Accursed Blather

What have I been doing?  Well this for starters.  And mainly this.

So beads and jewelry, building an army of robots, threats of nuclear annihilation, and eventual World Domination. 

You wouldn't have time to blog either, would you?

Crap I hauled home from work this week: Copper from the scrap bin, steel strapping from the last giant wood crate we got in, and a handful of really ugly glass.  There is still a 7-ft tall thick cardboard cylinder we got some lead in and if I don't remember to bring my saw to work and cut it in half (so I can get it on the bus) it's going to wind up being thrown away.  There was some sort of idea I had for all this crap but now that it's home its purpose escapes me.

Things to finish:
Earrings for Etsy that no-one will buy.
Corset that I've just started embroidering the pieces to and I already dislike the whole embroidery idea despite only working on it for an hour.
Draw out patterns for chemise and drawers, then sew the damned things.  Oh, and either crochet or knit the lace for them.
A pin for my coat.  Or hat.  Whatever I feel like attaching some honkin' big amber pin to.
Knitting.  There's always knitting to finish.  *groan*
Remodel website.

Things to post to the Stitch-O-Rama:
Snappy crocheted Victorian garter pattern.
Some other crap.

Head go 'splody.  Foom!

Since my boss muttered something about having to cut everyone's hours I've been in a slight panic. I don't want to go back to working behind a counter and I sure as hell don't want to start waiting tables. So I've been somehow working two new jobs out of my apartment. One is selling crap on Amazon Marketplace. I've apparently got a pile of out-of-print sci-fi that people will pay two and three times what I paid and in the past couple of weeks I've made nearly $70 on five books. Yup, FIVE books. Oddly enough I can't seem to give away best sellers since most giant book dealers have those and can sell them for one cent, unlike me. So those will go to the thrift store. I've also cleared out crappy CDs that ex-boyfriends with bad taste in music gave me, but I haven't posted those yet because I haven't got any boxes or bubble wrap to ship them in.

My second new job is making those beady things in the above photo to sell on Etsy. I can't post any until Thursday or Friday because my camera died yesterday and I have to borrow one from my boss tomorrow. But I have ten brooches and one choker. All of them have some of my photo collection that I scanned and shrunk up, some Victorian jet beads from dry-rotten old trims, amber glass, and filled in with some modern seed beads since I only had a small handful of tiny jet seed beads. There are some scruffy old fake pearls from the 1940s and some really pretty amber colored beads which don't match the glass like I had planned. They look more like garnets and since I couldn't find a nice garnet-colored glass bead these will have to do. Now that I think about it, the candy-red beads might have looked like garnets embroidered on black fabric. Duh.

There are beads all down the crack of the sofa, I found some in the kitchen yesterday, and I've been brushing them out of the bed. I suspect they follow me to work.

Bed time. But hopefully without beads.

Horribly bored.  Half-done knitting projects all over, a corset cut out and pinned together, beads in baggies on every surface.

To top it all off I spent a good part of last week griping that I had nothing to do because a book I ordered hadn't come in yet. 

Gaaaaahhh!

I normally keep a backlog of five or six Magic Lantern comics so I can just post one without having to spend several hours making one up twice a week, but I haven't been happy with the latest ones I've got in the pile. Punchlines not exactly right or not at all funny or the illustration isn't quite up to snuff.  So I whipped this one up, last-minute and right now it's my new favorite. 

I call this my "Crap Arena" rather than a work area, since it's sort of a catch-all for whatever doesn't fit anywhere else in the apartment.  It's meant to be a cute little dining room (doorway to kitchen hidden at the left) with a china cabinet that I've filled with things like Daleks and 1950s Brillo boxes.  There are way more books to the left, sewing machine to the left just outside the Gateway to the Crap Arena that I use as an endtable when I'm not sewing.  The boxes are all filled with either yarn or fiber.  My spinning wheel won't fit in there because I'd wind up kicking it every time I went to the kitchen plus I like to watch TV while I'm spinning yarn.  The cat likes to sit on the bike seat and yowl at me while I'm washing dishes--he hates when I wash dishes for some reason.  The long aqua-green thing standing by the china cabinet is a 1950s knitting machine and it's usually clamped to the table but I took it down to make silicone molds which are still scattered all over. 


Somehow I get things done in here.  Not sure how.  Most sewing is done in the other room and I do a lot of stuff on the sofa so there's beads and yarn and crumbs down under the pillows. 


The sofa is filled with half-finished projects and knitting books.  The boxes underneath are crammed full of yarn, and the sewing machine is piled with beadwork and more books.  The trunk I use as a coffee table has an antique typewriter on it, as well as more baggies of beads plus there's a pile right next to it.  There's a teeny beehive kiln in that mess somewhere.  There's sort of room for two people on the sofa if they really like each other, but most of the time if friends come over they get the couch and I take the computer chair.

These are the beaded jet things from a couple weeks ago.  The pinbacks came in finally and so I sewed on a little piece of nylon jersey to cover up the stitches on the back and then sewed the pinbacks on.  I've got enough beads for a fourth one so instead of using the three with two or three strands of beads looping between I think I'll do two sets of two with some beaded dangles, then I can pin the sets on either side of a blouse collar or put two on each jacket lapel.

They're about an inch across and I'm thinking of two or three strands of beads maybe 5" long.  I've got some round and oval faceted jet beads I could use.  None of these are really mined jet, just Victorian imitation jet which tended to either be glass or this strange (possibly celluloid) stuff that disintegrates even if you don't touch it.  I've got an ancient jet trim in a drawer of my jewelry box that I used to wear as a necklace but the last time I checked it the whole bottom of the drawer was covered in black flakes and crumbs.  I hadn't opened that drawer in at least a year.  The only real mined jet I have is a handful of some carved moon shapes that have fallen off the tassels of a Victorian capelet I can't wear (too small across the shoulders) and a strand of large beads, some of which are real jet and the rest are really cheap-ass, badly made, hollow faceted black glass beads.  

I think on Sundays the dead walk again, or at least they do at my local supermarket.  Shuffling along with their carts, stopping in the middle of the motherfucking aisle for a nap or a heart attack or something.

Then there are the brain-dead ones giggling on their retarded cellphones and nearly running me over with a cart, or making out with their insipid flip-flop-wearing boyfriends.

All men who wear flip-flops should be shot.  I came that close to planting a combat boot up the ass of one guy last week, not because he was blocking the aisle, but because he was wearing flip-flops.  Mostly because he was way too good-looking to strap flaps of rubber to his feet and go cavorting around in public.

On the way home, loud rumbles of thunder, three raindrops, then nothing.  So I suppose the clouds are like old people too, grumbling, a dribble of pee, then nothing.

Yes, I am in fine form today.  Mostly because I hate grocery shopping.  If I could live off cat hair I'd be all set.

And I forgot the damn cat food, too.

I should be knitting.

Or maybe that should be "you bought it, so you're allowed to bust the hell out of it"?  This isn't psychotic behavior.  Usually anytime I replace a computer part I have to take apart the old, dead part to see what's inside. 

I opened up a dead hard drive a few years ago and was going to use the hard disks for a metals project but they were too big and now I can't seem to be able to put my finger on where they are.  They'd be perfect for some kind of mad-scientist getup, dammit.  They're either in the closet under about 17 boxes, or I tossed them out when the semester was over.  Crap, crap, crap.



See, old, dead, extremely dusty computer part taken all to pieces.  Small, maybe 3" x 5" x 4".  Shame there's no gears or vacuum tubes.

After an hour of prying and wire-snipping and cutting the snot out of myself on the bottom of the motherboard I managed to scavenge a bare handful of copper and aluminum parts from my computer's dead power supply.  I've sort of got an idea for it all but that was mostly from the view I had through the vents before I undid the screws.  The copper coils are done a bit messy--if I was making my own fake electrical parts for jewelry I would wrap the wire a bit neater, but then I don't work at an electrical parts manufacturing plant.  The largest coil is about the size of a quarter so it could be used for jewelry.  Maybe.



See?  Badly photographed parts.  The plastic-covered fuse thingies are kinda interesting because once you peel off the black plastic covering there's a nice little aluminum barrel shape with a narrow business at the bottom that you could wrap wire or thread around to attach it so something, once you snip off the pointy little wires.  The things in the middle almost look like colored striped beads and they have enough wire sticking out form both ends that I could twirl into loops.  The copper coils looked better before I took them out and they may only be good for the wire and not the donut shapes.

The new part works quite a bit better than the old one, which sounded like an old microwave when it started up.  And the weird new-parts smell has burned off.

Pattern links for the Miser's Purse and the Beaded Mitts.  Blogger now works and so does Go Daddy so I can now shut the hell up and go to bed.

New computer parts make smells when they get warm, in case anyone wants to know.

It's raining and I suspect that the reason my connection is slower than usual is because the phone lines are wet so no Wednesday update.  I'd been online trying for about three hours, then Go Daddy disconnected me for "inactivity."  I was waiting for your fucking page to load you morons and no way in hell am I going to wait another three hours.  I'll just update at work tomorrow morning.  So there.

By the way I pay for Go Daddy to disconnect me for inactivity.  That ain't no free page.

I was all excited because of the bargain I got on my replacement computer part ($34 instead of $79) but that's all burned away in a torrent of fury.  Grr!

I also am beginning to suspect that the guy who runs the webring I'm in has crawled away somewhere and died because it's been well over a month since I signed up.  A couple days to activate, my ass.

Time for another angry little dance, a furiously sarcastic one this time.  

My computer's power supply crapped out and I had to order a new one but I had to wait a week until I got paid.  This means I now have an old one to dismantle and pillage for parts, so maybe some copper-coil jewelry?  Or I could drop it on my toe.  I could go either way.
 
There should have been a couple of new patterns to post over at the StitchORama but Blogger is taking about 75 years to load AND I'm on a stinky old dial-up.  It's already taken about a fucking hour to finally get to Go Daddy's file manager page so I can finally update Miss Meriwether's.  I've missed a whole week of comic updates there because all my stuff was, guess where, on the hard drive of a dead computer.  It's looking like I might get to bed by midnight.  Awesome.

So all in all, I'm doing quite the angry little dance in my living room.

9:51 pm and File Manager is still loading.  Balls.  I may have to drag my updates to work tomorrow and upload them when the boss isn't looking.  I could tell her I'm "upgrading Vista" or I'm tweaking the Narndle Rate.  She'll never know, since she still gets a bit hysterical when the screensaver kicks in.  "What's it doing???"

9:56 pm ditto

I tried to convince my boss that we need to order lots of stuff from Alumilite.

She's still laughing. 

An update to my site.  My only explanation is that I was a bit loopy, and latrines are always amusing.  Maybe.  I had planned to write four more articles or chapters or whatever ya wanna call them but I'm a tad delirious from the weekend's lack of sleep.  Comedy takes more brain cells than I possessed at the time.   

Sometimes the brain doesn't shut down.  I've had a horrible creative dry spell lately and it was nice to have too many ideas for once.  Or at least too many ideas that worked almost like they were supposed to.  Most never get beyond the design stage.




Beaded mitt pattern that I'll post over at my pattern blog in a couple days with a link.  Cotton/ramie yarn unraveled from a sweater and silver-tone beads, knitted on sizes 1 and 0 US needles.  It combines two 1880s Weldon's knitting patterns, a ladies' mitt and a beaded wrist warmer.  The second mitt is still on the needles but should be done soon.  I've knitted Victorian mitts before--way quicker than gloves and no constant trying the fool things on to get finger lengths right. 

I'm also crocheting a beaded miser's purse (using an 1870s pattern) in silk yarn at 16 stitches per inch.  Yup, 16 single-crochets to the inch.  That might be another reason I'm loopy.  I might also be needing bifocals pretty soon. 

There's also a couple garter patterns, a finished 1870s one to photog and write up and an icky quack medical one in pieces.




My favorite corset pattern.  I'm thinking about using it again for my next corset.  The next version will be a little shorter because the finished corset comes down a little too far on the hips.  Sitting on barstools is fine but good luck getting up and down from a low sofa or out of some guy's car without falling in the gutter on your ass.  I want it a little more over the bust, since it does that weird shelf thing.  Not attractive, but I think I can make a little smoother transition on this corset by knitting some lace and putting in a ribbon to tighten it a bit.  I just haven't gotten around to getting pink yarn to match the flossing. 

1891 Young Ladies' Corset pattern.  Black cotton coutil, pink embroidery floss, nasty poly-blend sheet for lining, 36? pieces of steel boning, most 1/4", some 1" wide, varying lengths. 



Let me just say I loooove Ageless Patterns.  I may name my firstborn Ageless Patterns Murphy.

I spent most of Friday night, all day Saturday, and a good part of Sunday fiddling with silicon molds and plastic.  I made me a couple pins, which I wish were in metal, but I could claim that these are plastic prototypes.  Or perhaps they're the "stunt" pins, used when the real, valuable pin is resting up & doesn't want to be bothered.

I was originally going to spend the weekend sewing since my book came in and there's loads of overskirts, a great bodice, and some bustles.  Instead, I wound up spending the weekend with gunk all over my hands and plastic & metal all over the place. 

Not much different from most weekends around here.




The one on the left was a last-minute slap-together.  I'd already molded the bit in the center and found the rhinestone earring while I was looking for the dangly pearl on the right. 




I've had this typewriter for about 15 years.  It weighs about 75 pounds and I got it half price (ten bucks) because the guy at the flea market didn't want to put it back on the truck.  Nearly put my back out hauling it to my friend's car.  The cat threw up on the roller once.  If you want to decorate your apartment with weird old crap, don't get a cat.



This is the stuff that started it all.  All this business came out of the end of the roller part of an antique typewriter.  All I wanted to do was temporarily take off what I thought was a simple gear on the end so I could make a mold of it, then simply put it back on.  Nooooo.  There were something like 35 parts inside a non-moving roller knob.  That's not even counting the screws that hold it all together.



The left mold is the gear business with about 25 little loose cylinders which had to be tacked down with a glue stick before I poured the silicone.  The right is the domed top from a cheap ring.  I poured amber epoxy into the mold because all the clear epoxy domes I molded came out all bubbly.  The only real way to get rid of the bubbles would have been to use a vacuum chamber but I haven't quite got one of those lurking around the apartment at the moment.



Colors that didn't quite work out.  I tried a garish gold mica powder,  black paint and silver leaf (looked too much like silver spray paint), brown powder eyeshadow, and gray powder eyeshadow.  Yes, eyeshadow.  It was 5am by then and I was deleriously trying anything, including dried-up acrylic paint which caused a weird reaction and the plastic got all foamy.  The combination that worked was a combination of the two eyeshadows and a dab of gold mica, then black paint that was mostly rubbed off, just to make it all greasy & grimy looking.



A mourning pin from eBay.  The pin opens up front & back so it could either hold two photos or a photo and a lock of hair.  I guess if you were a complete weirdo you could stuff the entire thing with hair. 

The whole center business swivels around so you could show either side.  The photo is on glass and doesn't copy very well.  Scratches through the black paint on the back show through to the front and the photo at one time had some color painted on it.  You can still see a little pink on the guy's cheeks.  I did a tiny black & white copy because most detail wouldn't show through the amber lens.  Plus all's I got right now is black ink.  Feh.



Pieces ready to be glued together.  The amber piece magnified the photo more than I had expected so I had to print up another one about 25% smaller than I was originally going to use.

New website Miss Meriwether's Steam Bustle has been up for a couple of weeks new & I think I finally have the layout like I want it.  It's been lurking around in the back of my mind for about six months now and I've only just gotten around to dealing with getting a domain name & paying for hosting so I won't have all that crap advertising all over my site.  Regular twice-weekly updates of the steampunk webcomic The Magic Lantern have been posted for about a month.  Hopefully I won't run out of tacky little punch lines.

Default blog: The Omnigraphic Blogopticon.  I might actually remember to post new entries there!  Once I got out of the habit of posting it's been nearly impossible to get back there.  Same for the Vintage Stitch-O-Rama site (link on the Omnigraph).  I have a buttload of new (old) patterns to post and once I get the Steam Bustle a little further along I'll get back to regular updates.  I might use this blog to post work-in-progress photos. 

I've been devouring books as though they were Doritos, sometimes three a week, so it's no wonder I can't seem to post anything or finish my latest sewing projects.  I've been toting around Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day for a couple weeks now and I've gotten as far as page 624 and there's still about 400-plus pages to go.  Mason & Dixon was my previous favorite of his and I think Against the Day has kinda blown that one out of the water. 

I just ordered Francis Grimble's Fashions of the Gilded Age, vol. 1: Undergarments, Bodices, skirts, Overskirts, Polonaises and Day Dresses,  1877-1882 and it should be here in about a week.   I'm guessing this will keep me busy sewing for a good while.  Yes!  Amazon.com had a nice discount so I paid $35 rather than $50.  I've had her Edwardian Modiste for a few years but the dresses are a bit too impractical for me (incredibly dressy and much too frilly for an airship pilot or mad scientist) and I prefer mid-Victorian to Edwardian anyhow.  I believe she only had a couple of Edwardian books out at the time, otherwise I would have gotten something else.  I'm looking more for separates--crap I can mix & match like blouses, simple skirts with fancy overskirts, a decent jacket.  And a combination that isn't umbrella-drawered Edwardian.  I could make crap up but I'm just all-fired picky about authenticity.  If I want to go romping around in old-timey clothes they better be either the real thing or made from an undecipherable antique pattern.  It's no wonder I never leave the damn house.

Things To Do:

• Must draft men's 1860s double-breasted waistcoat.

• Knit stripy Victorian silk stockings from 1880s Weldon's Practical Stocking Knitter pamphlet.

• Knit ladies' mitts in black silk this time instead of nasty acrylic.

• New fancy corset with embroidery (I hate embroidering but I don't have fabric with the design I'm seeing in my head).

• Finish re-doing antique jet beaded trim with pin-backs rather than sewn on.  I like options, dang it all.  Beaded trim found on horribly dry-rotted 1890s silk blouse.  It rained beads as the threads broke, so they all were taken loose and re-done with new thread.  So if I want to be all jet and fringey I can.  The ragged beaded thingy on the left is the one I used as a pattern since it was mostly holding itself together.  Beaded thingy on the right is redone thingy.  They were originally sewn on stiffened fabric rings which they don't make any more, so I sewed the beads onto a disk of black satin, since I would more than likely be wearing these on a black blouse, plus the fabric would hide the pin back.  There will be long strands of jet beads festooning between three of the round thingies, plus the two on either end will have long dangles.  Fairly close to the original blouse decorations.
  

• There's a very cool bustle skirt with a train in Rowan knitting magazine no. 38.  No designer given so I'm assuming it's a vintage skirt.  Must.  Draft.  Pattern.  Like I have the seven acres of fabric it will take for all the pleats and ruffles.  Gaaaah!

• See, I done got all fancy with bullets.
  

• Must sleep now.