#on the bright side it took four of us to fix a printer?

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 4, day 26, Keen gets better defined gauntlets and I finally put those Rheddig skeleton pictures I've been taking to use! :D Turns out that's not a helmet, it's a mask! Don't ask me how it stays on, I'm assuming like sticky tack or something (I'm joking, it's probably a combination of "the designers didn't think about that" and "who cares? It looks cool!" Both of which are more common design choices than you might think!)

Reference images under the cut, warning for skelebones

Poor bastard's neck fused with the stairs ): Probably not a pleasant way to go

Anyway, its a super interesting design, clearly meant to be intimidating! The eye-like designs are actually far above the eye socket, because they're not actually eyeholes! The eye holes are the two little slits you can see below the eye-shaped decorations. And yes, you can see out of those slits! It was a common design in certain styles of armor, because it afforded the eyes the most protection while still allowing some, albeit limited, vision. They're not wide enough to get an arrow through them (although you can still be blinded by the arrow splintering and piercing your eye), for example, but they are wide enough and sit close enough to the face that they don't obstruct much of your vision. These guys are probably foot soldiers, because even though you can still see out of those slits, they kind of fuck up the kind of distance viewing an archer or artilleryman would need. This particular design is more decorative than combat-practical, considering that massive blind spot in the center of their vision thanks to that beak, but it looks really cool and tells me something nifty about Rheddah's culture and priorities when it comes to combat.

Specifically, it tells me that Rheddah values intimidation as a valid battle tactic. Look at this thing! Look at how far up the eye motif is on the mask, and how hard to spot those slits are. First, it'd be fucking terrifying to see these fellows bearing down on you, armed with pikes. Or at least I assume the pikes I've seen lying around these guys are theirs, but they might belong to Sila's soldiers. Or it's the same design regardless of nation of origin; I mean why design two kinds of pole-arm weapons when one works just fine for your environmental story telling purposes? It's not like a very specific nerd is going to trawl through and photograph every tiny detail that she sees! That would be absurd!!!

...ahem, anyway. Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah!

Without the rest of the Rheddig field uniform to go off of I have no way of knowing, but based entirely on these battle masks, I'm fairly sure Rheddah likes to use optical illusions to their advantage in battle as well. Because of where that eye motif is situated, their soldiers seem taller than they actually are, and in the heat of battle that split second of "wait those aren't eyes" can make or break a combat encounter. Something like this can fuck with perception just enough that your opponent will be slightly off in where they aim their attacks, and a well-trained soldier taking this into account can certainly use it to his advantage. There's also, like, someone's aiming for your eye? No they're not, my eyes are down here, asshole!

Oof, I had more to say about this than I thought I did, and I have more to say, but it's past my bedtime, I've had a stressful day, and I am the sleepy tireds, so I'm off to bed. Good night my loves! I shall return to gush about various designs in this game another day!

[mistressarachnia]

Post Processing your Raw Doujinshi Scans

This guide is meant to follow my first guide on scanning doujinshi without destroying them in the process.  You can find it here.  In this section, I’ll show you how I take my images from photographs and turn them into professional-looking digital scans.

So I Took a Lot of Pictures - Now What?

Sadly, after all the hard work you put in to get amazing pictures of your glorious doujinshi… you’re still not done yet - but the more effort you put into the first part, the less you’ll have to expend here. Pull the photos you took off of your digital camera and put them in a new working directory with the name of your project on your computer. From here, this guide uses Photoshop CS6, but you can find most of the same actions in GIMP.

If you shot in RAW:

This can make your life a little easier if your lighting setup was a little less than ideal, but it’s still not a cure-all. The biggest advantage to this is that you can set the correct white balance for your scans all at once instead of page by page (although, if the doujin is mostly black-and-white it isn’t such a big deal). Select all of the RAW image files in your project and drag them into photoshop.

(Look how amazing they are. So highlights. Very contrast. Much wow.)

Click the ‘Select All’ button because we want the next changes we make to apply to every picture at once.

White balance

Press ‘I’ or click the white balance tool button, then click an area that’s supposed to be pure white. This is correcting for the color temperature of your lighting, so make sure where you select isn’t actually intended to be a beige or off-white color or it will affect how the other colors are rendered. You can always include a little sheet of white printer paper in your shot to white balance off of if there isn’t any on your doujin covers.

Next, select just the inside black-and-white pages (you’ll come back and fix up the fancier cover pages afterwards).

This is where the best features of shooting in RAW come in. First, since we shot all of our pages towards the light side, take the Blacks slider and drag it down (make them darker) until what should be ‘pure black’ on your page looks good. It might be as far as this example page used (-100), or it might not - yours might not need as extreme of an adjustment.

Once you’ve got the blacks as black as they should be, you’ll probably notice that the bright areas are too bright. Grab the Highlights slider and drag it down to return some detail to the lighter regions.

We don’t want the whitest regions to be less than pure white however, so next, adjust the Whites slider up until they look right.

This scan didn’t need Shadows adjustment, so I skipped it and bumped the contrast instead.

If you were to try and crop the pages here, you might notice that the edges don’t seem to be totally straight - they follow a very slight fisheye effect due to the lens distortion from the camera. Select All pages again, then flip to the Lens Corrections tab and check the ‘Enable Lens Profile Corrections’ checkbox.

Now select only your cover pages and repeat the same steps as above. You can also play with the vibrance and saturation sliders to adjust the intensity of the colors.

If you happen to get an edge reflection or some other kind of local effect you’d like to get rid of, you can use the Graduated Filter tool to apply most of the same effects you just used to a specific zone of the image instead. In this case, I had a bit of reflection on the lower edge of the cover page, so I used a Graduated Filter effect with darkened shadows to mute it.

Before we finish, let’s take advantage of the RAW import dialog to rotate our pages with hotkeys. Start at the first page and press ‘L’ or ‘R’ depending on which way it’s oriented (if you hit the wrong one just press it again twice to rotate it to the correct orientation). Then, hit the down arrow to get the next picture, rinse, and repeat. L, down, R, down, L, down, R, down…

Once they’re all rotated correctly, hit ‘Select All’ one more time and then ‘Open Image’ to open all the shots in Photoshop.

Photoshop time

If you didn’t shoot in RAW, you’ll still be doing all the same steps here as if you would otherwise - you just might be need to be a bit more picky and intensive while doing so since the controls aren’t quite as fine.

Oh no, your camera setup wasn’t completely square and perfect. That’s what the Lens Correction tool is for! Even if you checked the box in the RAW import process, you’ll still want to use this tool (in the Filter menu) to straighten and adjust your pictures.

The default tool should be the ‘straighten’ tool which will micro-rotate your picture according to lines you draw that are supposed to be true vertical or horizontal. For instance, in the picture above, I selected the right edge of the book which wasn’t perfectly vertical.

Next, once the rotation is corrected for, it’s easier to see how the top and bottom edges were slightly trapezoidal (due to camera positioning optics). Drag the Horizontal Perspective slider left or right to correct the perspective until they’re as parallel as you can get to the guideline grid.

Now that the page is nice and square (it’s probably still not perfect, but that’s alright), it’s time to crop it down to just the page. You can manually use the crop tool on every page yourself, but I’ve found a fast and easier way to do it is by using the Quick Selection tool (W) to select the four corners of the page and then hit the Crop tool hotkey (C) to snap the crop region to the selection extents. At this point, you can either micro-adjust the crop borders here, or just hit accept and then zoom in to each side one by one to pull the borders in so none of the background remains.

Your page might look nice and black-and-white already, but let’s make sure it stays that way by quickly adding a Black & White adjustment layer.

Next, add a Levels adjustment layer. The graph represents an intensity histogram of the pixels in the image, and since this shot came out so nicely in the RAW import process there’s not much more we need to do to it - just drag in the black and white sliders a tiny bit.

If you didn’t have as much luck in the import step, or if you can’t shoot in RAW, your graph might look a bit more like this - showing that your peak whites aren’t fully white, and your blacks are a bit lighter than black. Drag the sliders in to match the horizontal extents of the histogram.

As good as your page might be looking already, there’s probably some lighting asymmetry or other artifacts that are starting to show up as you refine your image. In our case, the top of our image didn’t get quite as much light from our lamp as the bottom did, so it’s just a smidge darker.

Add a Curves adjustment layer and click the white eyedropper tool on it to sample a point that should be pure white.

Unfortunately, when we did this it started to bleach out the faint shadow on the character’s face in the mid-lower panel. Fortunately, each of these adjustment layers comes with a mask we can tweak to customize what parts of the image they affect. If we use the gradient tool to make a vertical on (white)/off (black) transition, then the top gray gets lightened while the lower gray stays as it is.

Do a final check around the edges of your scan.  Sometimes if you didn’t crop enough there can be some light imperfections in the edges.  You can usually correct them by zooming in and either using the crop tool or the paintbrush to make them perfect.

Once you’re satisfied with how your post-processing turned out, be sure to save a native photoshop file keeping all layers so you can go back and adjust if you need to (such as, if you figure out a better adjustment formula). If you’re planning to continue on and make a full scanlation of your doujin, you’ll use them in the final step of erasing the original text and adding in our own.  If not - they’re ready to post or email to a translator.

Now... go forth and scan!

[herperlo-d]

It All Started with a PHS

Cloud fixes everything with the power of his cuteness

This branches off from chapter two of How to be a Saviour, but it can be read as a stand alone.

After Tseng left, everything seemed… duller to Cloud. It was as though within those twenty-four hours of being in his presence, Tseng managed to colour everything so much more vibrant that without him there, the world did not seem as bright. It should have been worrying that Cloud had developed such a strong connection to a man he only just met.

Did Tseng even remember him?

Cloud spent the following days going through the motions- play with The Pack, help out his Ma, go out to hunt. But at the end of the day, Cloud did all that with much less enthusiasm than usual. His Ma had asked him why he was so down but Cloud did not want to tell her, did not want her to worry about his friend-less state, not with her having so many other more important things to worry about.

Then everything changed fifteen days, three hours and forty-seven minutes since Tseng left. A package arrived in the mail for him. Him! Cloud was so shock, he could only stare at the package in his hands. But it was unmistakable. His name was written clearly on the top of the brown paper, addressed to the village of Nibelheim on Mt. Nibel.

He rushed home as soon as he could and dumped the rest of the letters with his Ma before locking himself in his room. Shaking hands removed the battered cardboard and paper wrappings to reveal a smooth metal casing nestled beneath a layer of Styrofoam balls. Cloud inhaled sharply and ran a hand lightly across the cool surface of the casing. Who would send him anything? Unless…

The lid swung open without a sound to reveal a PHS- the latest model, capable of cross-planet calls and text messaging, as well as damage proof, able of withstanding shocks and scratches. It was also really damn expensive. Cloud could buy out half the village with one of these phones and still have money left over- only the elite of the elite could afford it. Cloud gasped softly, gingerly picking up the piece of technology to turn it over in his hands. It was a flip phone, slim and silver, half the size of the house phone and three times as light. Cloud carefully flipped up the cover and silently marvelled at the translucent plastic buttons and clear black screen.

Examination done, Cloud placed the phone onto the bed beside him gently and looked back at the metal box in his lap. Inside contained a manual half a centimetre thick and a folded piece of paper with his name written in clean strokes on the top. Cloud eagerly unfolded the paper and slowly read through the letter.

Cloud,

How have you been? I do not know if you still remember me. By the time you read this, it should have been a few weeks since I left the cave in the mountains.

I hope that you have been doing well so far. I do not know if this was too presumptuous of me, but I thought that in that short time I talked to you, I felt-

Here, there was a blot of ink at the end of the t, as though the pen rested at that point for a split second longer than usual.

-comfortable. If you feel that this is me outstretching my bounds, you may still keep the PHS. It is a gift. If you had felt the same connection as I did, my number is programmed into the contact list. Feel free to message me whenever, though I might not reply immediately.

Regards,

Tseng of the Turks

P.S All call and messaging charges are covered, so do not worry about that. Treat it as a thank you for saving my life.

P.P.S If you are selling this phone, please press down on the circular centre button and the red button at the same time until a memory reset notification flashes on the screen.

Cloud finished the letter with his heart thick in his throat and eyes prickling. He swallowed heavily and sniffled, slowly folding up the letter and placing it back into the box.

‘I wasn’t forgotten’ He thought in wonderment.

Tears welled up in his eyes and he wiped them away furiously. Slowly, a smile rose to his lips and felt a loud cheer build up in his throat, but he quickly smothered it with his pillow.

He remembered me!

From the parts of the letter that he could understand, it seemed that Tseng also wanted them to remain friends. Cloud did a happy wiggle on his bed and screamed into his pillow again.

Bouncing, he snatched up the manual from the box and flipped to the first page, more than ready to send Tseng a message. But Cloud drooped a bit when he realised that he could barely understand the first page of instructions. The local school- just a shack with lessons being taught by anyone who could spare a bit of time-had only just started teaching them simple words and phrases. Undeterred, Cloud immediately jumped up from the bed and stored the phone and the box safely under the floorboards of his bed before rushing out of the house to the small local library.

It took weeks and countless hours of hitting the books whenever he had the time before Cloud could fully understand the manual. He did not dare ask his Ma to help him because Tseng wanted to be his friend and he was his secret and he did not want her to take Tseng away from him.

The first thing he did afterwards was to change Tseng’s name in his contact list to ‘Stupid’. Snickering to himself, Cloud slowly pressed the command to send a text message, referring back to the manual once in a while to make sure that he did everything right. With clumsy fingers, he painstakingly typed out ‘Hi’ and quickly pressed the green send button before he could back out.

The next hour saw him privately freaking out in his room. He kept wondering if within the last few weeks Tseng had forgotten about him- no matter how ridiculous it sounded. It was a shock when his PHS chirped on his desk after a few minutes. (No one will ever find out how he jumped so hard at the sound, he fell off his bed)

Cloud picked up the phone, ignoring how his palms were sweating so much it nearly slipped out of his grip. Flipping it open, a notification for one new message flashed at him and he clicked the open button.

‘Hello, Cloud.’

Cloud could have died from the sheer relief he felt and excitedly typed out a response.

_________

For the next few years, their correspondence grew and even though Tseng’s responses were irregular most of the time, Cloud knew that he was trying and that was all that mattered. They even progressed to occasional letter writing on the side (even though some people might say that it was regressing) because Mama Strife had long since instilled into Cloud that things were done best with your own hands.

“It shows honest effort and sincerity”, was what she said to him.

They talked about anything they could think of, the weather, gossip they heard, Shinra news and anything that came to mind. Sometimes their messages were about random things they thought about. (By the time Cloud reached Shinra, he knew way more than most about the office secrets and the habits of Shinra’s upper echelons. Tseng became very educated on Nibelheim weather patterns, animal behaviour and the village rumours).

Cloud treasured every single letter he received and kept them slotted neatly in the metal case for safekeeping. He also kept the PHS in that same box whenever he goes out so it does not get damaged.

His Ma was not happy when she found out about Tseng, but seeing how happy her son was talking to him, she could not begrudge him of his friend. Her son never did things halfway after all, and a friend from the infamous Turks could only mean that her son will be protected when (not if) he heads off to Midgar.

Cloud also sends Tseng an occasional care package of wolf and dragon jerky, some bone accessories, wolf pelts and leather skins. In return, Tseng sends back clothes, souvenirs from his travels and money (although Cloud became pissed at the money, but accepted it reluctantly when Tseng insisted).

When Cloud turned ten and mentioned that he was starting to use a sword, Tseng sent him a book on swords and a sword cleaning set as well as a few high quality bangles and a few rare materia from his collection. Cloud will deny it forever, but he screamed so loudly that Fenrir whined in pain at the pitch.

Then, his Ma died just after he turned fourteen and Cloud had never felt so devastated. Of course, Tseng had helped him in his own way and Cloud managed to work through most of his grief because of him. Tseng ran him through how to manage all the property and money (as limited as it was) he inherited. He soon officially moved into his cave up in the mountains with all of the belongings he needed. Figuring out a way to keep his PHS charged was difficult, but Cloud managed to finagle together a wind energy generator using some solder and parts he cannibalised from an old printer in the old Shinra mansion with generous application of a fire materia. Getting the printer itself was not something Cloud wanted to repeat anytime soon. He nearly cut his fingers off when a Dorky Face jumped him out of nowhere.

Tseng had outright refused when Cloud offered to go to Shinra. Cloud protested, but Tseng was firmly set on his decision. He would not risk Cloud’s safety with the war still going on and him swamped with work everyday. In the end, Tseng had to concede when Cloud told him of his decision to try out for SOLDIER. Tseng tried to sway Cloud away from that goal, or at least delay it until the war was over in a two hour long phone call, but had to grudgingly let it go when Cloud mentioned that his Ma had supported his choice.

_________

On the days leading up to his arrival in Midgar, Tseng repeatedly ran him through the dos and don’ts of being in Midgar. He had also given him instructions on how to find and access his office and his apartment just in case. Cloud had teased him for being such a mama chocobo, but inwardly he felt really touched that Tseng was so concerned for him.

Then, he was left alone for registration and the first two weeks as a SOLDIER cadet because Tseng had to go on a month long super-secret mission.

By the time Tseng sent him a message to tell him he was back in Midgar, Cloud had already made his second friend- the first being Tseng (The Pack didn’t count. They were family), Lee, and got to know his squad mates better. Completely excited, Cloud rushed to prepare the care package that he did not manage to send off before he left Nibelheim. Seeing that the next day was Sunday, meaning an off day for all cadets, Cloud was set to putting everything together by then.

The next day dawned and Cloud knew for a fact that Turks worked on Sundays too. He waved Lee away to hang out with the rest of the squad and turned to the lifts. Luckily, his usual bullies had taken advantage of their off day and took off to do shit under the plate so Cloud remained unmolested all the way to the Turk floor.

On hindsight, he probably should have just waited for Tseng at his apartment to give him the care package. But you know what they say- hindsight is twenty-twenty.

The moment the lift doors dinged open, Cloud had the entire front office looking at him. Caught like a deer in the headlights, Cloud took a hesitant step out of the lift, arms still awkwardly cradling the large paper-wrapped package for Tseng. Nearly immediately, a red head accosted him, causing Cloud to lean back as much as possible until he was flushed with the lift doors to avoid an awkward face-to-face collision.

“Now what’s a SOLDIER cadet like you doing looking for the Turks?” The red head leered at him, looming over him until his ponytail swung over his shoulder to tickle Cloud’s face.

Cloud felt the earlier confidence in him waver. “I- well, I- I- umm.” He stammered and clicked his mouth shut, sweat beading his forehead. He never did well in social confrontations, not with him living alone for so long without any human company- except for Tseng- but he does not count. And with this man practically plastering his body to his and interrogating him, Cloud just felt his mind go completely blank.

“Oh-ho! What’s this? Is this for us?” The red head- Reno, Cloud recognised him from Tseng’s complaints- grabbed the box and snatched it from his hands. Cloud was too slow to snatch it back and Reno quickly stepped back, bringing it up to his face to examine it. “Is this a special delivery?”

Cloud’s face burned red at the suggestive tone and shook his head furiously. “N-no! It’s for Tseng!”

This time, the whole office really did stop to stare at him and Cloud felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on their ends at the stares. He gulped. The stares were much more dangerous now and Cloud could practically taste the tension in the air.

Reno smirked. “For Tseng, is it? So you wouldn’t mind it if I did a little check.” and transferred the box to one arm, retrieving a knife from the folds of his suit.

Cloud stared in horror at the sharp edge glinting ominously under the fluorescent lights. He had stored the wolf pelts at the top of the box and if Reno uses that knife to slit it open…

The knife descended and Cloud watched, mouth agaped, as it got nearer to the box in slow motion. It was Tseng’s gift! And Cloud could not stand the thought of anyone ruining it before Tseng could even see what he had brought him.

Reno was not given a chance to react before he found himself face down on the floor, hands empty except for his knife, shin and nose throbbing in pain.

Cloud hugged the box protectively to his chest, staring warily at the number of guns and weapons being pointed at him. ‘Maybe… that hadn’t been a good idea.’ Inside, he silently bemoaned his luck. ‘All I wanted to do was to meet Tseng again. Was that too much to ask?’

Apparently yes.

One of the two doors at the end of the office cracked open and Cloud nearly collapsed to his knees when Tseng walked out of the room.

There is a god out there.

“What is going on?” Tseng demanded, striding into the main office. He scanned the room and did a double take when his gaze landed on the SOLDIER cadet at the centre of the entire mess.

“Sir, he-“ Two Guns started, only to be silenced when Tseng brushed past him.

“Cloud?!”

The whole office watched in shock as their normally stoic Second in Command rushed forward to embrace the unknown SOLDIER cadet who handed Reno his ass in less than a second.

Cloud dropped the box and hugged Tseng back just as fiercely, pressing his face into his shoulder to hide from the staring crowd, taking comfort in Tseng’s presence.

Everything will be all right now.

Tseng pulled back from the hug, and held Cloud at arms length.

“Not that I’m not glad to see you, but what are you doing here? I thought that you’d rather wait for me at my apartment.”

Cloud scratched a cheek sheepishly, blushing again in embarrassment. “I- ah- forgot to mail the package to you before I left so I figured that I should deliver it to you myself… and I may have gotten a bit too excited and forgot.”

Tseng smiled at Cloud fondly, raising a gasp from the still gathered audience, and ushered him and his box of goodies to his office where they could get a bit more privacy.

“Get back to work.” He ordered over his shoulder, glaring at anyone who dared to comment. The Turks scrambled to obey his orders, one lugging a groaning Reno from the floor.

“Oh, and Reno? Report to my office first thing tomorrow morning. You will be on trainee duty for the next two week. Don’t be late.” And the door slammed shut behind him.

The Turks casted the Reno sympathetic looks and left him to suffer at his desk. No one likes trainee duty. He was on his own.

________

It was hours before either Tseng or Cloud emerged from Tseng’s office and within that time, the Turks in the front office had conducted a full background search on Cloud and came up with at least a hundred different possibilities of who Cloud might be to Tseng.

The top three were: Cloud was Tseng’s boy toy and the box contained all sorts of sex toys. Cloud was his half brother and the box had the chopped up remains of their father. And lastly, Cloud was a product of an experiment using Tseng’s sperm so now Tseng is taking responsibility of him.

The rest of the options just became more dubious and ludicrous down the list.

When the pair finally did leave the office, it was to a room filled with Turks giving them their undivided attention. Tseng introduced Cloud to them as his best friend and there was a collective groan in the crowd and quite a few discreet money exchanges. Tseng mentally rolled his eyes and ignored his subordinate’s horrible habits. Cloud just stared wide-eyed at the major change in the people in front of him. Just not too long ago they were so close to killing him and now they were acting so open. When prodded to say something, Cloud could only duck his head, fingers fiddling with the hem of his shirt and blush madly, mumbling out a shy “Hi.”

Half the office melted on the spot at the sheer cuteness of the cadet and replied enthusiastically, causing Cloud’s blush to darken until the air around his face was steaming. If he hunched anymore, his face would be completely covered by the suit coat Tseng had draped over his shoulders. There were a few “Awws” from the crowd.

Tseng gave a private smirk. Half down, half more to go.

________

Cloud became a common visitor after that, visiting Tseng twice or thrice a week at his office, often stopping by a few cubicles to chat with different Turks every time. It was, of course, inevitable that they found out where Tseng had gotten- or rather who had been supplying Tseng with a near constant supply of Nibel wolf and dragon related goods. Easy to say, the other half of the office was sold.

After Cloud left that day, Tseng had turned to the front office and announced that Cloud was to remain within the office and should he find out that anyone had blabbed about him, even to Rufus or Veld, there would be consequences.

The office remained silent for a time after Tseng had left.

Everyone kept their promise. After all, family sometimes hid stuff from each other for their own safety. This was no different.

Strangely for Cloud, being introduced to the Turks as Tseng’s best friend seemed to have gained him a very large group of silent caretakers. Meaning that he would occasionally come back from a day out training to a present on his bed, be it a new knife or gun or more ammunition, or a slip of paper containing a warning or secret information or even tips (Cloud burned the notes immediately after reading). It was flattering and creepy at the same time, but after a while Cloud just stopped caring and instead simply relaxed and enjoyed the feeling of being cared for.

________

Definitely, there had been a few hiccups along the way, seeing that Cloud was aiming to be a SOLDIER, the Turks’ rival.

The first came in the form of a bubbly SOLDIER Second named Zack Fair, which led him to being introduced to his mentor, Angeal Hewley, then to Genesis Rhapsodos and General Sephiroth by association. That week, tensions were high in the office until Cloud, horribly torn, could not take it anymore and demanded for them to tell him what he did wrong so that he could fix it. Hearts broke in the office when Cloud looked at them with tears in his eye, heart hurting so bad he could barely finish his sentence without sniffling. Tseng was a dark presence behind him, staring the office down, just daring them to make Cloud actually start crying. The misunderstandings were quickly resolved afterwards and the Turks were appeased after multiple assurances that Cloud still liked them best.

Cloud rolled his eyed at them affectionately. They reminded him of The Pack back home. So easily made jealous by the smallest of things.

The second came in the form of a mad scientist by the name of Hojo. Cloud piqued his interest when his lab results came back and it was revealed that he had higher mako compatibility than even Sephiroth. The Turks had stumbled upon Hojo’s plans for Cloud during one of their customary sweeps of the Shinra database and to say that they were angry was putting it mildly.

They were fucking apoplectic.

But Turks were first and foremost loyal to the company and Hojo was important for President Shinra to achieve his goal of the Promise Land. So they could not introduce an ‘accident’ (as much as they wanted to).

Then Legend had gone off on a double mission to the Golden Saucer and Nibelheim and stumbled upon a cave containing a crystallised lady who kept mumbling the name of an assumed dead legendary Turk. Digging for more information- within the mission parameters obviously-, Legend found a casket containing said legendary Turk in the basement of the Old Shinra Mansion and was summarily informed that Jenova was not, in fact, a Cetra, but a Calamity- the furthest thing from the key to the Promise Land as possible.

Coming back, the Turks happily disposed of Hojo discretely in the ensuing chaos of Rufus Shinra killing off President Shinra to take ownership of the company. Avalanche soon found themselves locked up or killed in the power struggle, leaving the remaining stragglers powerless to build up another support base.

Then a real Cetra was ‘mysteriously’ found hidden away in a church in Sector Five just in time to stop Generals Rhapsodos and Hewley from deserting the army due to their degradation. Liberal applications of prayers to the lifestream saw their degradation cured and all SOLDIER cells purified.

Deepground was shut down before it even had the chance to start.

Jenova was found in the abandoned Nibelheim mako reactor. The Calamity was purified and burned to ashes with no chance of revival.

During these massive changes to the company, Cosmo Canyon drew the attention of the Turks and they paid them a visit, only to find out that using mako as a form of energy was not a good option for the continued health of the planet. The possibility of an apocalypse quickly shut down any protest people had about Shinra slowly switching from mako energy to other sources of energy.

Rather suffer from energy shortages once in a while than to die from a drained planet was the general consensus.

With Shinra no longer looking to build as many mako reactors as possible, the reason for them to start the Wutai War became invalid and both sides signed an armistice.

________

All was not perfect, but for Cloud Strife, it was as perfect as it could get. He gained a huge family, had awesome friends and managed to achieve his dream of being a SOLDIER. He occasionally went back to Nibelheim to spend time with The Pack. It was more than anything he ever dreamt of and Cloud thanked Gaia everyday for his good fortune.

And it all started with a PHS and two people who refused to let go of each other.

[inquiringquilter]

My Day on the Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop

Welcome to my day on the Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop!

Four years ago (yes, that long!) I wrote a series of posts giving you a tour of my sewing studio. You’ll find links to those posts at the end of this post. I share my sewing room with my husband who is also self-employed. The room is over the garage and so it’s larger than a normal bedroom.

Here’s what my studio looked like back then…

When I got serious about quilting as a business four years ago, I came up with a plan for organizing my space. Although I’m pretty computer savvy, I used simple grid paper to design my sewing room. You could use grid paper too!

The photo on the left shows the original arrangement. Within a few months, I decided that I needed more organization so purchased a cabinet from Ikea and moved the sofa table from the living room up to my sewing room to use for a cutting table.

As you can see on the map, my computer desk and my sewing table (Kate’s desk) and two filing cabinets form an L shape in which I mostly work. The Ikea cabinet is close by and it has a small cutting mat on it and a small ironing board. This forms the heart of my sewing area.

On the other side of the filing cabinets, I placed my sofa table and on top of that, my large cutting mat. I have several bookcases in which I store my fabrics, batting, tools, and projects. (The tools and projects are stored in plastic containers marked with labels.)

Under the sofa table, I placed an Ikea set of sliding drawers. I organized my fabric scraps by size in these drawers—1/2 to 1”, 2-2-1/2”, and so on.

As wonderful as I thought I my setup was, over time I kept finding little things that I thought I could improve. I kept collecting these ideas and then one day, I knew it was time to implement my changes.

My Sewing Studio 2.0

Recently, my husband replaced his desk with a much smaller one so I decided it was finally time to redo my sewing studio.

Before I get into the details, here is a short video tour of what my studio looks now.

Switching my sewing table and my desk

One of the things I didn’t like about my old set up was how the sun would come in the windows and shine on my computer screen. Likewise, I didn’t like how little sun shone on my sewing machine table. So duh, I switched them, placing my sewing machine closer to the windows and my computer further away.

Now the sun shines brightly on my sewing area and doesn’t glare on my computer monitor.

Improving the cutting and pressing area

Next, I liked the idea of having a place for my large cutting mat, but the sofa table simply wasn’t wide enough. So I moved the sofa table close to the windows, and placed the Ikea drawer unit underneath (the one with my fabric scraps). My desk used to butt up against the window, so when I switched the desk and my sewing machine table, I left a space next to the window big enough to put the sofa table.

By putting my sofa table next to the Ikea cabinet, I created one long table against the window. Now I have room for my ironing station, cutting mat, and my Accuquilt GO! cutter in one place (a recent addition to my sewing studio.)

Notice how I can move the cutting mat to the sofa table to create a larger area for pressing and arranging pieces for sewing. I love the flexibility of this new area.

So what about my big cutting mat? Well, I replaced the sofa table with a folding table from Costco. The new table is wide enough for the big cutting mat with room to spare. I use this cutting area to trim quilts and to cut long borders.

I’ve placed the table on risers to make it the perfect height for cutting. As a plus, this also gives me plenty of space underneath to organize my other sewing machines, sewing machine totes, photo backgrounds, printed patterns and such.

Making space for photography

As a blogger and social media maven <grin> I’ve learned that photography is important. To get beautiful photos you need lots of light. Although I have a wall of windows in my studio, they don’t get a lot of light in them, especially later in the afternoon when I tend to take pictures. So for Christmas I got myself a photo cube. That’s the big black cube you see next to my big cutting table here. Inside it has lights and a vinyl background I can switch out when I want a different color.

As I was rearranging my studio, I kept in mind that I needed to have a place for the photo cube. In the end, I put it on top of one of my filing cabinets. That moves it out of the way of my sewing/computer area, yet keeps it convenient when I need to take studio shots.

A place for books…(and more importantly—fabric!)

During the big reorganization, I straightened my husband’s books on our built-in bookshelf and found room for my quilting books. That freed up some space on my short bookshelf for my black and white fabrics and current works in progress.

By moving my black and white fabrics from my two big bookshelves, I freed up space for fabric that’s been sitting around in bags on the floor waiting for some place for me to put it. (Oops! <wink>)

Keeping the batting from driving me batty

I had most of my batting stored above my bookshelves, with batting scraps in one of the fabric drawers of my Ikea cabinet. This kinda worked but I wanted my batting all together.

More importantly though, I wanted to organize my batting by size to make it easier to find batting that was big enough for my current project. So during my reorganization, I took all my new batts and wrote the size on one end with a marker so I could tell their size from the floor.

Then I took my batting scraps and pinned a small piece of paper with the size to each one. I placed those batting scraps in two boxes—10” or less wide (any length) and 30” or more. Guess I don’t have any batting in between? <grin>

A home for my printer

Big on my wish list during my reorganization was to find a convenient place for my printer and pattern papers. The printer used to be closer to my husband’s desk and to get to it I had to walk around my desk and large cutting table (and a bunch of bags on the floor) to the other side of the room. To say this was inconvenient was an understatement.

When I moved the quilt books and subsequently moved my black and white fabrics, that small bookshelf had just enough room for my current projects. Since they used to sit on a small black cabinet near the stairs (in a completely unorganized pile—not even in boxes!) that cabinet top suddenly became free! So I put the printer and paper on it. This little change has literally changed my life and made things so much easier! (The cabinet by the way holds tools I don’t use much, plus foundation papers and other specialty items.)

Organizing my thread

The final item on my wish list was to get my thread and my Island Batiks organized.

I’d bought a lot of Aurifil sets as several Markets and they needed to be organized into my existing thread collection, sorted by color. So I went to JoAnns and bought more thread organizers for all the new thread and solved that problem.

I just love looking at all this thread!

I kept two of the little thread collection cases—they now hold the basic colors I piece with. I keep them near my sewing machine so they are so handy! Previously I would haul down the right thread collection case and sort through it to find the perfect white, grey, beige or black that I needed. Another problem solved!

organizing my Island Batiks

My Island Batiks on the other hand, were always a bit disorganized. New collections were placed in the Ikea fabric drawers while older pieces were stored in several cardboard boxes, tucked in various places of my sewing room. Since I’m an Island Batik Ambassador, I like to share the name of the Island Batik collections I use in my quilts so my readers can find those same fabrics too if they want, and that takes a lot of organization on my part. So this was a must do.

First I gathered my batiks from their various hidey-holes, sorted the older pieces by color and placed them in the fabric drawers of my Ikea cabinet. I organized the new collections (including the collections I can’t share with you just yet) and placed them in one of the open sections of the Ikea cabinet. Having them out in the open reminds me to use them (as soon as I’m allowed) for my monthly Island Batik Ambassador challenges.

Having all my Island Batiks in one place organized by color has made a huge difference since I am constantly designing and quilting with batiks. My life is so easy now and all it took was this one little change!

While organizing my batiks into the drawers of the Ikea cabinet, I took the opportunity to organize other items I use often such as my postal supplies, fusibles, and giveaways. Now the Ikea cabinet contains the things I use most often instead of a bunch of miscellaneous supplies I thought might fit in the drawers.

My dream design wall…

The final change wasn’t really a change but a fix. Years ago, my husband installed a design wall for me. I made it in sections so it could be portable. That also allowed me to take it off the wall if I wanted.

Originally we attached it using Contact strips. But it kept pulling away from the wall in a few places. And I never did use it elsewhere so having it portable seemed silly. So I had him screw it into the wall. Now it’s nice and steady.

I love my big design wall!

Well that’s my studio! Here’s what I learned:

When organizing your studio, don’t sweat it. Sometimes it takes living and working in your sewing room to figure out what you really need and where.

Think about how you work. What do you use daily? What do you want to have nearby? (Hint: you probably will want your ironing and cutting areas near your sewing machine for convenience.)

Consider light. Another thing that was big on my list during the redo was light. I just can’t see things as well as I used to. So I upgraded my light bulbs to LED which are brighter and cooler (I hate getting hot!). I also added a bright light by my sewing machine. Love it! I still need to add more lights over by my design wall but that means a trip to Ikea so it’ll have to wait for now.

Little things mean a lot. Sometimes all you need is a little change. Labeling my batting with the sizes has saved me so much time! So has organizing my batiks. And my thread. I lived with the disorganization and made it work but taking the time to organize those three things has made my life so much easier! So don’t let the idea of organizing your studio overwhelm you. Start with the one thing that bugs you the most, and change that.

Thanks for stopping by!

Be sure to visit the other blogs on the hop!

The hop just started a few days ago so you haven’t missed much yet! To catch up, visit

April 1 - Sam Hunter - Hunter Design Studio

April 2 - Marian Pena - Seams to be Sew

Tomorrow is Martha’s turn.

April 4 - Martha Wolf - Pinwheel Productions

The hop continues through April 27th, one studio per day. For the rest of the blog hop schedule, click the on the QAL and Blog Hops tab above and choose Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop!

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TEll me…what would you most like to change about your sewing studio?

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Jaipur - Textile Printing Techniques

Jaipur – Textile Printing Techniques

The textile printing techniques in Jaipur are closely linked to villages and traditions with each village having its own different designs and history. In today’s email we are going to focus on two different designs that you will come across on our trips to Jaipur.

Dabu Printing

The Process of Dabu Printing starts with the preparation of mud resist the clay is prepared by finely sieving it. Calcium hydroxide (Chuna in Hindi), naturally pounded wheat chaff (Beedan in hindi,clay-lime-gum-insect eaten wheat mixture), and gum (gound in hindi) are the main ingredients to make the mud resist. The dug out mud from the dry pond is soaked in water in a separate tank overnight. The mud resist is freshly prepared before every printing.

The mixture of beedan and gound are along with mud are doughed to make a sticky paste. The special resist paste technique is commonly known as ‘dhabu’. Dhabu’ acts as resist and prevents the penetration of dye during dyeing on areas covered with ‘dhabu’. This technique is used only for creating patterns with indigo blue. Since the resist paste ‘dhabu’ is thick and sticky hence finer definitions cannot be achieved. It is applied with wooden block on the fabric and saw dust is sprinkled over it. Saw dust has two major functions at this stage-first to absorb water from the Dhabu paste and give additional layers of resist. The saw dust also acts as a binder which prevents color penetration while dyeing. The area where clay and sawdust mixture is present does not catch the dye and remains colorless.

After printing, the fabric is left outside in the sun for drying before dipping in indigo tanks. Small printing table- “patias” are used for dhabu printing and the printer applies dhabu sitting on the floor. It is done mostly by women and old printers, who cannot stand for a long time. The art of making ‘dhabu’paste is kept secret and the recipe is taught only to daughters-in-law. Every family has its own recipe to make the paste.

Bagru Printing

The traditional printing process in sanganer and Bagru can be described as follows:

Scouring– locally called ‘Hari Sarana’ The fabric that comes from mills of handloom sector contains natural and added impurities such as starch, oil and dust. To get goods and even penetration of colours, the fabric is boiled with soap and desizing agents. Traditionally cow dung was used for scouring. Cow dung contains a lot of alkali, Cow dung and water are mixed together and the cloth (running cloth ‘than’cut in required length) is then left dipped in that paste overnight. The process of washing is a long one, generally carried out by the ladies. The next day, the clothes are washed and spread on large open grounds. Before the clothes dry completely, more water is sprinkled on them and thus they are made wet again. This process of sprinkling water and drying is repeated 5-6 times a day. This procedure is carried out unit the cloth becomes white and bright. Generally, as per requirement, this process in done for 3 to 6 days. After this the cloth is washed with pure water. Since it is tedious and time consuming, soaps have replaced the cow dung in this process.

Tannin- locally called ‘Peela Karana’ ‘Harda’Washed fabric is treated with myrobalan (harda) which contains tannic acid. Tannic acid attracts the mordants, which are applied with hand woodblock. ‘Harda’ powder is mixed with water, and the cloth is submerged in it, squeezed and dried flat on the ground. Once the fabric is dried, it is folded and beaten with a wooden mallet to remove excess ‘harda’ powder and open up the fiber to accept the dye. This process in known as ‘peela karna’. The tannic acid of  myrobalam (harda) forms black colour with ferrous ( syahee )which is traditionally made by reaction of old rusted horse shoe nails with jaggery.

Printing (mordanting)- locally called ‘chapai’ The fabric is printed with two mordant- ferrous (‘syahee’) made out of rusted horse shoe nails, and alum (‘begar’). Usually ferrous is printed with the outline block (‘rekh’). As it immediately shows a black impression, it is easy for another printer to place the filler block (‘datta’) with beggar or alum. The background block (Gudh’) comes later.

Ageing-locally called ‘Sukhai’ The printed fabric is left hanging at the printing areas for at least three-four days so that the prints(mordant paste) penetrates into the fiber structure. Longer the ageing better is the result.

Washing- locally called ‘Dhulai’ The printed fabric is washed in running water. It is important to understand the need of running/flowing water. While washing the printed fabric in running water the excess mordants come out and get washed away with the flow of water without getting stuck back to the cloth. Water shortage has forced the printers to cut short this process due to which, the colors do not get fixed up properly and later “bleed” and people think that natural dyes are not fast.

Dyeing (fixing of color) – locally called ‘Ghan Rangai’ Dyeing is a process in which the dye reacts with two mordants at two different locations on the same print giving two different shades of colors. As mentioned earlier ‘alizarin’ is used as the dye throughout Rajasthan. The colours obtained in conjunction with the two mordants are red (with alum) and block (with ferrous). Dyeing is carried out in large copper vessels (‘tambri’) which are heated by wood fire. Alizarin is filled in small cloth-bags (‘potali’) and dipped in the vessel. The quantity of alizarin dye is calculated by the experienced dyer. ‘Dhawadi phool’, a local flower is boiled along with alizarin to avoid patches and staining. Once the dyed fabric is ready (usually it takes half-an-hour), it is taken out of the copper vessel and left on the ground for drying.

Sun-bleaching– locally called ‘Tapai’ Alizarin often”over dyes” the unprinted area giving an off-white or yellow tinge all over the fabric which makes the print look dull. In order to make the ground look ‘white’ again the fabric is sun-bleached. In this process the fabric is laid flat on a river bed, a mild solution of cow dung and water is sprinkled over the fabric. This process is repeated again when the fabric is dried. The interaction of alkali (of cow dung) and thermal heat (sun ray) bleach the ground color making it look white again. Sometimes this process in carried out before the tannin (‘harda’) treatment but due to shortage of water this process is cut short and these days the ‘off- white’ color of the background has become a part of natural dyeing process.

Flora and Paul’s thoughts on a Colouricious trip to Jaipur

Flora and Paul joined us in January and kindly took the time to write to us to tell us about their experiences.

I now know the full meaning of magical. It’s a trip to the beautiful exciting and vibrant city of Jaipur. My husband and I travelled with a delightful group of ladies [and three husbands] Jamie and Kim arranged an experience to astound all textile enthusiasts. We tried our hand at block, indigo and even mud printing. Breaking only to be tempted to try Indian delicacies with spiced tea.

A guided walking tour around Sanganer provided a window on the lives and work of the block carvers and of course we were all tempted to buy some wonderful wooden blocks.

Another day found us up close and friendly with some special elephants. We were able not only to feed them a boot full of bananas but we also painted their amble sides.

Visits to museums especially the Anokhi museum and the City Palace were superb. Many of us had garments made for us after visiting one of several fabric stores even one purchase of a wedding outfit.

The Blue factory also provided some lovely pottery to further strain my suitcase. On a free afternoon we took a tuc tuc into the Pink City to visit the textile bazaars then walked through the flower and spice markets.

We also had time to join Jamie around the hotel poolside where we could share our experiences of the day and indulge in some art work in our travel journals. The hotel owners – Colonel and Mrs Singh could not have been more welcoming. Mrs Singh even showed us how to put on and wear a sari as one of the group had brought one with her to wear at our leaving dinner.

This is but a very tiny portion of the memories which I took with me suffice to say the Jamie and her team have shown me a country full of wonder and surprises. India has captured my heart and not surprisingly We have booked a return trip.

Thank you so much Jamie Flora and Paul

As we mentioned last week, Kim Thittichai joined us on our Jaipur trip in January and kindly took the time to write about her experience with us in her blog. Today we have part 2 of her story. Please click on the image below to read all about it.

If you are interested in joining us on a trip to Jaipur, then please visit our website and reserve your place. We have spaces left on our trip in December this year plus all of our trips in 2018. Pick the time and itinerary that suits you and we look forward to seeing you.