borninwinter81

[borninwinter81]

[borninwinter81]

Made a video all about alt diy techniques (with accompanying PDF) feel free to check it out here (PDF is free/pay-what-you-want)

[borninwinter81]

[borninwinter81]

One thing they don’t tell you about sewing is that it is actually ironing

[borninwinter81]

My African Flower Turtle 🌸 Made in cotton! by lacielaplante

[borninwinter81]

Plug/gauge collection

I stretched my right ear up to 16mm (5/8 for those of you from the US) about 12 years ago. A little over a year back I decided to stretch my left up to match. It's now at 14mm so I'm very close to being done, and this is all the jewellery I've been collecting so I have some to choose from when I get there.

All the ones on the right are resin inside metal tunnels (wearing resin directly touching your ear may not be safe since chemicals can leach into your skin and cause adverse reactions).

Apart from the butterflies which are paper, all the flowers, leaves, shells and even the mushrooms are real. They are from two Etsy sellers, Aperture Artistry, who did the three at the bottom, and Til Death Studios. For those from Til Death I only had one of each for ages, then when I decided to stretch my other ear I contacted her to ask for matching ones, and she did an outstanding job!

The ones on the other side are (top to bottom) snakes and onyx from stretchitbodyjewellery.co.uk, bloodstone, crazy lace agate, and labradorite from Witches Plugs, blue tigers eye from Customplugs.com and dragon's blood jasper from Urbanbodyjewelry.com.

[borninwinter81]

[borninwinter81]

I think I did a post a while ago saying I was updating my piercing jewellery, and since I got a package today with a couple of new bits in it I thought I'd share.

The new ones are the crow's skull and the snake, both from stretchitbodyjewellery.co.uk but I have seen similar ones on other websites. A couple of different angles so everything can be seen clearly. I'm also really pleased with my arrangement of the bat, ankh, and the tiny onyx stud between them. I just need something a little more interesting for the rook piercing now.

The crows skull is supposed to be a captive bead/BCR, but because of its shape it's super difficult to clip the skull into place, so instead I've threaded a hinged ring through the eye holes and I think it looks just as good.

This is my other ear. Much less going on here (no piercings in the upper ear though I might get some in the future) and the lobe isn't yet the right size for the matching snake tunnel, but I do really love the spider and the rose. I have a small quartz stud on the way to go between them, similar to the onyx one above. The holes are too close together to wear larger studs in the middle ones!

All my studs are internally threaded labrets as the flat backs are much more comfortable.

[borninwinter81]

Another Black Metal vest update

A little more added to this. The back is now finished unless I decide to add anything to the shoulders on either side of the Morbid patch. 8 of these were hand-painted and the large one in the middle was done with printer transfer paper.

The front is looking pretty full now too, though there is plenty of space to fit more on - as long as they're the right shape! Only 3 of these were home made.

I figured I'd show a close-up of the badges I got too, since they can't be seen very well in the photo above. I'm only really into two Mayhem albums (Deatchcrush and Live in Leipzig) so it didn't seem right to have a full patch, but I wanted to acknowledge their importance to the genre. And Dead is there because of both Mayhem and Morbid, and because of the almost mythic status he has in the scene. I've shown the Norwegian flag as an inverted cross in previous posts - I'm neither a Satanist, nor a Norwegian, I just saw others do it and I think it looks cool 😁

[borninwinter81]

Art by • Yoshitaka Amano

[borninwinter81]

I was there, up in the Royal Circle! Thanks for filming, I had my phone switched off 😁

utterly iconic

Final Macbeth curtain call - Saturday 14th December 2024

[borninwinter81]

Well, I love Agalloch, and I'm a big fan of both black and doom metal, so thanks for the rec!

Guelph’s Nepenthe are a phenomenal band. Their blend of doom metal and black metal is absolutely gorgeous and reminds me a lot of groups like Woods of Ypres and Agalloch. It was a pleasure to join them at the Jimmy Jazz for the release of their new EP, ‘The Fading Promise of Tomorrow’, which you should definitely check out.

[borninwinter81]

Another t-shirt mod

Because it's impossible for me to buy a shirt without doing something to make it more interesting 😁

Vampire is a Swedish thrash/death metal band, but although they were formed in 2011 they have a very old-school sound, more like death metal was back in the 80s. Slight shades of Black Metal too, but again in its earlier Bathory era form. Originally their material was only released on cassette and vinyl, and they were one of the first modern bands I came across that did that. I've been a fan since their first EP, and I have a tattoo of their logo, but only just managed to get one of their shirts.

I would usually get a man's/unisex, but on this occasion I got the "girlie" fit. It originally looked sonething like this (official website photo as i didn’t take a picture before I started messing with it).

However the print was way lower on the body than is shown here. I've mentioned before that I dislike the look of low waisted shirts on me, so I usually crop them. However in this instance as there was so much space at the top what I did instead was cut the length from there, re-sew the shoulders and re-shape the neckline (removing the sleeves at the same time).

At that point although it *just* fit it was a little too tight to be comfortable, probably because I'd moved the original waistline up my body so it was sitting around my ribcage. I had some of this extra wide lace trim that I bought ages ago on sale for pennies.

I cut up the side seams and sewed a panel of this down each side.

This meant it fit perfectly in the chest, however it was now slightly too loose in the waist area. I have quite a v-shaped upper body with a wide chest and shoulders and a narrow waist from having been a weight lifter for a few years!

But, rather than taking in the sides again, instead I did a cut and weave on the back, but I only wove the bottom part, just leaving plain slashes at the top. This pulled in the shirt slightly at the waist area and now it fits perfectly! I like my shirts fitted without being *tight* tight.

There are tons of tutorials for doing cut and weave stuff on youtube, this was a really basic one.

I hope this might have given folks a few ideas if you have a shirt you love that is too tight for you. Any fabric could be used for the side panels, I just used the lace because I had it to hand and it works with the overall style. I would say a slightly stretchy fabric is probably better for this kind of mod though.

I'll sign off by sharing a track by Vampire, the first one I ever heard which I got on a random YouTube recommendation. Since I love Vampire related stuff and extreme metal I had to give it a try, and was really glad I did.

The name makes them a little difficult to search up online, so if you're interested here's their bandcamp 😉 You can also try searching "Vampire the band" or "Vampire metal band Sweden".

Edit: I should have also included the t-shirt link: right here, it is official not knock-off as I found it via their instagram. There is slightly different merch here than what is available on their bandcamp:

[borninwinter81]

What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.

--Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

[borninwinter81]

belt bag! needed something to carry my wallet and keys more efficiently. made from trouser scraps, pins were all gifts.

patch made by my bbg

chain from an old necklace

shower clips used to attach it to a belt

[borninwinter81]

Black Metal vest - back nearly complete!

Its been a while since I posted about this, and it's had something of an overhaul. Initially I did most of my painted patches as black on white because it seemed easier and more logical, but I decided I didn't like that there was so much white on there, so I redid all those patches, still on white fabric but only painting the negative space. It was like this before...

But now it looks like this! 1000% better

I also switched out the Immortal one for Darkthrone because it looked a bit out of place after I changed the others (I bought the Darkthrone as painting it myself seemed like too much of a challenge) and I've also got a new Taake one in the bottom left which I did paint, albeit a slightly simplified version of their logo.

So now the back is virtually finished, I need one more to go underneath Bathory and it'll be done, unless I can find some really small ones to fill the gaps on the shoulders, but I'm not sure I'd want anything there, the shape of the Morbid logo works so well in that spot that having anything next to it might ruin the effect.

Here's the front. Way more space left here. I initially wasn't sure about the gold Winterfylleth one as gold isn't a colour I wear much, but now I've got used to it. And I got a tiny Norwegian flag so I could do the BM thing where you turn it into an inverted cross (yes I know that's slightly cringe, especially since I'm neither Norwegian or a Satanist, but its very small and i think it looks cool). I've sewed it on a bit too high though, I'm gonna go remove and re-sew it a bit lower down.

I didn't feel the need to re-paint my Sarcófago patch as the white on that one isn't too obtrusive.

[borninwinter81]

I have no idea why I never thought to do this, I used to love wearing wrist spikes but hate getting sweaty under them. I've made fabric collars and chokers but never cuffs for some reason...

I stitched these cuffs out of scrap denim from old jeans that no longer fit my HRT hips! They're so soft, flexible, and punk as fuck!