M'lisilinaath Thabana

baaaack

naath — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:55:33 GMT

I have returned from the 16th century! If I missed anything in the last week that you think I really should have read/seen then link it to me here (I have tried to catch up on stuff, but probably missed some things).

naath — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:29:01 GMT

Informal poll;

If I were to say to you "let us get afternoon tea?" what would you think I meant by that? Er, I mean to say 'what do you think afternoon tea is, practically speaking' not 'what do you think this means about my relationship with you'. English, the language of unclearness.

No comments here, go to dreamwidth; LJ users can log in with open ID here .

Dress diaries

naath — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:53:52 GMT

I needed a dress for my cousin's wedding. This one can double as a costume for off-duty Ariel Corps members methinks (from the books by Novik).

Underwear:

and from the back

The drawers and chemise are from a Victorian pattern (Truly Victorian) because I am Very Lazy and CBA to make myself a Regency shift (an article for which I lack a pattern). Made from white lawn (from Whaleys of Bradford) and trimmed with lace wot I found in John Lewis. Stockings were purchased, opaque white is pretty much period for regency. Shoes are entirely out of period, Regency shoes were flat, but Mum insisted on buying me 'proper' shoes.

Corset is from Corsets and Crinolines (page 76) "late 1820's". The pattern is for someone much thinner than I am so I made it larger by the simple method of adding a bit 'round the edge. As you can see from the back picture I didn't do this quite correctly as it has a much larger gap at the top than the bottom. Made from cotton coutil, interlined with muslin and line with a printed cotton dress fabric. It's got some steal bones, some read boning and a lot of cording as well as a bunch of embroidery. It has a wooden Busk in front, which is removable. I have neglected to drill holes in it so it has a habit of falling out (should drill holes!).

Dress

Pattern: Morning Dress C 1798-1805 (so a bit earlier than the corset), page 48-49+52 of Patterns of Fashion 1. This dress is a 'drop front' dress; it comes off as follows - un-button/pin the pleated front part, un-tie tie-strings that go around the back and hold up the rest of the front (the front seams are sewn on about half way up) and drop the front, un-pin the two halves of the bodice, take off as if a shirt, step out. I sized up the pattern but I think maybe not quite enough. It is very tight across the back (which may be period but isn't comfortable) and the blue sleeves are too tight (or my arms are too fat). The shoulders are rather more off-the-shoulder than I would like in this picture (if I were being a well behaved regency lady I would have a chemissette or something to fill in the neckline but I iz lazy)

It's made of blue cotton lawn, the bodice is lined with coutil which would give enough support to wear it w/o the corset if I wanted. I have also attached an under-skirt in white lawn to the bodice lining instead of making a separate full length petticoat.

Dress with Spencer

The pattern for the spencer is a the top part (just lop off the skirt) of the Pelisse pattern 1818-1823 (yay for no consistency of years), again from Patterns of Fashion 1 p 53-54. Again I had to size this up, but I think I did it more 'right' since this one fits. The fabric is a green-on-green dragon brocade (super suitable for Aviators methinks). The buttons are done as cufflinks (no buttons are sewed to the spencer) for ease of button-changing (although sewing buttons together is a pig, so not very easy).

Books

naath — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 23:43:52 GMT

I appear to be missing
a)Nightwatch (PTerry)
and
b)three Reynolds novels (revelation space + two sequels), paperback.

If you have them please own up...

(I suck at remembering what I have done with things)

ETA: found the Reynolds (I suck).

naath — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:07:18 GMT

I went to DWCon, it was good. I got my wallet stolen (on the train going, not by nice DWcon-types), that was NOT GOOD.

naath — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:45:07 GMT

Food meme, from http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk/uncategorised/the-omnivores-hundred/
Bold what you've eaten
strike what you won't eat

1. Venison - mmmmmm nom. Bambi.
2. Nettle tea - a bit bland really
3. Huevos rancheros - no, but it looks nice
4. Steak tartare - no :( but I want to. I've had tuna steak tartare though
5. Crocodile - I don't think so
6. Black pudding - don't like it much
7. Cheese fondue - yep, niiiice
8. Carp - I don't think so
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari - on sushi
12. Pho - I think so
~~13. PB&J sandwich~~ I think PB is disgusting.
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart - not nice
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle - very very small amounts
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - nom
19. Steamed pork buns - nomnom
20. Pistachio ice cream - nomnomnom
21. Heirloom tomatoes - never seen any for sale
22. Fresh wild berries - doesn't everyone grab blackberries from roadside bushes?
23. Foie gras - unfortunately it costs too much
24. Rice and beans - cheap, nice
25. Brawn, or head cheese - sounds like it might be gross
~~26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper~~ IT BURNS
27. Dulce de leche - don't think I've seen it
28. Oysters - don't like them much, too slimy
29. Baklava - nom
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas - no, but I want to
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl - not seen it
33. Salted lassi - I like the mango, maybe sometime I should order salted.
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
~~36. Cognac with a fat cigar~~ - I don't smoke
37. Clotted cream tea - mmmmmmmmmm
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O - no, but we had vodka watermelon once
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail - only in soup
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal - I'd try it, but it might be TOO HOT
44. Goat’s milk - no, but I've had goat's milk cheese
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more - way too pricey, I don't like whisky much
46. Fugu - I suspect that finding a chef I trusted would be hard
47. Chicken tikka masala - practically our national dish
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut - not really available here
~~50. Sea urchin~~ - I think it's disgusting, tastes like the smell of rotting seaweed IMO, ymmv, they do (or used to) serve it on sushi at Teri Aki if anyone feels the need
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
~~55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal~~ eeeyuch
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
~~58. Beer above 8% ABV~~ Probably tastes of beer.
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs - tastes like chicken
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis - nomnomnomnomnom I love Haggis!
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini - IMO overrated
73. Louche absinthe - yuck, sorry, don't like liquorice
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill - no, but I probably would
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong one of my favourite teas!
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. - anyone offering to buy me same? No, didn't think so. Bet it's nomiferous, but not quite sure I can justify the expense.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor - neither with nor without the SPAM
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee - tastes of coffee, apparently I have no taste
100. Snake

I'll eat almost anything once - so I've not striked out anything that I haven't eaten 'cept the PB&J since I've had PB and hate it and the scotch bonnet because I don't want my mouth burned off. This is not to say I'd enjoy eating any of the other things.

naath — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:31:21 GMT

My new 'phone now has my old number. So 'phoning me will now work again.

On the SSH subject:- I've figured out the logging, it is finding chiark in the DNS but then timing out when trying to connect to it. I called O2 and they said that SSH isn't blocked by them. *sniff* why won't it work?

On different technical grrrr:- I can connect it to my computer at work via USB, this works fine (on Windows), of course it couldn't be that simple on Debian at home... (I don't know what sort of file system it is, oh well, I'll just have to take the USB cable back to work).

In entirely different news I finished one pair of socks and have acquired some more proto-sock. Socks are just the right size to knit in front of the computer.

naath — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:57:07 GMT

Now for something completely different!

Obviously we all remember that dress wot I started ages ago ( linky for those new to my LJ or forgetful, or not paying attention at the time or etc. etc. Progress has been made!

So now we get to enjoy poorly taken photographs, because my photography skills are much much less good than my sewing skills.

Anyway; first up lets pretend the dress is done (ha ha), here it is all laid out on my bed except for the underskirt. However the sleeves are pinned on where they will eventually be tied in place. The scraps of paper to the side are "R" and "L" labels for the sleeves, so I don't get confused as to which is which.

Next, the outer skirt. This actually is finished, although it needs to have rings tied to it on the inside to hitch it up into a bustle-like shape, but I'll leave that until the underskirt is done. It's very long; that wardrobe it is hanging from is taller than me (also you can see the mess that is my room, anyway, moving swiftly on...)

This is the bodice. Which is mostly finished but needs binding around the edges and a modesty panel at the center front. The armscye and top I'm going to do in the purple silk, I have black binding for the tabs (which are going to be fiddly but never actually seen, as they go under the skirt). You can just about see the fancy layered effect with the lace at the front (but the flash was too bright, oops). I think the pattern wants the eyelets for the shoulders to actually be aligned with each other rather than with lotsa ribbon there, but it really doesn't fit if I do that! And the dress is going to have tied on sleeves anyway. If I make this pattern again I shall have to remember to make the shoulder bits longer!

You can just see the inside at the top - the black lines are stitching lines to hold boning (reed) in place, they don't go through to the purple silk though, you can only see them on the inside.

The whole thing was a huge, ugly mess until I actually got the lining attached to the fabric and it all turned right way out, now it mostly looks great apart from the undone binding. So I'm pretty happy with that. Plus it fits, it's a little longer in the body than I might have liked but I'll cope (I need to work out how to fix that in the pattern really, for future reference)

Sleeves next! The sleeves are nearly done, just need binding at the top and ribbons attaching to tie them to the bodice. These are huge pooofy sleeves, which is great. I think maybe some wider/nicer lace would have been good but it is very expensive so I decided against it.

The underskirt has progressed, you can see the new-since-last-time flowers in this picture. I've forgotten what some of them are; one of the blue ones in flax, the red is scarlet pimpernel and the white one under my embroidery hoop is a snowdrop, the finished pale pink is dog rose.

I'm trying to learn to spin. Here is some yarn I spun, some still on spindle. I'm bad at this at the moment, although a lot better than I *was* when I started.

I'm making a big fwuffy jumper out of some wool lark_ascending had and didn't want; it has sleeves

and about half a front (some of you may have seen it with the finished-but-mistake-filled front - I ripped that out because it was bugging me)

Some may question the wisdom of doing cables in bulky wool of many-colours, but me, I'm MAD. I think it looks nice in person, except that the colour of the front is kinda horrid really. Maybe it will be the back (not enough wool to do the front in the same colour).

I'm making myself some kilt socks, one sock down, one to go (cast on and started).

Also I bought this silk yarn, about 100 yards, Aran weight. What shall I do with it? Isn't it very pretty? Mum thinks I shouldn't by yarn just because it looks nice... but! but! PRETTY!

naath — Thu, 29 May 2008 10:19:36 GMT

Naamah makes a nice post here about misogyny (warning, it's kinda sweary maybe NWS and your W). Anyway I wanted to pick up on a small part of it.

here's a widespread attitude that stuff on the individual, personal level doesn't count as misogyny -- one guy being an asshole to one woman does not count as misogyny. It absolutely does count. We are talking about a pattern, and a pattern is made up of individual incidents.

That's something I think is very true, but also very hard to *implement* as being part of how-you-live. Because, say, you have a friend and one day that friend says "please help me with my house moving", well, sure, that is a totally reasonable request from one friend to another and you say "sure, I'm capable of that and have free time so I will come and lift things". And that would be fine and normal - you might say "no, sorry, I'm busy/ill/a total wuss" or something and that would be fine and normal too!

So of course you never say "NO WAI, horrid demanding nasty-person that you are!" because that would be unreasonable.

But the next week maybe they say "please help me to mow my lawn" and the next week it's "I need someone to drive me over to the hardware store to pick up this wood" and then "I need someone to come and help with my shelving" and so on and so forth. And each and every one of these examples (and many hundreds of other requests) are things that I put in the "sure, I have the time, effort and tuits for this task" box (well, actually, I'm shit at driving but I do have a licence; I should be your last choice but in an emergency I can do it) and also in the "friends do things for friends" box. None of these many things are *individually* unreasonable.

But at what point do you say "actually, no, I've done lots of things to help you and this is simply asking too much?". That's very hard to define really - and it depends on lots of things (such as how many of *your* DIY projects this friends has assisted with). Do you just say "oh, sorry, I have to go and do made-up-important-thing" or do you tell them "no, my computer game is much more important" or do you shout at them about how mean they are?

And it's the same with lots of sexist crap. Any *individual* incident could simply be part of a normal polite interaction, any *individual* job you didn't get, or promotion you were passed over for and so on could simply be part of the normal give-and-take win-some-lose-some of normal life. You don't want to scream obscenities at every man who holds a door open; you don't want to take every company that doesn't hire you to court - but at some point, some extremely poorly defined point, you realise that it's not just a series of isolated incidents but rather a pattern of people behaving badly towards you.

And then if you go on to complain about *one* incident - because people like to give examples when they talk about things, or at least *I* like to give examples - then people say "oh, well, obviously that could just have been..." and they sound of course very reasonable, because it *could*, and obviously since you have been brought to complete breaking point by the heaps of crap because otherwise you WOULD NOT HAVE BROUGHT IT UP you are probably not in the best position to sound reasonable! And then of course it's all about how "women are so emotional" and "you should think clearly rather than emotionally" which is all just so much shit.

And that leads me to digress slightly. I really fucking hate it when people say "oh, you shouldn't bottle it all up, you should talk about it" especially when these are the EXACT SAME PEOPLE who complain about the "drama" and say "oh, but when you complain about what I do I don't like it" or who say "fuck this shit, I don't want to put up with you daring to expect me to listen to your opinion, if you don't want to just sit there and take everything I throw at you, well then, I'm not going to talk to you any more". It's disgusting. Don't force people to talk about their problems to you unless you are actually prepared to listen, and preferably to attempt to do something actively useful to help.

naath — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:50:27 GMT

foreverdirt linked to this excellent talk about sexism in science, the talk is an hour long and there are introductions before and questions after so it is a bit long, but I think worth it.

One of the excellent points made, and one that I have failed to express when I wanted to, so I'll do it here instead - is saying things like "women are innately worse at science" is *actively harmful* to the progress of women in science, and that if you are thinking of saying such a thing in public then you really ought to be very sure that you are right; that just saying such things with the force of your reputation and your conviction that you are right will cause other people (in this case women) to internalise the message (and as a result be worse at science). It turns out that this has actually *been tested*; if you give girls a maths test then they *do worse on it* if you remind them that girls aren't good at maths before they sit it.

Book Review (ish) [public]

naath — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:43:33 GMT

One of my favourite books Of All Time is MZB's "The Saga of the Renunciates" which is actually three novels in one volume (and which I initially read in three volumes but that is neither here nor there).

It's on my "favourite books" list because it's the first book I remember read which makes what I think is a very important point. There are other books that make similar points, many are likely better written, less fanciful, more academic, and etc. etc. I have even read some of them. However this was the *first* I read (I was about 11 or 12) and it made an impression.

The novels have plot of course, but I'm not going to discuss the plot details; but you probably need some background to understand; so, these novels are set on "Darkover", which is an alien planet, they are on the boundary of SF and Fantasy (but probably more Fantasy because they are about People not Science, or something) some "Terrans" have shown up in their spaceships but the native Darkovans (who are human, as it happens) are living in your bog standard quasi-mediaeval fantasy world (which has some magic, which isn't very relevant). What most of the Darkover novels are about (as says MZB in the introduction to at least one of them) is the contrast between Darkovern society and Terran society; the conflicts that the contrasts cause and so on.

The "Renunciates" of the title of this trilogy are a society of women who have Renounced the traditional protections afforded to Darkovan women (such as being cared for by husband/father/brother and so on) in exchange for the freedom to run their own lives (Darkovan women get pretty much the same deal Mediaeval European women got, except for the part with the magic) some of these women Kick Butt professionally but not all of them, although they are all trained in Kicking Butt because on Darkover if you can't Kick Butt and don't have anyone to Kick Butt for you then you end up not being in control of your own life.

So what these books are about is the contrast between the way women live on Darkover and the way women live in the Terran Empire (which is a whole lot like 20th century Earth in terms of values and so on; except with spaceships and blaster guns). On the surface the most obvious thing to conclude is that Darkoven women have The Short End of the the Proverbial Stick - because, dur, Mediaeval society; but the thing that MZB does, that really affected me the first time I read this, and still does *every* time I read it - is to take the pov of a Darkovan woman and look through her eyes at why Terran women do *not* have the Long End, at the subtle ways that Terran women have it just as bad.

One of the interesting points (to me) is that in Darkovan society there is no pretence about equality for women - and women have the clear choice between doing what they are told and having the respect of society or of leaving that behind to get freedom for themselves. Whereas in the Terran society women supposedly have equality so they have much less ability to say "screw you guys, I'm outta here" because society would be more confused about why they felt that it was sexist.

Anyway, I think that's an important point about the Real World that I have to live in - that in spite of all our laws about equality and so forth that we *don't* have real equality, that a lot of people are still very sexist, and not always in obvious ways. And that sexism is (to me) much more harmful when it is subtle than when it is obvious - because obvious sexism is easier to shout back at whereas if you shout at someone for being subtly sexist then they are much more likely to claim that they have no idea what you are on about and so forth. And that inability to find an obvious entry point to start arguing back against that more subtle sort of sexism is something that leaves me feeling very trapped - that either I can just put up with all the shit that gets thrown at me; or I can try to fight back, fail miserably and be shouted at for daring to complain about "nothing".

I don't know whether I'm the only person who thinks these things about these books, maybe I am, certainly I'm not claiming to have read MZB's mind. Or maybe I'm just stating the Extremely Obvious. I don't know.

I also think that it is important that these novels have Women Who Kick Butt in them - something sadly lacking in most fantasy novels, especially in those that strive to be more realistic than a D&D campaign. It's an issue I think she handles very well - that of teaching women who are conditioned to rely on men for protection to learn to protect themselves. Some of the characters take the mercenary work like ducks to water, some don't - to me, much more realistic than a bunch of Warrior Women all of whom really like kicking arse. Again these were pretty much the first fantasy books I read where the women didn't just sit around waiting to be rescued but did some of their own fighting - and they are much more realistic than (also cool) things like Xena. (and yes, I have since read much other really cool, shiny fantasy with excellent women - but they still right the bad sort :( )

naath — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:44:03 GMT

So, do we remember the pirate gown of extreme coolness that I was all OMG, I WANT ONE OF THOSE over? (No? shocking have a link)well, the lovely peacockdress is giving the pattern away to subscribers to her magazine (OK, so if you sign up I get referral cookies if you tell them I sent you) for which this post isn't really an *advert* but it is a recommendation (I don't really care about the referral cookies, but maybe you don't believe me) because it's fantastic, but only if you like sewing things...

Anyway, so it a dress of great shiny, and I wanted one.

So I'm making one.

So here are some photos (they are click-through to LJ-gallery for bigger versions) so far

The first thing to do was order fabrics, I haven't actually got everything I need yet but most of the fabric came from some cheap fabric place in the US (which, even with UPS's rip off charge for dealing with paying my duty was still cheaper). It came in a large box...

Inside the box was shiny stuff! Some of this is silk dupion, some of it cotton (for the lining), it's all shiny; have a picture...

or two...

Also I have bought some lace (this is distressingly polyestery, perhaps I shall have to buy some better lace)...

and some ribbon (also polyester, damn John Lewis and their sinful modern-type ways)...

Stage one of making the dress is to make the skirt, which comes in two parts. First, the underskirt - which is, basically a big tube, it's in silk lined with cotton and here's a photo of the back, as you can see the top of it is not finished yet; I need to pleat it (because it's currently about 3* my waist measurement!) and put in a waistband.

But I had this idea, see, which was that the skirts would look so much *nicer* if embroidered. So I bought some embroidery threads (cotton) and a box (or two) to keep them tidy in...

And also some books for reference (no piccy). And began with flowers (have some pictures illustrating my un-l33t embroidery skills)...

The flowers are, right to left, common poppy, honey suckle, bindweed (yes that's a reference), violet, Bluebell (or harebell if you're English), hound's tongue, primrose, hottentot fig and chicory. Suggestion for other pretty flowers to add are welcome.

And that's where I am - not finished embroidering this layer, so not moving on to do the other layers yet. Here's everything back in the box...

So, this is taking a while; it may be some time before the whole thing is finished! Maybe my embroidery will improve along the way.

(And the black velvet backdrop to all of that is my duvet cover btw).

naath — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:23:46 GMT

I made this thing work! lalalala working thing! yay.

Bored now... MEME TIME.

2 memes

Would you...

1. give me your number?
2. let me hug you anytime I wanted to?
3. let me kiss you?
4. watch a movie with me...even a really sappy one?
5. let me take you out to dinner?
6. drive me somewhere/anywhere?
7. take a shower with me?
8. have a fling with me?
9. listen to me if I called you crying even if you were out with all of your friends?
10. buy me a drink if i didnt have money?
11. take me home for the night?
12. let me sleep in your bed?
13. sing karaoke w/ me?
14. sit in the doctors office with me because I didn't want to go alone?
15. re-post this for me to answer your questions?
16. come pick me up at 3am because my car ran out of petrol in the middle of nowhere?
17. Do you think im cute or hot?
18. Do you like my style?
19. Do you think I'm funny?
20. cry if I died?
21. dance with me?
22. sing happy birthday to me?
23. take advantage of me if I was drunk?
24. strip for me?

And

Ask me anything (give me something to do!). I'll respond in a later (flocked) post, er, probably on Monday because it's the weekend and I have Packing To Do.

Comments screened (but likely to not stay that way unless you request that they do), anonymous comments allowed, this post uncharacteristically public (so, er, make sure you don't mind comments being public - or ask me to keep them screened).