Whooooo?

Hey hey hey all. 

Well, it's been a thoroughly hectic week. The long-suffering boyfriend started a new job on Monday, I started a new job on Wednesday (although technically it's back to one of my old jobs) and I was very glad for Friday evening when it appeared! 

Took a new bow out yesterday. It's about a 6 to 8 pound step up in draw from where I was before so was pretty hard work; had my worst round in weeks and hardly hit a thing... 

EXCEPT THE ELUSIVE OWL. 

Oh yes. No wonder he looks surprised :D 

Not sure how regularly I'll be posting for the next couple of weeks. I've got some on-call coming up and breaking in the new doctors tends to leave me a bit dead in the evenings. Still. Wingnut the Makie is on the way and oh, I've got plans for this one. 

The plans. They involve face ups. Ooooh. 

AAAAND finally... anyone seen Despicable Me? 

http://electricpun.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/keepin-it-reel-despicable-me-2-banana-potato-lyrics/

Ba-na-na, ba-ba-na-na! 

Brainwave!

You may remember awhile back, I was getting excited about being invited to my friend's historical wedding. 

Since my rota came out and I realised I can go, I've had a lot of trouble finding the right patter to make the long-suffering boyfriend's Littlefinger-esque outfit. 

Here's what we're going for: 

(The one on the right, of course)

I was pretty much near defeat this evening on my third trawl through the interwebs. I'd even turned to the hideously overpriced realm of Etsy in my torment. All the men's costumes were too piratey or soldiery and not nearly possessed of that almost ecclesiastical, priestl... Wait. Priestly? Like... A priest?! 

Nailed it. 

This is perfect for the basis of the coat; I can easily make it more waisted and a couple of gores if I need to. I'll only have to shorten it a little bit and I've got some brilliant Norwegian metal frogs (very much like on Tyrion's costumes) for the front closure. I do have to say, I feel like a complete genius.

Now all I have to do is decide what I'm wearing! 

YOU GUYS!

Dudes, I'll interrupt your regularly scheduled Makie Mischief to announce that I've been invited to the best wedding ever! 

One of my oldest friends is getting married in September which is in itself epically cool. But the coolest thing yet is that she's having a sort of 'pick your own historical costume including LARP and Steampunk and oh, there are PENALTIES for not dressing up' theme for the wedding which means, oh yes, I GET TO DRESS UP. 

I'm plotting already. 

I could rock the Steampunk look? 

Perhaps a bit Victorian?

Or... well. There's not contest really, is there? There's a certain lady who's been completely rocking the cosplay scene this last couple of years, and I reckon she's my greatest fashion inspiration at the moment... 

HELL YES CERSEI LANNISTER

I know. I KNOW. Short, rather plump things like me shouldn't even bother trying to out lion the lioness, but I've got a corset, a few months to think about it and some plans involving hedgehogs... oh, and dressing the long-suffering boyfriend up as Littlefinger. Har. 

This space, you should watch it. 

Hooray for Holidays!

Aaah, as much as I like being at home, it's nice to get away for a bit... even if it did mean leaving Plink and Melchett unsupervised for the weekend.

The Bloke's birthday was a good excuse to book a couple of nights in a relatively swanky hotel on the coast in Dorset, and given it was a special occasion I was more than happy to splash out a bit extra on a room with a sea view.

We were very lucky with the weather and managed to get sunburn on the Saturday!

I know there's nothing more boring on this planet than looking at someone else's holiday photos...

...but we really did have a lovely time...

...and I'm sure you're all jealous...

...but...

...do you think Melchie's been here before?!

Happy Birthday to Meee!

Today I am twenty-mumblemumblemumble, which makes me very nearly OLD on the basis that next year, I will be twenty-mumblemumblemumble + 1, which is technically not twenty-anything any more. Harrumph.

But anyway. I happen to be blessed with the absolute best of long-suffering boyfriends (who is tolerating the proliferation of tinythings in my study with all the grace that can be expected from a man with shelves full of D+D books, unpainted warhammer sets and board games). In his role as enabler, he today presented me with an exciting box filled with a big-headed eye-changing dolly, and some funky accessories to go with her!

I'm not sure Melchie took to her straight off...

I keep the tools on a high shelf... 

But Plink was very keen to give her a hand out of the box.

Melchie? Help please?

O hai! Let me remove the... gosh. That is rather a lot of sellotape... 

I'm sure they're going to get on fine.

Welcome to the league of ridiculous knitted headgear!

If you're after the specifics, she's a "Simply Chocolate" and it appears she thinks she's called Aspen. Her eye colours are blue, minty green, rather-startling-orange and quite-weird-pink... shall have to invest in some new chips soon.

She's not wearing any trousers. 

Melchett, stop mucking about.

If you shut her in there, Plink, I'll hand you the tape.

More photos on the flickr.

On-call week blues.

Eurgh. Yup, it's my week on call. This means I'll be working for 84 hours in the next 7 days, the rest of the time being spent driving, eating or asleep.

Happily, I'm not leaving you in the lurch. There'll be content on the blog (hoorah!) which is, as we speak, uploading and upsetting the boyfriend who is attempting to play Guild Wars 2.

Here's a bit of a clue as to what we'll be up to over the next week...

Hope your week is better than mine!

Sewing for Humans: Sewaholic Cambie Dress

Weddings weddings weddings.

The long-suffering bloke's sister is getting married today, so we're all off for a bit of a party (Plink is not coming with me. Too many opportunities for utter mischief) and as usual, I've decided that whatever I'm wearing is going to be made by me.

Typically, I'd found the perfect fabric long before decided which pattern to use. It was a bit of a toss-up between some vintage Vogue...

...or a patten I'd used once before...

...or this rather off-the-wall number (thank goodness I didn't go for this, would not have been flattering)...

Then huzzah and hoorah, Sewaholic released their Cambie dress pattern. Perfect combination of party but not prissy and perfect for the fabric I had in mind with its relatively simple lines.

Exceptionally glad I took the time to make a muslin for this, the first fitting highlighted a lot of issues. Hardly surprising when you're putting an hourglass shape into a dress designed with pears in mind, especially when the hourglass is only 5ft tall and overly-blessed with bazingas and booty. This means I've got a narrow back in comparison to my front, a huge swayback, a relatively skinny waist and chunktastic thighs (hoorah for full skirts!).


So. After starting with a size 10 all over for the first muslin, I dropped bust dart point by about an inch, converted to square neckline, chopped 1 1/2 inches off of the height at the shoulders to stop back neckline gaping wider than the grand canyon,  and widened waist darts for a bit of extra nip and tuck. 2nd fit muslin (now the lining) indicated I needed to take 1/2" off of the bodice length and drop the neckline by about 1/2 an inch, then do a bit more of a swayback adjustment. *Phew*.

Yay, BIRDIES! 

The skirt is made of neither of the pattern options; it's basically two 'option B' front pieces (the back cut in two for the CB seam) gathered. I've got quite enough 'natural' volume at the back already without adding more). Zipper sloppily inserted by machine as I was using a borrowed machine with just a straight foot, then hand sewn to shell and lining fabrics.

The fabrics are probably a little too heavy for the gathered skirt for this to be worn as a day dress. For special occasions where a bit of poofyness isn't a problem, it looks fine. Have to say that the colours of this print are spectacular and the fabric stitches up beautifully and presses well.

Let's hope it gets through the day without falling to pieces! Needle and thread locked and loaded in the handbag just in case... more photos to follow, naturally.

UPDATE!
The dress survived, as did I. Unfortunately there are but two photos of me wearing it, and both of 'em are blurred to oblivion. Oh well, I'm certain some more will surface. Here's me looking less than glam following a tussle with my sort-of-nephew to encourage him to stand still.

Experiment

Room-Clearing Properties of Popular Music
Professor P Makie and Dr D Monster
Welsh Institute of Makie Research, Monmouthshire, Wales

Abstract:
This preliminary study demonstrates the power of certain kinds of popular music to remove a) felines b) humans from the standard domestic living room. Subjects were exposed to visual and audio stimuli via a television set playing “Tina Turner, live in Amsterdam” (2005). Feline response time was fastest, resulting in hiding behind the sofa after 3 minutes and 35 seconds of exposure. Human response time was slower, yet more complete, leaving the room and taking the cat with him after 12 minutes and 23 seconds. Neither returned to the room whilst stimulus continued for a further 12 minutes. Parallels are drawn with exposure to reality TV shows and discussion focuses on possible ways to use this aversion to manipulate behaviour.