yuuago | Entries tagged with crafting

I kind of like the idea of writing with fountain pens, but from what I remember hearing, they aren't very friendly for lefties. The closest experience I have is with glass dip pens, and those didn't work very well for me (though eh, maybe I should give it another try some day; I still have it). Not to mention that my art is hideous and using a pretty pen won't make it any less hideous.

Came across a blog post* recommending special kind of nibs for the left-handed issue. I didn't realize that such a thing existed.

Not that I need another hobby, mind you. And I certainly don't want to turn into a Pen Enthusiast (it seems to be an... expensive hobby). And once you get a pen, you need to get inks, and paper that the inks won't bleed through, and....

Maybe I'm just feeling restless for something art-adjacent?

+ Still not feeling super chatty for Reasons. But. Here we are.

+ I am so happy that we're getting more sunlight now. It's 8PM and there's still tons of light out! Amazing! ...And tons of snow, but hey, one can't have everything.

+ Last weekend, I went to a free pysanky workshop at the library. Ordinarily, I'd just make them myself at home, but I forgot to buy dyes, so... hey, why not. It was fun! The workshop was put on by someone from the Ukrainian Cultural Society. (Come to think of it, I should have asked her more about that - but I'm sure some other opportunity will come up.) Anyway, I did finish my pysanka, so that's cool - removed the wax at home using the oven method.

+ Recently finished reading Athabasca by Alistair Maclean. It's a thriller centred around industrial sabotage; part of it takes place in Alaska, and the other part takes place in... Fort McMurray! It was kind of a novelty to read something set in my hometown, lack of accuracies and all. Though I did have to turn my brain off and stop trying to make sense of the town's layout per the novel after it became clear that the author didn't know much about the place beyond whatever industrial research he'd done, hah. (There was one bit where I was wracking my brain, trying to think of what kind of drinking/dancing establishments would have been open pre-1980. "He can't be talking about the fucking Oil Can Tavern, can he?!" I thought. Oh, boy.)

+ Music: "If Sabaton Wrote Blue Da Ba Dee" - sent to me by

kanadka and I simply had to share. A++ parody, no notes. The vocals are a good match (not quite there, but good match) and the musical sound is spot-on. This is probably one of those things that isn't so funny if you aren't familiar with Sabaton's work, but perhaps it can stand on its own as a parody of power metal cheesiness.

+ As usual, hope you all are having a great weekend. :V

Snow again! Augh! It was cold and wet today, very good for staying inside and doing not much. (Aside from when I spent an hour in line at the bottle depot first thing in the morning... Sigh.)

I spent a lot of the day lounging around, watching movies while I tackled the pile of mending that's been sitting around for a couple weeks. Finished most of it! The only piece left that needs to be fixed is a hoodie with extremely frayed cuffs. I'm probably going to end up cutting off the cuffs entirely, then fixing the raw edges with bias tape. The sleeves were way too long to begin with, so this'll (theoretically) leave me with tidy sleeves that are the correct length. ...Hopefully.

Anyway! These are the movies I went through today:

Velvet Goldmine. One of my exes gave me this one back when we were a thing. I disliked it the first time I watched it; didn't care about any of the characters in it at all. You'd think somebody faking his own death would hold my attention for at least a while, but no. Taking another look now, I can appreciate the music at least, but beyond that I feel nothing much. From what I remember, at the time, there wasn't a whole lot out there that was 1. kinda' gay, and 2. easily accessible. So for a while, this title would come up a lot - one of those "if you're anywhere on the rainbow spectrum you have to watch this, no ifs ands or buts, you're contractually required" sort of things. But I just couldn't connect with it. Maybe if I were into glam rock it'd have had some effect.

And also:
City Heat. An '80s film set in the prohibition era in which a private investigator and a police lieutenant team up to solve a murder. Picked this one up over a decade ago when I was going through a weird '30s phase, but I haven't revisited it since. Anyway, it's a buddycop shoot 'em up slugfest. I did remember that; but what I didn't remember about it is that it's actually pretty funny. This isn't a gritty noir; it's solidly on the "action with comedy" side of things. Lots of banter, good comedic timing overall, some great visual gags. I was actually pretty surprised by how fun it was. Might put it on my list of things to rewatch when I need something to lift the mood.

---
And so. Since we'll probably get more snow tomorrow, I'm likely to curl up and hibernate with more movies, probably, until winter is over. ;p (Spring is a figment of the imagination, it's made up for television, it doesn't actually exist, we step right from winter to construction season, yadda yadda yadda.)

+ FTH is complete. Won auctions for two beta readings, hooray! So, I have one lined up for IIBB (which I will of course be doing this year) and one that I will probably use for my upcoming KLD assignment. One of them is actually familiar with Hetalia (though not currently in the fandom) which was a pleasant surprise.

+ All the units in my building are getting their main water shut-off valves replaced. Now it's my turn. Which means there's a huge hole in the wall of my laundry room (they're replacing the drywall tomorrow). Looks like I'll have to do some repainting in summer, when I'll be able to open the windows. Oh, well. /throws hands in air

+ I didn't do any pysanky last year. Thinking about doing it this year. A little bit on the fence about it. It's a little late to order dyes, and if I remember right, the only dye I have left is blue. So, I could do blue background + white details. ...The thought of all the work involved in making these even with just one round of dye is making me feel exhausted, but uh, that's a problem for Future Yuu.

+ Some of my favourite clothes have been looking very worn-out lately. SO, I checked out every book the library has on mending, and bought some thread. We'll see how this goes. I've made attempts at fixing pinholes and whatnot previously, but always very slapdash, so hopefully it'll go better if I look up some how-to beforehand. Even if it turns out well, I won't be able to wear any of these to work any more, but that's all right - I'll demote them to exercise gear.

+ I've started reading the Citrus manga. A friend mentioned the title once, and I figured I'd take a look. At first I was a little put off by the risqué cover art, but there's more plot and character development than I expected. I'm actually enjoying it a lot more than anticipated; Yuzu is a lovely protagonist, and I like her a lot. Anime/manga titles that people recommend to me are usually either m/m or have m/m vibes, so reading something with f/f is a nice change of pace.

+ Will be drastically reducing internet use in the upcoming month(s). Partly this is due to current events. But mostly it's because, as usual, spring is the busiest season at my work, and I need to avoid straining my hands and hurting them from overuse. Of course, I'll still be reading all your entries! Just might not be able to respond. I will be available via DW comments and PM as always if anyone needs to contact me or just wants to say hi - just expect a longer response time than typical. <3

I finished making my pysanky for this year yesterday.

( Photo under the cut )

I did a few things differently than previous years - I haven't used the crosshatching technique before - and I like the effect that gave.

Kept running into some trouble with the kistka getting clogged, though. I'm going to give both of them a good clean.

There is a type of cleansing dye that you can get, and I think I'll try that next year. Basically, you use it to strip/"wash back" strong colours so that you can put another colour over it. It can be difficult to get a really vibrant red when dying over orange, or a clear black when dying over red, so apparently this technique allows for crisper colours. I'm really curious to see how effective it is. Though, that'll need to wait until next year of course. ;)

One thing I would love to try is drop-pull pysanky, but I don't have the necessary things for that, so I'm going to have to shelve that thought for a while.

Oh boy.

My mom's become interested in cake decorating lately, so we spent some time this afternoon experimenting with that. She bought some "Russian" piping tips, and they're really interesting to work with. They make flowers, and instead of doing each petal individually, you pipe the whole flower in one go.

You can see how they work over here - there are lots of examples on the internet, this is just one of them. I didn't use the buttercream recipe from here - ours does not require eggs.

I posted some examples of my attempt on tumblr. They didn't turn out quite as nice, but then again, I never even use regular cake tips, never mind fancy ones, so I guess it's not a bad attempt. ;)

This was also my first time using gel food colouring. I really like it! I'd only used liquid drip before, and found it hard to get a vivid, consistent colour. I thought it would be hard to find, but it turns out our grocery store does carry gel colour; I'd just never noticed it before.

Also, when doing two colours, I find that using plastic wrap is more convenient than just putting it directly into the bag. You spread the bolder colour out in a line, and then you put a line of the lighter colour down the centre of that line, and then you use the plastic wrap to roll them over another. And then you put the icing, inside the plastic wrap, into your piping bag.If I wasn't doing this, I probably would have made even more of a mess....

Anyway, I don't want to look at frosting ever again, thank you. ;p I've had quite enough for now.

I came across this video on using drop-pull tools to make pysanky: Malowanie pisanek woskiem pszczelim (With English subtitles)

I always liked the way this kind looks - it's amazing what you can do with something as simple as a pin stuck in a pencil. *_* Maybe I'll try this kind some time - but for now I'll stick with the kistky I've been using; the kind with a well for the wax, that you heat with a candle. You can do drop-pull with a candle as well, or so I've heard, but... far easier with some kind of heating element to keep a pool of hot wax, which I don't have.

...Also, I will have to remember next time, the tip for keeping the hand stabilized on the table. I never remember to do that, which probably explains a lot about why my lines wobble all over the place! ;p

Okay, so! I made some pysanky again this year. :D

( Photo under cut! )

This took roughly one evening + one day, as well as a bit of extra time for the guidelines and emptying eggs and such.

I like the colour scheme that I used this year (a so-called "Trypillian" set) but I wasn't as happy with the dyes themselves - I used a different company this year than last year, and I feel like I had to leave the eggs in them much longer than I had to last year, in order to get a nice deep colour. And even after leaving the eggs in the black for 10 minutes, it was still not as much of a nice, crisp, deep black as last year's shade - you can't really tell by the photograph, but it's very obvious in real life.

This year's dyes were by Ukrainian Eggcessories, and last year's were by Best Pysanky. I think I will use BP's next year - or at the very least for the black. I was, however, very impressed with UE's Yukon Gold; it's a gorgeous deep colour and I was very happy with that one and will definitely use it again.

When I was in Victoria, I was able to pick up a book on writing pysanky: Eggs Beautiful: How to Make Ukrainian Easter Eggs by Johanna & Loretta Luciow and Anna Kmit. Having a paper reference was really helpful with deciding how to do the eggs this year. Quite an improvement over previous. Aside from some actual designs, they provide lots of little ideas for individual embellishments and band styles etc. I didn't follow any of these exactly, but I did draw inspiration from there.

This year, I put down guidelines in pencil before applying wax. Just the main lines; I didn't draw everything. I was kind of worried that it would be visible through the dye, and to a degree it is. But a lot of it gets wiped off during the wax-removal process, and you can't really see it unless you look very closely, so I think I'll do this next year as well. It's still very difficult to get lines actually straight rather than wobbling all over the place, but at least with the pencil down it's easier to get them more or less in the ballpark of where I want them to be.

I bet next year's will be even better. ☆

MAN, I forgot that making pysanky takes FOREVER. It's so time consuming! I was at it for hours this evening, and I'm still nowhere near done.

Somebody, please come help me put wax on these damn eggs. xD

Aha! The dye I ordered for my eggs arrived! And plenty of wax too. Excellent. :D

I went with so-called "Trypillian" colour scheme this year (like these). I don't think I'll go with that style of design, but I do like the palette. Last year I used yellow/orange/red/black, so this earthy aesthetic isn't that much of a departure, but still different enough. If I don't like the results this year, I'll just go back first year's palette.

(I do have packets of blue and green somewhere, but I never bothered to use them.)

Hmm, I have eight shells hollowed out... that's more than enough. Mom wants me to do a complete dozen, but no!! Eight is already too many! Especially since she insisted on keeping the batch from last year - I have absolutely no idea why; I had intended these to be disposable crafts. OH WELL.

Last year, I tried to do all of the pysanky in the span of two days... that was kind of too much all at once. It was exhausting. I'm going to try to space it out a bit more this year. Hopefully that will go as planned. ;p

Aha! So, I finished my eggs this morning. :D

( Image under cut )

A few thoughts (and notes to self for next time):

+ It's both easier and more difficult than I thought it would be. The process is pretty simple, the dye works well, it isn't anywhere near as messy as I expected, and removing the wax is a breeze if you do it in a certain way.

+ ...But it's VERY HARD to make a straight line with the kistka. xD Or even a neat line that is not straight. So, I quickly gave up on any thought of doing stuff resembling traditional designs. I don't have that kind of control yet. (Maybe I will eventually). I've seen stencils/templates/guides that can be used to make straight lines and clean circles, so I might try that next year.

+ There were a couple of times when I ran out of ideas. Planning the pattern ahead might be necessary. ;p

+ It's rather time-consuming, especially if you are doing this many. Next time, I will start at an earlier date, do them over a longer period of time - I did these in two sessions (+ a bit of time to remove the wax this morning), and it really would have been better to... spread it out.

+ Another thing that is time consuming: preparing the wax in the first place. It's not hard, but since I was using block wax, it took a while to break it up. I decided to use a cheese grater to do that, which has the advantage of resulting in pieces that are the perfect size to fit in the kistka. But next time I might try using the sheet wax method; it might mean I can skip this step.

+ When I think about it, the most difficult part is blowing out the eggs. It can be a little challenging to use the hand-drill without making any cracks if you don't have steady hands. I can understand why some people drain the egg after the wax + dye process; with full eggs, you don't need to plug them + hold them down while you dye them, because they won't float, so it's more convenient. But I broke a few shells while trying to drain them, and the thought of doing so much work and then having that happen gives me hives.

+ (Incidentally, the egg that you drain in this process is perfect for zapping in the microwave. A++, I've never had microwave-poached eggs cook so evenly. Excellent for sandwiches.)

+ For wax removal, I can't be bothered with holding it up to a candle, man. Oven is better. Process: Set oven to 225F (or anywhere from 200-250 would do it). Line the bottom of a baking pan with paper towel. Bake your eggs for 10 minutes; wipe off excess wax with paper towel - eggs with lots of coverage might require to go in for another 10 minutes. THERE. DONE. NO FUSS, NO MESS, NO SPECIAL EQUIPMENT. Brilliant.

So, anyway. I will definitely be doing this next year. And probably on other occasions. Especially since the wax application process isn't as messy as I had thought - as long as you're neat and have your wax ready, it's no problem at all. I could do it in my bedroom, probably. The dye process is the only bit that would require setting paper down.

It's tired and I'm cold, so I'm just going to jot a few things down.

☆ I'm going to be learning to write pysanky this year - do traditional eggs using wax-resist method. Making the holes and blowing out the eggs is surprisingly easy if you have the right gadgets; I hope to have several ready when it gets closer to Easter. I know that my first tries won't look very nice, but that's okay. Doing it well will take practice, and if I don't like the results, it's easy enough to just toss them and try again next year.

☆ Fic rec: Folie finally finished the long VME casefic she has been working on for months, and it's SO GOOD. Read it here: Lest the Devil Close His Fist 20.6k of mystery, thriller, and a miracle that turns out to be... well... not quite. I think it's possible to understand and enjoy this one even if you haven't seen the canon, as long as you know the basic premise of Vatican Miracle Examiner. (VME in a nutshell: two priests from the Vatican travel around to various locations in order to test whether reported miracles are genuine. There, that's the canon, now you know enough to read the story. ;p )

☆ I think maybe the weather is making me exceptionally tired... It's starting to get lighter out, but ughhh, not fast enough. Winter will be over when? (At least two months more of it. Sigh.)