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I like to think that at least once, the Avatar cycle seemed to skip the Water Tribe—like people knew it was the water tribe’s turn, everyone was looking for them, the tests are done on all the kids, but like 60-80 years go by and no avatar until some Earth Kingdom kid shows up. People wonder if the cycle skipped a generation or what, but nothing serious was going on at that time so they shrug and move on.

It’s only many many years later that someone is researching Swampbender oral history and someone tells the story of “Ol Stinky Jess, she was a funny one, could light the swamp on fire an’ all sorts o’ shenanigans! Best catfishgator catcher in the tribe, she was” and thats literally it, she just lived a totally chill life in the swamp and nobody knew what an avatar was at the time so they just rolled with that funny gal’s odd bending ways.

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I love that Gandalf, Gimli, Legolas and the hobbits start all insulting each other on sight and Theoden literally says "It cannot be doubted that we witness the meeting of dear friends." Theoden Gets It

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A little silly-looking because it's half a jacket sewn out of tracing fabric, but look! Minus some small edits that need to happen, I have figured out Marty's jacket! With the silly little accordion gusset in the back and everything!

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I'm working on a basket purse.

I'm sorry. We're working on a basket purse.

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Didn't want to jinx things until my fabric was lightened and dyed properly, but it turned out pretty nicely, honestly! So now you all get to hear why this amuses me so much.

My original plan for Marty's jacket was to use some cheap denim I got at the local fabric deadstock outlet, but unfortunately it was... too cheap. That's what I get for having no money right now, I guess. Essentially, the elastic content was so high that when I used some Rit Fast Fade on it, it turned dark grey instead of lightening, because it's a bleach treatment and bleach yellows elastic.

This put me in a difficult situation because I do not currently have the funds to acquire good denim, or frankly, other denim at all. And I needed a lot of it, in big pieces, so I couldn't just sacrifice some jeans for the purpose. Fortunately, @dog-of-ulthar is brilliant when it comes to cosplay triage and came up with one of the sillier solutions I've employed in a costume.

Jurtains.

4 yards of fabric, already a little bit weathered/sun-faded, and pretty darn cheap because. Well. They were used denim curtains off eBay.

Anyway. That's what I was working with yesterday. One Fast Fade treatment and two grey dye baths later, I am happy to report that they'll work nicely for my costume. But also. What a solution.

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Leonard likes baths but his toes and tail don’t like getting wet.

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Mayhem generally sleeps on my left arm, but it's not unusual for her to relocate during the night. Her second favorite spot is in the threshold of the bedroom door, where she curls up into a little ball and keeps her beans warm on her tail.

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People do remember that Victorian mourning was about like. Being sad. Right?

It wasn't just an excuse to be ostentatiously goth. They had other ways to be ostentatiously goth, trust me. It was a way to say "hey, I'm going through something really really awful; please be gentle with me."

It looks goth to us now because we associate all of their clothing with that, but imagine someone today going around in very normal, subdued, all black every day attire and that's what that looks like to them. Imagine memorial tattoos and T-shirts and things like that – that's what all of those rings and brooches looked like to them. Because those were normal modes of self expression at the time, just like tattoos or shirts are today 

Feel like they would be a far fewer garments and objects being mistakenly and sensationally labeled as "mourning [ie garment worn exclusively for this purpose, not just a black garment that could serve for the later stages but also for everyday]" on the Internet today if people kept remembering the basic maxim of "does this visually demonstrate that someone is sad?"

Sparkly revealing black stuff is not what you wear when you're sad. Sparkly revealing black stuff is what you wear when you're having fun wearing sparkly revealing black stuff

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"#using some rit fast fade #and then i'm going to hit it with just a little bit of grey dye"

Soup time

(Fading the denim for Marty’s jacket, after a whole ordeal of swatch tests. Fingers crossed the final attempt goes well!!)

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I'm working on a basket purse.

I'm sorry. We're working on a basket purse.

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cleen fridge

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recently came across some plates and bowls that would be perfect for a children's hospital

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Can cook and bake with or without. It depends - some things I do by memory now, some things even in baking I can improvise as a variation on something I'm doing often (though in that case results are not guaranteed); other things I definitely need a recipe. Cooking is much easier without a recipe because it's less dependent on exact ratios; but it's dependent on exact techniques, so if I haven't done that technique before and / or do not undestand its principle, recipe is still required.

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Sometimes the technology conspires against me to make me sound crazy in my text messages.

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Booklet of embroidery and drawnwork (early 17th century). Probably Portugese. Linen, silk, leather, paper.

Images and text courtesy The Met.

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I try not to talk politics on my blog at all, but THIS. Especially the last paragraph. When the USA was last attacked, and it wasn't even an invasion, it was just a terrorist attack, they tried to make the whole world fight back. They should think very, very hard about that.

It's always "Ukraine has to give up territory" and never "russia needs to get out of Ukraine" huh