SHIRTLESS JASON STATHAM RESCUING
A BABY OWL FROM A FIRE!!!
No doubt my design professors will be relieved to know I'm not letting my Photoshop training go to seed.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Thrusty Thursday: Hijacked in the name of AWESOME!!!
Letting my evil twin Cara commandeer Thrusty Thursday, to celebrate her ten thousandth tweet by presenting you with the awesomest thing there is and ever could be…
No doubt my design professors will be relieved to know I'm not letting my Photoshop training go to seed.
No doubt my design professors will be relieved to know I'm not letting my Photoshop training go to seed.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Make Yourself a Dress, Part 4
Once I had all my fabric carefully marked, I was ready to begin actually sewing my dress. Which brings us to…
This section really ought to be titled "Do Whatever Your Pattern Says To". The entire remainder of the process could fall under that banner, actually. So we'll now diverge a bit from this series masquerading as a true how-to, and instead I'll just share what steps I've been muddling my way through.
1. Baste. Basting is the process of loosely hand-stitching the pieces together as marked (including darts), sort of a dry run, so you can try the bodice on for fit. If the fit's off or you make a mistake, you can simply pull out the stitches as opposed to having to laboriously seam-rip a machine-stitched hem. [Romance authors, insert bodice-ripping joke here.]
2. Actual sewing! Once you're satisfied that the garment fits, follow the pattern's instructions and begin sewing the bodice together for real, including darts. Pay close attention to where any closures will need to go. I recommend ironing the seams once you're done, to "set" them. Before finishing any seams (folding them in and stitching them together to prevent fraying) try on the garment again to confirm the fit's still looking good. Now is also the time to decide if you might not just prefer to keep the dress as it is—in my case, as a fashionable owl-patterned belly shirt.
3. Facing. The next step for my dress was to attach the sleeve and neckline facing. Facing is a piece of fabric that lines the openings, giving them a tidy, more tailored look (as opposed to just turning down the edges). I thought this was overly fussy and complicated at first, but I changed my tune when I saw how nice the sleeves and neck ended up looking.
4. Finishing. Finishing your seams can be done a few ways. I went with a method where you fold any raw, joined edges in one each other, and sew them together (then press them with the iron). For the facing, I added another step, using bonding tape. Bonding tape is basically heat-activated glue, which comes off its spool resembling a spent dryer sheet (you can see my spools in the photo below). You lay a strip of it between the fabrics, then press with a hot iron to bond them. My facings were a bit gnarly, sticking out at awkward angles no matter how much I pressed them, so I found this step very helpful. Two notes about bonding tape, though—stick with a very thin/fine variety (you'll still be able to separate the fabric if you screw up) and TEST IT FIRST on scraps of the fabric you're using, to make sure it doesn't darken or discolor the material.
And now your bodice will be nearly done, with the possible exception of a zipper or other closures. In the next step, I'll be talking about assembling the skirt.
Make Yourself a Dress, Part 4: The Bodice
1. Baste. Basting is the process of loosely hand-stitching the pieces together as marked (including darts), sort of a dry run, so you can try the bodice on for fit. If the fit's off or you make a mistake, you can simply pull out the stitches as opposed to having to laboriously seam-rip a machine-stitched hem. [Romance authors, insert bodice-ripping joke here.]
2. Actual sewing! Once you're satisfied that the garment fits, follow the pattern's instructions and begin sewing the bodice together for real, including darts. Pay close attention to where any closures will need to go. I recommend ironing the seams once you're done, to "set" them. Before finishing any seams (folding them in and stitching them together to prevent fraying) try on the garment again to confirm the fit's still looking good. Now is also the time to decide if you might not just prefer to keep the dress as it is—in my case, as a fashionable owl-patterned belly shirt.
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| You too can be the proud owner of an owl-patterned belly shirt! |
3. Facing. The next step for my dress was to attach the sleeve and neckline facing. Facing is a piece of fabric that lines the openings, giving them a tidy, more tailored look (as opposed to just turning down the edges). I thought this was overly fussy and complicated at first, but I changed my tune when I saw how nice the sleeves and neck ended up looking.
4. Finishing. Finishing your seams can be done a few ways. I went with a method where you fold any raw, joined edges in one each other, and sew them together (then press them with the iron). For the facing, I added another step, using bonding tape. Bonding tape is basically heat-activated glue, which comes off its spool resembling a spent dryer sheet (you can see my spools in the photo below). You lay a strip of it between the fabrics, then press with a hot iron to bond them. My facings were a bit gnarly, sticking out at awkward angles no matter how much I pressed them, so I found this step very helpful. Two notes about bonding tape, though—stick with a very thin/fine variety (you'll still be able to separate the fabric if you screw up) and TEST IT FIRST on scraps of the fabric you're using, to make sure it doesn't darken or discolor the material.
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| Here you can see the inside of the back collar, where I've finished and bonded the collar facing. |
And now your bodice will be nearly done, with the possible exception of a zipper or other closures. In the next step, I'll be talking about assembling the skirt.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Six Sentence Sunday #4
Letting Cara, my evil conjoined erotica-writing twin, take over the post this week. She's got a paperback anthology coming out on Tuesday, called Stray Hearts. It contains all three novellas (previously published as ebooks) in her Shivaree series, about the angsty travails of Shane and Gabriel (and often Natalie). Much male/male sexxorings and m/m/f menage, if that's your scene.
Six sentences from the first story, Backwoods, when Shane's drunkenly struggling to keep a grip on his soon-to-be modified heterosexuality:
He was more beautiful than any woman Shane had ever been with—hell, than any Shane had ever seen—and it made his body ache. Any minute now, Shane would find his sense and turn all this carnal curiosity into male insecurity, quit with the friendliness and get back to good old-fashioned defensive bigotry. Not that he was a bigot. That was the one thing he hadn’t inherited from his old man. But he sure as hell wished he could muster a taste of it right now…might give him the scare he needed to beat it the fuck out of this room and get a purchase on his manhood.
Gabriel set the bottle on the table with a distinctly empty-sounding clank.
Thanks for stopping by! Now head here to check out all the other Six Sentence Sunday excerpts this week.
Six sentences from the first story, Backwoods, when Shane's drunkenly struggling to keep a grip on his soon-to-be modified heterosexuality:
He was more beautiful than any woman Shane had ever been with—hell, than any Shane had ever seen—and it made his body ache. Any minute now, Shane would find his sense and turn all this carnal curiosity into male insecurity, quit with the friendliness and get back to good old-fashioned defensive bigotry. Not that he was a bigot. That was the one thing he hadn’t inherited from his old man. But he sure as hell wished he could muster a taste of it right now…might give him the scare he needed to beat it the fuck out of this room and get a purchase on his manhood.
Gabriel set the bottle on the table with a distinctly empty-sounding clank.
Thanks for stopping by! Now head here to check out all the other Six Sentence Sunday excerpts this week.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Make Yourself a Dress, Part 3
In the last post in this series, I talked about trimming the pattern, pinning it to the fabric, and cutting the fabric. Now it's time to mark the fabric. Marking the fabric precisely as the pattern directs is the difference between a garment that fits, and one that looks like a hot mess. Mine may still wind up a hot mess, but not for lack of trying. So, onward!
As I said before, I chose to go about this the old school way, so I can't share any wisdom on the process of using tracing carbon and a tracing wheel to mark the fabric. Instead, I used a combination of tailor's tacks and a pen. Both techniques have their headaches and advantages, and next time I suspect I'll give the tracing carbon a shot. So…
1. Tailor's tacks. The purpose of these are to temporarily mark the fabric with the various guides included on your pattern pieces. With a sewing needle and thread, you simply sew loose stitches through the pattern and the fabric, so that once you remove the pattern, your fabric will still show all the pertinent marks, such as where to hem, or join a dart, or sew one piece to the adjacent one. This gets a bit tricky when you're marking a doubled-up pair of pieces, and I recommend you Google "tailor's tacks" and get a more experienced dressmaker's take on the process. I think I know what I'm doing, but to be honest, I'm only about seventy-percent confident. Still, they worked!
2. Just use a damn pen. There were a couple of pattern pieces with which, I will admit, I totally lost patience with and couldn't bear to use tailor's tacks for every little guide. So instead, because my fabric is dark and also colorful, I just used a red roller-ball pen, marking the guide with tiny red dots. Saved me ton of time, so no regrets. But full disclosure.
In the next step, things finally start getting exciting, and I'll talk about the stage I'm currently in, sewing the bodice and finishing its seams.
Make Yourself a Dress, Part 3: Mark that Biotch
1. Tailor's tacks. The purpose of these are to temporarily mark the fabric with the various guides included on your pattern pieces. With a sewing needle and thread, you simply sew loose stitches through the pattern and the fabric, so that once you remove the pattern, your fabric will still show all the pertinent marks, such as where to hem, or join a dart, or sew one piece to the adjacent one. This gets a bit tricky when you're marking a doubled-up pair of pieces, and I recommend you Google "tailor's tacks" and get a more experienced dressmaker's take on the process. I think I know what I'm doing, but to be honest, I'm only about seventy-percent confident. Still, they worked!
 |
You can see the tailor's tacks I've added here—the yellow thread sewn through the pattern and the fabric beneath, marking important guide spots without damaging the fabric. |
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| And once you unpin and gently remove the pattern, the temporary guide stitches remain. |
In the next step, things finally start getting exciting, and I'll talk about the stage I'm currently in, sewing the bodice and finishing its seams.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Unnhhh…
Oh yes, to quote Ruthie Knox, unh… Unnnhhh, big time. Thanks to Zoë Archer for tweeting this decadence from Swoonworthy, as it's probably—no, it's definitely—the greatest poster for anything, ever. I saw the trailer for this movie a couple months ago and my loins promptly exploded, because, as anyone who knows me is aware, fighters do things to me. Things that make me unh. You're welcome to all the cowboys, the SEALs, and especially the billionaire tycoons, so long as you forward all the bruised and bloody, battered men straight to me.
Right, one last ogle then it's back to work on this new Blaze proposal…which, handily enough, is about a fighter. Unh.
Right, one last ogle then it's back to work on this new Blaze proposal…which, handily enough, is about a fighter. Unh.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Thrusty Thursday: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
I won't go nuts objectifying this week's thrustee, because I must admit, I'm mildly uncomfortable about the crush. Even after I saw Inception, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was still frozen in my head as his character on 3rd Rock From the Sun, and adorable though he was…uncool. Way uncool. My undersized low-cut pink leopard-print tee-shirt does not rhinestone-sparkle proudly with the proclamation, Cougar! thank you very much.
Then last week I saw Hesher, and it threw my lady-bits into turmoil. No! You're too young! Wrooong!!! But once a Google search revealed he's only a year my junior, I gave myself permission to perv on out.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt…charisma. You has it. Use it wisely.
For your consideration, the movie trailer:
Then last week I saw Hesher, and it threw my lady-bits into turmoil. No! You're too young! Wrooong!!! But once a Google search revealed he's only a year my junior, I gave myself permission to perv on out.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt…charisma. You has it. Use it wisely.
For your consideration, the movie trailer:
Switch-Off September
Never fear, never fear—Thrusty Thursday will be along later. But first, let me tell you about a month I've been dreading a bit…
It's now Switch-Off September, the month in my year of Lents when I'll be giving up television. Giving up the device itself is a non-challenge; I haven't owned a TV in perhaps seven years, nor lived with one for the past four. Though as a writer I do snatch glimmers of inspiration here and there from TV, I can't really be trusted to get anything done with one around. I know my own weaknesses.
But now you can watch TV online! This has been a very nice development, since my husband and I can't listen to NPR every minute of the day (no matter what filthy liberals we are), and we've enjoyed lots of great shows over the course of a thousand dinners, thanks to Hulu and Netflix. Nothing sinful about that. And my habit of zoning out to an episode of something truly awful and voyeuristic (The Bachelor, Millionaire Matchmaker, and Hoarders, oh, Hoarders) well, that's not so bad either, really. It's a pleasant if guilty escape, and helps me turn my brain off after a long day of writerly whatnots. But I often wonder, what would I get done between five and six p.m., my down-time between finishing work and starting dinner, if I weren't zoning out to reality TV? Well, I guess I'll find out.
As with Meat-Free May, my husband can take or leave TV, so he's joining me in the project. We watched our final few shows last night, a Daily Show we'd missed (again, filthy liberals) and a couple episodes of Sarah Silverman. And then, all went silent on the laptop. We've ordered the latest installment of a dorky puzzle video game we like, Rhem (think Myst) and have lots of Angry Birds to tackle. And there's always an after-dinner walk around the park. I've also loaded up my iPad with the first wave of a digital ton of new books, and I'm looking forward to catching up on what my friends have been writing and recommending.
So, here we go! Let's find out exactly what I can accomplish with an extra hour or two a day…
 |
Oh come on, now. Don't look at me like that, Matt Paxton. |
But now you can watch TV online! This has been a very nice development, since my husband and I can't listen to NPR every minute of the day (no matter what filthy liberals we are), and we've enjoyed lots of great shows over the course of a thousand dinners, thanks to Hulu and Netflix. Nothing sinful about that. And my habit of zoning out to an episode of something truly awful and voyeuristic (The Bachelor, Millionaire Matchmaker, and Hoarders, oh, Hoarders) well, that's not so bad either, really. It's a pleasant if guilty escape, and helps me turn my brain off after a long day of writerly whatnots. But I often wonder, what would I get done between five and six p.m., my down-time between finishing work and starting dinner, if I weren't zoning out to reality TV? Well, I guess I'll find out.
As with Meat-Free May, my husband can take or leave TV, so he's joining me in the project. We watched our final few shows last night, a Daily Show we'd missed (again, filthy liberals) and a couple episodes of Sarah Silverman. And then, all went silent on the laptop. We've ordered the latest installment of a dorky puzzle video game we like, Rhem (think Myst) and have lots of Angry Birds to tackle. And there's always an after-dinner walk around the park. I've also loaded up my iPad with the first wave of a digital ton of new books, and I'm looking forward to catching up on what my friends have been writing and recommending.
So, here we go! Let's find out exactly what I can accomplish with an extra hour or two a day…
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