Happy birthday ashechan!

Booked places for me and Pete! Huzzah!

Me and Pete have been married for a whole year! Hooray!

Just posting about my upcoming cosplay plans. I was wondering what else people had in mind for Minami and Auchinawa as I want to cosplay in groups as much as possible this year before I go to Japan.

So far I've made a start on the bottom part of the Minoru's robes and done some work on Edel's crazy stripey leggings. As soon as my university money comes in I'll hit up cosworx for the wigs for Edel and Sue so ideally I would like to know which other wigs I'll need for Auchi and Minami to save on postage. Edel's wig is going to be a challenge but it should also be hilarious. :D

London Expo

Rhyme - The World Ends With You
(Me) Tina Minoru (Pete) Robert Minoru - Runaways

Auchi

Edel - Princess Tutu
Sue - Grandia

Minami

Auron - FFX (to go with my friend Rachel's Braska costume! yay)
Something from Pokemon?
Edit: (me) Aska (Pete) Chang Ang - Rayearth, to cosplay with the fluffily lovely Nia


At some point during this year I simply have to cosplay Komaki from Kujibiki Unbalance, the anime inside an anime that appears in the gloriously beautiful Genshiken which I love beyond all reason. I don't suppose there are any Genshiken fans on my list are there?

At the weekend I wasn't really aware of how *much* fabric Aunt Mabel had given to me, because we packed it all into the car without sorting through it. Now having organised it at home I realise I will never ever have to buy interfacing or any kind white fabric ever again.

She also gave me a tailors dummy. I don't need one because I already have a dummy, so would anyone on my flist like it? I'm happy to send it to anyone that would like it for free, you'd just have to pay for the postage which will probably be about £10 if the average cost of shipping tailoring dummy's on ebay is acurate.

It's an old model, and the stand is a little shonky but Pete will fix that before I send it out, or alternatively give it to a charity shop. I'm pretty sure it's adjustable too.

Would anyone like it?

Edit: ( pictures )

The title refers to an event taking place in Kent during September - it's an Apple Extravaganza! I want to go just to find out what it is. I want it to be some kind of apple circus with apples leaping from trapezes and a bombastic granny smith acting as ringleader, but it probably will just be lots of mundane non-performing fruit.

I had a great weekend in London, bought lots of fabric in Shepherd's Bush before adjourning to the wonderful odangochan's house for lunch and chattting. I had a great time. I hope we weren't too chatty and/or boring. Just for you Annette, here are some camera phone pictures of the kittens I saw at my mums house. They were super adorable.




It was also a weekend of cake baking. I made a 'The World Ends with You' pin cake for Annette and Phil, and two ivy covered cakes for Pete's grandmother and Great Aunt Mabel. Because I must immortalise all my cakes with internet stardom here they are.




When we visited Pete's Great Aunt Mabel she gave me all her fabric and dress making equipment as she can no longer work with fabric as her hands are too frail. It was amazing, her sewing room was like a treasure trove of wonder. She had beautiful satins and silks, different fabrics in all colours and textures and some funky 60s/70s patterned fabrics that are definitely hovering on the boundary line between awful/retro chic. She also gave me stacks of interfacing, zips of every colour of the rainbow, and at least 50 patterns. It was so lovely and incredibly generous of her, it made me very glad I had at least baked her a cake in thanks.

I'm actually looking forward to visiting her again because she is a formidable old lady, in the 50s and 60s she travelled the world visiting South America, Russia, China and Iran and I would love to hear her stories about those countries. It's still pretty unusual for tourists to go to South America and Iran now, let alone in the 50s and 60s. :D

100 points to anyone who can guess what these are. :D :D

I think without a doubt this is the best pokemon cake I have made thus far.

It's Cacnea, my favourite pokemon from the Ruby/Sapphire era. It was delicious!

My life has revolved around constant revision for the last while which is why I haven't updated. But my exams are now half over (4 down 3 to go) and I'm pretty happy with how they've gone so far. Well except for the Japanese listening exam which was a bloodbath, but I found out yesterday I just managed a pass which makes me very happy. The listening exam only accounts for 25% of that Japanese course so I'm sure my overall mark will be brought up by my performance in the oral and written exams I had last week because they went pretty well.

I have 3 more exams left and tons of cosplay to cram into my evenings. I'm thrilled with how Yuna's samurai sword is looking, it's genius. I'm so looking forward to seeing people at the Expo. I must remember to make cookie nom noms for the wonderful odangochan who is lending my friend Rachel her Paine wig.

My only other news is sad, Pete's grandfather passed away. I have been giving Pete extra specially lots of hugs to make him less sad.

The egg was first. After several failed attempts in the past I had another attempt at crochet last night and finally managed to make something approximating amigurumi. I made the egg first and then the chickie. The egg was acutally a failed attmept to make a white ball shape, but I like his little face. It was a toss up between making him an egg or attaching little gray fins to his pointy end and making him the ill-fated Zeppelin 'The Hindenburg', I was quite tempted because I could have make little red and yellow flames to go on his body too.

Anyhoo, they're pretty rubbish but for a first attempt at amigurumi but I'm quite happy.

After making my giant sushi cake I was keen to have a go at making mini sushi cakes. I made these sometime in February for a friend's birthday. They were super yummy.

Just got back from Scotland on an Easter trip to see my family. It snowed all the time we were there and much snowball slinging fun was had between me and Pete. It was pretty good actually. Much love to Dan, because I <3 Settlers of Catan and good company.

And today I bought sewing machiney goodness! Thank you to everyone who gave me advice a while ago, it was all really helpful when I came to purchase my machines. I bought a cheap overlocking machine because I really want to start making my own clothes as well as cosplay costumes; and a very decent machine with some good features. I'm planning to do a lot of work on my costumes for Expo and Ame over the Easter Break.

Other than that I haven't got much news. I have a really good idea for costumes for me and Pete on the Sunday of Expo, but I'd really like to go in a group if possible. Anyone have any ideas?

Much stuff happening with me at the moment, but I'm too tired out to post about it now. I just hopped online to say

Happy Birthday angelphie, princess_mark! Hope you both have/had a great day.

I hope everyone has an amazing 2008.

I sent out cards. Some of you will probably get them when you get back to University and some of them might have winged there way out into the ether never to reach their intended targets. They will sit forlornly, unopened on an unfamiliar doormat, honking feebly as their christmas cheer seeps slowly into their reed woven resting place. (I'm imagining one of those straw-ish welcome mats with WELCOME written on it) Oh yeah.

I hope everyone gets their card but I have zero faith in the postal service because it completely sucks.

Don't think me and Pete will make it to Athens, I'm pretty much better at bloody last but Pete's gotten very ill. Ackity Ack. He's got a craptastical sinus infection. I hope he gets better before xmas.

Send your healing vibes to Cardiff! Thankies.

Well Ame was very brief for me, disappointingly. Me and Pete missed Friday because were delayed by giving our friend a lift, which we will have to make sure doesn't happen again by ensuring everyone's costumes are finished at least a week in advance.

On Saturday we were only around for a few hours before Pete was waylayed with earache due to a sinus infection he got about a week before Ame. It had been getting better due to the course of antibiotics he was on but on most of Saturday and Sunday he was just too ill. We were around for about 3 or 4 hours on Saturday afternoon though and I managed to very briefly see Angelphie, Odangochan and Lex_is_evil's Trinity Blood costumes which like everyone has said, were beyond all expectations and just perfect.

I was pretty happy with how Xianghua and Lizardman came out and we got some really really positive responses from the people who recognised Lizardman which was cool.



Anyhoo, congratulations to everyone I saw, all the costumes were amazing.

Ciao.

I failed to do any cosplay whilst in Kent. I blame Pete's birthday and the fact I've been pretty torn up emotionally, despite my best efforts to stay cheerful.

Pete had a good birthday I think. I made him a cake. Since the only person who has recognised it so far is Pete himself I wondered if anyone on here recognises it. :D



I'm pretty pleased with it, especially since it was a ghetto cake made without any of the hardcore baking tools I have at home. For his birthday present I bought him Shadow of the Colossus for the PS2, which is stunningly epic and has sublime graphics, it's so cinematic. I also bought Pete some Lego, which we had fun playing with.

I've been down and listless this week because today is the 2nd anniversary of Dad passing away. It makes me feel depressed not just because the anniversary reminds me of the day itself, but mostly because the idea I haven't seen or spoken to him in 2 years just makes my heart ache. But I don't just react with sadness for some reason, I seem to get periods of being anxious and hyperactive in counterpoint to the times when I'm unhappy and lethargic. I know my Dad wouldn't have wanted me to be depressed though so I'm trying not to get too despondent.

So cosplay fails at Kent. But cake wins. I'm going to throw myself into cosplay in the coming weeks to get absolutely as much work done as possible before going to Paris. I really need to get quite a bit of work done on Selene and Zera before Paris because there's only a month before Ame when I get back and I'm not doing 3 costumes in a month. If the worst comes to the worst and I haven't made enough progress by Paris, then I'll postpone Selene and Zera until October. I'm not going to kill myself trying to complete a bundle of complicated costumes again. It was just far too intense and stressful trying to make Gramis, Larsa, Xianghua and Lizardman in the space of 4/5 weeks. But I'm confident that if I organise my time well before Paris I can get a large portion of Selene and Zera done before hand, as well as finishing off the last of Xianghua, Lizardman and whipping up a devout costume. Thankfully the devout costume is pretty simple.

Anyhoo, I'm tired so it's off to bed for me.

Ciao.

This entry is nothing but ( cosplay rambling. )

Just a quick update about two new exciting things which have happened.

One. I have a new (second-hand) car! It's a beautiful metallic blue Nissan Primera 2002 model. I've called him Corben, after Corben Dallas in The Fifth Element. So far I'm super happy with him because he's fast and looks cool.

Two. I'm going to Paris! With two of the loveliest people on livejournal, Angelphie and Odangochan. *Squee* I'm very excited about it. In honour of the event I want to make a simple cosplay that won't take too long to make. Also a costume that doesn't have a huge hat or any other large elements since I want to travel light. My wonderful brother bought me and Pete Final Fantasy III for the DS earlier this year as an engagement present, and it has some cute and simple yet distinctive costumes. Also I've just started playing the game and it seems pretty damn good and I do like being an ambassador of sorts for my favourite games. Like FF5 and FFX-2, the main characters change outfits depending on their job (or dress sphere for X-2) and there are 22 jobs/costumes in all. I have narrowed down my choice to two of the cutest costumes in the bunch since I'm in the mood for a cute costume. Here are the two choices -



So which one do people think I should make? I'm slightly more keen on the blue geomancer costume because it has a pom pom. Pom pom! But the pink Devout costume has cat ears and is pink. It's a hard decision to make. But both of them have hoods which I love. My first ever costume, White Mage Yuna from FFX-2 had a hood and I did adore wearing it because of that. They make me feel all medieval-ey.

Anyhoo me and Pete and Malcolm are off to see PotC: World's End, because even though it has had average reviews I've seen the other two and would like to see how the trilogy ends. I'm going in with the expectation of seeing something which has good action scenes, excellent graphics but is a bit too long and not as good as the first. So hopefully I won't be too disappointed.

Ciao.

EDIT: PotC: At World's End was awful. Half of the film's plot manouevres made absolutely no sense. Even with incredibly low expectations I was disappointed.