon G that Alan has asked for help with, we have finished about 0.5 of them and really need to take a trip to Mallatt's for about another 1.5.
I have decided that I have collected more than enough Victorian and Edwardian magazines for now. I'm going to try not to buy more until I've scanned the ones I have. For some of the Delineators, this will be very exciting (since they have small margins and over 100 pages per issue).
I am way behind on web page updating (both my own and Shoe's art site) and especially far behind on updating my SR session notes. I probably won't be able to do anything about this until the middle of March.
Alan's birthday is on March 16th. I'm still not sure what to get him. I seem to forget all my good ideas before I can write them down.
February 10, 2007
I took a very short break from sewing this evening to go and see Pan's Labyrinth. At it's heart, the story is dark faerie tale about a young girl named Ofelia who learns that she may not be who or what she thinks she is. The visuals of the movie are beautiful. I would rank some of the scenes up there with the more macabre carefully color composed visuals I've ever seen on the big screen.
Faeries are not adorable, sweet, and inane in this movie. They are both beautiful and terrible, magical and visceral. The story is set in 1944 a remote part of the country side where the fascist Spanish military is trying to stamp out a group of resistance fighters hiding in the woods. Ofelia and her mother have been brought here to be with the Captain, Ofelia's step father, for the birth of his first child. This is only part of the story, as the "real world" plot shares screen time about 50/50 with the magic and wanders that plague Ofelia.
I think this movie is one of the best mature faerie tales I've seen in a long, long time. It brings to my mind the old faerie stories before they were cleaned up and sanitised. It's sort of like Alice and the Chronicles of Narnia ground together with a very real and unpleasant dose of the darkness of adults and war to tinge it's flavor. It was so beautiful and poetic and unlike many faerie stories produced by movie makers in this country, I did not know where it was going to end until we had traveled the whole journey. I can't say I believed in the villains all that deeply, but I believed in the heroes and I cheered for them with all my heart, even when I really thought they would fail and die.
If there is one thing I did not like about this movie it was a good chunk of the gore associated with the "real life" wartime setting. The camera often did not shy away from relatively stomach churning visuals. I would have been far happier with more of this off camera. I can accept that the folks creating the movie wanted to include it, but I felt it often deadened the effect and empathy I should have been feeling towards those in pain.
Ultimately I really liked Pan's Labyrinth, but I am unlikely to see it again. It was just a little to hard for me to stomach the gory parts. I am glad I saw it once though and I would recommend that others do the same. Even if you have to twitch and close your eyes for the unpleasant parts, the rest of the movie is worth it many times over.
Edit: I'm so sick and tired of people inlining the image from this post. I've removed it. If you want the damn image go get it off wikipedia.
February 01, 2007
I've finished Kathleen's portrait and set up a gallery for the series in my art section. Hopefully I'll be able to work on a few more portraits after I get back from Intercon G. I have a lot of costuming to focus on before then.
I've also finished scanning several neat period resources and put them up in my sewing section. So far there are two: a book of "toilet secrets" (probably from the early 1890's), and a copy of the McCall's Magazine from 1905. I've started collecting Victorian magazines and pamphlets, so I'll hopefully be scanning them eventually. Since I'm more than a little allergic to the 100+ year old paper, this is likely to be the only way I can really enjoy them short of staring forlornly at their plastic wrapped covers.
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