What I'm consuming these days

I started an MSc in October. The hours are long, but at least the work is hard. I'm not having as much time to make or read or watch as I'd like, but there've been a few books/films/shows that have stuck out, and are a good way of figuring out what I want to make.

1. I started Moby Dick in August and I'm only half-way through. I'm a speedy enough reader, but as I said, I have a shortage of time and nothing goddamn happens. There's stuff to like in it - the description of Queequeg comes from a fond if intensely racist place - but Ishmael keeps stopping to describe how much he likes the sea for an entire chapter, or list everything he knows about whales, and I don't care. Ahab is also contemptible. I think you're meant to view him as pathetic and twisted, consumed by revenge, and yet admirable in his pursuit of his dream, but I can't get past "pathetic". Also, hell of a victim complex, wanting to kill something for daring to hurt him in self-defense. Also: "Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low enjoying power." I went out with that person, and it was awful. (They loved Moby Dick. I got to that line and it became apparent why.) It reminds me a little of Philip Roth for its time - by a dude with a boring notion of integrity and masculinity, for dudes with a boring notion of integrity and masculinity. I'll finish it, but I don't expect to start enjoying it, which is a pity.

2. Lights Out. I watched this yesterday, and I'm enamoured. I love short horror. It doesn't bother with world-building or explanations, which can undo a good monster. It captures a very childish fear, and has the protagonist trying to behave maturely while clearly fighting those childish self-preservation instincts. This pushes a lot of the right buttons for me. When I switched off the light before I went to bed, I felt a flash of anticipatory terror, expecting cruel claws around my spine and Achilles' tendon. I think that's a good sign in two and a half minutes.

The ending undoes it a little, but that's the nature of short horror special effects.

3. I saw Welcome To Night Vale's live show The Librarian in The Olympia in October. The Sugar Club sold out in no time, apparently, but I think a theatre was the right venue for it. I have the same problem with Night Vale I have with anything once I catch up on marathoning it. I get immersed in a world, and once I get out I can't get into it the same way. When I started listening it made me laugh until my face hurt, and now I think it's still clever, but I'm a little inured. I also have mixed feelings on the fandom - I think it's quite wonderful how people have created canon imagery to go along with it, but I also find the fandom pretty annoying, and I'm not sure how I slot in with that, as a fan who's not in the fandom.

That said - oh wow does it work live. As a podcast, it's all about the writing. Weird things happen, and some of those weird things are very intelligent, but I love the wordplay, the imagery, the sense that they take real joy in it. There are some absolute gorgeous turns of phrases in there. It's carried by Cecil Baldwin's voice - Jesus, that voice - and it's rich and dark and knowing and innocent and edged with savagery, and just right. I wasn't sure how that would translate to the stage. The show was mostly Cecil in the middle of the stage with a script in his hand, and it was absolutely mesmerising. The podcast can't convey his presence, his magnetism. I'm interested in the way stories are told, and he told a story with his whole body. He could make your heart race and create the most wonderful terrible silence. I lack charisma or story-telling flair, so both are something I find compelling. I went in thinking he was a man with a wonderful voice, I left thinking him so attractive it makes me angry. I'm a sucker for a story-teller.

I've given a few public talks in the last year - I spoke at Electric Picnic, so I think I get to say now that I've performed at Electric Picnic - almost all pop-science. There's been a lot of figuring out what works on me and what doesn't. I can't do jokes with a build-up - I get a better laugh with off the cuff-remarks. I can play to my advantage the fact that I'm quite an awkward presence. People don't expect me to be funny, they expect me to plod through something I've clearly learned by heart, so a straight-faced one-liner, in the same tone (slightly over-eager, slightly apologetic for taking up the audience's time) works well against that. I shift around a lot, which I can exaggerate and have read as energy or enthusiasm, and my body language is quite deferent, which, again, complements comedy to which I can play oblivious. I can't stand on a stage and spell-bind people - I don't have the voice or presence - but I can wrong-foot a room full of people and make them laugh when I want them to, and that's not something I expected to be able to do.

4. I'm late to the game, but I'm digging Lana del Rey. Her voice drips with sorrow, and I really like love songs that are broken without romanticisation.

I have so many books to read and there are so many good films in the cinema! One day, I will create for myself a world where I have free time, and it will be awful.

Forward progress

or "Self-indulgent internal chatter."

I gave up art as a Leaving Cert subject in March or so of 2008 (because grades are just terribly important and I wasn't going to get an A1, good job seventeen-year-old brain), and after a five-year hiatus full of intentions, I finally started making another concerted effort at drawing about two and a half months ago. I've been drawing nearly every day since then. Even within that length of time, it's encouraging to look at the attempts from the start of my sketchbook compared with now, and it fills me with optimism that in a few months I'll look at something I was happy with today and think it just precious that I thought that was any good, because I'll have improved so much by then.

So here are some early and recent drawings! I want to try to justify the early ones by pointing out what's wrong with them, but surely the fact that the later ones are better indicates I can see some of what was wrong with them, and shut up brain.

25/7/'13: The first face in my sketchbook, Bifur from the Hobbit. (Reference.) About the same standard as I had when I was fifteen or sixteen.

15/9/'13: Sylar/Zachary Quinto. (I've started watching Heroes - Season 1 is excellent, and Season 2 is nowhere near as slick but still entertaining, and I love a good villain.) This probably bears more resemblance to the original than anything I've drawn so far. (Reference.) 

30/7/'13: John Watson/Martin Freeman. Face number five in the book, still trying to work out how heads are shaped, and how to get the eyes to look in the direction I want them to. (I can't find the picture I used as a reference, but it's fair to say there's only the vaguest of resemblance. Also, the ratio of screencaps/stills to fanart yielded by Googling "John Watson BBC" is approximately 1:1. Good for you, fanartists.)

19/9/'13: Also John Watson/Martin Freeman! Still doesn't look like him, but it looks like it could be a person this time. (Reference.)

I've maybe been cheating by drawing almost solely men's faces, as I find the harder lines easier to draw. Next: women's and children's faces! I don't have an end goal with this, I'd just like be to able to draw and have the end result look like the subject.

Crochet in Middle Earth-tones

My sister kept mentioning last year that she wanted to learn to crochet, so I got her Debbie Stoller's The Happy Hooker for Christmas. I think I showed remarkable self-restraint by not flicking through it until now. (I honestly didn't by it with myself in mind, but I might be a terrible person regardless.)

I got good use out of the Stripes (and Stripes) Forever pattern - when I had reams left over from making a belt, I decided to make a scarf, as well. I used Debbie Bliss Cotton DK, in what was my first yarn-shopping jaunt in an uncharacteristically long time. I wanted to use earth-tones, and I think the colour scheme ended up quite Middle Earthish, which I'm happy with, because I am a really cool and well-adjusted person with a vibrant social life.

I made the belt several inches too long, but at least it's long enough to tuck into the next belt-loop.

The scarf is also self-tasselling, which is pretty cool! It's crocheted in long rows end-to-end, rather than short rows side-to-side. It looks nice and academic, I think, and as I started it while I was in Cambridge, I feel doubly justified in thinking of it as my Shire scarf.

Second and third crochet projects down! (The fourth will hopefully be put together tonight, photos in the future.) The next one I have planned is a biggie - if I do a decent job of it, I'll feel I'm allowed to say that I can crochet.

Also, Irish Premature Babies sent me a thank-you card for the squares I donated, and emailed me pictures of the blankets they've made! I get to feel fuzzy, and I get post.

No, Luke, I AM your [spoilers].

Here be spoilers, but only to things that happened thirty years ago, and vague references to things which contain twists.

I think the internet's reactions to the Red Wedding versus John Harrison is interesting, because it shows the difference in spoiler-etiquette between those who are in the habit of being in a fandom and those who are not.

I don't know at what point it becomes acceptable to stop being careful around spoilers, but it's longer than "twenty minutes after that book is published/episode airs/film premiere screens." Even if someone if watching Star Wars for the first time (if they are older than twelve or so), it should hardly count as a spoiler to mention that Vader is Luke and Leia's father. It's fair game to make a joke about soylent green being people. Everyone knows Norman Bates mother was dead the whole time, as was Bruce Willis. It is safe to mention any of these things in conversation without being a jerk.

My sister, who has read the A Song Of Ice And Fire books already, advised me a week before the Red Wedding to catch up on Game of Thrones in time for that episode, because something important would happen and the internet would spoil it for me if I didn't watch it straight away. I thought this was a bit unfair on the internet - I've been years behind on shows and avoided spoilers easily! - but it aired on Saturday, I watched it on Sunday, and a friend who hadn't seen it yet had it spoiled by Facebook and Twitter by Monday.

I think it's because Game of Thrones is so widely popular. A lot of the fanbase are people who aren't usually heavily invested in a series, don't know the spoiler etiquette, and so reacted loudly and in detail on Facebook. Anyone who has spent any time hanging around forums or fansites and reading fan theories and fics and accidentally discovering what slash is at eleven because the masthead made it seem like it was a synonym for 'spoof' and feeling terrible Catholic Guilt as a result* knows that you tag your damn spoilers. If it's a TV series, you tag them by series at the least, and episode really. I think that's why, even though Star Trek: Into Darkness has been out for a month now, the internet has been pretty decent about not revealing John Harrison's identity. Even though the reboot doesn't have much to do with the original, the kind of people who'd go to see it are largely the kind of people who've obsessed over at least one series in their lives, and so know what bad form spoilers are. I began watching both Doctor Who and Supernatural years after they started airing, and the only things I knew in advance were general plot points (Space! This guy will be a new guy after this series! Bobby! Dean and Castiel don't kiss but the internet thinks they should!), and things I spoiled for myself by opting to disregard spoiler warnings**. Obsessive fanpeople: they are very considerate in specific contexts.

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In further fanperson sensibilities, I find the semi-meme of referring to "Jawn" in the Sherlock fandom interesting. It's presumably meant to indicate Sherlock's pronunciation of it, but in my head he pronounces it "John", and "Jawn" reads like a drawl, and so more American. If they were trying to show the clipped, British intonation I would go for "Jaun" (as in faun, not maus). "Jawn" is close to how my head pronounces "Jon" which for some reason seems more American-sounding to me than does "John." Regional dialects - they are fun to dissect!

*Based on a true story!

** I spoiled the Red Wedding for myself, I had John Harrison spoiled for me in a post which used his real name a few days after ST:ID came out, which was the more inconsiderate given that most posts at the time were making a point of referring to him only as "John Harrison".

"I'm looking for someone to share in an adventure."

When there's pretty knitwear in a film, I like to try to work out the construction of it. It's like the opposite of my "But that's not even what DNA analysis -! And evolution doesn't mean -! And you can't -!" knee-jerk, or every scene with computers for programmers, I imagine.

Gandalf's gloves were the easiest-glimpsed knit in The Hobbit! When I went to see it with my family, my mum asked me during the film if I could make them, and my brother said afterwards that he noticed Gandalf's gloves looked like there were made by me. My mum also asked whether the villains in a particular scene were goblins or orcs. She tries.

So I made Gandalf gloves out of leftover yarn! The first time I saw it I thought they were garter stitch, but on second watching I think they were reverse stockinette, so I knit them as such.

They're by no means a perfect replica. They're too dark a grey, but this was what I had (Debbie Bliss Rialto, on 4.5mm needles), and I wanted to make it into something I would get excited over. I also added a little ribbing at the top, to avoid stockinette curl. (I assume no stockinette curl means either machine knitting or a million hours of blocking. It would be awfully sad if Gandalf had no-one to hand-knit for him. :( ) But they were a simple thing that makes me happy in a silly, nerdy way to have made them, and I assume that I now get to be friends with both Gandalf and Sir Ian McKellen.*

Gandalf would have loved crosswords, I assume! (Tangent: I miss Crosaire. I wish they'd recycle his old crosswords. Crossheir has a lot more "Well, I guess it has to be ___. I can kind of see how that makes sense." than "Ohhh, that's clever!" I'm sure he's a lovely person, and he has big boots to fill, and I certainly couldn't write a clever crossword, but Crosaire 4 lyf.)

Other Hobbit-related things:

• When I was younger, I assumed that anything that could plausibly be natural (beards, hair) was. (I thought Christopher Lee grew his hair for years to play Saruman, for example.) If I still believed this, James Nesbitt would probably be my favourite person  in the world. His moustache even matches his hat! (He also had some cosy-looking seed stitch gloves that will float around the back of my mind until suitable yarn presents itself, and maybe Oin's diamond-patterned ones, and I have oddly specific problems.)

• This sequence makes my heart smile. I've never minded having a bad singing voice, but now I think perhaps I should work on it, in preparation for being whisked away on an adventure.

*Can the Queen call on the likes of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart to fight as knights in a battle? That would be the best battle.

Joss Whedon - Nice Guy among Nice Guys

I have a somewhat childish reaction when something I dislike becomes popular. I'm quite happy to dislike something quietly until I keep seeing on Facebook or having conversations turn to how it's ORIGINAL or WITTY or GROUND-BREAKING. Like Avatar. The special effects were very pretty, and Sigourney Weaver was there. That doesn't come near trumping the fact that there was no plot to speak of, and the dialogue was bad, and it wasn't an interesting retelling of the story it was telling, and it created a world which it failed to make interesting or explore well, and if you're going to make up science you need to explain why it's not stupid or I will judge your film as stupid unless you save it by making the rest of the film not stupid, and during one of the SPLOSIONS battle scenes at the end I consciously thought "Oh god, I am so bored, when will this end," and I am not easily bored, plus I saw it in 3D, a medium which has, worryingly, failed to die a death.

All that said, the only reason I have all of those flaws to hand is because people responded to my "Eh, the special effects were good but I didn't think it was a good film," with "But what about X?" X WAS BAD. IF X IS SOMETHING THAT MAKES A FILM GOOD, AND I DIDN'T ENJOY THE FILM, IT MEANS I THOUGHT X WAS BAD.

And so it is with Joss Whedon! I like his shows, but I do not like the man. If I watched his shows and never heard anything about him, or by him, I could just switch off my brain for the misogyny and laugh at the cleverly-constructed lines.

But no. Did you know Joss Whedon is SO FEMINIST? Because his shows are absolutely no indication of that, and it seems like if you believe in something, you should maybe have you art which is directed at teeenagers express that message! And did you know he writes STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS, it's not just that tiny girls beating people up are what he's into, he is PROGRESSIVE.

No.

The fact that there is one conventionally hot girl who wears glasses or studies science or both!, instead of being conventionally hot and a cheerleader, in his shows and she is meant to be the Thinking Man's Hot Girl is quite skeezy in itself. It comes with the implication, as in the link, that sure, Anya and Buffy and Cordelia (and every female character in the show, seriously, where are the strong ugly characters) might be hot in an OBVIOUS sort of way, but with Willow and Fred, Nice Guys like Joss Whedon see through the outer hotness to the mind underneath that shares their specific interests! Enjoy learning new things from your total bimbo girlfriends who have hobbies and aspirations different to yours, jocks!

In Cabin In The Woods - with which I might be falling into my Avatar trap, because I though it was a diverting horror film that didn't do enough with the scope it gave itself, and the internet thought it TOTALLY TURNED THE GENRE ON ITS HEAD - rather than do something clever with the Stupid Slut Who Dies First trope, he... turns a med student into the Stupid Slut Who Dies first. (... ON ITS HEAD, SUCH A TWIST.) You could argue that his hands were tied by the genre, and he makes a feeble attempt to misdirect by having somewhere say her hair dye is making her stupid, but given the misogyny of the trope, if he really cared, he could have done something clever and non-sexist with it.

There's nothing that makes my skin crawl like the early seasons of Buffy though. I get that it's a lot of wish fulfilment - the most important girl in the world befriends the hottest losers in the school! (But doesn't have anything to do with Jonathan or those creepy losers, ew gross.) The hottest losers in the school fling zingers (or what are meant to be, whatever!) at lumbering jocks who are no match for their wit! It is a bit weird to work your sixteen-year-old esprit d'escalier into a TV show you make as a grown-up, obsessive even, but whatever makes you happy! 

What I can't look past is the treatment of Cordelia. She exemplifies the self-congratulatory pseudo-feminist maxim of "I have nothing but respect for women whom I deem respectable." She's mean for no reason, shallow, vapid, gets poor grades, and probably spurned Joss Whedon in high school. In the pilot, Jesse follows her around even though she has told him to leave her alone (but she's mean, and he's friends with the people who'll be the protagonists, so it's HILARIOUS, not creepy). In the next episode, Vampire Jesse appears behind her when she's dancing, leering and getting creepily up in her space. When she tells him to go away, he tells her to shut up. She looks confused. "Okay, just one dance, she says." Because bitches like that like jerks, not Nice Guys like teenage Joss Whedon! They deserve the abuse that's coming to them! Get it? FEMINISM!

Cordelia later redeems herself by going out with Joss Whedon, I mean, Xander, which compounds, rather than diminishing, the misogyny.

I honestly do like Joss Whedon's shows, but I'd enjoy them more if not for the hypocrisy. I can switch off my brain for a certain amount of misogyny - a girl's gotta leave the house and consume some media, after all. It's the hypocrisy of writing lazy sexism and then crowing over how feminist he is. He has described himself as a "lesbian in a man's body", which is something that some people do have to deal with in daily life, but coming from him sounds like the "I wish I were oppressed" or someone who thinks their privilege is so unhip.

From here.

But every time I see that quote floating around fandoms, and I want to sit Joss Whedon down and explain some things to stop ruining not-being-sexist for the people who put thought into not being sexist, and, while he's at it, to stop being sexist.

Christmas holiday knitting

Not knowing what to do with myself with my Christmas knitting finished, I became briefly fixated on wanting to clear out yarn, or at least turn skeins of yarn into things that weren't skeins, so these came out of it!

A simple ribbed bobble hat. I made two to use up this yarn, and then crocheted a few squares for the Henry Bear Blanketeers with the leftovers. I don't know why I look so sad in the last photo, I think my face just defaults to 'sad' when it's not responding to a particular emotion.

I wanted to use up my decadent graduation yarn, but it was only 110 yards, so that was quite limiting. I didn't manage to take a photo that shows the colour and sheen of the yarn in real life, but you can take my word for it that it's nice yarn. I like this pattern - Swirling Petals Cowl - but I'm not sure that I like the length of it on me, or that the pattern suits the yarn. It also turned my fingers green while I was knitting, so if it does the same to my neck I'll look a bit gangrenous. It may end up frogged and made into something else.

My sister's Christmas gloves, which were blocking last time I posted. I'm really happy with how they turned out - muted colours and cables always strike me as looking very grown-up, and as she's training to be a teacher I thought they might be a bit more fitting than the ones I had planned to make for her, which weren't working out due to yarn weight. Vancouver Fog is a lovely pattern, and I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran.

Fourth Doctor gloves! I've wanted to make these for a while - not for myself, just to have made - and I really like how they turned out. I based it roughly off the Doctor Who Scarf Pattern, keeping the proportions of colours similar, and changing it around when a colour was appearing to much within the block I was working from. These are mostly acrylic, and they're lovely and warm. Weaving in all the ends was a pain in the face, though.

Speaking of Doctor Who, my friend Steph gave me this shirt for Christmas

and got my Doctor right despite not watching the show. If that's not true friendship I don't know what is. (Tennant 4 lyf. You never forget you first Doctor and all, but mainly it's the kindness and joy that makes him so endearing. I agree with the point that he's probably too human for the Doctor, but I also don't care. Also, David Tennant is adorable, and that accent, and that bone structure.)

I don't have space at the moment  to work on my 2013 projects, but I've accrued a few commission in the last few days which will keep me busy. I said to myself that I wouldn't buy more yarn until I had used up at least a third of what I already have, but I don't have the appropriate weights and colours. I don't know why I stay with me after all the lies.

Pattern: Starfleet logo chart

This is the pattern I used for my Starfleet gloves a few weeks ago (or glove, I guess, since the other one was the X-Men logo).  I used chunky yarn knit tight, because I wanted the gloves to be snug, but as long as your gauge has the right proportions it should work out.

The PDF with the pattern chart can be found here.

This is how it turned out on the gloves, but it can be plugged into hats or scarves too.

FO: Doubly nerdy gloves

I had these in mind as a birthday present for my boyfriend (October birthday #3) for a while, but couldn't settle on which logo to go with. I'm not sure if going with 'both' makes it more ridiculous, or ridiculous-neutral.

I have no great love of intarsia in the round, but I couldn't see any other way of doing this other than knitting flat and then seaming up the sides (ew) or a whole lot of duplicated stitches at the end (jesus, ew). So it was the lesser of three evils, and I think it worked out!

I used Supreme Chunky Cotton by Wendy, as my boyfriend is allergic to wool (INCONSIDERATE), and cotton is a definite step up from acrylic. The chunkiness of the yarn meant that the intarsia was quite blocky, so I went over the yellow yarn to pick out the corners and smooth them out a bit when I had finished. 

 

Not the neatest, but I think it's a definite improvement.

I'll probably post the charts for the logos in a few days!

In other news, I have misplaced the llama hat I made before I could give it to its person. It's none of the places it makes sense for it to be, or any of the places I've checked so far that it wouldn't make sense for it to be, so it's looking increasingly likely it fell out of my bag somewhere. Saaaaad.

FO: Triangle scarf hates particle scarf

This (Ravelry page here) is a very speedy scarf! I made it the other day because I had bought the yarn at the start of the Summer with this scarf in mind, and my house was really cold that day. It's useful to have earmarked for a last minute present.

The pattern details didn't say what weight of yarn to use, so I used some Noro Kama I bought on sale. If Noro yarns were a person I would have a creepy obsessive crush on them. SO PRETTY.

My scarf came out a little smaller than the one in the pattern photos looks to be, so perhaps I guessed wrongly about the weight. It makes for a nice, non-bulky neckwarmer though. I might go back and make something a bit more suited to bundling up. Possibly this one!

I have a problem taking photos of scarves where if I take a photo myself, I look haughty, but if I ask someone else to take it, I feel I should smile, but then my face usually looks wonky, and I don't want to ask them to take another because that feels narcissistic. This was an attempt at a neutral expression. I blame Irish face. IT IS PART OF WHO I AM OKAY.

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I finally saw The Dark Knight Rises yesterday! I'm fully conscious that I'm a sham of a person for not having seen it for so long. Spoiler-free thoughts:

1. omg omg omg omg

2. Batman makes Michael Caine cry, and yet we are still expected to root for him. This requires too great suspension of disbelief. Why would anyone like anyone who makes Michael Caine cry?

3. I am not really clear on why Bane's voice was so British. Especially when he hailed from "a very ancient part of the world" (and in the Knightfall comics the prison he grew up in was in South America).

4. omg omg omg omg

It also has me thinking things about villains and costumes which I may eventually right about. I do love a good villain.

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I bought yarn for almost all my October birthdays today! After that I can start on Christmas presents. This year everything will be different. This year I will be organised.

Shoddy costumery: Tonks!

I wasn't going to post this because it wasn't very good, but I have been looking through lots of cosplay pictures, and am trying to put together something respectable for this, and have a renewed hankering to dress up as things.  It's a pity Ireland doesn't do cosplay conventions.

So!  My college do-gooder group had a Harry Potter party two weeks ago, and I went as Tonks.  I wasn't going to post the pictures as both the costume and the photos weren't up to much - I forgot about it until the day before, and had to do everything in a rush - but it's also the first time I've dressed as as a specific character in quite a while, so I may as well document so I have something to mark progress against.

Pro:  I have short hair!  Tonks has short hair!  I like an excuse to do silly things with my hair!

Con: I brought glitter spray, not colour spray.  The fault lies entirely with me for shopping in Claire's and also for being unable to read labels at twenty-one, especially having just finished up the guts of a year working in a lab.  (Incidentally, gloves are for whiners who don't respect the environment, and should my hands be this colour?) I tried to make up for it by loading on the glitter, in the hope that a layer of pink glitter would look pink.  It did not.

Pro:  I borrowed a wand from a girl in my class (she says it was a gift).  As I was leaving my room, I heard someone coming up the stairs.  Not wanting to look ridiculous, I hid the wand up my sleeve.  Nothing like it for feeling like a wizard.

Con: That is a terrible photo and asking people to take photos of me  makes me feel too narcissistic to do more than once.

Con: Those shorts should ideally be black.  (They were jeans in a previous incarnation, but I was wearing them while walking the Camino de Santiago in first year, and it was unseasonably war.)  I might have dyed them if I'd had the time.

Pro: People understood who I was meant to be!  I think this is a victory as I based the costume on my perception of her in the books, which was quite tomboyish, whereas the films were not so.

Pro: I went to the club as it was free in, and spent the entire time sitting in the corridor around the side having a Harry Potter trivia contest with fellow do-gooders and some strangers who came just for the Harry Potter.

Costume:  

Black string top

Black pinstriped underbust corset

Black shirt

Black waistcoat borrowed from my boyfriend

Cut-off denim shorts

Ripped black tights

Unlaced black Doc Martens

I think it was alright for a rush job, though the hairspray was disappointing.  I already have PLANS for October and Hallowe'en, so hopefully I can make people have costume parties!

FO: TARDIS: I couldn't choose a witty title.

Do I make a joke about how it took way more stuffing than I thought it would, because it's bigger on the inside? Or the fact that it took way longer than it should have, and something something time?  Do I go with a quote?  I don't know how I'm expected to make that kind of decision.

Pattern

The thumbnails on my camera led me to believe this wasn't so blurry, and I've already given it away.  Oh well!

Blurrier and before I managed to punch it into some sort of rectangular shape.  Wibbly-wobbly etc.

This taken a ridiculous and kind of shameful length of time to finish.  The extent to which I was relieved when I sewed up the last seam is kind of silly.  Mostly Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted, and the white is Cygnet DK, which is probably why the light is a bit small.

But it's done, and now I can get back to gloves!  I've also been making speedy neckwarmers in lectures and while out and about, but I don't have the light in my room in college to take nice photos, or the confidence to stand around campus taking photos of myself.

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Dublin Zoo's youngest elephant learning not to grab.  But she got bored
and left to eat different food and probably did not benefit from the lesson.

In unrelated news, on Thursday I got to go to the zoo, and go into the elephant house, nominally as part of my course.  (I don't do the module to which the trip was connected, but the lecturer got tickets for everyone in the class anyway.)  I think zoos are ethically problematic, and their nature puts them in a bind (have to have animals that'll draw people so they can fund breeding and conservation programmes for the animals in need of them, even if there's no conservational merit to holding them), but I do like the route that Dublin Zoo is taking with the new elephant enclosure, and now the new gorilla area.

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Also also, my thesis is due in less than a month.  Um.

Tom Baker Scarf

The timing is purely concidental!  I started it over the Summer and finished it two weeks ago and my post last night reminded me to finally make the tassels.  Please don't judge me.

I have this problem with long projects where I bundle them up as they grow, so I don't realise how long they're getting.  If I don't bother to check, or have already decided I'm going to follow the pattern to the letter, this can have silly consequences.

It's not very clear, but I'm standing on a chair.  Doubled over, the scarf reaches from the ceiling to the floor.  I'm 5'6".

I could wrap it around a few times and use it as a dress.

It is very snuggly.

And I like the tassels.

The patterns is here; I can't remember what yarns I used, as I went with what was roughly right and on sale, and the wrappers are either in the recycling bin or my other knitting bag at home.  I didn't get the colours quite right, but the only one that's annoying me is the cream - it should have been a lot closer to beige, but I was going from memory.

So now I have a giant scarf and a snuggly hat.  BRING IT ON, Winter.

Related: I'm considering dressing up as the Doctor for Halloween, though this is depending on charity shops doing me well.  I probably have more of the build, and, currently, hair, to do a better job of the Matt Smith incarnation, but my first preference would be David Tennant.  Fangirlish preferences aside, I'm more likely to wear the clothes for that costume again.  A thought exercise this has sparked is that if I were to dress up as, say, Amy, the differences between me and a very hot girl would be readily apparent.  I'm not sure if a girl who isn't hot dressing up as a man who is very hot draws similar comparisons.

Or I might be lazy and dress up as some sort of creepy doll.  I could probably put a costume together from clothes I already own.