BRAS!

Now that I have your attention...

Hello, loyal blog readers! Insert a self-flogging sentence here where I talk about what a horrible blogger I've been and make lousy excuses. Follow that up with a promise to be better.

And now we can move on to bras. I've been wanting to make more belly dance bras. The studio always has cool bras, but they're never my size, and besides, I have needles and thread and coins and beads, I should be able to make my own. If only I wasn't busy trying to finish my BFAC project (more on that tomorrow). But since I don't have any performances coming up any time soon, there's no great rush.

I've had the nude bra for a while, I actually bought it to wear as, you know, a bra, under clothes, like a normal woman, but Tucson is too blasted hot to wear extra padding on my breasts. So I decided to make it into a dance bra. My first thought was to tea dye it, but initial tests quickly showed that the synthetic micro fiber would not hold the dye. So instead I'm going to try to cover it with that pretty brown, white and silver stripey fabric, for an awesome steampunk look. I should even have plenty of fabric to make a belt or maybe even a little panel skirt (I love panel skirts). The only problem is that it's an odd shade of brown and I couldn't find any appropriate trim to match it at JoAnn's. I'll have to shop around.

The other bra is a little more doubtful. I found it at Target for $8. They have the same style in a lot of other beautiful colors, so if it can actually support the weight of embellishments and look decent as a costume, it will be awesome. I'm just not certain if it's sturdy enough or if it will have quite enough coverage. But I would love to have some nice, colorful bras to go with my nice, colorful costumes, instead of sticking to the usual tribal black.

As a side note, there are those among the dance community who find it incredibly tacky and possibly even downright offensive to wear a bra that has not been covered by other fabric (hence my desire to experiment with the nude bra above). I'd like to acknowledge that segment of the dance population, and state that I understand their feelings. However, in my area it's pretty much the norm to take a bra and just add trim and coins and such, without an extra layer of fabric. My compromise is that I will no longer wear a lingerie bra without layering some sort of top over it to conceal the straps. I'm sure that's not good enough for everyone, but it's not my goal in life to please everyone :)

Book reviews coming up

I'm pretty worn out from the gym and shopping and such, so this is just a quick post to let you know that on my shopping trip, I acquired two more bead books, so my upcoming review list is:

Laura McCabe's Embellished Beadweaving (squeeee!)

Crystal Brilliance by Anna Elizabeth Draegar

Seed Bead Fusionby Rachel Nelson Smith

Enchanted Adornments by Cynthia Thornton

While I was at JoAnn's, I also picked up their class catalog so I can hopefully get into a Sewing 101 class and get myself on the path to making my own costumes. My sewing machines have languished unused for too long!

Armed with needle and thread...

Remember when I said that I was hoping to finish the mushroom pixie necklace this week? Yeah, I haven't touched it. When I made that statement, I forgot to take into affect the fact that Halloween is this week. Yesterday I was struck with the desire to make a bustle skirt, so I did. I took scissors, needle and thread to an old skirt of mine and bustled it up. It looks pretty sweet.

Today I had to stitch the elastic straps for my zills, and while I was doing that, I started thinking about Chris's steampunk costume, and how his vest would look a lot better if it had vintage brass buttons instead of cheap-o plastic ones. I'm almost done with that project. Tomorrow's project will be my crazy steampunk belt to go with my bustle skirt.

I swear I'll get some beading done over the weekend!

What did I tell you?

If you'll recall, when I posted about how I was going to start sewing, I predicted that Topher would "help." Here it is, the photographic proof! Coincidentally, it's also photographic proof that he is one gorgeous boy! His markings are what made me pick him out of the litter, and he's grown up into a rugged example of tomcattery.

Anyway, it doesn't help that the pieces for these pants are so big that I had to put the cutting board on the floor... no way it was going to fit on my kitchen table. So there I am, sitting on the floor, putting tissue paper on cardboard! This is absolutely a place that Topher must be, because tissue paper and cardboard are his two favorite things in life. When he wasn't sitting right on top of the project, as seen here, he was sitting on the empty end of the board, swatting my hand as I tried to pin things down. And as you can see from his expression in the photo, he wasn't the least bit ashamed of himself.

That was only one of the problems that faced me with making these pants. First of all, measurements and sizes. WTH, Simplicity? According to my waist measurements, I'd need to cut out something like a size 20 to fit my waist. To get an idea of how patently ridiculous that is, here's my picture from Ren Faire 2007. Oh yeah, and by my hip measurements... I'd need a size 10. *sigh* Thank you, Simplicity, for rubbing in the fact that I have decidedly unwomanly hips. Since my particular instance of this pattern only goes up to a size 10, that's what I'm cutting out. I seem to recall from my Mom sewing my wedding dress that their measurement/size charts tend to be grossly inaccurate, so I suspect these pants will be too big. This is why I'm starting out with the cheapest fabric I bought!

And speaking of cheap fabric... As you can see, my fabric is very pretty. It's also very soft. If they turn out, these will be wonderful Summer pants. However, it's also terribly unevenly cut. You'd think that after spending 10-15 minutes in line to get my fabric, I could at least get some straight fabric. I didn't realize just how uneven it was until I was over halfway done pinning everything down, and realized that with how it was laid out, I was never going to be able to cut these pants out. That realization came at 12:20am, and this was the point where I said "To heck with this, I'll try again some other time."

That some other time will probably be tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Yippy!

I'm excited, because I'm going to San Diego Comic Con this year! As you may already know, I write a gaming column for the e-zine Collector Times. Our incredibly awesome editor wants a strong CT presence at the convention this year, and is generously covering the hotel rooms for her staffers. Comic Con is a lot of fun, and I believe that this past year, I posted here about how bummed I was at not going. So I'm very happy, because not only do I get to go this year, but it's very likely that I'll get to meet several people who I've only known on-line until now. Yay!

Oh yeah, and it's an excuse to wear COSTUMES! By then I might even be sewing my own!

Speaking of which, today I get to go to JoAnn's and pick up some fabric so I can try to learn how to sew. You know what is going to be fun? Cutting out patterns with my cats. Not only does Topher like to help me craft (remember this picture? and this one?), but he is a tissue paper fiend. Lira is a little more laid back about it, at least, and I can probably count on her preferring to sit in Chris's lap. Note to self: make sure to only cut out patterns while Chris is sitting at his desk.

Yesterday, during our Legend of the Five Rings game, I did a lot of kumihimo. I haven't measured, but my cord has to be about 30 inches, so I think I'm going to make it into a two-strand necklace, with the skull hanging from the bottom strand. I just need to decide on a bail design. Anyway, it's kind of cool. The yarns were all variegated colors, so the cord looks different every few inches. Plus it has a lot of texture due to the different types of yarn. It also reminded me about how fun kumihimo is for gaming, so I'm going to have to do more of it in the future.

What I did today.

I've got to leave in just a minute to go to my usual Wednesday night game, so this is really brief.

Today I made a necklace called "The Day My Robot's Emotion Chip Malfunctioned." It's perfect for Valentine's Day, and will likely go into my Etsy shop. Tonight, I'm going to work on a kumihimo cord using fibers from the ABS prize that I won. One of the pendants from said prize will hang from the cord. It will be pretty cool.

Last night I read the manual for my sewing machine. Of the 17 safety warnings, 3 of them were telling me not to let children play with or use my machine. IE: If your kid sews through his hand, its not our fault! Luckily I don't have kids, and the cats will probably be scared of it.

And with that, I'm off!

I've got a sewing machine!

Weeee! My parents gifted me with a sewing machine last night. I've been wanting to learn to sew for a long time, especially since I started dancing. Mom knew this, and kept an eye out and found a really good sale on a nice beginner machine. I think she'd had it saved for a while, because she made me open it first, because she was impatient :D I also got some patterns and thread and tools, so all I need is fabric. Oh, and time. Remember my goal to balance my hobbies better? Ha! Now I have another one to balance!

Anyway, it was a very good New Year's Gift Extravaganza last night. Everyone gave and received great presents, we ate delicious pie, and we introduced my family to Apples to Apples, which was a big hit. Dad pointed out another nice thing about it that I hadn't thought about... the rules are really, really simple, which makes it easy for players to jump right in.

One thing that I love about my family is how much everyone likes handmade gifts. I'll admit that I didn't make anything for anyone this year, for various reasons, and neither did Chris, but Mom, Dad, and Joe did. Dad made my mother a wonderful music box with a polymer dragon on top, and he and Mom collaborated on a polymer "Gaming Gargoyle" for Chris. Joe made Chris some awesome mad scientist goggles. And Mom crocheted scarves for Dad and Chris, made me a fleece pocket scarf with embroidered dragons, Joe an embroidered welding cap, and Dad an embroidered wall-quilt. Next year, I'll definitely have to go back to creating gifts as well as buying them.

I spent today cleaning up the mess from last night, and starting my gem show preparations. It's still a month away, but our usual bead group dinner restaurant has closed down, so I needed to get an early start on planning this year's dinner.

Oh yes, and before I go, I should actually talk about business. I AM currently able to process and ship orders, should you feel the need to treat yourself to some jewelry. And there will be NEW jewelry on Monday. Huzzah!

And now, time to get ready for gaming!