A Dedicated Follower of Fashion

(From clarey_h, and in lieu of real content. My life this week has consisted of WORK WORK WORK and O SHIT CHRISTMAS IS LIKE TWO DAYS AWAY NEED GIFTS FOR THOUSANDS OF FAMILY MEMBERS)

You Are Blue

You are detail oriented and focused. You enjoy keeping your life in order. You are a perfectionist, and you tend to take your time with tasks. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. It's hard for you to deal with dramatic, flippant, and silly people. You value maturity. You are a good listener and you expect others to be the same. You expect to be taken seriously.

Actually not too far off -- though if I couldn't stand silly people, I'd have a real problem with myself! I do hate dramatics...and "anything worth doing is worth doing right" is why they like me at work, I think.

And I'm working tomorrow -- Christmas Eve. JOY. I'm not working day after Christmas, though; they didn't schedule me for it originally, and then yesterday my manager asked if I could work it. And I said no. Because I really don't want to deal with all that. You people gave me off, suck it up! I want another day to sleep -- and hopefully work on some 1840s stuff, and practice guitar, 'cause I haven't had time to do any of that this week!

I'm going to be annoying and post a couple memes. Because I donwanna go to bed, but I donwanna do anything actually productive!

First meme from citoyenne :
The 10 pictures meme
• Post ten of any pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive.
• NO CAPTIONS! It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words.
• They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason.
• You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don't want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like.

( I think most of them are pretty obvious, but ask away about any of them! )

Stolen from a couple of people on my f-list

1. What was your first costume?
A dress to wear to the Renaissance Faire, where my high school madrigal choir competed every fall. It was a blue linen/poly blend, in a sort of peasant-y style, and I drafted the pattern for myself. (Thank you, internets, for your inspiration!) It was all hand-sewed, because I didn't have a machine. And it was pretty bad. But it's kind of funny, because since I started out hand-sewing and drafting everything myself, but I didn't know that it was supposed to be Really Really Hard to Do, because the last thing someone had taught me to sew was boxers in 8th grade home ec. So I still have the "don't know any better, that I shouldn't try to do this because it's too hard" attitude about my costuming. (Though now I've met some really fabulous costumers on LJ and am starting to Know Better.)

2.Did someone get you into costuming? Or on your own?
On my own, and only because I thought the costumes our high school had for us to wear were the most butt-ugly things I'd ever seen. And even back then, I knew they weren't Period-Correct.

3. What is your favorite costume?
Um. Right now I hate all my costumes, actually, because all I can see it what's wrong with them. Probably either my green masquerade dress or my Venetian gown, because I don't think those suck quite as much.

4. Which is your least favorite costume?
Well, like I said, I hate them all...but I think I especially hate the polonaise I made this summer. I'm going to give it away if I can, because I never want to see it again. It's made out of a SHEET, for fuck's sake.

5. At conventions, do people compliment you on your costumes?
I don't go to conventions, because I am a broke college student with no car and no time (why is everything always during exam week?!).

6. How many have you done?
14 or 15, I think.

7. What are the top 6 on your list of "Want to Costume!"
Hm, this changes all the time, but right now I think it's a 1760s robe a la francaise, a beaded Titanic-style dress, striped 1870s bustle gown, 1570s English gown, late 16thc jacket, black Worth dress from the exhibit

8. What female costume do you want to do most?
I want an 1840s dress so I can do Poe events! *grump* (This would also necessitate the actual time to go to said events.)

9. What male?
This is awfully strange, but for a couple years now I've wanted to make one of Captain Hook's costumes from the 2003 Peter Pan. I want one of those suits! Totally badass. (And yeah, I'd wear it! Cross-dressing is cool.) Maybe for Halloween some year...

10. What do you prefer to do, make or buy your costumes?
Make. Definitely make. It then gives me much self-satisfaction when people like my costumes.

11. Your most memorable experience? What makes it so memorable?
It's funny, but when I got second place in the costume contest at the PA Ren Faire when my Venetian dress was new (2006), I was so excited that when they called me up, they knew it was a Venetian dress. Silly, like I said! (Plus that was one of the best things I've ever won. Except for those tickets to Spamalot.)

12. Your dream costume?
It changes all the time; I haven't got one costume that it's my goal in sewing to make...because then what would I do after I finish that costume? Stop sewing? Hah, never! Right now the costume-panning mojo is kind of at a low point, so I'm not all OMG!SQUEE! about any one costume.

13. Is there a pattern in your costuming?If so, what?
Yeah, my pattern is that I bounce all over the place era-wise, which is why I tend to finish the undergarments, and then get bored and wander off to something else.

14. Your most recent costume?
The Tudor outfit. (Okay, so I'm still putting pearls on it, but we're going to count it.)

15. What do you prefer? Cosplaying in a group or on your own?
I like to at least have a partner-in-crime when I'm dressing up, because otherwise I just feel kind of an ass. It's been known to happen, though!

A Book Meme from myladyswardrobe 

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST

"In all probability, in these districts on the edge of the more densely populated central areas of the town, there would have been gardens during the 10th to 15th centuries, but undoubtedly there was more open space available for gardens after the devastation wrought by Ivan IV in the 16th century."
From Wood Use In Medieval Novgorod, edited by Mark Brisbane and Jon Hather

I HATE this book, for the record. It's for my early Russian History class, but there it was, six inches away on my desk... *scowls*

(from kdmorin)

Instructions: Go over to Wikipedia and enter the day you were born [such as "March 27"] and then pick 3 events, 2 births and 1 holiday that occurred on your birthday.

February 4

Events
211 - Roman Emperor Septimius Severus dies, leaving the Roman Empire in the hands of his two quarrelsome sons, Caracalla and Geta.
1792 - George Washington is unanimously elected to a second term as President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.
1957 - The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), logs its 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's novel "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea".

Births
1902 - Charles Lindbergh, American pilot (d. 1974)
1948 - Alice Cooper, American musician

Holiday
Across the Universe Day -On February 4, 2008, at 00:00 UTC, NASA transmitted "Across The Universe" in the direction of the star Polaris, 431 light years from Earth...This was done to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the song, the 45th anniversary of the Deep Space Network (DSN), and the 50th anniversary of NASA.

Me like books. Obviously. 
Well, to be fair, a few of these I had to read in high school, or I wouldn't have read them. But just a few. (namely Grapes of Wrath. Blech.) Read Tolstoy, Swift, and Rand all on my own, thanks!

(nicked from a few people on lj)

Top 106 books marked "unread" by LibraryThing's users.

Bold what you have read.
Italicise what you started but couldn't finish.
Strike through what you couldn't stand.
(*) Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once.
Underline those on your to-read list. 

So, I've read a decent amount for my age, right?

I'll actually update with sewing progress soon. Promise!