Flippin' Heck It's Hot

Whaaat? Is it September already? And it's still gonna be over 100°?
Make it stooop.

Okay, so anyway, my only update for cosplay is this - I don't have time to work on cosplays right now. That kinda gings, I know. I just got a job and a church calling, Jac started kindergarten and it turns out his homework is more work for parents than it is for the kids (so to all you high school/college grads, unless you're just too cool to get married and have awesome kids, homework never ends), and most importantly, Caj and I are house hunting. Woo hoo!

So that said, the house is a wreck, I'm trying to pack things that aren't an immediate necessity until we find a house and move, and there's just no space for sewing two extra large cloaks. I really am hoping to have these finished by Halloween, though.

This means my awesome Harvest Moon quilt will have to be put on hold, too. :(

So pray that we'll get in a house very very quickly so I can get back to doing what I love, okay?

On another note, I think I've got a friend crush. There's a girl that I've been really wanting to get to know and be friends with but I have absolutely no idea how to approach her without feeling socially awkward, or worse, appearing like some creepy stalker. Crazy, right? So I kinda just avoid her altogether. Well I've been so busy lately it hasn't even been on my mind, until last night I had a dream that she started talking to me and all of a sudden we were best friends. It was so cool but alas, it was just a dream. So also pray that someday I will have girl friends to hang out with to do awesome girl stuff with. You know, you all can be my friends too.

Alpacas and Honeybees!

Yay~
I've just pre-ordered Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns from GameStop. I am so ecstatic!
Why?
Well, first of all, Harvest Moon has been my favorite game of all time for 13 years now, starting when I first played Harvest Moon 64 (Thank you, Kenzie!) I still remember looking everywhere for it, and being so discouraged after one game store told me it was discontinued. One night I was babysitting for the neighbors across the street from where I lived and my Mom and Dad stopped by to surprise me with the game! They were only able to find the game as a rental, but I was so happy to be able to play. Not long after that I actually was able to find the game brand new in a superstore and bought it right away! Oh happy day. I still play that game frequently. It never gets old!
Secondly, the alpaca bonus plushie! I've missed most of the newer Harvest Moon pre-order bonuses, but am really happy I was able to at least get the pig from Sunshine Islands. Too stinkin' cute! Now my piggie won't be alone and will have an alpaca friend.
Lastly, the new animals! Obviously there's the alpaca, which I think I'll name Tina. Then there's the honeybees! Oh my gosh, yay, honeybees! Oh! And an owl, which I believe is for traveling between towns.
I haven't decided which bachelor I'll pursue, as their dialogue is a major determining factor. It will probably either be Mikhail or Cam. I'll admit I always have to adjust to the new characters because I'm so used to the usual people from the older games, but I do love them all. It's a happy Harvest Moon family. For sure I'll be making Bluebell my home. The girl's Bluebell outfit is absolutely lovely~
Not a whole lot more I can say until I actually play the game. For now, as I anticipate the game's release, I will be working very hard on an adorable Harvest Moon quilt (which I now need to change to have an alpaca and bee instead of a pig.)

Mokona Modoki mo doki doki!

I don't have my nice camera back yet, but I was able to get my quirky dinosaur to work well enough to get these pictures of Mokona. I hope you enjoy them and we look forward to seeing you at our next convention!

Sword Frustrations

I am currently working on Ginryu, Kurogane's sword from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle.  What a pain in the bootay.  The head is actually turning out well for me, I'm super pleased about it, but the actual sword...  Ugh.

I started off following a tutorial from James H. Fullmer because I really liked the idea for the basic structure of the sword - a pvc pipe and a pool noodle.  I used the Level 1 Sword tutorial because I already had a pool noodle on hand, but I probably should have done the Level 3 Sword tutorial.  To adjust it to my needs I left the pipe bent for a day to give it the curve of a katana.  During that time I started cutting down the pool noodle, hoping I could make it more slender.  Since I couldn't get it as slim as I wanted I decided, fine, it'll just be "sheathed" the whole time.  Kurogane's not supposed to kill anybody anyway.  Of course, who cares about accuracy at this point, Kurogane gave the sword away at the very start of the series and should be using a completely different one anyway.  But Ginryu looks so cool...

After cutting down 90% of the pool noodle it still looked too bulky.  So I started duct taping it 1. To squish down the foam and 2. To hide how choppy my cutting was.  I was pretty happy with it at first but now I'm feeling it's still too big.  It's supposed to be a katana, not some amorphous club!

So now I've cut strips of upholstery foam and am wrapping it tightly around the pvc pipe, tying it down with shoe laces to hold it in place while I glue it and wait for it to dry.  If this works then next I'll take a strip of craft foam and fold it in half over the upholstery foam for the blade.  It may still be too bulky and might still have to look infinitely sheathed, but it's got to be better than my pool noodle monstrosity.

Of course, then my hilt will also probably have to be reshaped to match the size of the blade because it too, was cut from the pool noodle.  And if I do that then I'll probably have to completely remake the dragon's head as well since I sized it to fit with the hilt which was the same size of the pool noodle blade.

Holy hecktolata.

Then I have to figure out a way to shape all the individual scales, which I'm saving for the very end so I don't have to do those all over again.

All because I don't want to buy a wooden katana because I want it to be foamy and soft so I can smack people with it.

Happy Pi Approximation Day!

My amazing husband is a math teacher, and that's great because I'm a math geek, too!  A tradition in our family is celebrating Pi Day.  But today is Pi Approximation Day, we couldn't have real pies, so we went to Walmart and bought cup-pies instead.  The total cost could not have been more perfect.

How amazing is that?  The only way today could be better would be to watch Pushing Daisies, but dang Netflix took it off instant watch.  So we're watching Harry Potter instead.