A gray and cloudy Spring day

So I must think of brightly colored things. I like brightly colored things in general, unless they are violent green, burn your eyes out blue, safety cone orange, or such colours. I also like warm colours. So, to fight of the annoyances of gray cloudy days, I decided to blog about pretties.

Here is a wonderful example of bright, fun, warm colours.

I also love how the blue works really well with the red, and the white tips of the ends of the fins. I am a fan of the Beta Fish, also known alternately as Japanese Fighting Fish and Chinese Fighting Fish. I actually used to own a few that were really fun colored.

I am not sure if I would actually wear this mask... I would probably mount it on the wall so it can be seen. I wouldn't have many occassions to wear something this fun, colorful, or flashy.  That thought actually kind of makes me sad. I wish I had occasion to wear such a lovely thing.. and genuine leather, too!


You should take a look at her shop and her masks. http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40582298 is the listing for this particular mask.


Another fun-colored thing to look at is basketry. Not my own, here, but a very talented lady who makes pine-needle baskets. Something I lack the patience for!

It doesn't show how warm the colors are in this photo, but it shows the pretty bottom to this basket, which must have taken so many hours that I wouldn't be able to sit still long enough to do it.

The stitchwork is lovely, creating beautiful patterns while carefully coiling the piece. This basket makes me feel all warm inside just looking at it!

This piece can be found and purchased online at http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25312550



For Something a little different, here is an obsidian knife. It is the red in the obsidian that I am liking here. Something about it and the red bead with it just make me smile. May also involve the sunshine filtering into the background of the image.

This appears to be an obsidian with almost pink in it, but I think it is just the lighting on the red. A lovely knife that would look great in any household. The hilt is antler, I believe, and is also pretty, but I wanted a closeup of the blade.

This item is for sale, too! Because lots of the things I feature on this blog are. This one is, guess what, also listed on etsy.com.

Here is the listing for this particular item: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40892137

Happy spring, and may the rest of your day and your week be less cloudy than mine. Hopefully the weather will clear up enough to go flower-gazing at all the blossoming trees around here.

Picpic Tewlikitpe

I hate Dress Shopping

 I am 5'3" and I am a size 22. Most of this is from medication that causes weight gain, three years of bad and greasy foods at the cafeteria, and sitting on my butt all day for the past four years (college, you know). However, because I am getting married this summer and for general health I am trying to change my lifestyle and loose weight.  But the fact of the matter is that most dresses that I think are cute are definitely not in my size and I dislike most of the ones that come in my size. Tragedy.  Thus  I hate dress shopping.

And because I hate dress shopping I have taken time from my normally scheduled basketry and studies to make one. It costs less, which is always nice, and it will be made to my liking and size without the embarrassment of the "big girl" issue.

 It was supposed to look like this:

But I wanted to make it without the pink tippets or the rows of tedious buttons. Tippets are the  funky sleeve things she has on them, and I have no patience for that kind of thing. Seriously, it would take a while.  Those take more precision. Aaaand the buttons are very tedious work to sew on as well as to button up when I wear the dress.

I  asked my mother, who has made one before, how I shuld go about doing it. She said "make it in panels," so I thought, okay...  make the skirt in panels and make the top with panels, too, so that it looks cool.


I realized about halfway through that it was not what my mother meant at all. She meant make the entire front one or two panels, and each side is a panel and the back is one or two panels. Oops. well, you have to learn sometime and you have to get things wrong to figure out how to do it right.


So, long story short it is NOT this dress, which I think is gorgeous, but it is The Disaster.





I made the brilliant decision to make the dress with no pattern, no pins, and no measurements. And with a fabric that shows every darn wrinkle... So The Disaster was born. It took me hours and I did the skirt and top separately. So far so good. Then I tried to stitch them together and add sleeves. Sleeve attachment is kind of really hard...

So THIS is The Disaster.

Note that all wrinkles are visible and every mis-stitch is in your face. It was not very exciting I am also making a frustrated face because I KNOW it looks like the kind of thing you give a kid for dressup when you know they are not leaving the house.

Or perhaps it is the dress you let them play with and tell them that it sucks. Any way you put it, even ironed out it was bad...


So, after failing, I had my moment of despair where nothings feels right and I thought I couldn't do it and I was frustrated beyound all belief. And went to bed.




The next day I felt a little better. But at the same time not because I had made myself sick with upset-ness. It was the morning of the dance and I had nothing to wear. So after taking a deep breath, making a smoothie, and looking online, I decided to try again.


I purchased some red suede at a cheap price, as well as some pins and a measuring tape (which helped IMMENSELY, and I cannot figure out why I was so foolish to try it without either). I ate a small breakfast and got to work.

It took me five hours of constant effort to get this done, but when I was done I was very pleased.

This picture was taken, of course, after the dance when I had taken off all of my jewelry and the jingly belt I was wearing.  The belt helped, really. It made it look better at my waist. Okay, at least I think so. The trim on the sleeves are a little off and they were weird. Yes, they are bell sleeves, but I like bell sleeves better than close sleeves. As for the off-ness: I notice, but everyone else said that you cannot notice.... I really really do notice. And the hem at the bottom is crooked, but with a long dress like this it is harder to tell that the length near the floor is uneven.

The dress was a hit at the dance. Everyone was really happy with it and were all "You MADE this?!" and Japanese students kept saying "sugoi," which means "cool," or "amazing" in Japanese. I was amused. I don't think it is praiseworthy, myself. It looks like a shift with bell sleeves, but looks a lot closer to what it was intended to look like! And (from when I started measuring to when the dress was finished) it only took me five hours. All in one continuous block.

Now that I have ventured somewhat into clothing, my friends want me to help make them costumes for an anime convention coming up. I hope I will be able to have fun and not die of everything... Yes. I hope those clothes will turn out better. I am no great seamstress

However, I think that I will not make clothing as a career path. I will stick to my jewelry and being a basket case.

~Picpic Tewlikitpe