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in the club straight up threading it. and by it. haha well let’s just say. rhe needle

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scantily is basically the most classic way to be clad

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I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.

What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.

What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.

What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.

The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.

And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.

But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.

I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.

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In continued practice of sharing the love for all creatures great and small, Story of Seasons Grand Bazaar will have the chance to make a real impact towards the conservation of an insect known as the Pine Hoverfly.

Marvelous Europe, along with the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, are partnered together to bring back the Scotland-native Pine Hoverfly from the brink of extinction. Take a look at the video, and at the new DLC where 100% of the proceeds go towards RZSS! This DLC will be available to all regions, so please look forward to it!

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Slay Cosplay The Princess (Craft Log: May 31st - June 10th)

You're in a room of your home. And in the center of that room is a table. And on the table in that room there are pieces of a cosplay. You're here to finish it. If you don't, you won't be able to wear it to a convention.

The sewing machine is your implement. You'll need it if you're going to do this right. (or, you could use the pristine blade, but it's currently in several pieces)

Have you heard of Slay the Princess? If you haven't, it's a horror visual novel made by an indie studio, and it's captivating. I first stumbled onto it on a Let's Play on Youtube, before the entire game was actually released and finished, and it stuck in my head up until the game actually released.

Talking about it in any kind of depth means spoilers, so I'm going to avoid that in these posts. If you haven't heard of it or played it though, and you like horror visual novels with a love story, I would highly recommend it. The art is all done by one of the two creators, and it is beautiful!

While I'm working on The Princess, my spouse @galactic-gryphon is going to be working on The Hero, because we like to coordinate our costumes and they want to be a bird monster.

Below the cut is process so far:

The game is grayscale so you really could pick most colors for the dress and wig if you were making this. Most people go for neutral colors, but I actually saw someone do a vivid purple even. To try to stick closer to the game's monochrome aesthetic, I went with a silver poly charmeuse fabric that I bought 8 yards of.

The plan is to make a circle skirt so I went ahead and cut that out. It's actually 2 half-circle pieces right now that will be sewn together. I definitely messed up my circle skirt math, because the top circle will not fit my waist measurement (even considering the seam allowance), but I'll fix that later. For now, it's hanging in the craft room until the weekend so that everything that's going to stretch will do that. I debated on another panel but that's a lot of skirt and I think I like what I have here. The other thing is that I'm considering layering a grey glitter tulle on top of the solid fabric, I only have 4, maybe 5 yards of that, and I have no way to get more because it was from Joann. So less fabric is better. I still may not be able to layer it but I'll incorporate it some other way.

Because the reference for the princess changes fairly frequently in the game, I'm kind of just going to do what I want that generally fits the silhouette and appearance without focusing excessively on accuracy. There may be a ruffle at the bottom of the skirt. There may not be. It really depends on what I think will look the nicest at the end of the process. I'm also not focusing on precision in technique, I'm just trying to get her done in a reasonable amount of time. My minimum standards here are clean seam finishes (so nothing frays) and that it fits me. I would also prefer it to be as comfortable as possible.

The most labor intensive thing I've completed for her is the petticoat! This took me about 2 weeks to make, but would have only took a devoted weekend if my back hadn't gone out. I was able to slowly cut the pieces out during that time, and then I assembled the entire thing over about 2 and a half days (this past Saturday, Sunday, & Monday).

I was able to do a couple of things while my back was out. I successfully printed off the pristine blade pieces for my spouse, who is going to process them. Here's the model I used. I think the creator did an excellent job with the model. In terms of printing, beyond an initial adhesion issue that resulted in spaghetti, it printed well.

The other thing that I did was style the wig. This wig was actually originally for Ludmilla from Rune Factory, but it wasn't the right color for her. It has a slight purple cast because I put it in a dye bath back when I was working on her to try to get the color to be cooler. It works really well with the greys I'm using for the dress, but it was a mess, so I had to detangle it, straighten it, and then curl it again. She looks a lot nicer now than when I started.

The crown I got from an Etsy shop. It's sturdy and only cost $20, and does the job I need it to.

In terms of the bodice, I'm actually going to be making a corset first, since it's strapless and I want some extra support, so I can't do anything with that until I have the corset finished. Which means a corset mockup. That being said, I just cut all of the pieces for the Red Threaded pattern, and I'll be mocking that up soon. I think it will be a great support garment for a lot of costumes, so I will be focusing on precision for that part.

That's what I've gotten done so far. It doesn't feel like a lot to me but my back was out for a solid week, and we also went to All About Fabrics this past weekend and that killed a lot of Saturday (got some really nice things though! Several yards of twill for corset mockups for like $3 a yard, and some fabric for Deirdre). Also, I spent about an hour and a half yesterday cleaning the craft room, something that I wanted to do after returning from Momocon but couldn't do until my back felt better. It looks a lot nicer in there without fabric fuzz all over the carpet.

Spouse is doing a lot of really cool things for TLQ/The Hero, including soldering to make some lightup eyes and a foam head. I keep saying they should post about it over here to keep track of what they're doing, but we shall see. I'll reblog those posts here if they do end up posting.

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No suelo jugar mucho con ella, pero es una monada ¿a qué sí? ¡Jo, jo, jo, jo!

He tenido que bajarle la calidad porque se me iba a petar el tumblr 😔

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👁️ Look only at me..... 👁️

Posting some Haniel cosplay in anticipation of the release of My Dress Up Darling season 2 next month! I don't think we'll get to worst girl here, but I'm still excited 🧡

📸 @silencedrowns

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rei

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egg 2008年 08月号

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Remember to take care of yourself by remembering 6-2-1:

6 hours of sleep a night.

2 good meals a day

1 shower/bath a day

Get a good night's sleep. No matter how many energy drinks and coffee you consume, it's not worth it and eventually your body will decide for you when it's time to sleep. Sleep also helps you fight off con crud or other colds.

Have a real meal. Not just junk food or snacks. Protein and complex carbs. Veggies and Fruit. Take the time to feed yourself actual food at least twice a day.

For everyone else's enjoyment, take a shower. Use deodorant. Wipe yourself down. Not only will it help keep con funk down but it'll make you feel better!

Also while not specifically in the rule, drink water. We all have a tendency to dehydrate ourselves during an event, but you'll definitely regret it later. You don't need to drink a gallon a day, but make sure you're checking in with yourself for drink periodically.

Also, remember this is the minimum. If you can do more, great! But try your best to stay safe and stay healthy during the con!

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⚓This mysterious boy who was buried in the ground... who in the world is he?⚓

Summer is coming to a close, which makes me sad, but that means....fall photoshoot time 👀

Posting a sailor Yasuho Hirose while it's still summer 🧡

📸 Me

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There is not NEARLY enough love for this game I feel!! If there are any Chrono Trigger fans out there, I hope you like my art!

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The closest experience I've ever had to discovering "the vitamin" was buying a 100% wool outfit and wearing it in the winter.

Not only was I not freezing anymore, I was not sweating and overheating either. The horrible sensory nightmare of winter clothes disappeared.

In particular, I bought a pair of wool pants. They were a thrifted pair of fancy dress pants like you would wear at an important office job, and they were easily the most comfortable pair of winter-appropriate pants i'd ever worn. I wore them Every Single Day.

From that point on I realized a lot of my clothes were making me feel bad, and the common thread was polyester. Especially polyester blends.

It's a trap because the polyester clothes are the ones that always feel sooooo silky soft when they are in the store, whereas cotton, linen and wool can feel comparatively rough and scratchy. But when actually wearing them for hours throughout the day, it's the natural fibers that feel more comfortable.

Maybe the secret to sensory comfort is not about the presence of softness, but the absence of overloading sensations. Or maybe the sensory stress and agony is not triggered by texture of the fabric, but by how it breathes and regulates temperature.

Then there's the problem of clothing life span: polyester blends, no matter how soft they seem at first, become rough and scratchy and covered in hard, itchy pills after wearing them 10 or 20 times, whether or not they have been tumble-dried or even washed at all. (I tested it!) Linen and cotton become softer and more comfy the more you wear them, polyester but ESPECIALLY polyester blends become a constant stressor. Polyester blend t-shirts I used to love for their softness now feel bristly and irritating.

So now I'm trying to change my wardrobe to as many natural fibers as possible, and the more natural fiber clothes i have the more I realize that the plastic fibers stress me out. It's so easy to overheat or freeze in them and they're always degrading and becoming less comfortable and it sucks.

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⚓This mysterious boy who was buried in the ground... who in the world is he?⚓

Summer is coming to a close, which makes me sad, but that means....fall photoshoot time 👀

Posting a sailor Yasuho Hirose while it's still summer 🧡

📸 Me

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Hello, generic anime nostalgia blog, I would like to play a game. In front of you are four gifs you didn't make of four anime you haven't seen: Galaxy Express 999, You're Under Arrest, Millenium Actress, and Dirty Pair. You have 5 minutes to properly tag them as 70's, 80's, 90's, or 00's anime before the television in front of you turns on and begins playing the 2016 TV adaptation of Berserk. Good luck.

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Cat! ‘Popful Mail’ Super Famicom