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Tuesday, July 25th

Yesterday I had my first day of work on the new puppet project (I should really get back into the habit of writing these things the day of). While I started out not knowing at all what to expect, eventually I was given a few straightforward jobs to accomplish, which may just be how things go. Lots of little jobs as they figure things out.

I was asked to bring some of my dolls for them to see, which they were very curious and impressed of but I always feel disappointed in myself for being bad at talking about what I do. I'm good at direct questions, usually, but I don't easily volunteer information so I feel like I'm missing out on the chance to really show off and sell myself to the very people who are clearly already interested in what I do. My work can only "speak for itself" so much, you know?

But we got on to working. And most of it wasn't very interesting, just cutting and glueing cardboard for one of the visual gags. But on the side there was still puppet designing going on, and I found myself fixed on one little moment. I was watching the main designer sketching out a size reference and was hypnotized by how smoothly he sketched out a human form, how naturally it came. For a brief moment it reminded me of a very specific Tested video, where Adam Savage visits one of the great prop armor makers and the man easily sketches out the perfect armor forms based on Adam's measurements. I'll link it here if I can find it, if they haven't privated the video again.

Today I began shifting the vest I made from Eddie to Aloysius. I found a convention happening over the weekend, and though I'm not sure if I'll go I wanted to keep the option open and make sure I had something to wear if I did. Plus, I was on a roll.

I started by removing the back patches and the lapel lining, which came off pretty easily just like I had hoped. The next step was to create the extra shoulder pieces he has on his jacket. Studying the screenshots I had, it seemed like they went over the shoulders of the jacket and all the way up to the collar, but I wanted them to be easily removable and fit on to what I already had, so I decided to attach them to the inside of the arm hole. On a piece of paper I sketched out a half circle to start with, and pinned it onto the jacket to get an idea of where it would go. I marked the edge where it met the arm hole and cut it an inch from the line, and used this as a pattern to cut my pleather from.

The shoulder pieces are just a pleather layer with a cotton lining, sewn and turned and topstitched. I wanted to use velcro to make them easily removable, in case I wanted to make it an Eddie vest again or simply wear it as is. I pinned and sewed these pieces along the top edge, and hand-sewed the other side of the velcro along the arm hole to match up.

Monday, July 25th

I took a long break last week, largely working on filling out this website and in my free time completing more artfight attacks.

On Saturday (the 22nd) I was planning on seeing a Rocky Horror screening with friends. Of course, being me, I decided Friday morning that I couldn't stand not going in some sort of costume. So I decided right then to make the Eddie vest I had always planned on. I had wanted one for a while, and had been keeping me eye out for good candidates every time I was at a thrift store. But leather or black denim vests in my size are rare, and I wasn't about to buy the expensive leather jackets just to cut the arms off. I was also looking for a vest I could double-up as a costume of Aloysius from The Ink Thief, a project I had actually started way back in October of last year and, coincidentally, another Richard O' Brian project.

But no such vest had made its way into my life and so there I was, with a stockpile of fabric and a denim jacket pattern I had used previously. My first thought was to simply make it entirely from scrap denim, rescued from worn-out jeans, but I'd have to dye them at some point, a process I was unfamiliar with and knew it would take up too much of my precious time. Plus, the denim was all really cheap stretchy stuff, they were from women's jeans. I decided to dig through the fabrics I had set aside for the scrap pants I made, which were intended to be part of my Aloysius cosplay as well. I discovered I still had tons of black fabric of various types, enough of which was thick enough to be the outer layer of my vest, and some of which was a decent quality pleather! I went back and forth on if I really had the time to complete the project, but gave in in the end and started cutting.

My first step was the cut down the patterns I had used for my bomber jacket, as I learned the pattern sizes a little big and I wanted the vest to fit me much more closely (I also think I use slightly slimmer seam allowances). I went through and cut an assortment of pieces from the varying fabric types, consisting of pleather, wool, denim, terrycloth, and a very slightly bristly-furry material.

I managed to get them all cut with only a little bit of piecing required, and the first few steps of sewing the piece together went off without a hitch, if a little rushed and sloppy. The pattern didn't come with one for the lining, so before I sewed the main panels together I laid my interlining and lining out on the floor and traced each panel. I sewed each layer at the shoulders and then attached them around the sleeves, turned them out and sewed up the inside of each layer along the sides. It's an order of operations I learned from a vest pattern, and it's the easiest way I've found to sew together a vest with a lining, especially if the bottom is open to be sewn later. At this point it was getting late and I didn't have the one thing I needed to continue, a zipper, so I took a break for the night and planned on getting to the fabric store first thing in the morning.

I had also started the patches on the back which would have the iconic sun design from the movie. I wanted to made separate patches so that they could be removed later, originally I had velcro incorporated but as I ran out of time I decided to simply sew them on with a wide stitch for now, and decided later if I wanted to make them re-attachable once removed.

Saturday morning, day two of the project, I started off with stitching the buttonholes and finishing up the patches. After a walk to the fabric store, I had the zipper I needed (unfortunately in brown) and could attach it in. This wasn't part of the original pattern and took some planning on my part, but I got the overlap and zipper placement figured out and got the lining sewn in along the seam. Next I finished up the collar and attached that as well.

The waistband was next and I had been dreading it. The zipper was too long and awkwardly extended into where the waistband would go, and some issues with the stretchyness of the fabric made one side slightly onger than the other. I had to scramble a little and piece together more fabric to finish up the band, but in the end despite some extra seams and wonky lines it looks ok, it's hardly noticeable. It still lines up alright when zipped up.

Again, I was in a hurry. From when the fabric store opened at ten to when I had to leave for the show was seven hours. At this point with the main construction finally done I was at about three hours left, and it was time for finishing touches. First I hand-sewed some snaps under the points of the lapels to keep them open, and then tackled the cheetah-print lining Eddie's vest has. I already had the fabric (fact of note - this fabric had made up a Halloween costume from second grade - inside-out it made General D's tail, and its featured less prominently in other projects of mine) and ended up simply folding and pinning it to the inside of the lapels until about six inches in. The edges along the front seam and top were sewn in my machine, but not wanting to deal with it showing up on the other side and wanting it done in a hurry, the inside seam is simply basted down with a running stitch.

That concludes all the structural pieces! I could get on to the fun part, adding studs. The majority of these are picked up from ReClaim It or other thrift stores, many of the smaller or gold ones were from a rhinestone kit I had found at a garage sale ages ago, clearly put together by hand with all the rhinestones and studs organized in little pill bottles. I didn't have time to get any star-shaped studs (they do make them, we had ordered some for my friend's more-accurate cosplay) and I though that start-shaped patches looked a little cheap, so I went with more diamond-shaped studs. Finally I could add on some pins from my collection, witch is absolutely the best part and made it look way more lived-in and natural, instead of like a costume.

I made sure to set some pleather and studs aside to later make the pauldrons on Aloysius' vest, and made sure the patches shouldn't be too hard to remove. I don't plan on wearing that cosplay until October anyway, so I have some time, and the rest of it is finished.

Tuesday, July 18th

Yesterday I had to turn down the market booth I had signed up for. Sudden issues came up. Ah well, there will be others, though not many with no booth fee. I've been to markets at the same event before, I know my wares are rather expensive and I'm not confident in how much I would have sold anyway. I think I'm getting burnt out from working on shirts.

Monday, July 10th

I continued to toil away at the new shirts I just started. I had a work meeting I jumped at the opportunity to take, wanted to get it out of the way before I leave for vacation. It's very exciting, but still up in air and hard to pin down how much I'll be available for different jobs. That's independent contracting for you, I suppose.

Sunday, July 9th

I have such a knee-jerk negative defensive to people saying I could work for the muppets someday, or LAIKA, or on Broadway. I think it's two-fold, first the simple fact that success in my mind isn't equal to the biggest, flashiest option. I feel the need to make sure people know this, as a public service announcement in this world of always bigger and better and more money and more things, that I am perfectly happy with what I can make a living with, thank you, and I'm insulted you'd even assume that working under a big name like that was something I'd be so shallow to prioritize. That sort of thing. Over-analyzing. The second is that I'm just not too jazzed about working for a big company like that. I wouldn't say no to financial stability, of course, and I'm no rebellious artist who has to work for myself and only myself, quite the contrary I love being given some sort of direction.

But it's just not my style of work. Foam and fleece muppets, perfectly 3D printed stop-motion figurines. Not on a company-artist relationship but on an art-audience relationship, you know? I want to make things that challenge your suspension of disbelief, the art to me is in how little it can take to convince the human brain that something is alive. I love the muppets, I love what they are able to do and I love the idea that so many people treat them without question as celebrities, actors, etc. They do interviews and have social medias, they're more than characters on a screen they're characters in real life. But we all know that now. I want puppets that are creations come to life and they know it and you can tell and the fact that you can tell but your brain brings it to life anyway is what makes it so wonderful.

Lots of thoughts going on right now, anyway. Anxiety and excitement and imposter syndrome and this sort of awareness of everyone who has ever supported me or believed in me finally getting their return investment.

Ah shit, what is that Dave Malloy quote? "how can the world of men have let me here? im not that kind of man...". Gender-neural, of course, it's not a commentary on me being a woman (mostly) in a man's world, just someone who refuses to fit the mold. And despite everything they've been told, has found success doing it. But I think it goes even deeper than job choice, down to the deepest feelings of imposter syndrome and disconnection with the simplest aspects of social interaction. I am simply not the same kind of man. But I get away with it. "i am getting away with it" Dave Malloy again.

"the world is letting me pass. im doing just fine. i can stop into the gas staion and fill up the tank and pay with a card and not get arrested, not get flooded with lights and snipers, not be jumped by men of tired jokes and boring clothes and poor musical taste, throwing a sack over myhead and asking mke who i think i am. i cant talk to most people, i cant agree, but somehow ive slipped through the netting and am here, alone, unaccompianed, unstopped."

(directly copied, he probably writes his blog in the source, while I write it elsewhere - to copy over - for the bare minimum of grammar and spelling corrections.)

I know people are just trying to relate. It's human parrtern-word-assosciation-recognition. Puppets? Muppets. Maybe that's why I get upset, I want to defend all the the shows that will never make it into the public conciousness. They deserve at least a blanket statement, rather than being completely pushed to the side. I'd rather someone ask what I consider success, and not think I'm under-selling myself when my dreams are medium-sized.

There’s a part 2 to this day. Stared at my fabric collection for a long time trying to figure out the next shirts I wanted to make for the upcoming market. I had a long strip of yellow that was an off-cut from someone’s previous project, and a couple sheets’ worth of blue. Eventually decided to cut the yellow into squares and make a checkerboard quilt design with the blue, using the pillowcase as a back panel and the rest of the blue for any other sections. The result will be pretty bright and busy, but that’s surely going to appeal to someone out there besides me. It was too hot to be working today, but I got the quilted parts pieced together well enough to cut everything out. It’s almost nine, even though it’s still pretty bright, and I’m forcing myself to stop.

Friday, July 7th

I realized today that the two California Raisins shirts I had been working on had been, in fact, the two that I did not need to have done in time for the market on the 22nd (one being for myself and the other already claimed by someone who would buy it at the end if the month). After stressing about that for a bit I put my head down and focused on the one I would be selling there, knocking out all the main construction leaving only the collar and buttons to do before it got too hot to work. I also finally sat down and made a list of what I have completed, and what I know I need to work on, for the market.

Amusingly, now I've actually run out of planned projects for the market, I have to think about what I'm going to use next. I have a lot of Raggedy Ann fabric - though some I'm saving for commissions and I'm not sure how popular it will be - and some paper doll themed sheets. I was planning on making a dress out of them to match the images on the design itself, but I don't like making dresses and I don't have the patterns, so maybe I'll just go along with my usual plan.

Wednesday, July 5th

Another day of toiling away at shirts and the website. Finally started an alphabetized index page, though I only have half the pages put in at the moment and none of them are linked correctly. But the framework is there, and easy to expand on. At the moment I'm making pages for each project, copying over a simple structure to make sure they work and I can tell what its supposed to be of, making sure its linked correctly on the menu page and there's a slot for a thumbnail, and then moving on to the next.

I've debated sometimes if I should include my work going back to my high school theater days. But then I remember I'm only three years out of high school anyway! Even if I'm not the proudest of the quality of work (or - more often - the quality of photo. I wasn't paying much attention to that then) I think I'm just hard on myself.

At the moment, all of my images are this "demo" image of my character "DEMO". What can I say, it's nice and small (and makes me smile).

I also created this placeholder to use in my gallery grid, since there's an empty space anyway and I think it looks out of balance without something there. It's like there's a little spare button and lazy daisy on here :)

Tuesday, July 4th

I managed to get some work on the shirts done in the morning, but pretty soon it was too hot and I went to benefit off the AC at my friend's apartment. Couldn't sew while I was there, but I took the time to get some ArtFight pieces started.

Got more website work done! I finally figured out what was wrong with the borders of my text boxes, the "color" was defining both the border color and the text color. I changed the "color" on the CSS for the boxes, though now I'm going in to define the color for each type of text so it will go back to black when nestled within the boxes. We're making progress though!

Monday, July 3rd

Taking the day to get some work done on the shirts I cut out. Got the Peanuts ones to the point of just needing buttonholes and buttons. I've discovered I tend to break up each shirt into chunks in my brain, made of the smaller steps; cutting, construction, collar, and buttons/holes. Each about even for the amount of mental effort they take, though the time varies a lot. Getting as many things as I can to that last hardest part (the buttonsholes specifcailly) so I can do those when I have the energy.

Sunday, July 2nd

I went to Goodwill today to find a shirt to start maing into a patch shirt. I began with some studs on the collar, and managed to get 4.5 patches sewn on while watching a movie. I'm liking how it looks so far, unfortunately the business of the pattern makes some of the patches a little hard to see. I'm more worried I'm going to get called a poser or whatever, like ti feels ingenuine and I'm only doing this for the looks. But I'd feel like more of one if I tried to fit in with the sort of things people usually use - a denim or leather jacket - when that's just not what I like to wear. Less of a battle jacket then since it's not thick enough to protect me in any way. Plus, I've seen people do similar things to hoodies.

Saturday, July 1st

Started sewing on my next batch of shirts today and thinking about everything I have up-in-coming. This needs a list.

Imagine that though. Regular mask-and-puppet-maker at a small but nationally recognized mask-and-puppet-theater. I'm trying not to get ahead of myself. Not to mention art fight this month! Wow.

I feel like I need to be about 10 x better at time management and excecutive function to maintain this many independent projects.

In the afternoon I went with some friends to pride celebration and market in a nearby park. There were lots of people selling painted patches, simple ones that use a stencil they can make en masse and sell for a dollar. Thinking about doing that myself, it wouldn't be hard and would use up a lot of my scraps. Besides the usual pronoun patches and queer slogans, I'd love to make some in protest of the fashion industry. Besides just enjoying sewing, a big part of my inspiration is the satisfaction of keeping clothes and leftover fabrics out of the landfill, and preserving fiber arts and even household skills that are disappearing. So I sketched some patch ideas.

Of course, seeing all these cool punk queers also just increased my desire for a good patch jacket. I've been collecting patches and studs but I just didn't have anything to put them on, not much XL stuff in the goodwill these days and on top of that I didn't want to work super hard on something I can wear four months out of the year. I run hot. Even a vest is too much for everyday. So I've decided to grab a cheesy stupid Hawaiian shirt - usually I avoid the cheesy ones and go for the more traditional, but this is intentional - and deck it out. A friend suggested I use the studs to trace the flowers which I'm embarassed I didn't think of first. I may not be able to use some of my thicker patches - I don't want to interrupt the flow of the shirt too much. But my cargo shorts are wearing out, I have to patch them anyway, so maybe they'll get a makeover too. Once I buy more.

Last note. My friend also said once he's worn through his jeans - ones he's had for over six years (a luxury of being skinny) - he'd pay me to make them into a denim vest for him. Wonderful, I've even got my otherwise clueless friends onto my train of thought.