Right after that, I ran my bike off a cliff because I wasn’t paying attention. Next thing I know, my bike is exploding, I’m flying through the air, and the cat shows up to inexplicably save me with its magic powers. I thought maybe I was crazy when he first started talking to me, but that all changed when I discovered my own latent magic powers. We flew off into the sunset and that was the beginning of our fantastic hijinks.

Actually, I was a chicken and I didn’t go back to check if it was a magic cat. I was also rather intent on getting that ice cream. I’m pretty sure it was a magical cat though. I stared at him, he stared at me. We had a moment. If I see him again, I’ll know for sure.

Remember those plushstaches from a while back? It turns out making your own mustaches is dangerous, because it’s hard to tell when to quit. At first it’s fine to have just a couple, but soon you find yourself asking “do I really have enough mustaches?” Today I will be the villain, but what if tomorrow I need to be a stoic cowboy? Black and brown are so droll, what about pink or teal? Or sparkles? It is truly a dangerous path.

Lucky for you, in the ongoing quest to fill-out my cache of ‘staches, I have created some new patterns! These are made the same as the previous ones, but in case you need help, here is my handy tutorial.

For your wearing pleasure, I introduce to you:

The dapper “Little Belgian Detective”

And the sure to impress “‘Boh ‘Stache”

You can get both patterns (it’s a two-in-one) right here:

Good luck and remember, a girl (or boy) can never have too many mustaches! Especially if they are horrendously trendy.

]]> https://jefita.com/2014/04/14/fashion-tips-for-supervillains-part-2/ Mon, 14 Apr 2014 15:18:10 +0000 http://jefita.com/blog/?p=873 Or further tips for the thrifty costumed caperer.

 Lord Baron Von Partyfoul and The League of Evil

I survived my weekend of villainy, only to be struck down by an unknown malady. Curses! Now that I seem to have made a recovery, I shall continue this tale.

Armed with my concepts I set about formulating the plan of attack. I typically break the down process down into three main categories:

What do I already own?

What can I make myself?

What do I have to buy?

After gleaning what I could from my rather considerable stash (who would have guessed it would be so useful for villainy?), I proceeded to the fabric store to for further resource acquisition. This is always the most dangerous part for me, both for my budget and the space in my apartment. With practice I have gotten better at navigating its pitfalls and emerging mostly unscathed. I try to keep these things in mind and usually end up alright:

•  Start at the remnant bin. Best way to get small pieces of expensive fabrics.
• (Almost) Always go for the cheaper option.  You are making costumes, not high fashion.
• Stay out of the “special occasion” fabrics. Again, costumes, not ball gowns. Unless you are some sort of diabolical debutante…
• Am I going to want to set my machine on fire attempting to sew this? Pleather and slinky knits can do wonderful things, but are tricky to sew. Just keep that in mind.

And as I learned this time, beware the trim aisle! This is where I got in trouble. That big fancy chain on Lord Baron? Twenty bucks a yard. Fortunately I only got one yard, and had a half-price coupon to mitigate the damage.

He knocks the cups out of the hands of society!

Materials acquired, I set to work. I made all the  lovely armour first. I have become quite adept at cereal box armour. It’s amazing what you can do with some beer boxes and some spray paint.

 Next I did all the sewing. Most of it was pretty simple and went smoothly. There were only minor altercations with the sewing machine. A plumbing leak and subsequent emergency rearrangement left my good sewing machine trapped behind my bed, so I had to make do with my mediocre machine. We had a few disagreements. It realllllly wanted to eat the fantastic silver fabric I bought for traffic safety. I realllllly wanted it not to do that. We somehow muddled through it without mutual destruction.

 All told I ended up making:

• 1 helmet
• 2 sets of shoulder armour
• 3 capes
• 2 pairs silver under/over pants
• 1 pair pleather spats
• 1 pair fancy arm guards
• 1 set epaulets
• 4 hench hoods
• 4 traffic safety sashes
• 1 faux fur wrap

And assorted costume assistance for my villainous compatriots. Inevitably I change my designs as I go along, and some elements get left by the wayside. I didn’t do a fancy collar, and I didn’t make boot thingies for my henchmen. I was also too cheap to shell out for red gloves for them. I spraypainted kitchen gloves instead (with mixed results). I did however make a nice fur wrap for myself to keep off the spring chill. I may be a cold-hearted villainess, but I hate being cold.

 The lovely Lady MacDeath and I

 The only things we ended up buying pre-made were some black leggings, a black shirt, rubber dish gloves, and the ridiculously awesome henchmen goggles.

The Lead Hench also got fancy epaulets…and a balloon.

 I ended up spending about $70 on fabric (without coupons it was over a hundred bucks). Goggles and extras probably brought the total for supplies up to around $100. That seems like a lot (and I did splurge a bit and ignore my own advice on a couple of items), but that was enough to make costumes for me, Mister, and four henchmen. Pretty good for budget villainry! I bet would could have afforded some more henchmen. Because you can never have too many henchmen.

I’m pretty sure they’re conspiring to get health benefits.

 (And many thanks to Henchman Frank, Miss Demeanor, and Lady MacDeath for some of the excellent pictures.)

Okay, I’m back! I spent last week down visiting the storied Grandma, down in North Carolina. I thought I’d be able to wrangle out a post while I was there, but as is often the case, my ambition and reality didn’t align. C’est la vie.

While I didn’t get any writing done, I did do a lot of plotting…nefarious plotting.The Mister and I have decided to turn to a part-time life of villainy (this may or may not coincide with a pubcrawl next week). As most of our dastardly plans revolve around making a public spectacle of ourselves (such is the wont of supervillains) we find ourselves in need of some dramatic costumes. Otherwise people might mistake us for regular villains. Or drunken louts. One of the two. Maybe both.

Designing a villainous costume is certainly fun, but it is also more challenging than one might think. You have to strike a careful balance between menace, flair, and utility. There are many important practical considerations that are often overlooked. I tried to address these questions while designing our outfits:

• Will I freeze my a$$ off in this outfit? (or alternatively, overheat?)
• Am I going to lose any parts of my outfit?
• Can I make most of this out of bargain fabrics and cereal boxes?

And perhaps most relevant in this case:

• Can I comfortably drink in this outfit?

After a week of plotting, I think I’ve hit most of the important elements. Of course a super villain is nothing without minions, so I didn’t forget about properly attiring my underlings either. The state of dress of a henchman says a lot about you as an overlord.

So I’ve got my concepts down. What now? Stay tuned for next week when I realize my drawings!

]]> https://jefita.com/2014/03/26/fashion-tips-for-supervillains-part-1/feed/ 1 https://jefita.com/2014/02/28/homework-handwriting/ Fri, 28 Feb 2014 16:13:36 +0000 http://jefita.com/blog/?p=831

“u” is for “uisukii”

Running just a bit behind this week, aren’t I? I assure you there’s a good reason for it. Totally not because I’ve been spending too much time on my computer playing Banished, building virtual settlements. Certainly not. (Okay, maybe I’m a liar.)

Well, in the time I haven’t been engaged in mismanaging the ill-fated citizens of the village Snellstochito, I have been continuing to work on my Japanese. I got through katakana (the other syllabary) on my own and purchased Japanese for Everyone to continue my studies. So far the choice seems sound. In the first chapter, the words for beer, wine, and whiskey were introduced.

I often wonder whether or not my handwriting in Japanese is terrible.

It’s a little bit odd getting back into the swing of homework, now that I’m the one who both assigns and completes it. It’s a strange duality. An odd bonus to all this is a dramatic increase in the amount of handwriting I do on a daily basis. I’m sure I could save the trees and do it all on the computer, but what’s the fun in that? I enjoyed writing my notes and homework out by hand in college and I can’t imagine doing it any other way. The fine art of margin doodles would be lost. Besides, I spend enough time as it is staring at a computer screen.

After reading a recent article by my pen-aficionado friend Chris, I decided I needed a fancy writing pen for my homework. I certainly have no shortage of drawing pens (20 Microns and counting), but I don’t really have any nice writing pens. It hardly seemed justifiable to buy such a pen when I was only writing grocery lists, but now that I’m doing all this very important learning? Yeah, I can spend $30 on a pen. I’m no longer a broke college student and I can afford pens I didn’t get for free at a job fair.

From top to bottom: Pilot Petit3 Mini Fude Brush Pen (blue-black), Pilot Petit1 Mini Fountain Pen (apricot & clear blue), Lamy Safari Fountain Pen (extra fine)

So I went and splurged on some pens at JetPens.com (which is a dangerous place full of all manner of attractive writing and drawing implements). Somehow I managed to get away with only buying four pens. I ended up getting a reasonable “beginner” fountain pen (a Lamy Safari), a couple of a cute mini fountain pens, and a brush pen. Ostensibly I only needed one pen, but the Lamy bumped me over the $25 free shipping mark so I had to make sure and negate those savings by buying three more pens. I feel I exercised amazing self-restraint by not purchasing the whole rainbow of the little Pilot Petit1’s.

I’m going to pretend I bought this mini fude pen because I need it for kanji practice.

The internet has irreparably damaged my use of the English language.

Still, I feel it was money well spent. All of them are nice pens, and I am definitely happy with the Lamy. It writes so pleasantly. It’s easy to forget about these little things in life that are so inexplicably satisfying. As much as I love drawing, it is sometimes frustrating and difficult. Writing however has that same tactile appeal in a much more relaxing way. I suppose it’s a little odd, but I look forward to doing my homework because of this. It’s a bit disappointing I don’t have cause to write for anything else. Maybe I should take up snail-mail.

ne is for neko

I am going to apologize in advance. As I have mentioned, the Mister and I will be moving off to Japan for a year. I’m not going to lie, I think this is super freaking exciting. I’ve always wanted to live abroad for a while. There is probably going to be an abundance of OMG I’M MOVING TO JAPAN!!!! posts transitioning somewhere into OMG I’M IN JAPAN!!! (with a brief interlude when I’m too crazy and stressed because I’m actually moving.) So this is probably the first, but not last, Japanese themed posts. You’ve been warned.

In the four months or so left until the move, I’ve decided to start learning a bit of Japanese.

Having made this decision, I immediately floundered at where to start this quest. While I have no illusions about becoming anything close to fluent, I thought it would be nice to be armed with at least some basic speaking and reading skills. Herein lies the difficulty. The Japanese writing system is complex to say the least. It primarily uses a combination of two syllabaries, hiragana and katakana, both containing 48 characters, and thousands of adapted Chinese characters called kanji. Katakana would probably be the most useful as a gaijin because it is primarily used for foreign words such as chi-zuba-ga- and piza, but most sources suggest starting with hiragana. I’m not even going to think about touching kanji. Bleh….

Fortunately my dilemma was conveniently solved by a birthday gift from one of my friends. She got me a nice beginner Japanese book called Japanese From Zero. It teaches you hiragana and introduces the very basics of Japanese grammar. I just finished up the book so I am now able to write in hiragana and construct some rudimentary sentences. This is pretty exciting. My first time learning a non-latin script wasn’t nearly as difficult as I imagined. I loved penmanship in school so learning to write entirely new characters was pretty fun. I also pretended I was learning to decipher and use a secret code. It’s dorky, but I always feel that way when learning new languages.

So my thoughts on the book…overall it was pretty good. I felt like this book rather gently and non-threateningly introduces you to Japanese, which is nice because Japanese sentence structure diverges significantly from English. I really liked the progressive approach that phased out the rōmaji (romanized Japanese) for the hiragana as you learned them. The lessons are reasonably sized and include plenty of examples and exercises. It was pretty quick too. I spread it out over three to four weeks, but if you did a lesson a day it would only take two weeks. You come out of it knowing how to read and write hiragana, some basic vocabulary, a bit of grammar, and a few cultural tidbits.

Before my friend got me the book, I’d dug around on the internet to see what sort of options were out there and if any of them were free. I would have loved to have found something like Duolingo (which I think is awesome for casual language learning), but there aren’t really any great free options. You can find plenty of good free resources, but in general there isn’t much structure and they require much more effort and dedication on the part of the would-be learner. While it is certainly possible to learn Japanese on your own this way, I think it is nice (and quicker) to have somewhere structured to start like a book or program and Japanese From Zero is a fairly inexpensive option.

That being said I had a few issues with the book. One of the drawbacks of studying language from any printed book is the lack of audio. While most of the sounds in Japanese are pretty straight-forward, I had to go and look up some of the trickier pronunciations. Fortunately, YouTube is a pretty good supplementary resource for this. I discovered later that Japanese From Zero’s accompanying website (YesJapan.com), has the same lessons with audio. There is a subscription cost for more advanced material, but it is my understanding that all the material covered in the first book is available for free. And there are some cute little practice games.

My next problem with the book was one of quality control. Despite the fact that I’m not the most skillful writer, poor editing is one of my pet-peeves and I felt this book could have used a thorough going over. There were a handful of typos, a couple of missing explanations, and not all of the words used in the lessons appeared in the glossary. While these flaws weren’t serious enough to deter the learning process, I found them irritating all the same.

Lastly, if you are looking for a very technical approach, this book probably isn’t really for you. If you are looking for an inexpensive, friendly introduction to Japanese, I think it’s suitable. Now that I’ve finished it up I am still debating whether to purchase the next book (continuing on into katakana) or to learn katakana on my own and perhaps purchase a more advanced text book. Decisions, decisions. It will probably come down to a battle of ambition versus convenience.

As I ready myself to continue on in my quest, here are a couple of my personal suggestions for anyone tackling hiragana on their own:

• Hand-writing the characters is a simple way to facilitate memorization. For me it helped really stick them in my brain better than only using flashcards or reading them. There are lots of free, printable worksheets out there and Youtube has plenty of videos demonstrating how to write them. Try searching for things like “learn hiragana” or “writing hiragana”.
• Practice makes perfect! There are lots of free ways to practice hiragana available on the internet so find one that suits you. I opted for the digital method and used the super basic RealKana to practice, but you can also go old school and make flashcards. I’ve also heard good things about Anki which is a sort of spaced repetition flashcard program that tailors practice sessions based on your feedback.
• Set aside time every day (or as often as possible) to work on it. Even if it’s  just something silly like practicing writing characters while in the shower. (I totally did this)

And although cuddly, kitties are perhaps best left out of the learning process.

Last week I agreed to update my poor neglected blog if my little sister updated her neglected photography. Much to my dismay, she had updated within five minutes of said agreement. So here I am, completing my half of the bargain. Recently I have designated Sundays my “experiment” day of the week. A couple of weeks ago, confronted with the remnants of an ill advised lemon purchase and a bunch of leftover ginger for stir-fry, I decided to attempt making ginger beer. It combines three of my favorite things: efficient use of resources (a.k.a. getting rid of leftovers), new projects, and SCIENCE!

Ginger beer is really just ginger ale with some attitude, but it does involve one of mankind’s oldest and most cherished forms of mad science–brewing. To get the soda carbonated, you have to do some fermenting. Just a little bit.  Not enough to make it legitimately alcoholic.

By the way kids, I don’t know if you know this, but yeast is really cool. It’s a domesticated microbe. You should check it out sometime.

*Ahem* Moving on. So this project isn’t exactly “instant” gratification, but it is super easy and very gratifying…if you like cool, refreshing, zingy beverages.

Ginger Beer

Now I’m not going to give you a complete how-to.  The internet is rife with ginger beer how-tos.  I will however tell you what you need, and my notes on the process.

The Recipe

There are lots of recipes for ginger beer/ale out there and most of them are pretty similar.  I chose to use one from Alton Brown:  Ginger Ale

It is labeled “ginger ale” but I consider it ginger beer.  It has a healthy peppery bite compared to the mild mannered stuff you buy in a can.

Equipment

• A clean 2 liter soda bottle, or two 1 liter glass bail top bottles (mine came from IKEA, you can also find them at home brew supply stores)
• A fine grater (Microplane, FTW!)
• Strainer
• A pot

Ingredients

• Fresh ginger (3-4 in)
• A lemon
• Sugar (I went all fancy and used turbinado sugar)
• Yeast, bread or champagne (champagne yeast can also be found at a home brew supply store, and is pretty cheap)
• Water

Notes

I have made two rounds of this already, so I’ve had a chance to screw up and work a few things out:

• 1.5 oz = 3 Tbsp of ground ginger–I guesstimated the first time and didn’t put nearly enough in.  It was weak sauce.
• 6 oz ~ 3/4 cup sugar–This brew is not super sweet like regular soda.  In fact the yeast consumes a portion of that sugar to provide the carbonation.
• Champagne yeast provides much better carbonation and taste.  I tried bread yeast the first time and was disappointed with the results.
• Don’t add lemon zest.  I tried this out due to some comments, but it only seemed to lend a bitter “lemon cleaner” vibe.
• The gunky stuff at the bottom won’t hurt you.  That being said, I tend to avoid drinking it, but I’m too lazy to filter it out.
• And finally, let it sit in the fridge for at least a day after fermenting before consuming.  It will taste better.

So faithful readers I urge you to go forth and experiment!  If you are feeling particularly adventurous, you can try making it with wild yeast.

Or if you need something a bit more adult, might I suggest the Dark ‘n Stormy?

Now, must scurry off to make a third batch!

Courageous Tillie and his faithful steed George set off to seek adventure. Who knew what exciting foreign lands and heroic deeds lay before them? They would cross the treacherous River of Eels, slay the terrible monster of Gila, and they would rescue fair Hilda. Songs would be written about them, they would be showered with untold riches, and they would get to have tea with the Queen. All the neighbors would be envious. And as long as they were back by dinner, Tillie’s mom promised they could both have cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles for dessert.

Do you remember being a kid and you just got a brand new set of markers (or colored pencils, or crayons) and you were consumed by a need to use all of them, at once, on one glorious picture?  This happened to me rather frequently.  Just seeing the huge rainbow mega packs in the store would make my eyes glaze over with longing.  This did happen to other children, right?  Well, I never grew out of it.  Every time I go into an art store, the panoply of  color still calls out to me and I am overwhelmed by a irrational need to own all of them, even the colors I don’t really like.  I guess it’s not all that surprising that I ended where I am today.

Anyways, the point of this story is that I got a set of markers for Christmas.  Fancy grown-up artist markers.  I have been lusting after a set of Copic art markers for several years now, but I was too cheap (broke) to ever invest in a set.  At $4-6 bucks a pop, they get expensive very quickly, and I was worried that I might not like them after blowing all that money.  At some point in the past I tried out some Prismacolor markers and it felt like I was coloring with very expensive Sharpies that were half dried up.  Sure, I do have a beloved rainbow set of Sharpies, but I don’t use them for artistic masterpieces.  On the other hand, I have only ever heard good things about Copic markers, and I like the look of artwork produced using them.  I really wanted to give them a try.  I was so excited when I finally got them, that I think I squealed when I opened the package.

Needless to say, I’ve been avidly tooling around with them in my spare time since then.  The illustration above pretty much sums up my childlike glee.  I am extremely pleased with them.  They are everything I wanted them to be.  They are double ended, with a wonderful brush tip on one side.  The color flows smoothly from both ends.  You can layer and blend, and there is no icky smell–the whole experience is very similar to using watercolors.  I’ve been pretending for years that painting with watercolors was an enjoyable, not time intensive, finicky, often frustrating experience.  This is really what I wanted all along.  Double plus bonus, I have also discovered that they work well on fabric which opens up all sorts of new possibilities for my sewing.  I didn’t even consider this use until after I got them.

So if you have ever considered trying out art markers, I would definitely recommend them.  About the only drawbacks in my mind are the expense, and the fact that they bleed through nearly any paper.  The expense is worth it, especially considering that they are refillable, and as long as you remember to put down a blotter sheet, the other part isn’t a problem either.  There are a few different styles available, but I found this to be a pretty helpful breakdown of each:  Copic, Sketch, Ciao, or Wide.  If you are wondering, I have the 36 B set of the Ciaos.

Now that I have this wonderful set, I am struck with a new dilemma–I only have 36 out of the hundreds of colors.  It seems like such a paltry number all of a sudden.  I need all the colors.  It’s like Pokemon, you gotta catch them all.  I suppose if you aren’t into Pokemon or obsessed with art supplies, you don’t understand.  I see you start to back away slowly with a concerned look on your face.  It’s okay, I understand.  It’s not for you.  Just enjoy the pictures and I promise I won’t tell you anything about how awesome my Charizard is.

Now I present to you:

Despite the fact that I don’t do very well at talking to new people and I sort of weird out in large crowds, I had a great time at FanExpo.  The fun and friendly people who invited me really made it worthwhile.  Jack was a very gracious host and made sure I didn’t get too stressed out.  I also really enjoyed meeting all the nice fans I didn’t even know I had.  Thanks to anyone who came by the table and met me.  Hopefully I will see some of you again in the future.  I am definitely looking forward to an opportunity to go back to Toronto.

]]> https://jefita.com/2010/09/01/diy-adventures-in-canada/feed/ 2 https://jefita.com/2010/08/10/otakon-and-epaulets/ https://jefita.com/2010/08/10/otakon-and-epaulets/#respond Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:24:38 +0000 http://jefita.com/blog/?p=169 A couple of weekends ago, I decided to venture into Baltimore to witness the event that is Otakon.  For the unaware Otakon is a large annual convention for fans of anime, manga, video games and the associated culture.  There are lots of fun events, artists, and vendors of all manner of strange wares.  In essence it is a huge Otaku geekfest.  Now, I’m not really an anime nerd, but I’ve never gone to one of these events and I have to admit I was rather curious what it was actually like.  Last summer I happened to be passing by Otakon and the bizarrely dressed throngs of people were fascinating.  The vast majority who attend Otakon dress up or cosplay as their favorite characters so it is quite something to behold.  Despite Otakon being focused Eastern Asian art and culture, the variety of costumes also spreads across the rest of the geek spectrum.  So, truthfully the primary reason I attended was to see all the people who turn out for this sort of thing.

Where’s Waldo?

Of course to attend such an event me and my accomplice, Mr. Boy, decided it only fitting we have our own awesome costumes.  I didn’t end up having a lot of time to work on his costume, so it had to be fairly simple.  With this in mind Boy decided to be a “modern” Zulu War British soldier.  This seemed rather appropriate for our adventure.   Fortunately he already had a pith helmet, and a red t-shirt was used instead of the traditional red jacket.  Then I made him a giant plush mustache out of felt.  The mustache was very simple and fun to make and I think I might steal it from him.  Next I took care of the sash which was just two long strips attached at the waist.  I lucked out and found some white “pleather” in the remnant bin in the home decor department at my local fabric store so it was super cheap.  Unfortunately, I was in a rush so I used hook and eyes as the waist band closure.  They didn’t stay put very well and I am going to have to replace them with Velcro at some point.  Last of all I made the epaulets.  Once again the home decor department was very handy and I found the perfect fringe material.  This actually turned out to be the most expensive part of the whole thing.  Since the epaulets were going to be worn on top of a t-shirt I made made them sort of soft and used safety pins to attach them.  Even though this was a simple costume, I felt it was very successful and his mustache was greatly admired.  Seriously, who doesn’t respect a fantastic mustache?  I was very pleased since it was pretty easy to put this costume together.

Indubitably!

At this point, it became tragically apparent that the merciless beast of poor time management had finally got the better of me.  There was no way I was going to finish my own get-up.  I had been working on it piecemeal in between commissions, but as usual it was on the back burner.  Fortunately, because it is very satisfying to make costumes for Mr. Boy I didn’t feel too down about my own humdrum appearance.  Okay, maybe I wasn’t that humdrum.  I still had pink hair and my big furry purple monster bag.

Anyways, thus prepared for our adventure, we set off to enjoy the spectacle and all in all it was pretty fun.  I was far from disappointed by all the costumed goodness.  I really do love costumes and seeing the creative ways people bring their favorite characters to life.  Since most of the costumes are handmade, it was fascinating to see the different skill levels and ingenuity that was employed.  Of course there was the vast sea of anime and manga cosplays (of which I could identify embarrassingly few), but there was also everything from sci-fi to video games,  Disney to (disturbingly accurate) Rockso the Rock and Roll Clown.

Alas poor Totoro, I barely knew ye.

One of my surprising favorites were the people dressed up as various player classes from the video game Team Fortress 2.  All of the “characters” in the game are supposed to be male, but there were several female cosplayers who fit their costumes to their own gender.  I liked that out of all the costumes this group best seemed to take the roles beyond the literal interpretation, but remained true to character.  While I appreciate the effort and artistry of a very accurate cosplay, I think it is important to remember that you don’t have to be completely literal with your costumes to do a good job and have a good time.

The Red Team

I apologize sparseness of photos.   Mr. Boy was not as handy with a camera as I thought he was.  I’m headed to a huge con up in Toronto next week though and hopefully will return with all sorts of wonderful pictures.

Hmm, maybe I should get back to work now.