(no subject)

Small-batch Vanilla Cupcakes-- makes 6. I did, and frosted them with a cocoa-less version of the frosting in the comments (I cut out the cocoa, cut the milk down to about 2 tsp, added a bit more sugar, and used Bailey's instead of Kahlua).

We had those to commemmorate Paul Newman, though we couldn't think of a way to make them relevant.

My back has been intermittently better and awful. I wish I could figure out what was awesome and what was awful and what the correlation is there. The Tiger Balm patch helped a lot initially, and since then it's mostly OK except once in a while I just get a big knife stuck down my shoulder blade. WTF, mostly.
Moving my arm is bad and moving my head is sometimes bad. Who knows?

Watched Sean of the Dead (Shawn?) last night, and was highly amused. I've heard the title a lot but never knew anything about it. Finding out that it was a comedy/drama horror flick helped. Sort of recognizing the neighborhood it's set in was a bit jarring.
We had to put the subtitles on, though. I normally don't have a problem with British accents, but these were the really mumbly sort, and also the TV's built-in sound system isn't very good it seems. Rather muffled.

Weird to have a TV in this house, though.

Got little else done this weekend. I did find out about a really cool craft project thing-- Dreadnought, of the Boston Derby Dames, is doing some sort of thesis and so is collecting quilt squares contributed by members of derby leagues across the country. So today I put together the first experimental version of my roller derby embroidery idea, and I'll work on it tonight during practice.
During practice?
Yes, my neck and my foot are both too bad to skate. I'm pissed, but know I'll only make things worse if I don't stay the fuck off my foot. There's evident tissue damage at the top above where the smallest three toes attach-- it's warmer to touch, and very slightly swollen, and I've narrowed down what of the range of motion hurts the most. It's one of those tendons that goes down the top of the foot, the ones visible through the skin-- the last of them is damaged slightly. It's healing, and improves by the day, but lets its fury be known in no uncertain terms should I do anything so foolish as land wrong on that foot, flex my toes a certain particular way, or put tight shoes on. Since skating involves all three of those, I realize that I must not do it.
Also I can't lean forward and hold up my head, because of the pinched nerve.
I'm a fucking basket case.

It doesn't help that I'm an exercise addict and haven't had any in basically two weeks. Just shifting heavy boxes-- nothing cardio, nothing sufficient to give me any endorphins. I feel wretched, fat, icky, and generally pretty down on life. I know what will make it better, but I can't think of any workout that doesn't involve the neck or foot in any way. Boo. Though I feel like a good workout would work out some of the kinks.. we'll see. I hope I can skate Tuesday-- that would help a lot.

Hm... maybe I'll splurge and use another Tiger Balm patch. That would make sitting and working on embroidery quite a bit easier... Hmm....

need an embroidery icon

I started working on a new embroidery project at practice tonight whilst sitting the wall. I found the photo about two weeks ago (well, it's a combination of this photo, plus this photo, and a little of various others), made a sketch from it a week ago, made another version of the sketch two days ago, and made a third version of the sketch yesterday (copying it over onto an 8 x 8 " square, which involved some re-scaling of things). This morning I manually copied over the drawing onto a 10 x 10 inch square of light cotton-- the stuff I've made shifts out of for SCA stuff. (It's an experiment.) I drew it by hand, after tracing a few key items for size. (You can't really trace pencil lines through cotton, but I tried.)
Then I decided what color everything was going to be, and cut lengths of each floss, divided them into two strands, and wound them onto floss bobbins, so I could bring them with me, clipped onto a binder ring.

Here's what I have so far. I did the helmet, wristguards, elbow pads, and most excitingly, fishnet stockings once I was home; the more mundane outlining of shorts, jersey, and arms and face were done at practice. I'm still settling on what types of stitches to use, but I'm most proud of those stockings-- if you can't see, that's gold thread, laid and couched in a trellis stitch. It's extremely glittery. I'll do the other leg and also the star on her helmet in that same gold thread. Maybe I'll put a little of it in her hair, too-- I was going to make her a brunette but then couldn't find my brown floss. I know!

The teal lines are the water-soluble transfer pen I used. I realized today that if I wet my finger with saliva I can use it to erase the transfer pen. Which is really handy, because sometimes you can't tell what some little bit's going to look like until the transfer lines are gone, but you don't want to go rinse the whole thing off and then have to wait for it to dry.
I can't imagine using an iron-on transfer pattern-- those are indelible lines. I'm not that precise! Sometimes I like a little white space showing between my stitches! Sometimes I like leaving things just hinted-at! I know it's time-consuming to hand-draw the pattern myself, and I'm restricted by my own relative lack of skill at illustration, but I just don't know about those iron-on transfers...

Anyway. My shoulderblade is iffy. Here's me dealing with it, just since i feel like posting pictures.

That blue thing is my heating pad. Yeah, I am so sexy.

So this embroidery thing, it's time-consuming, but so far it's really fun. I dunno though-- maybe I should've saved those fishnets for last, because now I have nothing else to look forward to... Maybe I'll save the other leg. (I was going to put knee socks on the lower legs, striped black and green, but now I want to do more trellis stitch... Decisions, decisions.)