Seize the Stars

I'm afraid I've been horribly neglectful of LJ lately, but the play I'm stage managing opens next week, & there's been lots of work, lots of drama (and I don't just mean in the play itself!) and lots of stress. I really haven't had time for much else, and it'll be even worse when tech week starts on Sunday. 9_9

So I'll try to distract myself from all the worry for a moment with this cool meme, taken from the lovely lost_spook:

1: Pick five fandoms. List them in alphabetical order.

2: Visit this site to find your first RANDOM POEM OF POWER. Write down the 5th line (yes, even if it's an E.E. Cummings poem and you wind up with an apostrophe). Repeat five times and - you guessed it - list 'em in alphabetical order! (No cheating, mind! This is a challenge and it's always been about creativity.)

3: I think you can see where this is going. Write a very quick 50-word half-drabble for each fandom (try to do it all in one sitting - make your brain explode!), using the line from the poem as a prompt. You don't have to include it in the half-drabble - it's just inspiration.

4: Bravo! Have a cookie.

( Drabbles for Anne of Green Gables, Doctor Who, Gargoyles, Lord Peter Wimsey, and ReBoot under the cut )

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That was quite fun! Some of those prompts were frighteningly appropriate for the fandom they matched up with, I must say! And these are actually my first attempts at writing fic for a fandom other than Doctor Who in over a decade, so yay! Trying new things again! (Though I'm not 100% certain the Gargoyles one wasn't actually half-remembered dialogue from the actual show, lol. But the one good point of obscure fandoms is that no one will call you out for it!) ;D

Apparently, spring and fall don't exist anymore. This year we went from winter directly into summer, and now we're going from summer directly back to winter. It is so freaking cold!!! Wasn't I just in a halter top last week? And now I'm in boots and coats and sweaters! Insane Madison weather.

Finished Strong Poison (which needless to say, I loved and adored) and am completey bereft because I didn't preemptively check out The Five Red Herrings from the library already, as is my custom with Wimsey books. Of course, I was tempted to skip it and go right to Have His Carcase, but I'm determined to read them in their original order. I must be strong!

Started on the 1914 doll dress with the good silks after all!!! I had to use a scrap that didn't match for the back of the waistcoat because it was the only thing that was the right weight, but hopefully it won't matter because you'll never see the back with the jacket on anyway! If this works out, it'll be SO lovely. I'll have to find a way to post pictures.

I've actually started drafting my own doll dress patterns! We'll see if any of them turn out!

Meanwhile, I've been pretty unproductive on the 'people costumes' front. I really do want to do one for the Simplicity contest, and I've GOT to make a medieval dress for the upcoming Camelot faire in September, but I can't use the sewing machine when my mum's asleep, because it's too loud, but when she's asleep is the only time I HAVE for sewing! Curses, curses.

It's strange trying to read two books at once; I'm currently in the middle of the first group of Lord Peter Wimsey short stories, and the latest Georgia Nicolson book. Quite a combination! Murder investigations and Viking wedding disco inferno dances merge in one's dreams. Not altogether unamusingly, though!

I would be sewing right now, except that it's so darn hot I think I would die. (Since when does it get to be in the 100s in Wisconsin?!) Sitting in front of the air conditioner and reading is the only option! Just finished the second Wimsey novel; such fun I could die. No nasty melancholia in this one, and high society scandals are so much more my thing anyway! Cheerfulness is back, and I'm officially a Wimsey fan now! And a fan of the Dowager Duchess! She's such a great character! I love this one line she has, it's something like "you may call it deductive reasoning, but I call it mother-wit, and it's so rare for a man to have it that if he does they write a book about him and call him Sherlock Holmes". To be sure, nobody, even Sherlock Holmes, ever had a mother as cool as her!

I have the most smashing idea for a 1912 at home gown for myself, and best of all it would use up this strange yellow paisley fabric I previously had no idea what to do with, but the pattern I was going to use is missing, and the fabric is in the bottom of a stack of bins, and I have no idea what happened to all the fake fur which I would need for the trim. And I have no idea if we have any red fabric that would be suitable for a turban. I used to have a red scarf that would be perfect, but it's totally gone. (Much like my perfectly gorgeous pink and black stiped fabric that I was going to use for my 1914 Ascot dress. And I bought all the matching jewelry for it already! Truth be told, I think both pattern and fabric are in the basement. The damp, moldy basement. I'm so scared right now I cannot even express it. Oh, the woes of a costumer who has just recently moved! You can never find anything again once you move it to a different house!)

The 1805 doll dress is almost finished, it just needs a hem. Believe it or not, the bodice of this darn thing gave me more trouble than either of the fussy Victorian bustle dresses I've done! It must be because it's so darn small; I don't think I've pricked my fingers with the pins that often in my life!

As an amusing aside, when one of the pins drew blood, I remember thinking to myself: "If that pin had been poisoned, I would be dead by now." At which point, the secondary thought occurred to me: "I have been watching WAY too much Miss Marple lately!" So what did I decide to do about it? Watch Lord Peter Wimsey instead! Because obviously "stop watching so many English murder mysteries all the time" is not a thought that would ever cross my mind. You just can't have too many episodes about poison pen letters, can you?

And now that I'm done with the 1805 dress, I'm free to turn my attention to copying every item in Harriet Vane's wardrobe! I actually have the book with the pattern they used for her blouse in the very last scene where she finally accepts Lord Peter. :-D