"If you can't be pretty, you might as well cause trouble" – Florence King
Nov 21st, 2011 by Meetzorp
Just trying out a tank-top pattern on a bit of scrap from a dress I cut out recently (but haven’t assembled yet). Yes, I know the zig-zags aren’t well centered and all that, but I am just finding out if this pattern even fits me and works all right.
If it does, I have a medium-term goal to make some lightweight tanks for layering, as I am always too warm with a whole shirt under my jackets, but I do so love a smart, tailored jacket.
Nov 20th, 2011 by Meetzorp
I have no excuse other than lazy bastardry. I started this coat only just shy of two months ago. What should have taken maybe two or three saturdays took…well…longer. Mostly because I wasn’t working on it. I got bored of this project about halfway through, and it sat in a box in my sewing room with no lining for the entirety of October. Now, here it is in all its plaidly glory…my new, brown, 100% wool winter coat.
Why yes, I do believe that it is brown. I seriously doubt anyone who has read this blog much, seen my sewing posts, or knows me in person is even a tiny, little bit surprised.
Plaid matching carried ’round the back. This was a damn nuisance I do not mind telling you!
That’ll be why the lining looks like this. Because I honestly ceased to give even a hint of a shit by the time it came around to cutting it out. So long as it wasn’t off grain, that was good enough for me.
What have we here?
In seam pockets, of course!
This coat was made using Vogue’s V8346 pattern, View A, with modifications. I cut the sleeves a little fuller to accommodate the inevitable layers of sweaters that I will definitely wear as winter worsens. I also increased the number of buttons and made actual buttonholes, instead of stitching buttons on the outside and snaps on the inside. That seems like a really stupid way to fasten a coat and I was having no part in such shenanigans.
I built this coat to last. The seams are reinforced with tape, the seam allowances are zig-zagged, the buttonholes are stitched as closely as the old Singer will allow. The whole thing is made of dense and durable wool, and I expect to get just under a decade’s use out of it. When comes the time to replace it, I may use this pattern again, but cut View B next time, which comes to just above knee length.
Nov 18th, 2011 by Meetzorp
So get your ass down to the Anita Gorman Discovery Center tomorrow at noon and buy some food for people who haven’t any this Thanksgiving:
Where: Anita Gorman Discovery Center,4750 Troost Ave, Kansas City, MO
When: November 19, 2011 12:30 pm
It’s loads of fun, and for a good cause.
I didn’t take any pictures last year (or the year before, or the year before that, or even the year before that one), but I did in 2007.
Joel took some last year, however.
Nov 17th, 2011 by Meetzorp
Oh man, I have brainmeats problems.
A month or so ago I read an article online where this guy decided to try recipes or foodstuffs mentioned in The Simpsons.
I laughed myself silly, as you do. Especially over the notion of Corn Nog, which sounds really fucking disgusting. I mean! Almost as bad as fuzzy bread, a creamed corn omelet, some sausage and mayonaise soup, and a carton of milk that’s been left out in the sun all week.
If, like me, you are a little bit of kind of an idiot, you continue to mull over the logistics of Corn Nog and decide that perhaps it could be possible to invent a recipe for a sort of corn-centric, nog-based beverage option that could, if pressed, be called Corn Nog and maybe it could be consumed by right-thinking people who do not hate their own guts.
Speaking of…what is the base of nog? Be it rum or brandy? It is some sort of old-fashioned, sweet, spice-friendly boozage, but which one, I am not sure. Or is it more a whiskey-type of booze? I do not know, though if I were focused on more than telling you about my fantastically stupid ideas, I suppose I could ask Google (I almost typed Boozele) to tell me how to spike my nog.
Anyway, the day after I read about Corn Nog on the Internet, I was mulling it over and had to take a break at work so that I could jot down some rough ideas:
Obviously, this is a pretty rough draft, but I think I could maybe make this thing happen.
I tell you what. If I manage to make a functional, palatable Corn Nog, I will post about it here, with instructions and everything. I totally will.
Oh, and by the way, I amn’t drunk tonight. Just more crazy-go-nuts than usual.
I have also decided that tonight isn’t an “ain’t” night. It’s an “amn’t” night, a contraction of a negated auxiliary verb which is sadly underutilized in spoken English.
Sadly, I’m afraid “amn’t” may be my own, personal “fetch.”
Nov 16th, 2011 by Meetzorp
I’m about to post a video clip for y’all, but I’m warning you, don’t bother watching the video. Just listen to the audio and everything will be all right, good, fine, and amusing. The problem with this video is that it is a fan-made-vid/AMV/pathetic-piece-of-shit. It’s one of those things where somebody took an audio track, then “timed” images (or in the usual case, clips of anime shows) to the track. Many of them have roots in fan-fic, “shipping,” and people who speculate subtexts for the dumbest of TV shows.
I hate FMV/AMV/this-bullshit so hard. I consider it amongst the lowest forms of art. That said, and rant aside, this was the only audio track of this monologue that I could find that I could also share on this website, and so you’ll have to overlook the bullshitty stock photography slideshow and just enjoy the magic of Jim Gaffigan’s “Sleep” monologue:
The first time I heard this monologue, it seriously struck a chord. I remember being a kid, and thinking that going to sleep was a total bummer. I wasn’t even tired. It’s still light out. Corri & Kelli get to stay up until 9:00, I swear – ask their mom!
Then, sometime around college, I began to appreciate the gift of sleep. I scheduled my classes so as to leave myself an hour block in the afternoon for napping (2:00-3:00 for preference). I’d sleep until 9:30-10:00 a.m. on a Saturday or Sunday if given half a chance.
I’m not going to lie – I went to bed right around 10:00 every night this week, slept until 6:00, and honestly, could have happily slept on until 7:00-7:30, if it weren’t for those pesky cats and that whole having-to-be-at-work-by-8:00 thing.
Bed’s a great place. It’s warm, I can snuggle up with Joel, and damned if I don’t have some of the most peculiar dreams which I find pretty entertaining, at least. I’d be there right now, you know, if it were possible. Sleeping rules. It rules!
Nov 15th, 2011 by Meetzorp
Kansas City(s) (both of them) are river cities, though much less so than many other river cities. KC hasn’t embraced the riverfront; most of the levies are closed to public access, and the riverfront parks that do exist have traditionally been woefully underutilized. Nonetheless, KC is a river city, and the river plays significant roles in how we live here. Foremost, it is a boundary, between North and South, between KS and MO.
I cross the Kansas or Kaw river every day, twice a day, once on the way to work; once on the way home. I live in Kansas City, Kansas, work in Kansas City, Missouri.
At sunset, sometimes, I admire the reflection of the steeple of St. John’s Church on the water.
This picture is of the Missouri, off glow-in-the-dark-park, on the night of the First Annual Trashboat Regatta.
And here is the water, just reflecting the sunset, from Saturday night.
A view of St. John’s across a very muddy Kaw River, as seen from the Central Avenue bridge.
I guess I didn’t really have much of a story to tell tonight. Just some pretty pictures of the rivers that delineate the cities of Kansas City.
Nov 14th, 2011 by Meetzorp
This fire escape is on the back of the old Advance/Rumely building in the West Bottoms. The link above is to a photograph of this same alley in 1951, after the big flood.
And this is the same alley as of last year’s haunted house season.
I was poking around in the alley on Sunday and liked the look of the fire escape, therefore, you see it above.
This is a different fire escape, sort of in the Crossroads district, which was looking particularly golden and promising near sundown on Saturday afternoon.
I have a set on Flickr called “look up,” and if I haven’t added these two already, I will very, very soon.
Nov 13th, 2011 by Meetzorp
Nov 12th, 2011 by Meetzorp
I took Ruby running in a shipping container wareyard today. She enjoyed splashing through the puddles and searching for rats, and I enjoyed the disorienting scenery. It felt like I was cavorting in a giant’s LEGO village.
This looks like a tight fit, but I could easily ride my bicycle through this passageway.
It is like the grubby, unfinished version of the shipping container student housing complex in Amsterdam. The development in Amsterdam is called Keetwonen, and actually looks cheery and inviting, and yes, quite a lot like an inhabitable LEGO-ville!
I only just remembered, but there is a container house here in Kansas City – in a very posh neighborhood (Brookside, for those who know Kansas City) and it is quite attractive. They have painted it a pleasant turquoise color and it looks less like LEGO and more like some sort of ultrachic modernistic home of the future sort of affair.
Nov 11th, 2011 by Meetzorp
Just got back from taking Joel out for his birthday dinner, and I’m going to go and enjoy the rest of our evening together.
I heard this monologue on Slacker radio today (I was listening to a medley of comics while doing some mind-numbing Adobe crap at work) and I completely thought of Joel and some of the silly voices he does. And the general attitude of sexytimes humor.
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