Is this the third time I have restarted this project? Well I just realized my fabric is plaid (yes, I can be an idiot) and I gave no thought at all to matching plaid lines. Screw it. It will be what it will be. I am thoroughly enjoying putting to use the tailoring techniques learned at Gertie’s blog. Maybe in two years it will be done.

I love to coupon. LOVE it. But I swear, they couldn’t make printing online coupons any more complicated if they tried. It reminds me of the days of RealPlayer before Apple came along and straightened out how to make music EASY. It is so flipping stupid that I am livid actually. Even after installing their idiotic coupon printer (as if the printer driver already installed shouldn’t be sufficient), and ASSuming I have a Windows machine (maybe that is a hint that only Windows users would be so used to such pedantic nonsense to actually install a coupon printer) the chances of it actually printing are 1 in 4.4. Major suckage.

JUST GIVE ME THE DAMN GLAD STORAGEWEAR COUPON. DANG YOU ALL TO HECK.

Even sites without a coupon printer step still only have a 1 in 5.26 chance of actually printing the thing. On a good day. I hate you coupons.com. You suck.

I was at physical therapy the other day due to a cervical neck disc bulge, aka a pain in my neck, and picked up the latest Lucky Magazine in the waiting room. In the advice column, it was asked whether one’s toenail polish should match one’s nail polish. The consultant said that absolutely not, unless the colour is red or wine, and that in fact, it would be demented to paint mint green on one’s toes to match the nails? What? Pray tell what colour should one wear on the tootsies if wearing mint green on the fingernails? Red? Wine? Now that would be demented. Perhaps the consultant is assumign the default is bare (God forbid) or French… but why assume that? Today, I decided to try out this mismatching nonsense, so I have electric blue on my fingernails and a deep magenta on my toes. Now my lady friends, THAT is demented. Excuse me while I throw up all over my toes.

E tsy is a rip-off for small sellers.

If you sell small-ticket items, Etsy’s listing fees are a complete rip-off. Twenty cents a pop for three months may sound like a good deal, that is unless you are selling vintage patterns, some of which sell for $2.00 each, and don’t sell quickly. Etsy seriously needs to come up with differing pricing schemes, including flat fee sites (like ArtFire does) for shops. Ebay is actually a better deal right now that is pathetic.

I am trying out ArtFire, but so far, while its pricing is much more friendly to small sellers or sellers of small ticket items, its traffic sucks, at least for what I sell. I am stuck. If I don’t see any action on ArtFire in this trial month, then I will close that site. If Etsy doesn’t improve, I will likely get out of the pattern reselling business altogether, it isn’t worth it. I tried selling from my own site, but that was small potatoes as well. I guess Etsy charges what it does because it knows right now it has us where it wants us… they have the traffic. What happened to caring about the small DIYer? Yeah right… crickets.

I have finally started scrapbooking again. I had done a little digital scrapbooking, and while that was fun, and MUCH cheaper, it doesn’t have the same appeal of having an actual book to hold and show off. So I decided to send off the digital files to be printed on 12×12 pages so that I can put them in an actual book.. I haven’t received the pages yet, so I don’t know how they will look but I am excited about merging the best of both worlds. I also sent off digital pictures to be printed at a service that was offering fifty free prints. Those prints came in, and I joyfully spent a few hours making some old-fashioned pages. My scrapbooking pages aren’t the typical neat and pretty domestic Goddess kinds, they are loud and gawdy, just as I love them. Martha Stewart meets Lady GaGa. I am looking forward to doing more.

Project Runway. How I hate/love thee and thy progeny. And I really hate to criticize the contestants because really, I know nothing about them. Reality shows are edited for the drama and controversy to drive ratings and this approach doesn’t always show the real human beings in a fair light. And I emphasize “real human being,” because I can imagine being on that show and reading complete strangers making sweeping judgments about me and hurling smite elephants like the way they did at Gretchen, and how that would feel. Awful.

Money quote: “Real women can look however fat they want.”

Runner up (describing his real woman model’s boobs): “I had difficulties with those things.”

I am not a fan of the thin slice of Oliver shown on the show. He could be the bestest, coolest dude if I knew him in person. But in all candor, I was offended by his comments that were showcased. His utter despair about being face with a real woman with *gasp* boobs was just embarrassing though I guess it was some cheap entertainment to see him wandering around in a daze repeating “double D, what does that mean” to other homosexual men who at least knew that was a cup size. Although it seemed like he was just seriously prejudiced against anyone that didn’t have the starved flat-chested appearance that is industry-standard model nowadays, I also took a step back and realized that okay, maybe cut him some slack. He is very young, very homosexual, and just has no experience with boobs and doesn’t want to have any experience with boobs…. though being a fashion designer that expects to sell clothes to real women might not be the best field for him, thus, his specializing on menswear. Okay… but then the next week came up.

And the challenge was menswear. He should have rocked, literally, the menswear challenge to design for up and coming classic rock band, The Sheepdogs. But all he did was bitch and whine about the size of the front man that he was designing for. He made it clear that his precious skills are to be used only on standard “model” models of people. The poor guy was a very good sport about Oliver’s discomfort, but seriously, it is like he was born at Michael Jackson’s ranch, and this is his first excursion to reality. The singer was not “huge” by any means. He was just a classic large guy, as in tall and of a healthy weight. He wasn’t fat. He wasn’t freakishly tall, he was 6 foot 3. Heck there are female MODELS taller than that. He didn’t have man-boobs to drive Oliver into the dark pit of neeeeeple.

Sorry Oliver, you may be a man-elf, and a darned cute one, but real people aren’t standard sizes, and your elitism sucked.

Though my secret wish was for the ever-popular Anya to be auff’d. Why? I just don’t believe her story about just learning to sew. That is insulting on a whole other level. I am really, really, really uncomfortable calling someone a liar, even if doing it in the nicest possible way, but I just don’t believe her. And I find those who argue about how it is possible are usually people who don’t sew and have no idea of the time it takes to do it well. And I had it with her “oh when I get criticized about my work by the judges, my work is my LIFE” gushing…. you mean your life of FOUR MONTHS where you claimed to have just learned to sew. You can’t have it both ways missy. Seriously.

No way would anyone be buying that story from a chick that looked like there was a bridge somewhere missing its toll collector, but since Anya is attractive… well… people, including women, get stupid around beautiful people. And no doubt, Anya is HOT. But I for one am totally grossed out by those heavy earrings that look like they are just about to break away from the 1 cmm left of earlobes and make a run for her lap. Eww. Yes, I know that all sounds catty. I’m a chick, its in my genes, and if it were a dude stretching his lobes to extremes, I would be equally grossed.

Yes, yes, another gadget. The purpose? To soak off acrylic or artificial nails or…. for some bizarre finger bondage fetish involving strangling the tips of one’s fingers. I walked around the house entertaining myself by pretending to stick to glass doors like a gecko. Anything to distract myself from the feeling that all the blood was cut off at the top joint. Ouch. But since it is a beauty gadget, of course I love it.

This gadgety thing is the Dritz Bound Button-Hole Maker. I love gadgets. I so wanted to love this thing. But I don’t. It is a pain in the tuckus. And yes, I know how to use it through the useful tutorial at Colette Patterns. I have a few more methods to try that are in my sewing books, but so far it looks like I will be using Gertie’s method as I finally take back up my sewing of the Lady Grey coat. Which means I will probably sell the danged thing. Other people seem to like it a lot, and I don’t believe in hoarding vintage items if I am not using them.

I have wanted to get back to my childhood embroidery skills. With the passage of time, I forgot it all. My mother used to do quite intricate works and taught me some age-appropriate projects. Also, in wanting to do more couture-ish sewing, I needed to learn some hand-sewing. I find most of the drawing in book to be ridiculously confusing, but this book is a real and comprehensive winner. The textile portion is meh– the two Fabric Savvy books are my go-to textiles books, but for stitches, this is the best I have seen so far.

I watched three episodes of Season One, and while I am sure that television made it more sensationalistic as the seasons progressed, I saw absolutely no problem with what I saw. In fact, it was wonderful. Not only were the children competing, but their very real, very healthy-figured mothers were also competing, putting paid to the oft-heard criticism that such paegants give the girls unrealistic body images. And boys were competing. It was very much a family activity and taught these young girls how to compete, grace, and confidence. At least so far, I think the initial backlash was typical judging by people who automatically condemn something they don’t understand or don’t personally “like.”