Skirts! . . . Well, a Skirt

I've been slowly teaching myself to sew since the summer. I've always known the basics, but I've been actually putting things together with and sometimes without patterns.

Last night I made a skirt with just to squares I found hiding out in my mother's closet of DOOM. This is where she keeps all her material, cook books, and anything that might be considered a craft supply.

Here's what I made:

As you can see it's a basic black and white print with flowers and a cute little boarder around it. It also has pockets! I thought that was a nifty addition. I have a few more squares and scrap material I plan to try this with.

I had decided my closet was severely lacking in skirts, and this corrected this little fact. I plan to wear it to class tomorrow with my new shoes that came two days early! 

http://www.modcloth.com/shop/shoes-heels/whisker-sweet-nothings-heel

These are the shoes. Aren't they most adorable things? I love them so much. They're a touch small as I went half a size down rather than up. I feared they'd fall off had I gotten a size 9. But I'll suffer gladly in order to wear these things.

Ugh, Not in the Mood...

It's been that sort of year... Not particularly in the mood for anything other than staring up at the ceiling blankly wishing I had reason to go outside. There is no snow on the ground to go sledding and it's too cold and rainy to just sit outside to stare blankly at the treeless backyard. And I officially suffer from a rather extreme case of social anxiety without it officially being labeled a "disorder." So, you know, that's been fun dealing with for the past year and a half... (And by that, I mean it's been outwardly noticeable for that long.)

So I'm in the mood for nothing other than wandering bookstores and staring at clothing on the internet I can't afford. I did, however, impulse buy shoes from Modcloth because they have cat faces on the toes. It was a level of need nothing could have survived. (The shoes come Friday. SO EXCITED!)

I wanted to post a picture of them, but apparently their sold out as the link to them is gone... Knew those shoes were worth it.

On the plus side, I've written about 5000 words and I still haven't lost interest in this particular story line. In fact, it has a plot. A full on, particularly well thought out, plot. I am so excited to have an actual plot for once. I normally suck at those. Characters, I can pour out endlessly, plots... It's taken me years to come up with just one.

One of my incredible friends and I have been emailing each other back and forth with bits of the stories we write. This way we can make sure we're writing things people other than ourselves understand and that what we write makes sense to begin with. Much better than handing it to family members who coo over it and say what a good writer we are even if it's the most dreadful limerick the world has ever suffered.

Speaking of poetry, I once wrote a brilliant short story about demons who could only be vanquished by haikus. One day I'll incorporate this into something more important than boredom during class. Some people doodle, I write haikus for killing demons. Beat that.

And now I have coffee, so I might as get back to writing. I do have plans to have one whole manuscript by the end of this year after all.

Knitting and Circuses

Just read through a few past things I've written... Yeah... I do promise that when I write proper things I use grammar and remember all the words that belong in sentences. Missing words are not a thing that are useful to reading.

But that's not what I'm here to write about today.

I've been asked to post some of the things I make, so I'm going to do that. It's really something I've been meaning to do for some time, so might as well get around to it. I don't have pictures of most of the things, but there are some pictures I do have.

First thing I have is a picture of a sweater I knitted over the summer. It's a bit big, and I have a nice wrap belt I use when wearing it, but this picture is just me in the sweater.

Goodness, I look so happy in that picture, but I had been battling the computer and trying to not look ridiculously happy. I've got a bit of a habit of doing that, the ridiculously happy thing.

I also have a Renascence Festival costume to share once I get the skirt made up. And a steampunk outfit I'm nearly finished with to post in a bit. That needs to be made up soon as I'll need it next month.

Now, for the fun bit.

Circuses!

So, Erin Morgenstern wrote this incredible, fantastic, all around perfect book, The Night Circus.

My friends had been raving about it for a while and so I picked it up at the book store not entirely sure what I was to expect from it.

I love walking into a completely unknown book. No expectations other than it's gonna be good. And this book did not disappoint. The first two pages alone had me hooked. I've read a lot of books in my time. A. Lot. And never have I read a book that began quite like this one.

"The circus arrives without warning." pg1

It continues with such vivid description I can see, smell, taste everything going on. It's such vivid imagery and written in the second person! I've never read a non-adventure book written like that! After these two pages a proper narrative begins and you're dragged into the late 1800's where we meet Celia and her father and watch as she's dragged into one of the most horrible games ever perceived between two impossibly old magicians. She, and Marco are pitted against each other in what seems to be a battle of skill and power... But it's more than that, so much more. The circus, an incredible thing that "opens and night" and "closes at dawn", is created as their performance arena. People become involved in the game without even knowing it. Right there next to the magic they never realize exists. The way it affects these people. But the ones involved aren't all there is to it. The attendees are just as important to the story. What they see. And every so often the second person narrative is brought back to describe a tent or food or drink in such detail you can smell autumn in the air, see the black and white striped tends, taste the spiced cider. Everything is perfectly described. And I fell in love with the book, the details, the characters, their lives. Everything. When I finished it I sat and stared blankly wondering why none of this existed. Why couldn't I go to a a circus like that?

This is definitely among the most incredible things I've read this year, and I've already read six books or so. I really recommend reading it.

And back to the costume things I mentioned earlier...

I desperately want to make a costume based around this book.

And one last thing. Writing things again. I think I'm writing them poorly, but 3000 poorly written words is still better than 10 well written ones, so... Yeah. I'll try to add another 3000 poorly written words to that soon. At least it has some semblance to a plot. I always have problems with those plots.