Girl and Dolls

Mon, 08 May 2006 21:37:16 GMT

How to make your own knitting pattern for a basic doll sweater (or person sweater for that matter)

A little x-post from tk_and_company

Blaaaaahhh....

Tue, 02 May 2006 02:44:32 GMT

I had a rather startling revelation the other day. My end of year review doesn’t mean jack shit. They can't even put me on academic probation. Ha... It's a really bizarre feeling to know that so long as I have passed my classes I will have passed just fine... The end of year review is just so they can talk to me about my work (and quite frankly who gives a shit, if they aren't the ones passing out my grades). And here I was all stressed out about it. It’s sort of like realizing that colleges don’t care how many times you got detention in High School. The really weird thing is that I think my reviews will be with profs I've never had for classes before (ok so I had Bob for a lecture class once, but so did everyone else in my grade, it's not like he knows who I am). I seriously doubt that I will get the kind of feedback I want from Larry, Bob, and Brooke. Dangit I wanna have my review with Gary, Steve, and Ben. (o.k. so I don't know for a fact that I won't, but I have my review upstairs and that just makes me think I'll be in the Bob group as I almost never see him downstairs). Anyway the review is Wednesday morning, and I have barely even looked at my work. That's what tomorrow is for right? That and signing up for that art history summer class at the community college.

As for the kids, got some 14mm eyes at the dollmeet that were free to a good home. I like the size a lot better for Tristan (doubleplus so in the tender head), but I need them in his pretty green (they are a sort of violet blue that just kinda falls flat for me...).
I've been knitting up a lot of little sweater bits that I haven't sewn together (I always seem to loose motivation at that point...).
Found out that my swap partner for the sci-fi themed swap on DoA got her half of my swap. I'm doing the antsy dance waiting to see pictures. (I have a picture I took, but I kinda wanna let her be the one to post pictures of it first, even though it wasn't a secret swap, cause I'm nerdy like that.)
Took them out to the movies with my friends the other night. (we saw American Dreamz. It was kinda cool but it ended most crapily...)

I have officially bought my tickets to New York, New York. Will be visiting cousin Niki from May 12 to May 15. And I ask you, how does a nonstop flight from Detroit to New York take 2 hours? How? I know I'm flying economy in a pack of gum with wings (AirBus), but 2 hours? That seems long. But on the upside it is an excuse to buy more wooden knitting needles ( <3 ).

Almost there... Amost there...

Wed, 26 Apr 2006 11:37:04 GMT

Finished my P.O.S. fake as hell demo reel for 3-D. The walk cycle still looks like hell... damnit I can make people walk fine in 2-D. Why must 3-D be so difficult?!? Any way that brings me down to two final projects. One of which is due later today... I've been angsting over one of them... (its long and complex, but the short of it is that group projects suck when you don't mesh with your group well). But all I can do now is hope for the best. I had a ton of fun at the meetup over the weekend. Only finished one sweater though... And then forgot to bring it... DOH! Also forgot my camera doubleplusDOH! While I was there Nolavon let me do a faceup on her sleeping El head (which was supper incredibly nice of her) My first face-up attempt came out pretty cool, I just wish I had a picture of it. Also someone brought a MNF Lishe to the meetup and I can now say with reasonable certainty that she is the perfect doll for Alex. Might need to sand down the tops of her breasts though... They are a really unnatural shape as they are. Anyway... WANT! Made some plans to do some BJD type stop motion films with Lady Atriel over the summer. That should be fun.

I haven't done any digital painting in a long time.... This felt good.

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 18:30:52 GMT

fwaaaa.... If ever there was a day I didn't want to be stuck inside a computer lab working! Its spring damnit! And for once I am not sick (OMG! the allergies aren't attacking!) I wanna go outside and play.... I wanna go have funnnn.... but I promiced 20 seconds of animation by 7pm so I have to stay inside. poo. At least I'm in a lab on the second floor which has windows and not in the basement. I also need to call and cancel my dentist appointment, because with all the crap I have to get done tommorow, getting my cavities filled is low on the priority list.

Found a new yarn shop by me. Not as close as the other one, and no where near the same amount of clearance yarn, but they have a lot more color selection. They also have a frequent buyer card (score!). Bought some spendy, but really nice super fine mohair silk blend yarn in a pretty deep burgundy (so much for not buying more yarn until I finnished my black and white stripe sweater -_-;). I'm kntting Tristan a little lacy ish overshirt out of it.

Also I want to try and use up a bit of the cream yarn I bought for Miriel's sweater by trying to knit a few mini sweaters before Sunday's meetup. These I would take to the meetup and see if I can sell them to make back a little of my gas money. If that goes well I may try to make a few more to sell on DoA as a sort of "Bring Alex Home Fund". The only concern is that I haven't ever used e-bay and have no real feedback to let people trust me as a seller... hmmm... I wonder if I can link to my Amazon.com marketplace seller feedback?

Anyway I should probably put my nose back to the grind stone now...

Backyard Photo Shoot

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 17:44:10 GMT

It was so nice out yesterday!! So I took the kids outside to play about in the backyard.

Tristan: Hey, isn't that my wig?!
Miriel: But I look so cute in it :P

I cut all my hair off Saturday. I've gotten a buch of complements on it too (best self done haircut ever!). I feel so much better, but now that I'm in the freezy school computer lab, my head is cold!

adventures

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 01:06:53 GMT

Decided to bring Miriel to class with me last Thursday. She looks a lot like the doll in the animation I'm working on. (meant to be rather creepy and play of two of my bigger fears, dolls and clowns, but is ending up just being silly). Went fairly well. Most people just ignored her. A few were creped out. (The best reaction "She looks like she's dead!" x.X; ) The stop motion focus/sculpture minor dude was really interested in the customizability and posing. I ended up pulling her head cap off and taking her eyes out, pulling on various joints, ect... while showing her off to him. He also took a few pictures of her and has promised to e-mail them to me. In return I'm gonna send him links to a few of the stop motion animations I've seen people make with BJDs.

Anywho... been trying to figure out why most dolls scare the crap out of me, but I love BJDs so... no real conclusive ideas yet... I think part of it is that none of them blink, have voice boxes, or stitched on eyebrows (my big three creep out factors in dolls).

Decided to experiment with knitting with the cotton crochet thread. It's the only fingering weight yarn I can readily find. It knits up fine and lacy even on my 000 needles.... so I guess its gonna be over shirts and shawls.

Also! Gasp! I knit something not for my dolls! There was this niffty "Thick and Thin" yarn on clearance at Jo Ann’s, so a bought a skein (for three bucks why not?) and knit it up into a little blazer scarf. Its quite nice and knubbly.

Fwaaa...

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:51:18 GMT

The meetup was awesome! There were something like 68 or 72 dolls total!!! I didn't get lost driving there (well there was some confusion when the directions told me to get off at the Telegraph exit but failed to say which one, as there are two, but logic prevailed and I figured it out). I managed to snag a good wig for Tristan to use if he does indeed end up cosplaying Simon Tam (with me as River XD). Also Wee_Little_Fairy took the cutest pictures of all the dolls. She gave the doll owners permission to use as desired, so I snaged Tristan's for my icon.

On a grumpy note: Why is it every time I have a little left over from my paycheck I seem to incur a new expence? (or why did my iPod cable mysteriously disappear?)

Edit: 68 Dolls Block the Stiars (from the meetup)

Trauma!

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 02:17:04 GMT

Yesterday was scary! Very scary!
I knocked Tristan's right eyelash out of his regular head while pulling off his sweater. All was ok though at first. No panic. Just take the head off. Replace it with the tender head. Then glue the eyelash back in. Right? Well, taking Tristan's head off proved quite the Augean task... Apparently I forgot the ordeal it was the first time. I did however manage to change his head after a scary moment of the string sucking back down his neck and accidentally putting a few gouges into the resin inside his neck with the wire I used to fish the elastic back out. (I now have a much better idea of how my kid is strung btw) However, task achieved, I realized that in the struggle I have lost the eyelash! This is about where the painc set in... (it's worth noting that the cable guy was over making lots of distressing banging noises in the basement at this point too) Not really fancying my chances of finding the eyelash in my abysmal pit of a bedroom (I am not a neat person by nature), I quickly pack up Tristan and run off to the local Beauty supply store. They sell false eyelashes right? Yes they do... lots of black ones... Black would just look silly with Tristan's brown makeup, so I run to another beauty supply store in the next town over and fortunately they have two styles of brown eyelashes. I bought both, unsure of which would work better. So I get home and after what felt like hours of fussing with them (eyelashes are hard to get into place and keep in place without getting glue on the face itself!) I get the eyelashes in... they were hugely too long, but I left it till today to cut them down to give the glue maximum cure time. I used one eyelash cut in half, so I still have the other one, and once I work up the courage I think I'll put it in the tender head, as these eyelashes are rather thicker than the default ones, and the eyelashes on the tender head got a bit mussed.
I have to say throughout the ordeal Tristan was really calm and trusting. Me, I was a nervous wreck...

On the upside, Miriel's new sweater is 90% done ( just have to weave in the ends... I hate weaving in the ends...) I'm also making one for Tristan that is big and bulky and has a cable! (just learned how to knit cables...) It's kinda funny, but when I brought the kids into JoAnn's the lady kept fussing over how I must have sooooo much patience to knit these little things... and honestly they take me less time then the simple stuff I do for people.

I also gave the kids their first bath with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser in prep for going to a meetup tomorrow. It was very soothing after the whole eyelash ordeal. Discovered that Miriel is really cute bald. She has a very elegantly shaped head.

Also nice is the fact that Bubby (Great-Grandma-in-Law from the old country) has knit me a sweater vest. I've never had a sweater vest before and the idea quite excites me. We went to see her in her new place today, and her reaction to the electric sweeper we gave her as a housewarming present was so cute. "Oh my goosness, they make everythink now!"

The mongo eyelashes before I cut them down.

lounging around after their bath in my mesy room.

The new sweater, loose stringies and all.

Argh!

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 17:51:06 GMT

Damn! I keep telling myself no saving for new dolls, doll stuff, ect... until all the trip finances are covered (why did I promice to go to New York >.<;) And then I see him:

http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54234

Graby hands of want! And so begins the mad scramble to figure out how to afford him... I already sold off all the old textbooks for Miriel... And I still want a Mini Fee Lishe to turn into my character Alex... crud...

Curse me and my expensive hobbies.

On the bright side I managed to get a set of 12 pastel pencils (Conte a Paris, the nice kind!) for only $12. Clarence is godly (these suckers usualy sell for $2.20 a pencil). I have been hankering for some for forever. No longer must detailed small format pastel work be just a dream for me.

Miriel comes home

Sat, 11 Mar 2006 22:36:33 GMT

Miriel came home yesterday around noon, which was about a half hour away from when I said I'd meet up with my friend in Ann Arbor, so after taking a few quick photos of opening the box, we were off. I took a few more pictures once I got home. She is quite awesome, so much more slender and delicate than Tristan. And oh so very stylish.

The box was delivered by the same guy who brought Tristan, so he offered to wait while I checked things (so nice of him). This is when I got the box into the dining room. Tristan is supervising (and waiting for his shoes x3 )

All the stuff that came with Miriel that I didn't pay for. Shrimp crisps I had heard of, and I kind of remember something about them giving out free pens, but the little pair of cleats was totally unexpected. There very cute, but I don't know who'll wear them as neither of my kids are very athletic -.-; )

The bubble wrap blob of doom!

She came in a bag !?! Her description said she would be coming in a black box. But I quite prefer the bag.

A hastily taken blury picture of Tristan's shoes.

The bubble mummy

As I unwrapped her head, I found this protecting her face. Much joking ensued about her being a "frozen coke head."

almost free

And sitting next to Tristan.

Going for a ride in my friend's bag while we were walking out to get some dinner.

She looks a little sad to me. Particularly next to Tristan who is rather cheerful, if a little on the quite side. She's also really pale!

Relaxing on the chair when we got home.

She is so beautifully confident. I am so pleased.

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 21:15:46 GMT

So, in the middle of sewing some pants for him I hear a knock at the door and rushed upstairs to receive my wonderful box of joy. Which arrived in a slightly scary state. I made the delivery guy wait while hurriedly unpacked the basic bits to check if everything was alright (there was a rattling noise, that turned out to be the S hook in his spare head). Everything was good though and I let the poor man leave and set about the business of chronicling the proper opening of my doll.

The scary looking box (note the mashed up bit at the top)

My initial assessment of everything (and my cat helping me)

The offending S hook.

pillows...

than a mummy

And finally I can see him! I didn't ask for a specific eye color because I wanted it to be a surprise, but I was thinking to myself, "green would be really nice." And lo and behold he came with green eyes! ::insert much happy dancing here::

Tristan: I really think I have been naked long enough....

Tristan: Much better.
(boxers courtesy of my mother who was nice enough to make some for me without me even asking)

Modeling the pajamas my mom made for him.

and then came the momentous moment when I decided to try out the other head. (please ignore the gross state of my hair....) This took my dad helping me, a latch hook, some needle nose pliers, and a whole lot of worrying on my part to achieve.

But eventually we prevailed. (This head is uber cute too!)

Sitting on his box with my kitty inside it.

And finally I went and finished the pants I had been working on when he came, and had him try those on with the sweater I knit him (the sleves are a bit too long -.-; ).

And a nice picture of him sitting on my messy desk

So, overall impressions of my first baby:
I can't get ovr how tiny and delicate his face is!
His makeup is superperfect.
I keep reaching over to hold his tiny hands.
I lurve his foofy brown wig.

Kitty hiding in the box

I leave Tristan in my dad's care for a few seconds and I come back to "He's got a little Captain in him."

ok... so maybe we both have a little Captian in us...