No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on February 4, 2011

And I think this is going to be one of them since I think I have more to do today than there are allotted hours in the day.

To top it off, I woke up after a rather terrifying nightmare at about 5:30 and could not go back to sleep. So I am doing a short day on little sleep.

I am going to make a list of what I need to do and what I want to do and keep it with me to keep me moving forward today.

First up on the list is getting Caroline ready for school. She got up about 7:30, which is her usual time, and I am letting her play with her toys until 8 when we get into the going to school routine.

So we’ll see how far I get on a rather fuzzy brain.

I am grateful for the sleep I did get.

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Posted By Kathleen David on February 3, 2011

As the teenagers say in China, “恭喜發財,利是逗來” or in English “Congratulations and be prosperous, now give me a red envelope”

It is the year of the Rabbit. I was born in the year of the Rabbit looking at the Moon or Water Rabbit. This year is the Metal Rabbit.

For those of you who had dropped your resolutions at the wayside, a whole New Year just started for you to try again.

Things are pretty much back to normal outside. There is a lot of ice patches that are hard to see. I had the bad luck to slip slightly twice. The first time I twisted my left hip and the second time I twisted my right knee. It is a little hard to work when both legs have an injury. I spent a lot of time yesterday with my legs up. Today it is much better.

I have a number of errands that need to be run today and then I am back to Franken-patterning.

I am grateful that we got less ice and snow than we could have gotten.

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Posted By Kathleen David on February 2, 2011

May the little bûggër not see his/her shadow today because I don’t want to think about a six week extension of winter weather.

Today is all about Ice, Ice, Baby. There is a coat of ice everywhere. On the cars, on the walks, on any exposed surface and it is deceptive too. The surface looks wet not slick but misstep and you will find yourself resting on your rump really fast.

In a really unusual move, Caroline’s school district went for a two hour delay to allow for some of the ice to be dealt with before the teachers and children arrive. She is currently sitting in front of me playing with her toys. She gets to wind up for school slowly today.

Kind of cuts in my day but I roll with the punches. Most of what I wanted to do today was indoor stuff. I can still finish the laundry. I can’t go to the gym until this afternoon but that’s OK.

I am grateful that the storm was not as severe as it could have been.

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Posted By Kathleen David on February 1, 2011

Out of the things I planned out for the week, the only things that fell by the wayside were the postcards. I did a test one and didn’t like it so I am doing some more research on them to see where I went off track.

I got the puppet bodies done and have the cloth for the costumes along with how I am going to make the rest of the costumes.

This week is mostly going to be costumes with some postcards sprinkled in.

I have been asked how these costumes come about. It is real simple. Someone comes up with a crazy idea and we execute it. This time we are finally getting around to a costume that we came up with about 7 years ago and a costume that Caroline wants to do. There are complexities to each but over all they are pretty straight forward.

Here is how I go about figuring out what I am doing for a costume. If it is a recreation, which most of mine are, I look at pictures of the outfit I am making. I sort out what is most distinctive about the piece. What has to be there to make everyone say, “Oh, that’s so and so from such and such.” ? Those are the must haves in the costume. After that I look at the details of the outfit and see what I think would add that extra level to the costume. The details really can make or break a good costume.

Color is important too but it can be hard to figure out what color a costume really is because of the lighting. Do you go for the color you think it is or do you go for the color that the garment actually is? I tend to go for a blend of the two. There is also the problem of finding the right fabric once you decide what you are going to do. I am lucky that I have the New York fabric stores to peruse for the perfect fabric but that is a double-edged sword because that can make the garment pretty pricey.

Make-up is another thing to consider. I am a fair make-up artist. I know all the basics and have done foam-rubber latex. I also know my limitations and work within those. Currently I don’t have a life mask that I can use for me or anyone else in the family so I fake my way through things.

Shoes can be a problem. Again I have a number of ways of faking my way through shoes including covers and finding something close that I can change to what I need. Also sometimes finding out what the footwear looks like can be a real pain because there are few to no full-length shots to work from.

I will say that the internet has made it much easier to research costumes and techniques. I can find much more information rather than trying to work off of a few blurry pictures in a Starlog. Also with the ability to freeze-frame and get a clear freeze rather than the jumpy blurry video tape freezes is amazing and very helpful.

As I will do every week, I am opening the floor to questions. So what do you want to know?

I am grateful that I can break things down into smaller pieces.

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Posted By Kathleen David on January 31, 2011

Another storm with possible snow and ice is heading our direction. Not that there was any chance of me seeing my lawn before it hit. The snow piles up and down the street are not reducing as much as I would like before the next big thing hits. Yep, it is going to be a long February if this continues into next month which it will for at least the first two days. We have some concerns about getting to Farpoint if this keeps up.

And today is the last day of January. Boy, that was a fast month. We did a lot in it so I don’t feel like a slacker but it seemed to fly by.

Caroline has declared that she will study hard in school because she wants to become a veterinarian specializing in large endangered cats. I told her that if she put her mind to it, she could do it.

Tomorrow is my Crafty Tuesday web log. I still want to know what y’all would like to hear about.

Well off to the gym while I can and then onto the rest of my Monday schedule.

I am grateful for finding patterns that are going to make my life easier down the road.

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