forestofglory

9)Today rec for #DecRecs is Tiny Witch With a Tiny Familiar (by still unrelieved creator). The colors! The use of leaves!(CN: bugs) https://archiveofourown.org/works/60962314 (H/t

donutsweeper)

10) For #DecRecs today I want to rec sticky rice pu'erh! One of of my favorite and frequently drunk teas!
It's pu'erh made with an herb called Nuo Mi Xiang (糯米香) -- which translates to sticky rice stent. It gives the deep earthiness of the pu'erh a bit of brightness and sweetness.
The one I'm drinking right now is this https://yunnansourcing.com/products/rice-scent-and-ripe-pu-erh-tea-mini-bricks? but I've tried several different versions and they've all been great!

11)Today's #DecRecs is The Women Who Ruled China: Buddhism, Multiculturalism, and Governance in the Sixth Century by Stephanie Balkwill, a really fascinating book about Empress Dowager Ling of the Northern Wei, women and power during her lifetime and the ways traditional historiography has failed women.

It's open access and you can get an ebook for free here: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/the-women-who-ruled-china/paper

12)Today is the 12th day of #DecRecs and I'm reccing Twig + Tale sewing patterns!

I just think that their patterns are so cute and comfy! I love their commitment to gender neutral language for their patterns, especially because some crafting spaces are very conservative. And I think all the different animal designs are just so much fun!

I haven't made all of their patterns but the ones I have made have been great, and I've made those repeatedly

https://www.twigandtale.com/

I recently finished a quilt top that I'm really happy with! Pictures on Fedi and Instagram (There are different pictures there -- but also I know instagram can be difficult about showing things to people without accounts)

The quilt is made of triangle blocks know as flying geese. I made all these geese using the no waste flying geese method. So if you look around you can find four of most geese. (There are a few geese that I didn't end up using)

This mention requires a lot of precision and I'm not that precise a sewist -- so some of my geese came out a little small (especially the smallest ones) This was ok because my plan was "make a lot of geese and sew them together improv style" but if I'd really needed them to be exact could have been a problem.

Doing an improv style layout was super fun! I like the sense of flow it gives the whole thing.

I did not buy any fabric specifically for this -- in fact most of the prints where from my scrap drawer (where I throw random small pieces) some of the blues where leftover form other projects and one was remnant I bought with no particular plan in mind

I made some different Tang dynasty doll hanfu same shirt but I made a different skirt and added a jacket. I'm thinking about try and Hufu/cross dressing look next but I'm not sure how the collar is supposed to look. (I also might try making something me sized at some point)

I made Tang Dynasty style hanfu for my 18in doll! I'm very pleased with how it came out, I drafted the patterns myself -- a new skill for me. (If I was going to make this again I'd make the waist of the skirt a little longer -- you can't see the back but there's not quite enough overlap) All the fabric is stuff I had around. I tried to pick things that go together but have some contrast in texture and color, in keeping with my understanding of Tang aesthetics, even though of course these are all modern fabrics

Here are the last five days of my DecRecs:

( Read more... )

For the last day of DecRecs I'm taking requests. Reply to this and I will rec you a thing! You can request something if you want or I can do my best to pick something I think you will like!

*The school year ended for us last Friday. (It still feels very early to me!) Today was supposed to be the kiddos first day of summer camp, but we gave her a covid test this morning since that seems like the safe thing to do, and it came back positive! So no summer camp for her this week. Right now she's hanging out in her room watching minecraft videos and drinking water. She has running nose but not a fever. We are trying to keep her isolated as much as possible.

*in other news I have finally installed Zotero after having been told about it for years. And its great! If you give it a pdf it can mostly figure the title ect! Which is nice when you have pile of pdfs with unhelpful titles. Plus it has tagging! So now my horde of pdfs about Chinese history is much better organized and I can find things more easily. Also I made a pretty bibliography for my most recent fic.

*for June I've decided that I'm going to sew whatever I feel like! I've been working on a quilt top that I have no plans for I just want to make it. Its strip quilt and I had all the strips put together so its going pretty fast. I can't remember when I first started it but probably years ago, so it will be nice to finish it up. (It took me forever to bind the chicken quilt but it's finished now!)

I finally finally finished the second summer top I was sewing for the kid yesterday! It's been "almost done" for about two weeks and I was feeling very frustrated with it, so its relief to have finished it.

Next I'm going to bind the chicken quilt. Which is the last step I need to do to finish that.

The shirt pattern that I make for the kid all the time has adult sizes as well. The pattern company an had a sale last month and I bought the adult size range. I'm planning to try making one for myself! I've had a weird block about sewing things for me, but I'm hoping trying a very familiar pattern will help.

I couldn't resist buying some very cute fabric with books and cats and I also bought few other things I'd been eyeing. So I got fun fabric mail yesterday

I have been meaning to come here and chat about my sewing projects but a lot has been going on.

We had another storm, and last Tuesday at noon or power went out and remained out until Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. our house got really cold. It's surprisingly difficult to focus even on things that can be done without power while the power is out. So my week has been disrupted.

Meanwhile my family has been having various medical issues my mother fell and now the chip in her humerus. Unfortunately she's in a lot of pain.

And my mother-in-law had a tooth extracted and is slowly recovering. She's on a soft food diet right now.

But I want to give you a quick sewing you update anyways. I finished the short sleeved top I was working on. And cut out another one which I haven't started sewing yet. And I have made a little bit of progress with one of the baby quotes I'm working on piecing. Plus the kid has wanted to do some small projects. We made a quilt and are working on some pillows for her stuffies. It continues to be slow going but satisfying.

So in the beginning of January I decided not to post a set of monthly goals here, something that I'd been doing for years but was feeling overwhelming. I've been meaning to write a bit about how that's going.

I generally have goals about writing, sewing, classical Chinese, and holidays and events.

I did a fair amount of writing in January. I'm still tracking how many days I write (A day counts if I write at least three sentences) and I wrote on 18 days last month and posted a 2.5k nonfiction rec list. February isn't off to a good start writing wise as I've been sick a lot but am slowly working on another post of Lady Business

Sewing has also been up and down due to hand pain. I finished another kid shirt (picture) and played around with two new quilt tops. Also I did a craft exchange with a friend where I traded a quilt top for having a quilt quilted! It looks so good! Currently I am very slowly working on a short sleeved top for the kid. I've been having a lot of wrist pain the last couple of weeks so I can't go very fast.

Classical Chinese has not been going very well. I've been doing my electronic flash cards everyday but not making progress in my textbooks. I'm running into the difficulties of studying a dead language, where I really want things to read that aren't my text book. Also I still need to learn so much vocabulary!

So I think that not having monthly goals hasn't made a big difference in how much I'm getting done. And I am really liking the freedom to just sew things with less concern about finishing on time. So I don't plan to go back to posting monthly goals. But maybe I'll try to post a bit more about my various projects in other contexts. I do like talking about them

I always try to spend time making things and learning things, as that makes me happy. So I wanted to reflect on what I made and learned in 2022.

In 2022 I struggled to sew because of my tendonitis. But I did finish several things despite that. I made three shirts, two pairs of shorts and a dress – all for the kid. I also finished a complicated quilt top, and made some drawstring bags to use as reusable gift wrap.

In terms of cooking tendonitis is once again a dominant presence as I’ve been working on finding ways to cook that don’t hurt my wrist. I’ve tried several gadgets ment to help with cooking with hand pain. My favorite is the curved blade which lets me do some chopping with my non-dominant hand. I've also been trying more shortcuts. Pre chopped frozen onions are very handy!

My biggest learning project continues to be teaching myself Classical Chinese, which I enjoy but am very slow at. In 2022 I studied lessons 4-13 in A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese by Paul Router and Lessons 1-7 in An Introduction to Literary Chinese by Michael A. Fuller. I finished the intro section in Router and didn't feel ready for the next section. So I decided to do the intro section of another book. I got through many fewer lessons than if I was taking a class but hopefully going at my own pace means I'll be able to solidify my knowledge before moving on.

I've also been reading non fiction. I'm still deeply interested in Chinese history with a focus on material culture. I'm also in an urban planning book club, which is very fun.

In 2022 I organized some group reading about Chinese history. Here on DW I hosted a read along for The Social Life of Inkstones. It was fun to read everyone's thoughts on the book.

I have also organized a monthly paper reading club in one of my discord servers. We read a paper once a month and talk about it. We all struggle a little to make time for it, but we've had good conversations. Plus it has helped me read more papers, not just hoard them on my hard drive.

I don't have any specific goals for learning and making this year. Just hoping for more focus and less pain.

Well December is over, time to look at how I did at my goals for the month.

1)Write fic or Lady Business posts on 15 days.
Nope only 9 days. Once I posted Suibain Reads I really wasn't feeling inspired to write more fic and the last part of the month was hectic

2) Finish the second shirt
Done! (Picture via Instagram)

3) Sew some reusable gift bags
Also Done!(Picture via Instagram)

4) Rec a thing everyday
Done, check out my #DecRecs tag to see what I recced

5) Winter Break and Winter Holidays
Today is New Years (observed) and tomorrow the kid goes back to school. Break has been a lot of people being sick, but we did mange a few outside expeditions, and a couple of gatherings. I had people over for latkes twice, and we also did some Christmas stuff with family

6) Finish the intro section in An Introduction to Literary Chinese
Nope. I manged to finish lesson 7, but I got very stuck on lesson 8 and decided to take a break until I am a bit better rested.

In December at least one member of my household was sick everyday of the month. It was exhausting even though I myself wasn't sick very much. So starting the new year feeling rather blagh

I'd normally write up some goals for the coming month here, but I'm feeling overwhelemed. The last couple of months I've been struggling with setting right sized goals. So I'm going to not post any goals for this month an see how I feel about it.

It's the middle of the month so it's time to see how I'm doing at my goals for month.

1)Write fic or Lady Business posts on 15 days.
I have written on 7 days so far. I was hopping to front load this goal bit more since I'm going to have less time to write later in the month. Oh well. On the other hand I posted the fake book review fic!

2) Finish the second shirt
Done! (Picture via Instagram)

3) Sew some reusable gift bags
I've got all of these cut out, and I have even sewn one!

4) Rec a thing everyday
So far on track with this. (I'll post another batch of recs here in a few days)

5) Winter Break and Winter Holidays
None of the holidays my household observes have started yet, but I have laid in a supply of potatoes and Hanukkah candles. Winter Break starts at the of this week.

6) Finish the intro section in An Introduction to Literary Chinese
I'm a little behind where I'd like be having not quite finished the 1st of the two remaining lessons. I'm not sure why it's going slowly.

How is your month going so far?

Somehow its December already. So its time to look back on my goals for last month and set some new goals.

Here are the goals I set for November:

1) Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Break
Thanksgiving went really well! I was able to invite my parents a few local friends and I got to feed people! I also did a good job of enlisting help with cooking and not over doing things with my wrist. The kid was sadly sick for all of her break so we didn't do any expeditions.

2)Write fic or Lady Business posts on 15 days.
I wrote on 16 days, mostly on my reviews of fake books fic which is now around 3k words, and still very fun to write.

3) Sew two long sleeve shirts for the kid
I sewed one and got started on the second. I keep over estimating how much sewing I can do in a month. here is a picture of the shirt I did finish.

4)Complete another classical Chinese lesson, stretch goal: complete a second one
I did great at this I finished lesson 13 in A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese then did lesson 6 in An Introduction to Literary Chinese and even a bit of lesson 7. Switching back more beginner lessons was nice because suddenly things where a lot easier, which means that I've learned something!

November had lot going on. Our house was painted which was very noisy, the kid was sick a lot, my mother in law had cataract surgery. I deliberately set myself smaller goals than I sometimes do because I knew that the painting and the surgery would make things more difficult. However I did succeed at my scaled back goals!

December is always a busy month so I'm going to keep setting scaled back goals for this month. My December goals are:

1)Write fic or Lady Business posts on 15 days.
Keeping it a smallish number of writing days again

2) Finish the second shirt

3) Sew some reusable gift bags
Since my wrist isn't so good traditional wrapping paper has been difficult for me, so I thought I would make some drawstring bags to but presents in. I have lots of good fabric for this!

4) Rec a thing everyday
I love recing stuff and social media has been a bit quieter so I'm going to try to rec a thing every day in December. (Where a thing can be fanfic, profic, non-fiction, visual media, tea, sewing patterns, something else I haven't thought of yet.) I plan to cross post between Twitter and Mastodon and use the tag #DecRecs.

I posted about this yesterday and several people are going to join in and rec things! I'm very excited! (I have already bought two ebooks and added several things to my marked for latter)

5) Winter Break and Winter Holidays
The kid has two weeks off school, and there are several holidays happening this month

6) Finish the intro section in An Introduction to Literary Chinese
This is lesson 7 which I've started on and lesson 8, so not a huge amount. I think I can do it!

I hope you all have a wonderful December!

It's the middle of the month so I'm reviewing my goals for the month. It turns out that having our house painted is very noisy actually, also the kid was home sick for a good chunk of last week, so I have been struggling a bit to get things done. Here's how its going so far.

1) Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Break
I have menu planned! Also I have arranged to have some help with the chopping and other wrist work. That's a reasonable amount of stuff done at this point.

2)Write fic or LB posts on 15 days.
I've written on 6 days! I started a really fun fic project of writing book reviews form the POV of fictional characters. Will it be story shaped? Probably not, but I finished a plotly fic and now its time to frolic with small weird things!

3) Sew two long sleeve shirts for the kid
I have one shirt partial constructed, and the other one cut out. I would have preferred to have one of them finished at this point, but progress is being made.

4)Complete another classical Chinese lesson, stretch goal: complete a second one
I did this! And I made some progress of second lesson! (It helps that I switched from the main text book where I'm at lesson 14, to my secondary textbook where I'm at lesson 6. But its nice that lesson 6 feels easy, because maybe I am actually learning stuff?)

I would have liked to be a bit more ahead because I know the second half of the month is going to be busy, but circumstances have not be favorable.

How is your month going so far?

It's November already!

Here are my October goals and how I did on them:

1)Write fic or LB posts on 20 days. Stretch Goal actually post something!
I only manged 16 writing days, but I did post two things. (Short and Sweet: Collections and Anthologies and My Very Own Star)

2) Baste Chicken baby quilt
I made the back for this but didn't get any further.

3) Sew a garment for the kid
I completed a dress! (picture on Instagram)

4)Celebrate the kid's birthday!
After the the celebrations mention in the last goal post we also had small outdoor birthday party which went well. Fun was had and cupcakes where eaten.

5) Halloween!
I didn't end up making much for the holiday this year. The kid wore an old costume my mom made for me, and she asked someone else to help with the cookies she brought for her class party. I did design a pumpkin which R helped me carve. Trick-or-treating went well too!

6) Two more Classical Chinese lessons
I struggled with this and only manged to complete one

Between my wrist problems and getting a cold I wasn't able to get as much done as I hoped. I'm still learning my new limits and I don't like it. For next month I'm going to try setting less ambitious goals.

1) Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Break
I'll be hosting a small family Thanksgiving and the kid will have the whole week off school.

2)Write fic or LB posts on 15 days.

3) Sew two long sleeve shirts for the kid
Going to use a simple pattern I have made many times before, so this should be easier than last months dress.

4)Complete another classical Chinese lesson, stretch goal: complete a second one

Also this month we are having the outside of our house painted and my mother in law is having cataract surgery.

I hope you all have good November!

This month feels like its running away with me. So its few days past the middle of the month a we are overdue for a goals check in. So here we go

1)Write fic or LB posts on 20 days. Stretch Goal actually post something!
I've made great progress on my fic, I finished a second draft with no more bit that are like "[some vague notes]" In terms of posting something I have one thing that's mostly ready to post on Lady Business, but I need someone to go over it for SPAG.

In terms of writing days I've written on 8 so far. Since I currently have couple of things waiting for feedback I'm not I'm not sure when it will make sense to work on them again. I guess I could start a new thing?

2) Baste Chicken baby quilt
I've made the back of this so now I have all the things I need.

3) Sew a garment for the kid
Making progress on this, the dress I cut out is partway done. Going slower than I'd like because I have to take breaks to manage wrist pain.

4)Celebrate the kid's birthday!
Her birthday was last week! We made cupcakes for her to take the class. I made her favorite dinner on her birthday, and she made herself a chocolate cake with help form grandma. We also went to a family party for fall birthdays earlier in the month that my mom hosted. Still to come: small outdoor birthday party.

5) Halloween!
We still need to figure out what the kid will be for Halloween. She wants to try on my old cat consume so I need to dig that up.

How is your month going so far?

I'm back form camping, it was very fun and also exhausting! I'm now home and showered and it's been October for a few days so it's time for monthly goals

Here are my goals for September:

1) Continue wrist treatment
Post OT things continue to be up an down. I can do things though, I have to be more careful than I really like. Still its vast improvement over not doing things

2) actually finish the rainbow quilt top
I did it! Finally! And I think it looks awesome. Pictures on Instagram and Twitter

3) Post something on ladybusiness
I read over and edited one of my wips, but then didn't send it to anyone for editing. Instead I got distracted by my fic wip.

4) Finish a second draft of my current fic WIP
Not quite, I wanted to write all the missing bits before considering the draft complete, and I made progress on them but didn't finish.

5) Do two lessons in one of my classical Chinese textbooks
Done! I got to start the Assassin Retainers section in A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese by Paul Router which is exciting for me!

I would have liked to do better at my writing goals, but I feel ok about how well I did on my projects in September. here are my goals for October

1)Write fic or LB posts on 20 days. Stretch Goal actually post something!
Rather than trying to finish things I'm just going to try to keep making progress. A writing day counts if I write at least 3 sentences or edit and least a page.

2) Baste Chicken baby quilt
I'm making up this quilt top for a new baby arriving in my community this winter. I have all the materials already. i want to baste it (basically gluing together the layers before I sew them together) before the rainy season starts as its an outside task that I can't do when its wet out.

3) Sew a garment for the kid
This will probably be the dress she picked out fabric for last month which I have already cut out, but I'm also planning some long sleeve shirts for her.

4)Celebrate the kid's birthday!
I have already committed to nice dinner on the day of and family party for with other fall birthdays

5) Halloween!
This can be fairly low key I hope. I need to figure out a costume for the kid and take her trick-or-treating

6) Two more Classical Chinese leasons
Planning to do some more Assassin Retainers!

I hope you all have great October!

I mentioned in my last post that I have been able to do more things with my wrist. I'm still very happy to be able to do more things! I though would talk about a few of the things I've been doing recently.

*I went to the fabric story with my mom and got things to turn one of my finished baby quilt tops into an actual quilt! This will absolutely not be finished by the baby shower next week, but there's a good chance I can get it done before the kid turns one. I also let the kid pick out fabric for me to make her a dress, which should be a fun project

*R backed a game called Flamecraft on kickstarter and his copy arrived the other day. It's supper cute game featuring adorable dragons! R called in a "medium weight worker placement game" Anyways ways we played it the other day and it was fun and adorable! There is art of small dragons carrying large cakes, and making fancy coffee drinks. There's a bakery called Critical Rolls! We are planning to play again soon.

*I got a lovely brush fountain pen for my birthday but I wasn't able to use it due to my wrist. But now that things are a little better and my OT advised using larger writing implements I've started using it to practice writing a hanzi. I mostly just write the same characters over and over but it's nice. between the long break in practice and getting used to my new pen my handwriting is not very good, but it's improving

The subjective experience of time continues to be very strange, but its now the middle of September so it's time to see how my goals are going.

1) Continue wrist treatment
I had and appointment with my OT and things are better now! She gave me some strategies for doing things in a ways that hurt less. My wrist still hurts, but I can do a lot more things and feel much happier.

2) actually finish the rainbow quilt top
The only progress on this is that I have order and new more ergonomic rotatory cutter, and I'm waiting for it to arrive before I do more.

3) Post something on ladybusiness
No progress on this.

4) Finish a second draft of my current fic WIP
I've revised a lot of this and fixed many problems but I've still got some missing scenes that I'm not sure how to write

5) Do two lessons in one of my classical Chinese textbooks
I have done one lesson. It's so nice to be working on this again!

Considering that I still have bum wrist and that we had a long heatwave last week, I'm feeling good about how far along I am with these goals. I'm still getting used to being able to do things but needing to pace myself, and I haven't figured out a new rhythm yet, but I'm getting there.

Hello everyone. Last week was the first week in years where I didn't post anything here. I have been a bit overwhelmed (Nothing too serious, just lots of little things)

Since its the beginning of a new month let see how I did on last months goals.

1) Continue wrist treatment
Well I got the steroid shot (turned out not be be cortisone, but a different steroid that I forgot the name of, beta-something) Anyway it helped a lot! My hand mostly doesn't hurt now! However I'm scared to do too much and mess my wrist up again, so I'm still rather limited in what I am doing. But I am typing a little and that seems to be going ok.

2) Back to school
This is going well. The kid seems to be enjoying the school year so far, and we've mostly gotten into a routine.

3) Write on ten days
I did great at this! A friend cheer/beta read my messy draft and I was able to work on the second draft, and write on 14 days! I was right that doing some more writing would make me feel better too. Also editing stuff on my phone isn't has bad as I thought it would be.

Goals for next month:
1) Continue wrist treatment
I've got a OT appointment a week for today, so I suspect that there will be ongoing exercises.

The next goals are all assuming my wrist continues to improve

2) actually finish the rainbow quilt top
This is so close! I just need my wrist to be ok enough.

3) Post something on ladybusiness
I have a couple of things drafted or partially drafted so hopefully I can make this happen

4) Finish a second draft of my current fic WIP
I've made some progress on this already! There's still some major problems to fix, but hopefully if I keep working on it slowly but steadily I can fix it.

I don't want to get too ambitious, so I'll stop there for now. How is your start of September going?

ETA: I know I said I didn't want to get too ambitious but I thought of one more thing
5) Do two lessons in one of my classical Chinese textbooks
I've been able to write enough to finish up the lesson I was working on before I got put on strict rest. While I was resting I studied a lot of vocabulary on Skritter with my phone so I'm a bit ahead and can work on either textbook for the moment! I'm not sure which lessons I'll end up working on, but I'm excited to get back to my textbooks!

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Entries tagged with sewing

DecRecs part 3: Days 9-12

Sewing Update

Doll Hanfu Update

Sewing Project

DecRecs 25-30

bits and bobs: sick kid edition

Sewing Update

Update

Goal-less Update

2022 Making and Learning

December Goals Wrap Up

December Goals Check In?

New Month New Goals

Mid November Goals Check In

Goals Again

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Goals, all the Goals!

Doing Things

Mid September Gold Check in

More Goals!