andsewingishalfthebattle - Tumblr blog

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Vinyl clips. Worth every penny.

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Got back in the country last night (home around 2AM, actually) to find 13 packages waiting for me -- mostly cosplay supplies, of course! Two of them were additional giant wig cases, since I now need to transport three Squeenix wigs at once.

Unfortunately, one of them arrived with a nonfunctional zipper -- something that was not disclosed in the auction listing. 😡 So now I either have to try to find another 14"+ case for sale within the next week, or try to repair this one... Not looking forward to either task.

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It took about 12 coats of paint to get the gradient the way I wanted it, but Genesis now has a Banora White! (or will as soon as I add the leaf, which I just realized I forgot to attach before taking the video)

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This armor patterning session has been brought to you by the letter D and the number 20. (Or 1, depending on the roll.)

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The surgery was a success! Styling will have to wait until next session, though; after 4 hours of sewing in tiny bits of weft, my fingers are DONE.

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Today on "Will It Squeenix?" we're Professor Hojo-ing together a $130 fashion wig and an $8 Amazon bargain wig! What will happen? Who knows?

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I'd be super interested in your review of Silinot! I've been trying to find people's opinions on it before buying, but haven't seen enough to conclusively decide either way. However, you're the absolute pro, so if it works for your projects, that's good enough evidence for me! Thank you in advance!!

I will definitely share my findings! I don't think the shipment will arrive before I leave town, but I'll run some sample casts when I get back in a couple of weeks.

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A heads up for the cosplay community that SiliNOT! (a reusable, compostable silicone alternative for moldmaking) is having a buy-two-get-one-free sale, so if you want to try out a new material, it's a good time to buy!

I haven't used this myself yet, but I've just placed an order for both the mold-making medium and the skin SFX version, and will report back with a review once I've had a chance to play with it. I love working with silicone, but I am all in favor of more eco-friendly options, so hopefully this will work well!

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Feeling pretty good about how this came out, considering I completely forgot to pattern the scaled side panels for the mock-up (oops) and rather than redo it, I just sorta freehanded some princess seams and stuck the leather pieces into the final assembly. 😅

The contrasting zipper is, uh, totally intentional and definitely not because I grabbed a non-separating zipper by mistake and ended up having to use a recycled light blue one that had been ripped off of some random garment. (It won't be visible once the front panel is added, anyway.)

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I would like to send a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has messaged me privately or replied to my tag rant to explain what the pattern abbreviations mean. Your responses have been far more enthusiastic and about ten thousand times more helpful than the usual replies I get when asking for knitting help, which have generally been either, "You can watch me do it, but I don't know how to teach it," or, "How are you even knitting like that? You're holding your needles wrong" (from people holding needles in various ways that instantly make my hands cramp). I really do appreciate the help, and patterns are much less intimidating now!

However, I apparently need ultra-remedial knitting lessons before I'm allowed to use patterns, because a lot of the explanations use terms that I still can't define -- at least, in the context of knitting (you can apparently slip stitches in knitting! but this is entirely unrelated to slip stitching! A knowledge of sewing is in no way an advantage here! 😅).

I can make rectangles like a boss. I have racked up close to a hundred feet of garter-stitched* scarves since I started knitting, but it's not false modesty when I say I know how to do literally nothing else. So I guess my next step is hunting up some baby-level knitting tutorials to find out exactly what I should have learned before actually attempting to make things.

For those of you who invited me to hit you up when I have questions (additional thanks x10), I will do so once I know the right terms to use!

*someone once told me that's what the alternating rows on my scarves were called. I'm assuming they're right, but I no longer trust anything I thought I knew about knitting because until today I didn't know you were allowed to move loops back and forth between needles without doing anything to them, and apparently that's like a really basic thing you're supposed to know before you start knitting???

Novice sewing pattern: Cut out shapes. Line up the little triangles on the edges. Stitch edges together. We've also included step-by-step assembly instructions with illustrations.

Novice knitting pattern: yOU MUSt uNDerstANd thE SECret cOdE CO67 (73, 87, 93) BO44 (63, 76, 90) 28 (32, 34) slip first pw repeat 7x K to end *kl (pl) 42 * until 13" (13, 13, 15) join new at 30 pl for 17 rows ssk 27 k2tog mattress lengthwise BO and sacrifice a goat to the knitting gods. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WANT "INSTRUCTIONS," I JUST GAVE THEM TO YOU

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Novice sewing pattern: Cut out shapes. Line up the little triangles on the edges. Stitch edges together. We've also included step-by-step assembly instructions with illustrations.

Novice knitting pattern: yOU MUSt uNDerstANd thE SECret cOdE CO67 (73, 87, 93) BO44 (63, 76, 90) 28 (32, 34) slip first pw repeat 7x K to end *kl (pl) 42 * until 13" (13, 13, 15) join new at 30 pl for 17 rows ssk 27 k2tog mattress lengthwise BO and sacrifice a goat to the knitting gods. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WANT "INSTRUCTIONS," I JUST GAVE THEM TO YOU

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Trotting out some old favorites for a special appearance at the Historic Artcraft Theatre to kick off the Solar Eclipse Film Fest! Come see us open for Flash Gordon tonight!

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Alena: "I think this curtain valance is the right width for the pant legs. I'm going to cut the mockup pattern out of it."

Laura: "Are you about to Scarlett O'Hara your pants??"

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Arda Nigel plus an additional pack of weft, which almost didn't fit on the cap because of the double-thick alternating wefts in the base model. This is now officially the most fibrous wig I have ever styled.

Still not sure if it's enough for the ridiculous spikes, though. Freakin' Squeenix hair.

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This is a totally normal way of attaching weft layers, right? 😅

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Many thrift store bedsheets gave their all for this, but I finally have a workable pattern!

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@adragonnamedpetey replied:

Is that a recent change? I ordered a wig in September and had it delivered to where I live in the upper midwest. That being said it was a home address and not a PO box.

I was basing that on this policy statement from their website, effective September 1, 2023:

Perhaps they made some exceptions early on in the changeover? But this is the current shipping policy, as far as I can tell.

Hey, cosplay community, can anyone suggest a comparable model to Arda's Nigel (layered, extra-thick top for Squeenix spiking) from some other wig supplier?

I tried to order the Nigel, but ran into a website issue, and Arda's customer service has made it clear that they are Very Much Not Interested in either solving my issue or retaining me as a customer, so I'm looking for another option. I'm having trouble finding another wig as thick, though. (A few years ago I would have just sewn extra weft in to get the volume I need, but given my recent neurological issues, I'm trying to reduce the amount of hand-sewing I have to do because the nerves in my arm only have so many spoons... or something, terrible analogy but you get the picture.)

Thanks for any suggestions you can offer!