Post three of the evening, whoops

I now know how to properly use the tagging system. My days of tumblr really threw me off lmao

Now that I'm free from Sewing Hell (tm), I'm thinking about going back to doing some writing, reading, and video games.

Writing Thoughts

I've recently heard that the official NaNoWriMo organization is going down, which feels a bit bittersweet. I was on there on and off through my high school and college years, so it holds a bit of nostalgia for me. The long list of recent batshit things though...it's a wonder it's lasted as long (speaking specifically of the grooming allegations done on the forums). I still love the idea of doing a less intense writing challenge, so I may poke my nose around DW to see if there is anything non-specific.

I also want to give a crack at The Artist's Way, though reading the actual book is annoying at points. It's a bit too woo-woo for me.

Right now, I'm playing around with some solo journaling games I grabbed from itch.io. Mainly The Wandering Library as an excuse to worldbuild a magical girl story I've had in the back of my mind for the last year and change.

Video Games

Baldur's Gate 3 still has me in a chokehold. I finished my first playthrough as non-canon Shadowheart (I was playing her very out of character), and god, I see what people meant by Act 3 being a bit rough. I did enjoy it for what it was, though. Playthrough number two is a Karlach Origin run because I fell in love with her in my first one. She's best girl <3 I've also decided to grab some mods for QoL reasons. And Withers Big Naturals. Very important.

My thoughts so far on Karlach playthrough: I love how different it is! Instead of the Narrator pulling so much of the weight, Karlach is expressing so much of her interiority. She has so many more voicelines as an Origin character, it was a bit jarring (in a fun way) coming off of Shadowheart. I also love her interactions with Wyll, which I was already geared to love. I do like how their stories are still tied together, even when the initial situation between them is settled. I just wished Karlach had a little more in Act 2 beyond getting her engine cooled down, and a bit more other relationships (beyond player-companion & Shadowheart-Lae'zel) built up in the background. There probably is some stuff I missed from the party banter, but hard to tell from the billions of times I got the Halsin + Karlach banter about Karlach finding romance in Act 3. Halsin, buddy, I love you, but please, I need to hear different banter.

A friend of mine has also let me borrow Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory, which I really should start. It's probably going to be the last KH game I can convince myself to play since Kingdom Hearts 3 gave a (somewhat) satisfactory end. I will probably follow the new brain-breaking Nomura will put players through in future installments, but there is only so much Nomura-isms I can take before throwing my console out the nearest window.

I also should maybe poke my nose into Genshin Impact, but hhhhhh I don't want to download whatever the most recent update is.

Reading

I've recently picked up a light novel called Babel: A Girl Embarks on a Journey of Words by Kuji Furumiya. As the title suggests, it's an isekai, but it feels more like a 90s shojo isekai than modern shojo isekai. The MC Shizuku doesn't reincarnated, but rather runs into a weird phenomenon before popping into the other world. Shizuku describes herself as unremarkable, but the story has gone out of its way to at least illustrate why she feels this way by showing how she compares to her sisters. A lot of her arc is centered on her discovering herself away from her sisters, which was something she had already begun before the start of the book. I do appreciate how the story is having her be the way she is without some cop-out thing that makes her special besides just being a person from modern-day Japan used to modern-day conveniences.

Her traveling companion Erik is a nice foil without it being dramatically different. He's a mage who is decently talented, but he's still limited in what he can do. He's knowledgeable and self-assured without being cocky. He plays to his strengths, which are research and logic, without being condescending. Shizuku and Erik's relationship is a very sweet friendship; they both admire the other's strengths and understand where the other's weaknesses are. I think it also helps that these two are adults, but it's really refreshing to see a male-female friendship like this from the jump.

The worldbuilding is fairly lowkey and the rest of the main cast is fairly small at the moment. While hinting at higher stakes in the future, this first volume is very low stake adventures. It's rather relaxing, honestly. The general vibes are along the lines of Ascendance of a Bookworm (anime, as I have yet to read the light novel).

BG3 brainrot has also wriggled in, so I'm reading a bunch of stuff for that. Special shout out to Astarion Origin Party Nonsense by starkraving (mind the trigger warnings!), Leap of Faith by lemonwood, By a Knife's Edge by JustAWritingPotato, when it all comes to an end, the world keeps spinning by erciareyes, Greet the Dawn by MidnightsLight, and friendly fire by ushauz.

I had intended to do quick errands and then spend the rest of the night sewing, but my errands got a bit away from me. I needed buttons for a new blouse and sewing machine needles for thicker fabric (and groceries).

I went to Joann's because it's the closest store that I know has needles, but obviously, they were out. I did however take a look around and found a red velvet that's been haunting me for the last year and a half--specifically ever since I watched Revolutionary Girl Utena while I was working on a different project. I fell in love with Anthy's Rose's Bride gown, and ever since, I've been seeing this particular very nice velvet, and have been heavily debating if I wanted to use that or something different, but I cave and grabbed 10 yards of it since it was on sale. For now, it's going to be stored until later this year when I'm not working on three different items with a deadline.

I did end up doing a little bit of sewing with the Celebi hakama-inspired overskirt. I was using a thicker material that I wasn't sure how well my machine would like. In the end, she persevered with some unhappy clunking. At some point, though, I do want to get some denim-grade needles just so I don't have to worry about that again.

The overskirt was something I was lucky and didn't really need to do a mock-up for. It was just a lot of squares, and I probably overdid the math on it, but it works! All that is left is doing the waistband and the ties.

The Blouse

I am one last push from finishing this goddamn blouse. It really is one of those "trust the process" projects; after hours and hours of bitching and moaning about how absolute shit it looks, now that a lot of the finishing touches are being put on, it looks really close to a decent blouse. I've started incorporating french seams into another project I started as a relaxing alternative (more on that down below). All I need to do is figure out how many buttons I want to add to them, which will be the last bit of nerve-wracking I have on my plate. I've shortened the sleeves, so I have a bunch of extra fabric to work with to test my button-hole stitch.

If everything goes right, I should have it finished by Friday (potential foreshadowing)

Shiny Celebi Underskirt

My relaxing alternative project. I have managed to draft, mock-up, and sew most of this underskirt in less than 24 hours (non-consecutive). It's an a-line skirt, the first time I've ever self-drafted anything. I ended up following this tutorial, and I'm very satisfied with how it came out! I think it took me maybe no-more than an hour to do all the measurements, calculations, and drawing/cutting it out on butcher paper. The mock-up was fast and after just one last thing to add to it, it's going to look pretty cool!

The only thing I am going to change is the initial ruffle I was going to add to the bottom. From what I've read, most people suggest 2x the bottom hem to get nice ruffles, but I didn't like how it was looking. I've debating on upping it to 2.5 or 3x. 4x will be a bit excessive for my purposes, so I might just bump it up to 3x and then widdle it down if it turns out to be too much.

The fabric I made it with is a neat linen-cotton blend, so it frays like a bitch. I've defaulted to french seams, and my god does it take like a dream. The only thing that may give me a bit of trouble is adding a button placket to one side (I refuse to do zippers), but that should be easy once I do a bit of testing.

Reading!!

While I was working over the long weekend, my hold for the audiobook of Long Live Evil finally came in, and boy was it a ride. It's probably a new favorite reincarnation isekai alongside Villainesses Are Destined to Die and The Eccentric Duchess. Long Live Evil does so many things that I wish more modern incarnations of this genre do: the protagonist, Rea, is affected by her life in the real world and actively is focused on going home. We get main POVs from non-isekai characters, which gives us another view of her actions tinted by what was going on. Tropey stuff is both played straight while also properly explaining it.

I genuinely am thinking about adding this to my collection, and I'm hope book 2 of this series comes out in the next few years.

(Maybe I should start a Reading Bingo card come April)

I can't believe I found the perfect icon for my sewing entries. I always have at least one cat screaming at me or laying on my fabric as I'm working. (In fact, the two assholes in question are on either side of this laptop as I write this lmao)

I finally did some research for a bit more tips on how to work with satin, and I've put a bit of money into some dress pins. I gotta say, they are a bit nicer to work with so long as I don't lose them. One of my dumbass cats likes to stick things into her mouth despite being two years old, and she loves going after my regular pins. These dress pins are so, so much smaller, so I need to be extra careful. At least the box they came isn't flimsy.

My hope is to finish the rest of this damn thing (collar, sleeves, and placket). I think the buttons will be the most interesting in all the worst ways. Wish me luck!

Once this is done, I'll need to start on shiny Celebi! I'm very excited to work on them since the inspo is a taking heavily from the Taisho-era fashion circa 1910s (the fashion is great but everything else form that era sucks ass).

I spent the better part of today working on the first of three items for an outfit (a skirt, a vest, and a simple blouse). I got lucky with getting a well fitted mock up, so I started on the blouse today. There is a learning process for this because I'm working with satin for maybe the second time, and the commercial pattern I'm using calls for using a french seam. I've looked it up before, but I still had to take some time to really double check I'm doing it correctly and--



Five hours later, I'm not happy with how long it took me to get the three seams of the back panel together plus the (pseudo?) princess seams of the two front panels. It was so slippery! I ended up taking a page out of Bernadette Banner's book (literally) to add a stabilizing basting stitch, and that helped so much. My stitches don't look too bad, it's just going to take longer to finish this blouse than I thought. It looks nice, at least, so I'm looking forward to using this seam type on less fussy fabric (cotton my beloved).

Boy, did I forget how long it takes to even customize a pre-existing theme. This is such a work in progress, that's for sure lol

Edit: Huzzah! It now doesn't look as bad.