book+ You Have Killed Me
scent+ pepperoni pizza
quest+ dolly sewing
upper+ i'm feeling rather productive lately
downer+ working sucks lately
attire+ work clothes
drink+ milk
you know, it's crazy but some of my calmest most peaceful workdays are the ones where my boss isn't here and i have to do some of her job too. xD they shouldn't be more calming, but i can handle more to do (in less time even!) if it means less hovering-over-my-shoulder to see how efficiently i'm doing the same things i've done every week for about 3 years now. *sigh* on an unrelated note, but still pertaining to the awesome of a boss-free workday, i'm getting a Kindle for free tomorrow. xD the head buyer up here is kinda a technophile, and managed to accumulate 3 old Kindles she doesn't use, so she's just giving them away to people she likes, and i happen to be one of them. whoo! She's done similarly before with old iPods and such, but since she knew i'm a voracious reader, she came to me first to offer the travel-size one. awesome!
anyhow, today is the day for all the dolly photos i'd procrastinated posting. included are the tinies having a picnic, (only one- most of them were either dark-and-blurry or super overexposed) FaithAnn and Rosalie chilling with Ichigo and Sarabelle, and Eve showing off the various things i've sewn for her, including the still-in-progress brainstorm i had while visiting Roro. the collar piece on it was one of my Roro-bought souvenirs, and it's really worked out perfectly for what i'd had in mind. at this point i still need to make the dress that'll actually go under it.. i just have to find the material first. xD *fail* this collection is all Eve has to wear, since she's so crazy to sew for. she easily has the smallest wardrobe of any of my dolls, but she has the most custom stuff. odds are if i'm doing a new project, it's for Her Boobiness. xD i do plan to order some things for her from Iplehouse, but it'll have to wait until i have some money to spare. maybe i'll buy her some stuff for Christmas, for now she really loves her blue silk dress with the white sash/belt (the one serving as a temporary fix -sans belt- to the modesty of the pics of the current beaded draping project). kinda sad that the business wear inspired dress is her most casual.
Osaka's Lorelei and Roro's Sarabelle
with or without an underskirt, this dress makes her chest look even more massive
the Tedros staff is so cool! xD it makes her feel powerful..
she finds this pose remarkably comfortable xD falls into it more than any other sitting position
this is her favorite outfit presently
this one's still in-progress, it needs the shoulder snaps sewn in
this is the latest project though
i've been unable to find so much of my fabric lately.. i can't wait for Moose to move out (much as i love her i'm sick of living with her) so i can set up the office and unpack some of the gajillion shoved-aside Craft Stuff boxes that more likely than not have the fabric i've been seeking trapped within. it'll also give me a chance to really poke at the serger mom brought me away from Nosy Dog who like to chew things. i've opened it and looked a little, dusted off some of it, but there's still lots to do to clean it up before i dare to use it. once it's up and running again though, i'm gonna go to town on the dolly sewing. xD it'll be awesome. i have a few things i wanna do for other people, namely summer-y dresses for mom's bigger girls so they're not ALWAYS in sweaters, but some other things too. once i'm really comfortable with the serger, i'll look more seriously into manufacturing items for sale.
yesterday while dressing up Eve and taking the pictures of her wardrobe, i took off her flat feet and put on her high heel feet and you could see a difference in her posture and stringing, even in her sitting position. she'd been in her flat feet so i could do a EiD/JiD height comparison for some people on DoA. turns out Eve just isn't a flat-foot kinda girl. she's really stiff and hard to pose in her flat feet, she tumbled head first off the table twice (though once she was just surprised by Kyu making loud bizarre noises out of nowhere) and though i caught her both times, it's a harrowing experience. she won't sit normally, just with her legs straight out as if to say “i don't like these feet, may i have my others?” and when i waited too long to get to helping her she flopped onto her back like she was exhausted, but kept her legs at a straight 90 degree angle to her torso. i sat her up and the moment one of her flat feet was switched for her preferred tip-toes, the knee relaxed and she sat happily normal-ish.. with the other leg, still flat footed, remaining fully extended. xD i switched that foot too and she relaxed her leg and tipped her head as if to smile thankfully. she'd easily my most easygoing doll though. she'd put up with the wrong feet for almost 3 months before she decided to act out. she's so comfortable in heels, you can see in most of those pictures she's actually not standing in a normal both-feet-flat steady pose, she's on one leg with her hips cocked and her second foot barely touching the ground.. very confident in her femininity that one. the closest thing she does to shyness is that sometimes her bangs fall into her eyes since her wig's a bit loose.. at which point i just redo her hair clips. xD someone told me that her blue star clips don't go with her perceived age, that she looked too old for such “kiddy things”. whatever, i like them and she loves them, so they're staying. since when are stars a kid thing anyhow? they're cool , but in no way inherently only for young people. if i could find clips like this scaled for me, i'd totally wear them!
sometimes i find myself surprised by how easy it is to play with Eve in spite of her being SO heavy. even though she weighs more than anyone else i own (seriously- several pounds of heft to her), i find her such a joy that it's easy to spend hours on end with her and ignore the smaller, lighter ones that are more demanding and insistent when it comes to what they're willing to do and when. when you're not fighting against it, the weight doesn't seem as bad. for the most part my playing with Eve is having her sit up, stand up, and move her arms so i can reach whatever. she handles it all with grace though. when i sew for FaithAnn or even Xavin, there's a lot of floppy-arm “but i don't wanna” type flailing.. so i've pretty much stopped sewing for them. FaithAnn will sit through fittings, but not draping sessions, so clearly i need to work out patterns before i try to do anything for her again. xD Xavin appears to be content with what she has, so there's no real need to bother her for more. maybe i'll finish her space-suit at some point.. all that's left is the forearm part of the sleeves. currently she's rocking a purple pleather tube top over black slacks and a frilly men's shirt. xD it's a good look for her. it contrasts nicely with Larxene's pink-on-white southern belle frilliness: pink corset-tank over white sequined tee and super-lacy skirt. the two of them contrast really well, but they're kinda hard to photograph together. all i end up with most of the time is light blur and dark blob. *sigh* these are my best to date, and they're pretty old.
i really am working on doing a better job of balancing out my interests so i'm not obsessing over any one thing. it sounds like i am with all the doll talk, but i've also been working on DQ9 and Lego Harry Potter. DQ9 i've finished story mode and am now working on doing all the quests, alchemizing everything, and clearing all the legendary grottoes. It's slow-going, but i'm trudging through. Lego Harry Potter is going a little slower. i've cleared the story for the first three years. i have to get through year four before i have a decent chance at 100% completion through free play. i'll get there though, it'll just take a bit. like it did for Lego Batman, Lego Star Wars, and Lego Indiana Jones (which actually, i'm also still working on. Lego Rock Band has a bit to go still too. xD i haven't played my copy since early June i think? i know i'll get back to it though, so i'm not worried. i spent a long time on gaming, so now i'm making an effort to read more and concentrate on creative efforts. said efforts appear to have focused themselves on doll-related endeavors. when there's space in the office, maybe i'll actually get around to doing any of the paintings i've been drafting out over the past year.
i sincerely hope Moose doesn't think she'll be taking any of my painting supplies with her when she leaves.. we haven't discussed it yet, but after the initial loan (presumably until she could buy her own) she never returned anything at all. not the paints, not the brushes.. it's kinda appalling how much she's taken for granted (or just taken for herself) in this rooming situation. It wasn't until i stopped and listed things that i realized exactly how much i spent on her in the past year. X.x i like buying people things i think they'll enjoy, she apparently likes to let people buy things for her. somehow in spite of her owing me money, i ended up paying her back for several small purchases. O.o how does that even work? i'm like the worst debt-repayment-enforcer ever! though i'm sure it'll be loads easier to get my money from her when we no longer live together, since i won't be tempted to buy her things, but we'll still be working together so i can still hound her for my money. xD including back rent, it's somewhere between 6 and 8 hundred bucks.. it all depends on when she moves out, we agreed she'd pay this month based on how much of it she was still rooming with us. she's asked about speeding up her moving-out process so she owes us less. i'm totally okay with that, it gives me my office/studio that much sooner. in my head i've taken to referring to it as The StudiOffice.. lame, i know.
i think once there's room to really work on what i wanna do in less cramped quarters, i may actually have more to show off more often. i'm looking forward to having space to do anything without having to keep everything piled in my lap. it's hard to juggle an open compartmentalized container full of beads, a 4 pound doll, thread, and a needle when the phone rings suddenly from across the room. it happened last night and Kyu ended up with a lap full of everything i'd been working on as i leapt to answer it. frankly, i'm amazed my beads didn't go flying everywhere. -_-; it was Poppa and it was nice to talk to him, but when i have more space it won't really be an issue leaping up at a moment's notice. all my supplies won't be held in my lap, but on actual table space. how novel!xD
i've been thinking of getting a glass-fronted book case and small plastic baskets to organize my craft stuff in The StudiOffice. like one basket for my glitters, one for pastels, one for brushes. one basket for people-size patterns, one for the doll-scale. distinct spaces for markers, colored pencils, and watercolor pencils. a place for everything and everything in its place. some things are big enough to just go on a shelf as is, like my big tubes of paint, and my sandpaper. my gloss, sealant and magic eraser chunks belong together as faceup supplies. i think organizing it by what it's used for i'll be able to find things easier and it'll be less of a hassle to clean up when i'm done. i think it may encourage Kyu to keep his half of the room neat too. he's REALLY BAD about just putting things wherever, then tearing up everything to find what he misplaced. i keep my movies and video games alphabetically organized, i always know where they are. a similar schematic for crafting should be simple to implement. the glass front would be to discourage him from just sticking something on a shelf 'temporarily'. xD i have all kinds of crap that's not mine sitting inexplicably on the edges of shelves otherwise organized and filled with my things. and my desk, the one with my computer, is piled with things i never put on it: junk mail (i don't even have a mail key) and receipts for utility/rent money orders.. we really need a filing cabinet or something so he stops putting it on my desk “for safekeeping”. i'd like to avoid a similar fate for anything in The StudiOffice. i know his workspace will be on the opposite side of the room from mine, but knowing Kyu for as long as i have, it's really just smart to take preventative measures to keep the spaces as separate as possible. xD i've been working on (slowly) convincing him that keeping his loose Warhammer model parts in compartmentalized containers makes putting this together easier for him. i'm having moderate success so far, he has three organized plastic bins, but he also had numerous boxes of loose parts scattered throughout the apartment. there's still a long way to go so far as organizing his hobbies.
my darling Kyu is kinda (totally) a slob. he's easily distracted and prone to piling things wherever is handiest at any given moment. this frequently winds up causing raging fits of “where the hell did insert-missing-item go??” but we're working on it. i've gotten him to the point where he (99% of the time) puts his keys in three particular places, not just anywhere. the dog's leash is always put the same place now after her walks. his wallet, glasses and phone are always the same place every night. sadly this is the only progress after about 3 years of working on it. xD i'd like to get his parts of the apartment looking neater, less like the aftermath of Hurricane Harley or Tropical Storm Turnip.
to be entirely honest, i pile things too, but not like he does. i have stacks of books sorted alphabetically and stacked on the shelves they need to be filed into, across multiple bookcases, but that's laziness. i don't want to shift whole shelves to fit a few books into the spaces where they technically belong. due entirely to lack of space, i have my craft boxes piled somewhat creatively. they're stacked kinda high, but at strange angles so i can still dig through them one handed if i contort enough. it's not enough to really search for anything, but if i know object A is definitely in box B, i can generally find it without having to move too much around.
i need some help, i've looked around some and honestly i'm not having any luck finding basic doll clothing patterns. there used to be several nice (free) patterns available on DoA, but when i looked this weekend they were all dead links. i have a pretty hefty selection of patterns for tinies. it was a PDF file and i printed the whole thing and cut them all out. these are safe in a labeled envelope upstairs with my dolls. i have a few MSD patterns (pajamas, sun dresses and such) packed away in one of my craft boxes somewhere, but not like i need. i have nothing whatsoever for any bigger sizes. what i need is a pattern for a simple fitted dress shirt and panties in both MSD and SD scale. with those i can make my 8 panel building-block superhero costume pattern pieces. if any of ya'll have something like that (even just a functional link to it) and could share, i'd very much appreciate it.
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