Oops! Apparently I've accidentally deleted all of my images. I'll see about fixing that soon.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

This and That and Stuff and Things

Brilliant post title, don't you think? Yeah, my creativity sometimes fails me in that area. 

But really, I don't have one specific thing I wanted to post about today, I have a bunch of little things, none of which is big enough for its own post but each of which I want to share.  There's not really any one place that seems more logical to start than another, so I'm just going to jump right on in.

Recently one of the blogs I follow posted a link back to this xkcd article on colors and color naming and color theory.  This is fascinating in its own right but also something I've been trying to really delve into a bit in the last year or so partially because of my desire to make my miniature painting better and partially because of my desire to figure out what looks good in fashion.


This brings me to the next thing, which is kind of still part of the first thing: Pantone's colors.   If you're not aware, every year, every season this small group of people over at Pantone get together and decide what that year's, what that season's 'colors' are going to be. Last year I jumped in with both feet trying to not only see some sort of logic in it but also pay attention to how the people around me (mainly my customers) and the fabrics offered for sale did or didn't reflect that.  Instead I just found myself frustrated at what really just looks like inane stupidity thrust on the world by people who claim to know what they are doing and have money and so can get people to listen to them. /endrant

Anyway,  since I missed it completely, here are the colors that Pantone chose for the Autumn of 2012, which to my eye are just basically some of the colors out of any autumn's color palette (you know from the system that seemed to be really popular in the 70's and 80's where women were slotted into color 'seasons' and told they should absolutely never ever ever on pain of death and humiliation wear colors outside of their season).  Anyway, so if none of these colors look good on you (which presumably is some large percentage of the population but I have no data to back that up) then I guess you had no choice this past fall but to dress horribly out of style with the colors the cool kids said were 'in.'


Moving on from there we have the color report for the spring of 2013.  Now, since this is the season where I start sewing for spring and summer this should apply to me.  Also, since I'm trying to start sewing more for my husband I was interested in what it had to say about men's colors.  It looks like for this year they get all the same colors as the women except they are also expected to wear four additional neutral colors.  Personally, I'm not thrilled with any part of  the palette.  I can pick a few colors out that will look good on me or my husband but not mixed together with the other stuff on the list. Just.. no. So I'll be picking out my own color combos as usual tyvm.



I will note, also, that the color palettes which are supposed to apply fairly globally completely ignore that the southern hemisphere has already had spring and is in the middle of a swelteringly hot summer. 
 
This brings me to my next thing: Australia.  It's hot. I mean it's really hot, swelteringly hot, deadly hot. Again. And photos from space make it look like the whole continent is burning, 'cause a bunch of it is.  So hang in there my couple of Aussie readers, and try and stay out of the heat. :(

photo via Universe Today - go read the article here

Here, on the other hand, we have actually been having decently winter-like weather so far (except for today which is weirdly warm). And so the other day I knit myself a hat.  Now I only knit or crochet a couple of times a year because frankly I'm slow at it and it just doesn't hold my attention like the sewing does, but I did set aside a few knitting projects specifically for this January.

The first one is a hat for me:
Hat!

I had the day off due to being snowed in briefly (or more accurately, snowed out of work) and knit up this hat. I have since learned from those that I know who knit regularly that the reason I spent the following two days with shooting pains up my arms is that it is a bad idea to knit for six hours straight, even if you are well entertained by fun internet science videos.

Don't worry, I'm feeling much better now.  And after I had a nice long day of tea and chatting with one of my dearest friends I was inspired and drafted out this shirt, which I made this week.



I'm really happy with how it turned out (except for the back which needs some tweaking) and so I didn't worry too much about getting process photos to share with you because I'm most definitely going to be making more and so I'll have more photos (hopefully not so grainy) to share with you then.

The next thing is some sad news. Last Saturday my husband woke me up to the sad news that Lost Hemisphere announced that they're not going to be blogging anymore. While I totally get all of the reasons behind this, it has me totally bummed out. I don't follow a ton of gaming sites and they are the only ones with whom I have really shared my painted minis. And I'm having trouble putting it into words so I've not read more than the first 'going away' blog post over there this week, and though I've sat down with an attempt to say something along the lines of 'thanks guys for all your hard work over the years' in the comments I keep finding myself at a loss for meaningful words to adequately express myself.


"Now helping you get lost..." no longer

I don't do really well with 'people' in 'communities' and 'social' sort of things so I'm not running right out to try to participate in forums elsewhere or anything, but I will note that I probably should at some point because I think interacting there has made me a better painter and a better gamerwife.

Speaking of minis and being a gamerwife (haha! segue!), my husband used one of his holiday gifts to get a couple of new models at our local gaming store. They came in this week and he has been rather giddy about having them.  They're getting their coats of primer today (along with several other models) so that he can jump right into painting.  I'm stoked to see him excited about painting again. It's been a while.

 
"You beat your drum, I'm gonna go lop off a few heads."

In other spending-our-gifts news, we went shopping for shoes the other day and I'm happy to say that the trip was 50% successful!


My husband has some new work shoes and we didn't completely die from the horror of having had to go shopping, which we both despise.  I know that probably makes me one of a teeny tiny percentage of women, but I really just don't enjoy it.  Maybe I would like it better if things fit when I tried them on, but it would still mean I'd have to go out in public with crowds of people and, you know, shop.

But something has to be done about the literal holes that are opening up in my wardrobe.  It's not just that I lack certain 'staples' in my clothing choices, but that several key items of clothing for me have developed large holes in the past couple of months.  The shoes are the most pressing and hardest to acquire item as I have medium to high arches and all of the shoes seem to be made for the rest of you flat-footed people, but the rest is going to require a little bit more analasys.  So, taking a cue from Sarai over at the Colletterie we are inventorying our entire wardrobe to see where the holes (both literal and figurative) are.  That way as I plan out sewing projects and figure out what needs to be bought and not made, I know I'm getting the things that are actually needed.


BTW, I got this graphic from wikipedia. I didn't notice it was a gif till after I pasted it in here and now I'm feeling too lazy to find something less annoying. So I guess that means you're stuck with it. :P

And one final thing in this giant post of partially incoherent ramblings: makeup. I rarely post pics of my face here, so you probably haven't noticed that I don't wear any.  I'm not going into all the reasons why I don't because frankly I don't think it matters, but Patricia (author and all-around fun person who blogs about her writing and other geekery over at Cottonmouth) posted a link to an article the other day with the headline, "Woman Goes Without Makeup for One Year."  How is this news? Why does that make this woman noteworthy?  Is this really so shocking?  I think her response captures the feel of it pretty well:

"Wait, this woman doesn't wear makeup for a year and has an article written about her? I don't wear makeup. I should be a $#@!&% superstar!"

Ok, that's all for now.  I have more fun holiday gifts that I made to show you, but I did a poor job of photographing many of them before they went out the door this year, so I'll just have to make do with the shots I can get. Also, there are still a couple of people we haven't been able to meet up with to exchange gifts and I don't want to spoil anything.

Hope your weekend is lovely.

3 comments:

  1. You are so cute in that hat! love, mom

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  2. Wow I agree with you all the way.

    Colours- wear wwhat I like, do not care if it is not the 'in' thing. I am the same with fashion/styles.

    Shopping- really do not like it, unless it is fabric shopping of course. Being a shorty means nothing ever fits right even from the petite section, which I have never understood they say 5'2'' and under well I am 4'10'' so its still too big. so how does the 'under' bit work ?

    Cool hat, would love to crochet but just cannot get my head around it.

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    Replies
    1. I've always assumed by " 5'2" and under " they mean 5'1.5" to 5'2" lol yeah, not very helpful.

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