I have finally gotten a chance to get the sewing gear out and tested since our move to Japan about a month ago, so I actually have things to post up again.

Yesterday was my first chance to play with the vintage kimono I snagged. While they're mostly heavily damaged, they work great for what I need them for - pieces of fabric for corsets!

This is my first one, just needing boning, grommets and the bottom bound off. The solid colors are silk, and the patterned pieces are vintage fabric from a haori (kimono jacket) that I believe is silk as well. The innards are coutil, and like most of the corsets I make, its reversible. The other side is a soft cotton print of pink cherry blossoms on a gray background, so it's a nice counter point to the coloring of the outer side.

Will be up on Etsy eventually - I'm starting a new store for these kimono pieces, I just have to decide on a name, exactly. But, if anyone out there sees this and is interested, just let me know. This one is approximately a size 12, but I'll have to check once it's all completed, but I do have enough fabric for about 4 more of these custom made!

It feels good to be sewing again.

I am trying desperately to get back into life, and not completely waste it, so today, I forced myself to try to do something new.

Piles of scrap leather that I cannot bring myself to throw out turned into a new style Steampunk belt/cincher. I wanted to make it so that it would accentuate a bustle or corset more than anything, and I think it was a success! Now, to make one that actually fits me -____-; ((this one is slightly too big... that's what I get for not measuring first...))

Where I have shipped around the world...

Doing a bit of updating to my databases, and though I'd try plugging this in and seeing what came of it. This is every country that I have shipped to. Pretty cool, huh?

Pretty soon, I'll have a link up to a Google Map of everywhere (well, okay, about half of them, because updating 1200 entries gets monotonous!) I've shipped in the past few years!

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

My entry to win a free Canon 5D Mk III via @CameraBag 2 (http://bit.ly/cb2-5d) #cb2giveaway

So I just found out about this software called "CameraBag 2" and thought I'd play with it a bit, and hot damn, it's pretty fun, actually! It's like a user-friendly Lightroom, for those times when you don't need to do insane amounts of post, but just wanna play around and get something up.

I like it. A lot. Here is my playing with it from some pano's I shot at the House on the Rock a while back - this is the Mikado Room.

(and, yes, contests are awesome, too!)

Since my husband has gotten me way into playing Magic: the Gathering, I've been going overboard on making things for the game.

My EDH (Commander) deck has dragon tokens, so I figured why not make some actual, useful tokens, instead of having to buy token cards or use dice or bits of glass... I finally got to experiment with them today, and they turned out better than I could have hoped for! So now, I have a rainbow of dragons to summon: gold, red, green (which doesn't show up on the pics as well as IRL), white, blue and black!

Any other fans out there that think these sort of things are fun?

This is 2 full hides of tooling leather (approx 22 sq feet each) cut & ready to go. I just finished tooling them, will be staining & dying them tomorrow!!

RELEASE THE KITTIES!

It seems like every year, one of my friends gets something handmade for Xmas. This year, Steven was the receiver of one. As a Dethklok fan, I had to do something fun, so why not.

It is "Dethklok home for wayward kitties" with the band below.

The logo was the hardest thing to figure out - I had to work off of the actual logo, and bring it down to as few pixels as possible. Overall, I'm so insanely proud of this, and it was so addicting to do!

That's why I started (and just finished! Pix soon!) of the Doctor Who pattern I made (find it in a previous post) and am now thinking of what I could do next...

Just a few more new things that I snapped pix of today and just got up on Etsy, mainly, a new version of River Song's journal!

This is embossed, not cut, and way more accurate to the show - it even has the spine details.

Oh, and a wallet or two, because why the heck not?!

So I've been away for quite some time - computer issues, holiday orders, and a sick kitty all added to it.

But, to distract myself at the moment, I've been making cross stitch patterns.

I made a Dethklok cross stitch thinger for a friend for the holidays (I'll post pictures soon!) and now, it's had me thinking of little pixel figures that I can cross stitch.

This is the one I finished just a few minutes ago. Feel free to use it if you're into cross stitching - it's about 175 stitches x maybe 50 or so high? (I suck at these things, so I'm not sure exactly how big it is). The figures was off of a base I worked up for the Dethklok figures, and the lettering was hand-pixeled, because I'm insane like that (actually, I find it cathartic for some reason...)

So, Doctor Who themed! I think I got all of the Doctors as close as I could - I worked off of a combination of photos/screen shots, fan art compilations, and the figure set recently released. Colors are eyeballed - I'm not including a "DCM color code" or something like that, because quite frankly, I find that a little insane. Just go with similar colors you have/pick up/find laying around if you are going to do this. I did grid it out for you, tho :3

I'll post my pic of this when I'm done with it, as well as the Dethklok one. Tomorrow is back to work (since I now have my laptop back - hooray!)