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May. 25th, 2021 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
totchipandaI was off work last week for a stay-cation, and it was great. I actually felt rested for coming back to work. I did not plan my time, and I did not go anywhere (thought I might try to go visit some friends 3 hours away, but my budget is too tight to allow for gas money for that kind of trip). I read 2.25 books, handsewed an entire dress, finished up the plaid skirt, and planted my garden (no thanks to the weather; it snowed last Tuesday).
Tudor Summer
I cut out the linen for a smocked hemd, and handsewed an entire underdress from brown wool with linen thread. It is THE most BORING colour EVER but it was a delight to sew. I pulled threads to cut the skirt panels, and it was quite off-grain. Can't really tell now that it's attached to the bodice. I maybe made it too tight, but I was counting on the linen lining and wool stretching with wear. I haven't started the hemd yet, mostly bc I can't decide if I want to handsew it or machine the long bits, and bc I haven't finished the shifts I was sewing last year.
I haven't made a decision about an overdress. I don't think I have enough wool-anything to make one. I have 3m of teal which I want to keep for the PERFECT project, something I will wear lots bc its so beautiful, and 2m of dark olive green which isn't enough for anything substantial (and I was kind of planning to turn it into a teens-era skirt).
But the underdress is done, and it's swishy, and I love it.
Other Sewing
I didn't spend as much time in the sewing room as I could have. Looking back on the week, I'm not sure what I did lol. But I tried the table trick for my plaid skirt (stand next to a table and pin the table level around or just below the hip line, then measure off your skirt length that way), got it all marked properly, and then hemmed it AND set some closures. I thought I might get to shirtwaists, but aside from trying on an old one that I somehow cut too small? I didn't get back to that.
Garden
I lost a bunch of my seedlings since my last update, all of the pumpkins and 4 of the 6 zucchinis. The basil didn't come back after being replanted, and the catnip got sprinkled into one of the planters where it seems to be doing ok? I have some mint-looking sprouts coming up. Nearly all, if not all, of the peppers are doing great, though.
As i mentioned, it snowed last Tuesday (very common in this area) and it lingered for a day, plus the outside temperatures were very cold for a couple more days. Too cold to plant the rest of the babies. On Sunday, finally, it was decent enough and I said that's it, time to plant. It was right after the last pumpkin perished, and one zucchini wasn't looking too great. I had enough leftover pots from the homeowner's daughter that I was able to plant everything with what I had.
I was gonna dig up more of the front garden, but then the neighbour and I got talking, and she offered to do it for me. So I took her up on it lol. I will bring her something nice as a thank-you and/or pay her.
Books
I HAVE LOTS TO SAY ABOUT MY BOOKS. That's why I've put it here at the end, because I'm going to cut this before it gets any longer lol. After watching Shadow and Bone on Netflix, I jumped into the Six of Crows duology bc it was already on my to-read list.
Ok, maybe I don't have LOTS to say, but I do have stuff to say! Namely: Representation MATTERS.
So I knew about the show a couple weeks before it came out. I still have not read SaB.
The show and the book are kind of intertwined in my mind, however. When watching the show, I knew nothing about the world besides some very brief convos with a fan on one of my Discord servers. Maybe a week before it came out, I learned that Ben Barnes was going to be starring in it, which made my roommate and I want to watch it, so we did. We liked it enough to watch 3 episodes one night, and then blasted through the last 5 the next afternoon (we stopped bc we KNEW if we didn't, it would be 3 am before we knew it). I really enjoyed the non-western-European origins of the world-building, by which I mean a very narrow and highly-specific set of mythologies that normally gets incorporated into "fantasy". I really appreciated that a good portion of the cast is non-white. I liked the costuming.
I knew that there would be some crossover with Six of Crows that was not present in the books, bc when both series' are beloved, you want to capitalize on that. After watching the show, I spent a good amount of time on tumblr on the show tag, where I was then spoiled on numerous events in the various series'. It was reading those posts and a non-zero amount of fanfiction where I learned more about the SoC characters, including spoilers.
I went straight to reading Six of Crows for a few reasons. A: It was on my to-read list since A1: I had read The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi and it was compared to SoC a lot in reviews and on tumblr (fwiw, I think SoC is a better book, but I like them both for different reasons) and A2: eyyyy upcoming/current hype. B: I was already pretty sure I would love Kaz bc he was compared to the main character of Gilded Wolves, and in that case that kind of character is RIGHT UP MY ALLEY ALL DAY ERRY DAY. I call them the Mr Darcy - harsh mean exterior, big ol' softie interior. Especially for a female character, and when they treat that character with the utmost respect. This is my number one favourite character trope.
Y'all, I fell hard. Of course I loved Kaz. Of course I loved Inej. Of course I loved them together. I knew the spoilers about their backstories, but Kaz's especially was even worse once I read it. It's a major part of his character and part of the relationship development with Inej.
And like, representation matters. Boy went through some HECKIN TRAUMA. He has severe touch-aversion because of it. And reading about haphephobia, I saw so much of myself in it (a lot of my childhood trauma has resulted in me being scared to get close to people, and that def appears in touch). The non-white cast of the show means so much to so many people, people who never saw themselves represented in media before. At least two of the characters are canonically bisexual. They are non-white, non-able-bodied, non-thin, non-a whole bunch of other things that would probably piss your average mediocre white guy off. And it's so needed.
I blew through both books in about 3 days each. They are not hard reads, being firmly YA. I enjoyed both. I'm stuck firmly on the one 'ship, to the point that I'm giving serious thought to joining a ship week in June. (I'd really like to finish my 25k monstrosity of a fic for a different fandom before creating for this one buuuut we'll see). And I love them so much.
Tudor Summer
I cut out the linen for a smocked hemd, and handsewed an entire underdress from brown wool with linen thread. It is THE most BORING colour EVER but it was a delight to sew. I pulled threads to cut the skirt panels, and it was quite off-grain. Can't really tell now that it's attached to the bodice. I maybe made it too tight, but I was counting on the linen lining and wool stretching with wear. I haven't started the hemd yet, mostly bc I can't decide if I want to handsew it or machine the long bits, and bc I haven't finished the shifts I was sewing last year.
I haven't made a decision about an overdress. I don't think I have enough wool-anything to make one. I have 3m of teal which I want to keep for the PERFECT project, something I will wear lots bc its so beautiful, and 2m of dark olive green which isn't enough for anything substantial (and I was kind of planning to turn it into a teens-era skirt).
But the underdress is done, and it's swishy, and I love it.
Other Sewing
I didn't spend as much time in the sewing room as I could have. Looking back on the week, I'm not sure what I did lol. But I tried the table trick for my plaid skirt (stand next to a table and pin the table level around or just below the hip line, then measure off your skirt length that way), got it all marked properly, and then hemmed it AND set some closures. I thought I might get to shirtwaists, but aside from trying on an old one that I somehow cut too small? I didn't get back to that.
Garden
I lost a bunch of my seedlings since my last update, all of the pumpkins and 4 of the 6 zucchinis. The basil didn't come back after being replanted, and the catnip got sprinkled into one of the planters where it seems to be doing ok? I have some mint-looking sprouts coming up. Nearly all, if not all, of the peppers are doing great, though.
As i mentioned, it snowed last Tuesday (very common in this area) and it lingered for a day, plus the outside temperatures were very cold for a couple more days. Too cold to plant the rest of the babies. On Sunday, finally, it was decent enough and I said that's it, time to plant. It was right after the last pumpkin perished, and one zucchini wasn't looking too great. I had enough leftover pots from the homeowner's daughter that I was able to plant everything with what I had.
I was gonna dig up more of the front garden, but then the neighbour and I got talking, and she offered to do it for me. So I took her up on it lol. I will bring her something nice as a thank-you and/or pay her.
Books
I HAVE LOTS TO SAY ABOUT MY BOOKS. That's why I've put it here at the end, because I'm going to cut this before it gets any longer lol. After watching Shadow and Bone on Netflix, I jumped into the Six of Crows duology bc it was already on my to-read list.
Ok, maybe I don't have LOTS to say, but I do have stuff to say! Namely: Representation MATTERS.
So I knew about the show a couple weeks before it came out. I still have not read SaB.
The show and the book are kind of intertwined in my mind, however. When watching the show, I knew nothing about the world besides some very brief convos with a fan on one of my Discord servers. Maybe a week before it came out, I learned that Ben Barnes was going to be starring in it, which made my roommate and I want to watch it, so we did. We liked it enough to watch 3 episodes one night, and then blasted through the last 5 the next afternoon (we stopped bc we KNEW if we didn't, it would be 3 am before we knew it). I really enjoyed the non-western-European origins of the world-building, by which I mean a very narrow and highly-specific set of mythologies that normally gets incorporated into "fantasy". I really appreciated that a good portion of the cast is non-white. I liked the costuming.
I knew that there would be some crossover with Six of Crows that was not present in the books, bc when both series' are beloved, you want to capitalize on that. After watching the show, I spent a good amount of time on tumblr on the show tag, where I was then spoiled on numerous events in the various series'. It was reading those posts and a non-zero amount of fanfiction where I learned more about the SoC characters, including spoilers.
I went straight to reading Six of Crows for a few reasons. A: It was on my to-read list since A1: I had read The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi and it was compared to SoC a lot in reviews and on tumblr (fwiw, I think SoC is a better book, but I like them both for different reasons) and A2: eyyyy upcoming/current hype. B: I was already pretty sure I would love Kaz bc he was compared to the main character of Gilded Wolves, and in that case that kind of character is RIGHT UP MY ALLEY ALL DAY ERRY DAY. I call them the Mr Darcy - harsh mean exterior, big ol' softie interior. Especially for a female character, and when they treat that character with the utmost respect. This is my number one favourite character trope.
Y'all, I fell hard. Of course I loved Kaz. Of course I loved Inej. Of course I loved them together. I knew the spoilers about their backstories, but Kaz's especially was even worse once I read it. It's a major part of his character and part of the relationship development with Inej.
And like, representation matters. Boy went through some HECKIN TRAUMA. He has severe touch-aversion because of it. And reading about haphephobia, I saw so much of myself in it (a lot of my childhood trauma has resulted in me being scared to get close to people, and that def appears in touch). The non-white cast of the show means so much to so many people, people who never saw themselves represented in media before. At least two of the characters are canonically bisexual. They are non-white, non-able-bodied, non-thin, non-a whole bunch of other things that would probably piss your average mediocre white guy off. And it's so needed.
I blew through both books in about 3 days each. They are not hard reads, being firmly YA. I enjoyed both. I'm stuck firmly on the one 'ship, to the point that I'm giving serious thought to joining a ship week in June. (I'd really like to finish my 25k monstrosity of a fic for a different fandom before creating for this one buuuut we'll see). And I love them so much.
