Lady of the Thread's Sewing Basket

Verizon finally put up fiber optic cable in our neighborhood recently so we had Fios installed yesterday. It’s about the same as what we were paying before for separate DSL and phone service so my parents were eager to switch now that it was finally available here. Plus, we only had regular network TV before and now we suddenly have like hundreds of channels. o_o; I haven't taken the time to sit down and try flipping through all of them yet to see what there is.


Cosplay-wise, I need to get started on Lia this weekend. I got the JP Ryan Robe a la Francaise and Robe a la Anglaise patterns in the mail last week but have been feeling lazy. ^_^; I’m going to mainly use the Anglaise pattern since the skirt in the reference looks like it should be polonaise style but I need to alter the bodice to have a stomacher like the Francaise pattern. Definitely doing a mockup of the bodice and overskirt first.


And I’ve watched some new anime lately, which I hadn’t done for a while. Started on Hetalia a while before Anime Boston as research for cosplay chess since my part involved a Le Chevalier/Hetalia crossover. I guess it’s amusing but too ridiculous and weird at times. O_o;

I watched Baccano while doing the finishing work and kanzashi for my Sakura Matsuri outfit. With all the jumping back and fourth and so many characters, it was a bit of a challenge to figure out what was the real order of events and how they fit together. And I suppose that aspect was what kept me interested although it was a bit overly bloody for my tastes. I finished it and it was okay but I don’t really see myself watching it again.

I finished Umineko last weekend and liked it most out of these three but have mixed feelings about it. I liked the skit for it at AB and figured it might be a good series to check out since I’m a mystery fan. I was kind of dubious though since I couldn’t help thinking that it sounded like an “And Then There Were None” ripoff. People trapped on a private island and everyone getting murdered according to a piece of writing that’s prominently featured? It hasn’t just been done before; it was done 70 years ago by Agatha Christie in one of her most well known novels! >_> I reread the book this week and there was a storm and a message in a bottle explaining what happened, too. There was even a dead woman named Beatrice mentioned. And one of the characters, who was going a bit crazy from the situation and dozing off while writing in her diary, wrote Beatrice was the murderer. That makes me wonder if the name came from there, too, although there’s also a reference to Dante’s Divine Comedy with Beatrice and Virgilia’s names.

So, I started it and it was okay at first although it was a bit overly gruesome for my tastes. (I do read a lot of mysteries but prefer the cozy type without lots of gore and violence.) About halfway through, I got more into it, wanting to see what new twists would be thrown in and who would win in the end. I didn’t end up liking many of the characters though. The family was kind of messed up. And most of the witches, especially Beatrice… Ugh. Pretty/cute costumes but such cruel and ugly personalities. I really wanted Battler to beat Beatrice since she was such a bully. And that ending, after hurrying through the second half of the series to see what happens. ARGH! So, I sort of liked the series but it also left me kind of miffed. -_-X


Anyone have suggestions for other anime series to try? It seems hard to come up with stuff I’d be interested in since I’m not really into action or sci-fi and things focused too much on romance bore me. I also tend to like series with continuing storylines over episodic ones.

Hmm… It’s been about 2 weeks since I last updated because I’ve been lazy. >_>; So, this is going to be a huge collection of random stuff… Update for the Anime Boston PSOH group next time.

To selphie84 and ngmaster: Thanks for the call yesterday. It was a nice little unexpected surprise. :-D Sorry I didn’t actually make it into the city to meet up with you guys.


Next, it seems I need to note a correction to something I posted after NYAF. Shortly before Christmas, I wrote to Peter Tatara for clarification about the awards and got a reply a couple of weeks ago. The only award he has me listed for is 1st Place Craftsman and he says there wasn’t a Best of Show for the hall contest, only Best Craftsmanship. I’m not really upset about it or anything but it makes me wonder a bit if I’m losing my mind since I could have sworn they announced a Best of Show tie between me and one of the novice winners at the end, after I went up to the stage. ._.;


On to a more serious matter, I’m kind of questioning how well Chase handles their statements. The other week, they sent a letter saying that they mistakenly listed $0 balances for some accounts on statements they sent out in December (of course, I caught it when the statement first arrived). This is the second time they’ve messed up on one of my parents’ statements within the past half year. -_- And their statements already annoy me because they don’t seem that user friendly. I don’t claim to be a financial genius but I did take finance as one of my majors at NYU and graduated with honors; yet, their statements still don’t make complete sense to me at times! >_<

Since it’s the beginning of the year, my family’s mailbox is being crammed with tax return documents and it’s my job to keep track of them all; it adds up to a lot of mail with 6 of us here. I found it pretty silly that my bank sent me a separate mail for the $1.02 of interest that I had from my checking account instead of just tacking it onto the one from my savings account!


I recently finished watching Le Chevalier D’Eon. ( cut for spoilers )


And I got the 5th volume of the Petshop of Horrors sequel the other week. Not completely sure what’s going on at times since I don’t know any Japanese but a couple of parts were pretty darn weird. O_o; ( cut for spoilers )


I’m finally getting back to working on cosplay stuff now and have been sewing the underskirt for Sarah’s Cinderella costume. I made it with some leftover white cotton and attached a few layers of netting near the hem to make the bottom poofy. Still need to put faux fur over the netting but I’m thinking I should get new material because the fur I have now has a rather short pile and doesn’t look fluffy enough. I’d bought it because I was having trouble finding anything else in white other than fun fur (the stuff I used for my T-Chan plushie) and I thought the backing on that might be too stiff. Don’t know what I’d do with the yard and a half that I already have though since nothing else I want to cosplay calls for fake fur.


And the other night, my siblings and I randomly got onto the subject of old computer games at dinner. The 7th Guest, Myst, Monkey Island, Laura Bow, lots of lesser known stuff and even text games! My favorites from those days had to be the adventure games which didn’t require much combat (if any) and mostly involved collecting items and using them to solve puzzles and advance the storyline. Never got too much into games that involved lots of combat since my coordination is terrible. Like I remember we had a PC version of Street Fighter and I never used the special moves because of my awful coordination with such things. ^_^;; And I think I usually failed miserably when trying to kill the monsters in Alone in the Dark. XD; I wonder if there are still any good adventure games released these days… I don’t play games as often now and I don’t think I’ve played any as involved as the ones from the ‘90s for a long time.

Okay, I’m done. I did say this post was going to be random, didn’t I? :-P

Blah… Now that I haven’t really got a project going, I’m feeling kind of bored. I suppose I should take a stab at finally giving my room and the living room (where I usually sew) a thorough cleaning but it’s not exactly an exciting project. ^_^;; Actually, the whole house could probably use a cleaning since there’s so much clutter; if my family ever had to move, we’d never make it because we would never finish packing! >_>;

To try to alleviate the boredom, I’ve gathered my bits of shaggy orange fur and am starting to figure out how to make my T-Chan plushie. I have some yellow scraps left from my Tohru sundress that I’ll use for paws and the horns but still have to look through my fabric stash to see if there’s anything good in beige for the face. I’ve gotten the tail done and have ideas for the legs but the head is going to take some figuring out.

Hmm… Maybe, I should consider doing my kirin plushie, too, after I get T-Chan done. I meant to make Taiki to carry around while in my nyosen costume but never got around to it since other costume stuff kept me busy.

I got the final volume of Kaleido Star: New Wings this week and watched it. ^_^ It was great! ( Cut for spoilers )

Hmm... And now, I guess I need some new anime to follow since I've finished both Gankutsuou and Kaleido Star.

I got a couple of DVDs from Amazon yesterday, vol. 4 of Kaleido Star: New Wings and vol. 5 of Gankutsuou. An optimistic girl pursuing her dream of being a circus star and a bitter man bent on revenge… What a weird combination. LOL

There were 5 episodes on the Kaleido Star disc this time, which was nice. Sora seems to be bouncing back and we’re getting some hints about Leon’s past now. He certainly seems to have some obsessive issues, regarding a girl named Sophie. o_o;

Gankutsuou was kind of depressing, particularly the second episode on the disc. ;_; Not sure if it was just me but I found myself wondering what some of the characters were doing while certain events were going on because we don’t see them/their reactions.

I’ve been meaning to talk a bit about books since it’s been a while but I’ve been so busy with costume stuff lately. I finished rereading Dianne Day’s Fremont Jones series the other day. It’s 6 books long and mostly set in California during the early 1900s. The main character is Fremont, an independent-spirited girl from a wealthy Boston family who leaves home after her widowed father gets remarried to a woman she despises. She moves to San Francisco with the intention of making her own living by starting a typewriting business and soon finds herself involved in a mystery when one of her clients is murdered. The series follows the adventures she gets involved in through her typing business and later, the detective agency she starts with her lover Michael Archer.

It’s too bad the series didn’t go longer since I liked the characters; Fremont is probably one of my favorite mystery heroines ever. Like a lot of mystery series I liked that ended, I had assumed there would be more but a next book just never came. The author has only published one book since the series ended, a Civil War era mystery based on the life of Clara Barton, and I just wasn’t interested enough to finish reading it when I tried a few years back. :-/

Next, I’ll probably read “Death at Glamis Castle” by Robin Paige. Kate Ardleigh, the protagonist in this series, reminds me of Fremont since she was also an unconventional woman who wanted to earn her own living. In her case, it was by writing gothic fiction and the series is set in a slightly earlier time period than Dianne Day’s books, about a decade before. It’s a decent series but I don’t love it nearly as much as the Fremont Jones series.

And in costume news, 5 flowers left to go! I’m finally getting close to the light at the end of the tunnel! XD