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Days 19-20: Just the photos, Ma'am

Day 19

[ID:A knitted baby hat - the knitting is complete, but the crown needs to be closed and the brim needs to be tightened. End ID]

Day 20

[ID: A knitted baby hat in two colors of variegated yarn. End ID]

[ID: A cross stitch project in progress, showing a gray mouse wearing a turquoise scarf;. Holly leaves in dark green thread are stitched at the top and bottom of the mouse. The backstitching has begun. End ID]

I have a bajillion tabs open....

and they're pretty much all fanfic right now? I've clearly been falling behind.

(Don't ask how long this has been the situation, just do not ask.)

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( Read more... )

Cassandra by Louise Bogan

To me, one silly task is like another.
I bare the shambling tricks of lust and pride.
This flesh will never give a child its mother,
Song, like a wing, tears through my breast, my side,
And madness chooses out my voice again,
Again. I am the chosen no hand saves:
The shrieking heaven lifted over men,
Not the dumb earth, wherein they set their graves.

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Link

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NaCraMaMo Day 20: Jewelry

This was one of those leftover assortment necklaces. I'd been trying to figure out what to do with these quartz chunks, which gave me an ice theme, especially when I could pair them with the frosted glass balls.

When I came across the leftover birds, got the idea of putting the origami cranes on the chunks and matching them with the swan bead.

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NaCraMaMo Day 19: Jewelry

Pretty sure I made a necklace before with one of these oyster shell jellyfish pendants. I love the look of it. Put it together with 3 different shades and shapes of green glass, with some plastic silver to connect it all.

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Day 18 - Something a little different

It was a really nice day, so I took my online stitch-in outside.

For part one, I wound about 8.5 2 ounce skeins of cotton yarn for washing. (I rescue second hand yarn for reuse. As a general policy, I wash all yarn before introducing it to my stash, and I prefer to be outside to wind the yarn for washing)

[ID: 4 different hanks of variegated cotton yarn, tied for washing. End ID]

For part two, I stitched the feet on the mouse (I only had to frog four stitches!). And on my way back inside, I found my missing green thread in the laundry corridor (it must have stuck to my clothing and then fallen off), so I also stitched the final holly leaf.

[ID: A cross stitch project in progress, showing a gray mouse wearing a turquoise scarf; the feet are now stitched in. Holly leaves in dark green thread are stitched at the top and bottom of the mouse. End ID]

So, sometimes E and I have been watching Mom

For one reason and one reason only, which is to criticize their set design.

We're supposed to believe that the protagonist of the series is a recently sober waitress, single mom. One kid's dad is nonexistent, the other is there but he certainly doesn't pay any child support. Her own family is definitely not helping out - indeed, she has to help her mother, who is also recently sober!

Dialog establishes that her nonsober life was pretty chaotic - evictions, jail time, the works.

And their house is fucking amazing. Three bedrooms for a mom and two kids, which to my NYC eyes is astonishing, and everything matches. None of the furniture has cigarette burns or scratches or crayon marks, nothing is missing a drawer pull or, indeed, a drawer, all their windows have curtains - matching curtains, even! - and all their lights have lampshades, none of their comforters are frayed around the edges, there's no food or drink stains, the doors all close properly....

You know, it occurs to me that I may be revealing a bit more about my own childhood home than perhaps I want to, so I guess I'll stop here. But seriously, set and costume design have some questions to answer, because they really didn't think any of this through. I can see such a tidy house from a waitress who is diligent about estate sales and thrifting - though probably none of it would match, it would be eclectic in a classy way. Or I can see nice furnishings from an alcoholic with a bigger income who was managing to keep a fingerhold on being functional in a way that this family clearly wasn't before the show. But c'mon!

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NaCraMaMo Day 18: Jewelry

Loved these book charms -- decided to use the Sense color scheme as I had some blue/beige beads. Then I filled it in with alternating gold and silver hearts, as well as some artificial chalcedony.

Another beautiful day!

And no headache, which is great - I've been super headachy these past few weeks.

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( Read more... )

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2025,
nacramamo

14 days remain... How is everyone doing?

There are 14 days (including today) remaining NaCraMamo 2025. How's everyone doing? How are you feeling about the month so far? Are you doing the crafting you want to do? What have you had the most fun doing?

For me, being able to actually cross stitch again has made me feel happy and accomplished, even with all the frogging I have had to do. It's also shown me that I'm not yet up to going back to my very involved, full coverage piece, because I have had to do so much frogging on the little piece. But I expect that with a little more care and practice, I can get there! And I do have more little kits that I can do for the practice.

I've really enjoyed seeing all the lovely projects you all are doing. The beading projects I'm seeing really make we want to dig into my bead stash and put some pretty shinies together! However, between the energy that designing takes, and the energy that sitting flat-footed for hours takes, I don't think that I'm up for beading just yet, as I seem incapable of only doing a little beading at a time.

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Days 15, 16, and 17

Day 15

This was a travel day. I had a seat mate on this flight, so I knitted. One hat finished, and about a half of another (not pictured)

[ID: A knitted baby hat, in two colorways of variegated yarn. End ID]

I got home early enough to attend Wednesday stitch-in, so I did, stitching coral thread into the mouse ears on the current cross stitch, where I didn't have to frog anything, because I didn't have to count!

[ID:A cross stitch project in progress, showing the outline of a gray mouse wearing a turquoise scarf; the inside of the ears now have coral stitches. End ID]

And then, I used the last bit of stitch-in to finish the (second) hat that I'd started on the plane.

[ID: A knitted baby hat, in two colorways of variegated yarn. End ID]

Day 16
I was playing chores catchup, while trying to recover from my trip, so I didn't get much done. But I did get many of the facial features on the mouse stitched in, and some detail in the torso area.

[ID: A cross stitch project in progress, showing the outline of a gray mouse wearing a turquoise scarf; some of the facial features are now stitched, in pink and navy blue thread. End ID]

Day 17

This was a VERY busy day, and I was only able to craft a little bit in the evening. I got most of the holly stitched on the current cross stitch piece. I ran out of green thread about 6 stitches short of finishing, and for the life of me I can NOT find the rest of the green thread. So I stopped. The chart has the DMC color number, and I probably have it in my stash, but I was really too tired to go find it.

[ID: A cross stitch project in progress, showing a gray mouse wearing a turquoise scarf; Holly leaves in dark green thread are stitched at the top and bottom of the mouse. End ID]

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Fic – Tokyo Babylon / XXXHolic – make its way back to you. (g, one-shot)

Fandom : Tokyo Babylon / XXXHolic
Author : Yui_Miyamoto
Story Title : make its way back to you.
Rating : G
Genre(s) : Romance, Angst
Main Character(s) : Sumeragi Hokuto, Kuzuki Kakyou, Ichihara Yuuko, Watanuki Kimihiro
Summary : Hokuto makes a nearly-impossible wish only to find one waiting for her…
Warning(s) : None.
Disclaimer : Tokyo Babylon and XXXHolic were lovingly crafted from Clamp-sama. I love them so much.

Livejournal / Fanfiction.net / AO3

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Fic – Tokyo Babylon / 東京BABYLON – No one. (pg-13, one-shot)

Fandom : Tokyo Babylon / 東京BABYLON
Author : Yui_Miyamoto
Story Title : No one.
Rating : PG -13
Genre(s) : Romance, Angst
Main Character(s) : Sumeragi Subaru, Sakurazuka Seishirou
Summary : Subaru thinks about his role as an onmyouji and meets Seishirou on his way home…
Warning(s) : M/M.
Disclaimer : Tokyo Babylon belongs the wonderful geniuses of Clamp-sama.

Livejournal / Fanfiction.net / AO3

I know we all laughed at the blue liquid used in pad commercials

but I'm not sure I like pink any better.

Maybe they could've eased us into it gradually, with purples?

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I read The Incandescent, which has gotten decidedly mixed reviews from all of you

I fall very in the middle - I enjoyed it, probably won't read it again.

But - am I supposed to feel most sympathetic towards the ( Read more... )

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NaCraMaMo Day 17: Jewelry

A bit like one of the recent turtle necklaces I made, in terms of the sunshiny look. But more blue in this one to match the starfish, including the small cat's eye balls. Great for t-shirt or beach wear 🏖️

Current Mood: uncomfortable
Current Music: Nine Inch Nails - The Perfect Drug

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Finished watching Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka...

...and it was something alright. This Anime, like the Manga it was based upon manages to make you feel so uncomfortable in a variety of ways from the overly graphic violent tones paired with unapologetic streams of blood splashing everywhere coupled with over saturated scenes of fanservice ranking from Sailor Moon-type of revealing to the unconditional tropes of a distasteful Hentai you would watch to point out how cringy and ridiculous it is. The moral undertones in this series makes to wonder why it was even planned to begin with, and while some characters have potential to grow into a sympathetic trope themselves, it gets thrown out the window in the very next scene with aforementioned themes.

However there's one character in particular that makes this Anime even worse than you could ever tolerate watching, that character being Mugen Kurumi AKA The "War Nurse," who is potentially the very worst Anime character I ever had the displeasure in watching. Her very, VERY questionable portrayal as a healer AND torturer comes highly polirizing at best.

It makes me uncomfortable that Square-Enix was involved in the publishing of this series as well. You *could* watch it for the sympathetic feelings towards characters like Asuka and some actually good battle scenes, but I doubt you could get past a couple episodes much less the entire thing.

On the other hand, went on downloading Streets of Rage 2 on my phone and had a great time in nostalgiaville, so it did ease the uncomfortable feelings I experienced watching that Anime at least.

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NaCraMaMo Day 16: Jewelry

On the one hand I just found this layout to be a good match for the central three heart beads. But on the other, I rather liked the green eyed monster angle. Picked the toggle to match both the hearts and the studs on the black metal beads.

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NaCraMaMo Day 15: Jewelry

I mentioned the other day that I mostly used these slides as snowflakes, and as I had 2 of these apple beads, I thought I'd go for a Snow White theme, with bead ends looking fluffy and snowy.

I have been kinda obsessed with The Fate of Ophelia choreography

I'm meh on the lyrics and music, but the video...! So here it is, with a couple of other videos that inexplicably got skipped last time I posted a lot of videos.

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( Fate of Ophelia )

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( Two covers of the same song )

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( Guinea pigs exit and enter the tube )

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( Ghost waltz )