fanbloomingtastic

OK I'm coming back now....made Goth Child a Homestuck Jane Maid of Life costume for starters

I'm still struggling but trying to tell my head I'm fed up with being depressed and I keep seeing wonderful creations people are sewing around the world and I WANT SOME! So let's see if I actually make it out of the pit this time. Fingers crossed, though that makes climbing more difficult....

Aaaaanyway, as a reward for finishing her end of year exams and AP Biology, Goth Child got to go to all three days of Phoenix Comicon. In the past we've made her a steampunk costume and 2 John Egbert outfits (from Homestuck....no, I don't really know either, but the teenscene (will get shouted at for saying that) are obsessed by it, and GC and her friends keep wanting to convert me, but I've got enough geeky obsessions already):

But obviously she's a girl so can't be seen without a new costume for each comicon or anime fest she goes to....so I made her this latest addition to her cosplaying cupboard:

It's a Jane Maid of Life from the Homestuck God Tier (?) I can guarantee I got that wrong and will get shouted at for being so uncool. Actually, I'll get shouted for using the phrase "so uncool"....I can't win.

But this all she gave me to work from:

And this is what I made, by adapting McCalls 6658 and 6614 and using a couple of flat sheets bought from our local Goodwill. She seemed very happy with it......especially as I surprised her by spray painting a wooden spoon red too that her character carries.....you see, sometimes I do listen to her ranting on about Homestuck.

The facts 

Fabric: One chocolate brown flat sheet and one beige flat sheet from Goodwill $5.98 (£3.91). Scrap of green cotton t-shirt from stash.
Haberdashery/Notions: Reclaimed elastic from stash (think it was reclaimed from a fitted sheet I used on another project), thread.
Time to complete: 14 hours of winging it.
First worn: 26th May 2013.
Wear again? Yep, Goth Child loved it.

Total price: $5.98 (£3.91).

I mainly used the long-sleeved top from McCall's 6658 and extended the front and back into the tails and pointy bits to match the drawing GC gave me. As the pattern is meant for a slightly stretchy knit I made it one size larger and made the scoop neckline slightly deeper to ensure she could get it on without struggling (I also knew I'd made the cowl bit of the hood long enough to cover any gape).

I used the same pattern for the elasticated trousers....meant to have a drawstring waist but I used elastic, and then I got her to try them on to work out where under her knee was to cut them off and loosely add elastic to give the pantaloons some shape. 

The hood is based loosely on the hood from McCall's 6614 which I drafted a cowl (am I calling it the right thing?) two pieced egg shape to sew the hood into and seal with the second piece. This also gave it a little extra weight, as it was pretty lightweight being just a sheet.

If any of you can make sense of this, then this is sort of what I did.....this is why I will always be a winger of patterns and never a creator of one:

I know, rubbish. I'm sure you'll find some highly competant descriptions of how to make detached hoods on the internet and youtube. If I was my best self I'd have taken photos throughout the process to explain it better. But you get what you get with me at the moment.

The fake glasses and blue slip on shoes she stole from Melchett, we bough the cheapest longest white bandages we could find in Walgreens (think Boots dear Brits)....yes, I could have made some but they were $3.99 and sometimes buying things beats the time and effort making them. And the wig she bought at a previous anime convention and we had some fun hacking it into shape. How she wore all this in Phoenix's summer heat I have no idea, probably a good idea we made it from a couple of sheets instead of the knits she originally wanted.

Anyway, Goth Child loved it. And the thing she loved best....the flappy tails at the back, I wish I'd filmed it but she kept dancing around doing the flappy tail dance:

There. I posted something. It's taken me a stupid amount of time to edit those photos and write stuff. Need to get back into the swing of blogging again. Hopefully, I'll be back soon with something else. Wish me luck.

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Being silly with my iphone panorama feature

I need some silliness at the moment. Something to make me smile despite all the terrible news around the world.

So here's something to try out (if you haven't already) if you have an iphone 4s or 5 with iOS6.

Panoramas....

Surely I wasn't the only one who adored her Kodak Advantix camera in the 90s for it's panoramic photo-setting? (or a Nexia, Futura or Konica Centuria...can't remember the names of the others).

(Yes, I know the real photographers out there did panoramas way before this, but my Kodak Advantix meant me, a beginner, could play).

Mind you, I've just been searching through my photo boxes and I can only find 2 panoramic photos I took (I KNOW I took way more than that....I'm sure I had a whole load of landscapes from the Pennines. Must have been yet another thing lost in our move to the USA). Anyway, here's one of the two, both of my kid brother's wedding:

 

 

What a lovely couple. I suppose the only thing was, this wasn't PROPER panoramic photography. It was more cropped, letterbox photography.

Well, my iphone 4s has brought the fun back into taking long photos!

I started small, just your basic 240 degrees:

 

A baseball game at the Arizona Diamondbacks Chase Field. This was about a day after the first iOS6 update came out. I finished my sweep of the ground only to see 2 other people in rows behind me doing exactly the same thing with their iphones.

If you want to know how to do this, I've got a CNET tutorial video at the end of this post.

Then when we went to Grand Canyon last Fall Break (translation for Brits: Autumn half-term), we played with the panorama feature a bit more:

 

 

Still doesn't do the Grand Canyon justice, but I defy any single photo to.....you need to see it with your own eyes, or check out the full panoramas on Panoye. Mine aren't bad for a camera phone. The light being fantastic helped a great deal. 

Then there's me doing a sweep and taking a sneaky pic of the real photographer in the family, Goth Child:

 

As you can see, I moved too fast in this one and Goth Child has no face. So at this point she relieved me of my iphone so she could play with panoramas. She had to be clever and try vertical ones....the black edges are where she wobbled before nearly falling over backwards:

 

 

And then of course, almost at the same time, me and Mr D exclaimed...."we should do the old school photo trick!"

This became a family exercise: Goth Child steadily panning around, with Melchett posing in one place then running around the back of her to get into a second position....we started modestly, yes, that's me in the cowgirl hat in the middle...

 

Then we got more adventurous, trying to get Melchett into the photo 3 times, and then topping that with swapping her hat for a different one each time she ran around the back of Goth Child:

 

I have to confess, we then got cocky and tried to get her 4 times in the same photo....it didn't work, she didn't get into spot quick enough and therfore we only have a third of a 4th Melchett:

 

 

I'm positive with practice and a little more preparation (perhaps marking spots on the floor and wackier hats and/or wigs) we could get Melchett Quads.....eek that's a frightening thought.

If you don't yet know how to take panoramic shots, here's a good tutorial from CNET:

 

 

I also need to look into better ways to display the photos or trying to do 360's (I think the iphone can only do 240 degrees at most). I'm going to investigate Panoye for certain for future 'sensible' photos of the places we roadtrip to. I could get totally lost in the beauty of the photos on Panoye, people upload, geotag and publish their panoramas there to build a virtual tour of the Earth. Check it out! I might have to try out the TourWrist app for my iphone too.

Have you played with the iphone panorama feature? I'd love to see your pics if you stick a link in the comments.

OK, back to sewing.....hurriedly trying to finish a Mad Men dress for Julia Bobbin's Mad Men 2 sew along.....but I have to confess I haven't even cut the fabric yet. Me? A procrastinator? How rude of you to even suggest it!

Laters!

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Back to School - past & present (and ninja brownies)

Ah, do you remember the days when back to school meant going to the uniform shop in the local village and kitting the kids out in sweatshirts you assured them they'd "grow into to".

Then popping to Woolworths and buying some new felt tips (translation: markers) and a new pencil case because last year's Lilo and Stitch one wasn't trendy anymore.

And sending them off to school looking like this....

This is Goth Child on her first day at school in 2001. Cute eh? Then she started growing up ;)

And then we came to America, where the uniforms were still there-ish, but different now:

Goth Child in her High School Freshman t-shirt and one of the ROTC uniforms she had to wear once a week....if she was unlucky it was skirt and pantyhose week, if she was lucky it was BDUs and army boots. 

Melchett was cute going to school through the years too:

Ahhh, the lovely days when they'd wait across from the house in England for the school bus together:

So cute the pair of them:

And then we came to America, and they didn't have to wear 'uniforms' every day (and uniforms here are basically class t-shirts worn on a Friday.....unless like Goth Child you sign up for ROTC to avoid doing PE):

And now we've just 3 days and a weekend away from back to school 2012 stylee. Look at them now:

Yep, Goth Child is making the most of dropping ROTC in her Sophomore year by now having blue hair. And Melchett? Please don't ask about her hair or clothes, she styled herself this morning.....I have to keep nudging GC to stop her saying exactly what she thinks of what Melchey looks like. Kids eh!

So it's that time again....time to buy the back to school stationery on the required lists (and resign yourself to their arguments that they really don't have tons of felt tips (translation: markers) already at home, and they've honestly lost their pencil sharper/calculator etc):

And buy Melchett yet another pair of trainers (translation: tennis shoes) because her enormous feet have grown AGAIN!

And do the last bake of school hols.....though this time, we're baking ninja brownies:

OK, sssh now, ninja brownies need to disappear into my stomach....

I'm having to do PE....at 44 (psst, it's not too bad though)

Let me explain, I've just done a 2 hour-ish PE lesson. But this was my view for most of the time:

And this:

No way are you getting pics of my bowling :P

They never had this in my day.

Goth Child wants to do Choir as one of her electives in High School next year. But to do this, she has to get a half credit in PE/Physical Education before the start of year (at the end of July).

There were 2 main ways she could do this:

1. summer school (4 hours per day of 'traditional' PE, where I'd have to be present as a chaperone, in our 104-115F temps....nah, not for us that one, especially as I'd probably have to bring Melchett along each day to be bored and hot too.
2. 'online' - a range of courses to choose from including aerobics, running, tennis and our choice, bowling (each course has online and on paper lessons to work through, online tests to take to be marked, a final online exam and for bowling, Goth Child has to submit print-outs of her best 15 games verified by the front desk staff at our bowling alley).

So we could do the minimum of 15 games and just submit those, or we could do more and submit the best scores from just 15 to get a better grade. 30% of her final grade is based on the average score from these 15 games.

She started off bowling around 66-68. Her top score so far is 101, though session by session she's gradually improving, probably averaging mid-70s/low-80s at the moment. I think this is a C-ish. That's cool, to be honest, all she really has to do is pass.

What I do like though, is she's taking it seriously. She reading the coursework and trying to apply it. 

But she's also learning about bowling etiquette, sportsman-like behaviour (not gloating about her score whilst her 9 year sister gets a fair amount of gutterballs) and I'm making her do things like going up and asking for print-outs and shoes etc, rather than simply being 'Mum' and doing this stuff for her.

And Melchett's learning too. She's learning that although she's probably the most sporty person in our family, the one who can comparatively run faster, swim longer and jump higher than the rest of us.....she's not always going to find everything easy.....sometimes you have to work at things to get better at them, and you can't throw a mini-tantrum when you roll your 5th gutterball of the day.

And me?

I'm doing PE for the first time proper (I did 2 extra 'O' levels to get out of it at school....though we were talking hockey and lacrosse on icy/drizzly Northern English playing fields), I'm getting to spend quality time with my two wonderful kids away from the computer (that goes for all 3 of us)....

...and I scored a 118 today ;)

Competitive Mum strikes again! In your face, losers! ....................is what I obviously wouldn't say......well, out loud ;)

Doctor Who Impossible Astronaut Roadtrip Pt 1 - the picnic on the beach (etc....spoilers!)

I have a confession. This wasn't our first Doctor Who 'road trip'. We have history....

This is us visiting Cardiff in 2008, mainly for the Doctor Who Exhibition (where we got scared by Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels, Clockwork monsters etc.....and I may have blinked....oops) but we also had to stand by the railings where the 10th Doctor and Martha stood when Captain Jack told them he'd once been a poster boy, the Face of Boe they called him :)

(We did some Torchwood shots too, but the girls were too young then to be allowed to watch it, so it didn't make a whole deal of sense to them).

I think though to be honest when we lived in the UK, the places (mainly Cardiff for the 10th Doctor) they filmed didn't seem that exciting. Places aren't that exciting when you've lived by them all your life. Weirdly now, when I see anywhere in the UK on the tv I get excited.

But when we saw the two episodes of Doctor Who at the start of the 6th season (Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon) were filmed in Arizona and Utah, we knew we'd have to do a Doctor Who roadtrip.

I've split our current Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon USA Doctor Who Road Trip into 3 parts, today the beach, tomorrow Monument Valley where they all meet and Saturday Glen Canyon Dam from Day of the Moon.

If you haven't seen this episode yet....there are spoilers in the pics about what happens, though I'm not going to show you more than is in THIS episode.

Right, for all you Whovians who've only ended up on this page wanting directions for your road trip, here you go:

The picnic on the beach in Impossible Astronaut

It's filmed at Lone Rock Beach, Lake Powell which straddles the Utah/Arizona state line near Page.

Thanks to the Doctor Who Locations website we got the GPS co-ordinates are:  37°00'38", -111°31'50" Pop that into your GPS/satnav and that will get you to the exact point.....

HOWEVER, our GPS tried to take us to the exact point as the crow flies...through a bit of the lake. So know that is the exact co-ordinates but go about 10 miles on US89 from Page, past the turn-off to Wahweap Marina, past the Lake Powell Mart Corner Cafe on the left of the road and just over the Utah border (there's a big sign on the right of the road). The road you need is Lone Rock Road down to the beach on the right.

You can drive right onto the beach and camp there but if you haven't got a 4 x 4 or truck, you might want to stop when the sand starts getting too soft...we did, and I have read an account of other Whovians who got stuck and had to be pushed off.

We had a fab time on the beach, though were glad we came out of season - even in March there were plenty of people, cars, quad bikes and a few houseboats on the beach. I know they filmed the bits for Impossible Astronaut in November and I'm not surprised to get peace and quiet. Melchett had a great time skimming stones into the water. The views and colour of the Lake are quite spectacular, it's a serenely beautiful place. You'll see we had a little trouble with the brightness of the sun though, it's seriously intense for photos and bounces off all the mountains.

And here's some of the fun we got up to and comparison pics from the original show(s)....btw we don't say 'cheese' for photos anymore.....we say 'spoilers' in a very River Song way, it makes us laugh. We're such anoraks.

Melchett attempting to get into the water to be the Impossible Astronaut:

Her inspiration:

And the furthest she got in:

That water is flipping freezing....goodness knows what it was like for the stunt man filming in November!

Our picnic on the beach:

I'm sure I saw someone on the hill. I can't remember who it was now....

And we didn't have 4 picnic rugs like the Doctor, Amy, Rory and River...we had just one. It is there underneath us honest. We didn't have wine either....but we did have grapes, pringles and lovely yellow mugs for our water (I really wanted a cuppa tea (when don't I?) but we didn't bring a stove).

Here's the proper picnic:

And here's what happens when the Doctor goes to meet the Astronaut (and a pic of me and Mr D as Rory and Amy....with a small 'astronaut' behind us in the water):

Which is obviously based on:

Goth Child also wanted a pic of me (Amy) spotting the Silence. As none of us could be bothered to run up onto the hill to pose, I've had to photoshop the Silence in:

Obviously now you have looked away from that photo and are reading this you have forgotten what I was looking at up on the hill....wink wink.....it is there honest, you just keeping looking away from it and therefore forget it's there. How dare you accuse me of being lazy on not photoshopping one in! I'm hurt!

OK that's it for Pt 1....tomorrow I'll show you our pics from Monument Valley when the friends first meet up in the planet called America (as River Song's guard calls it). Then Pt 3 will have our trip to Glen Canyon Dam where Rory got caught by Canton and the FBI in 1969.

(All screen captures are the copyright of the BBC and appear here as reference to illustrate the location in comparison with how it looked at the time of filming and the present day; no attempt is made to supercede this or any other copyright)

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