Yesterday's Today

Or "Today's Yesterday".  What would have been "Today" if I had posted it yesterday.  Except today has become tomorrow, so what I'm calling today is actually yesterday and yesterday's yesterday is the yesterday that should have been the today.

Current Location: Dad's house, Rio Linda

  I made the mistake of turning on the computer first thing, and found myself browsing Etsy and TV Tropes, two sites which do not let go.  However, I managed to make a little bit of progress on the sock, so here's what it looks like now.

Today

Current Location: Dad's house, Rio Linda

  Today I began working on the pile of (mostly crafting) stuff in front of the dresser.  I emptied two boxes that were full of bedding (because I figure they'd be emptied soon anyway, once I get this stuff out of the way of the bed).  One now holds craft supplies (wooden beads, fake flowers, interfacing, electrical wires, a box of rocks. . .), while the other is for "projects" (jeans that need mending, thrifted clothes with no buttons, old Steampunk Things of the Week I never finished, white socks in need of some color, materials for a Halloween costume that never got made. . .).  Tools (button maker, pens, measuring tapes, screwdrivers. . .) went into drawers which already held art and office supplies (tape, rulers, highlighters, staplers, crayons. . .).  So everything is still a bit jumbled and could use more organization, but it's at least off the floor and somewhat contained.  I also found my big bag of nail polishes, which means now I can paint some things that had to be put on hold for a while.

  While I was doing that, my dad went over to Judy's house to pick up some stuff for the Halloween party.  He came back with a sarcophagus and a life-sized butler in the truck bed.

Yesterday

. . . all my troubles seemed so far away, 'cause I started putting things away; oh, I believe in yesterday. . .

Current Location: Dad's house, Rio Linda

  Having cleared that stash of patterns off the top of the dresser, I collected all the hats that were lying around the room and piled them up there until I can finish my hat stand.

 Then I got to work rolling up fabric so it can be stored neatly in its box instead of tossed in that general vicinity.

Other Stuff I Left Out of Previous Posts

Current Location: Dad's house, Rio Linda

  Remember all that stuff I got at the swap meet?  Well, I also got some fabric.

You can see that it's the leftover pieces of something.

  Also, I wanted to show off the outfit I wore to help Steven move into the Village at Santa Cruz.

Stuff I Meant to Blog the Other Day But I Was Too Exhausted

Current Location: Dad's house, Rio Linda

  When I was posting patterns on Etsy I also changed the banner on my shop from this:

  to this:

  I think it's an improvement, but I'm still not sure it's quite what I want.

Organizing Patterns and Gamer Geeks

Despite what that title seems to indicate, we left the gamers to do most of their organizing themselves.

Current Location: Dad's house, Rio Linda

  Today we took Steven back to Santa Cruz.

The money in his mouth is what his roommate owed him from the sale of textbooks they had bought together.

What looks like it's going to be never-ending games of Magic: The Gathering.

  The three people in the house not in his group of friends are all girls.  Hopefully they can deal with high levels of male nerdiness.  We met one, who said she was a feminist studies major, but the others hadn't moved in yet.

  When we went to pick him up from mom's house, I took along a stack of patterns (the ones that were in the middle of the floor because they didn't fit in the drawer) to put in the organizer thingy there and snagged two more to bring here, where the bulk of my patterns are.

Ta-da!  Perfect!

Moar Patterns

Current Location: Dad's house, Rio Linda

  I finished going through the patterns I already had.  The "keep" pile is still much larger than the "sell" pile, but these are all officially for sale:

So many. . .

Most of them were free or cheap.

Current Location: Dad's house, Rio Linda

  Okay so I just counted and I have 27 new patterns acquired in the last 2 weeks.  Not to mention the 45-50 I had already.  I had really better get working on that corset.  (I swear I have important things that I've been doing instead, like clearing space in my bedroom for a bed.)

Swap Meet

Current Location: Dad's house, Rio Linda

  Today was the first big swap meet for the Sacramento Steampunk Society.  I was a little worried people wouldn't bring much stuff but I guess I shouldn't have been.  I got a whole bunch of new stuff, sold a few things, and somehow ended up with the same amount of money I started with!  Also there is a good chance someone will be ordering a hat from me soon, in which case I will have not only made money but sold a hat, which is what I really wanted from tonight.  Here's what I got:

Digital paintings (the Harry Potter one was a freebie), more free stuff, three shirts, two napkin rings, a cup, and a belt, and MOAR PATTERNS (thank goodness for "use it or lose it"; I am getting buried in the things)!

Patterns

Current Location: Dad's house, Rio Linda

  A few weeks back, in the process of cleaning out the chicken house for our upcoming Halloween party, we found a box of sewing patterns.

Note: this is the box after I removed what I wanted to keep.

  Today I finally got the chance to look through them.  They were mostly the kind of retro fashions I don't much like, being as they were originally from that era, but I still ended up with a pretty good pile of keepers.

Stuff I Tried On in Virginia City

Did I get the capitalization right?

Current Location: Dad's house, Rio Linda

Me trying clothes on in the bathroom.

Train Day

Current Location: Dad's house, Rio Linda

  Got back from the Sacramento Steampunk Society/ Great Basin Costume Society's Steam Train Expedition at 9:20 - just in time to blog! Only I uploaded my photos instead. Then I went to see if anyone else had posted photos yet and ended up looking at ALL the photos on the Great Basin Costume Society and Bay Area Steampunk Association's facebooks. Oh well. The trip was great fun, even if I did get completely dried out and end up with a minor sinus headache exacerbated by the huge bun full of bobby pins atop my head and the fact that I ran out of energy long before it was time to eat. We saw a bit of parade, a few camels as promised, quite a bit of camel merchandise which is probably not usually so prominently displayed, and some people dressed as cowboys and ladies that weren't with us. The photos of the steampunks with the locomotive behind us blowing steam promise to be spectacular and I can't wait to see them. My hat wouldn't sit at the angle I wanted and I fretted some about that and my hair's misplaced volume (I wanted more at the sides and front, less in the bun, but that would have been too complicated to do in the truck with no mirror). I was also disappointed that my outfit had almost none of the Edwardian flavor I originally intended, but looking at the pictures it actually worked quite well anyway. I was inexplicably fascinated by the bandoliers (belts?) on display in the firemen's museum, which combined with a comment from the GBCS members about someone who had entered their costume contest with a bucket similar to the ones there inspired me to think it could be fun to do a steampunk fire fighter costume.

GUNNE SAX

Current Location: Mom's house, Diamond Springs

  I have just discovered an obsession with circa 1970s vintage Gunne Sax clothing.

What I Did Today

Technically, yesterday, since it's past midnight.

Current Location: Mom's house, Diamond Springs

  Yesterday I wore a pair of jeans with a small hole in the knee, which quickly became a HUGE hole in the knee due to my habit of kneeling. Knowing I never get around to mending if it's put off, but being far too tired to do it last night, I laid out the jeans and the appropriate thread where I would be sure to stumble over them and promised myself I'd do it first thing in the morning. Lo and behold, it worked! Sewing it up took far too much time, but I like the result (hopefully it will hold for a while). I chose a thread color that matched the paint splotches already there (many of my clothes have similar marks, all of them genuine proof of painting, etc., not merely decorative). This way it all looks deliberate! It's a fashion statement! Right?

Labor Day Weekend

Current Location: Mom's house, Diamond Springs

  On Saturday, my mom and I went to Placerville to pick up her stained glass dragon which was being repaired.  The glass shop never seems to be open, though, and this weekend was no exception.  However, we were still able to spend some time on Main Street.  We went to the bead shop, where I bought some overpriced filigree and rhinestones, and was talked into a book about making wire jewelry.  Then we went to Placerville Hardware (the oldest continually open hardware store on the West Coast, or something like that).  I was looking for something interesting to make the supports for a pair of geta for next year's Wild Wild East themed Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition.  I didn't have any luck in that, but I did find a pair of suspenders made to look like measuring tape, some cocktail forks I intend to make into hair ornaments for the same event, and some random hardware bits that are going to be turned into more jewelry.  Then we got ice cream.  They had many different kinds of cones, so I decided to try something different than my usual (I like cup cones.  I have been known to eat my way through entire packages of them without any ice cream.).  So I got two scoops of Cookie Dough ice cream on a double-headed cone.  What I didn't realize was that their scoops were GINORMOUS (I hear that's officially a word now), which meant not only was it a little more sugar than I really wanted, but before I got to the cone it was soaked through rather than crunchy.  Also I think I managed to drip ice cream all down the front of my dress (from stomach to floor) without noticing.  Lesson learned!