M'lisilinaath Thabana

naath @ 2008-05-30T22:41:00

2008-05-30T22:57:07Z

Now for something completely different!

Obviously we all remember that dress wot I started ages ago ( linky for those new to my LJ or forgetful, or not paying attention at the time or etc. etc. Progress has been made!

So now we get to enjoy poorly taken photographs, because my photography skills are much much less good than my sewing skills.

Anyway; first up lets pretend the dress is done (ha ha), here it is all laid out on my bed except for the underskirt. However the sleeves are pinned on where they will eventually be tied in place. The scraps of paper to the side are "R" and "L" labels for the sleeves, so I don't get confused as to which is which.

Next, the outer skirt. This actually is finished, although it needs to have rings tied to it on the inside to hitch it up into a bustle-like shape, but I'll leave that until the underskirt is done. It's very long; that wardrobe it is hanging from is taller than me (also you can see the mess that is my room, anyway, moving swiftly on...)

This is the bodice. Which is mostly finished but needs binding around the edges and a modesty panel at the center front. The armscye and top I'm going to do in the purple silk, I have black binding for the tabs (which are going to be fiddly but never actually seen, as they go under the skirt). You can just about see the fancy layered effect with the lace at the front (but the flash was too bright, oops). I think the pattern wants the eyelets for the shoulders to actually be aligned with each other rather than with lotsa ribbon there, but it really doesn't fit if I do that! And the dress is going to have tied on sleeves anyway. If I make this pattern again I shall have to remember to make the shoulder bits longer!

You can just see the inside at the top - the black lines are stitching lines to hold boning (reed) in place, they don't go through to the purple silk though, you can only see them on the inside.

The whole thing was a huge, ugly mess until I actually got the lining attached to the fabric and it all turned right way out, now it mostly looks great apart from the undone binding. So I'm pretty happy with that. Plus it fits, it's a little longer in the body than I might have liked but I'll cope (I need to work out how to fix that in the pattern really, for future reference)

Sleeves next! The sleeves are nearly done, just need binding at the top and ribbons attaching to tie them to the bodice. These are huge pooofy sleeves, which is great. I think maybe some wider/nicer lace would have been good but it is very expensive so I decided against it.

The underskirt has progressed, you can see the new-since-last-time flowers in this picture. I've forgotten what some of them are; one of the blue ones in flax, the red is scarlet pimpernel and the white one under my embroidery hoop is a snowdrop, the finished pale pink is dog rose.

I'm trying to learn to spin. Here is some yarn I spun, some still on spindle. I'm bad at this at the moment, although a lot better than I *was* when I started.

I'm making a big fwuffy jumper out of some wool lark_ascending had and didn't want; it has sleeves

and about half a front (some of you may have seen it with the finished-but-mistake-filled front - I ripped that out because it was bugging me)

Some may question the wisdom of doing cables in bulky wool of many-colours, but me, I'm MAD. I think it looks nice in person, except that the colour of the front is kinda horrid really. Maybe it will be the back (not enough wool to do the front in the same colour).

I'm making myself some kilt socks, one sock down, one to go (cast on and started).

Also I bought this silk yarn, about 100 yards, Aran weight. What shall I do with it? Isn't it very pretty? Mum thinks I shouldn't by yarn just because it looks nice... but! but! PRETTY!

naath @ 2008-05-29T11:01:00

2008-05-29T10:19:36Z

Naamah makes a nice post here about misogyny (warning, it's kinda sweary maybe NWS and your W). Anyway I wanted to pick up on a small part of it.

here's a widespread attitude that stuff on the individual, personal level doesn't count as misogyny -- one guy being an asshole to one woman does not count as misogyny. It absolutely does count. We are talking about a pattern, and a pattern is made up of individual incidents.

That's something I think is very true, but also very hard to *implement* as being part of how-you-live. Because, say, you have a friend and one day that friend says "please help me with my house moving", well, sure, that is a totally reasonable request from one friend to another and you say "sure, I'm capable of that and have free time so I will come and lift things". And that would be fine and normal - you might say "no, sorry, I'm busy/ill/a total wuss" or something and that would be fine and normal too!

So of course you never say "NO WAI, horrid demanding nasty-person that you are!" because that would be unreasonable.

But the next week maybe they say "please help me to mow my lawn" and the next week it's "I need someone to drive me over to the hardware store to pick up this wood" and then "I need someone to come and help with my shelving" and so on and so forth. And each and every one of these examples (and many hundreds of other requests) are things that I put in the "sure, I have the time, effort and tuits for this task" box (well, actually, I'm shit at driving but I do have a licence; I should be your last choice but in an emergency I can do it) and also in the "friends do things for friends" box. None of these many things are *individually* unreasonable.

But at what point do you say "actually, no, I've done lots of things to help you and this is simply asking too much?". That's very hard to define really - and it depends on lots of things (such as how many of *your* DIY projects this friends has assisted with). Do you just say "oh, sorry, I have to go and do made-up-important-thing" or do you tell them "no, my computer game is much more important" or do you shout at them about how mean they are?

And it's the same with lots of sexist crap. Any *individual* incident could simply be part of a normal polite interaction, any *individual* job you didn't get, or promotion you were passed over for and so on could simply be part of the normal give-and-take win-some-lose-some of normal life. You don't want to scream obscenities at every man who holds a door open; you don't want to take every company that doesn't hire you to court - but at some point, some extremely poorly defined point, you realise that it's not just a series of isolated incidents but rather a pattern of people behaving badly towards you.

And then if you go on to complain about *one* incident - because people like to give examples when they talk about things, or at least *I* like to give examples - then people say "oh, well, obviously that could just have been..." and they sound of course very reasonable, because it *could*, and obviously since you have been brought to complete breaking point by the heaps of crap because otherwise you WOULD NOT HAVE BROUGHT IT UP you are probably not in the best position to sound reasonable! And then of course it's all about how "women are so emotional" and "you should think clearly rather than emotionally" which is all just so much shit.

And that leads me to digress slightly. I really fucking hate it when people say "oh, you shouldn't bottle it all up, you should talk about it" especially when these are the EXACT SAME PEOPLE who complain about the "drama" and say "oh, but when you complain about what I do I don't like it" or who say "fuck this shit, I don't want to put up with you daring to expect me to listen to your opinion, if you don't want to just sit there and take everything I throw at you, well then, I'm not going to talk to you any more". It's disgusting. Don't force people to talk about their problems to you unless you are actually prepared to listen, and preferably to attempt to do something actively useful to help.

A thing I hate

2008-05-15T16:03:22Z

I really hate it when people say "you should X more, $good-thing when you X" where X is an INVOLUNTARY REACTION to something (and $good-thing is like, oh, "look pretty" or something, something for their benefit anyway).

If X is a thing I *choose* (like "wear that dress" or "come to my party") and I like you at least enough to put out the effort of choosing X so you can enjoy $good-thing then that's fine, and the phrase is just a request - could be politer (well, depends on what $good-thing is; I think it's politer to ask me to do things for you by saying what benefit *you* will get, not imagining that I will benefit from doing something *you* want; but only a little bit politer) but could be ruder. Maybe I don't like you that much (maybe 'that much' would have to be a great deal, depends on X), but it's still a polite request; even if I'm going to say "no".

But when X is something like "smile" then I just think this is so completely obnoxious. I mean, if *you* want to see me smile (maybe you don't, in which case, dur, you wouldn't be bugging me about it) then *you* should do things that make me happy because when I am happy I smile. Sure, I've got no reason to suppose that you should want to make me happy, and I'm fine with bumbling along and not smiling. And if you think "make naath happy" is over-much effort for "see naath smile" then, well, that's up to you (and no way to I expect all-people to spend lots of effort to make me happy); but you shouldn't tell me to go around faking being happy just so you don't have to cope with the idea that maybe I'm not smiley-happy right now.

(We can substitute many things for "smile" actually, although "smile" is the only thing that comes to mind that is commonly used *in public* in this way and which could easily be done immediately, most of the others are rude or more life-style comments than right-now ones like eg "loose weight").

This post brought to you by reading something libellum wrote about sexism.

And BTW it is *especially* irritating when *total strangers* say shit like this. "Smile, maybe it'll never happen" - well *maybe* it *just did*, take your oversized nosed out of my business.

Linky linky.

2008-05-12T17:17:47Z

At least one person has responded to my comments on the lines of "grrrr men don't get it" with bewilderedness and "but no-one told me it". OK, so, I suck big time at writing coherent prose, and I *really* suck at in-person debating if the subject makes me want to sit in the corner and cry (I either shout, unhelpful, or refuse to say anything, even more unhelpful - I don't like crying in public) (and btw I often *do* go and sit in a private corner and cry - and it's not fair that people expect that just because I try very hard to not do so in public that I don't care, that I won't take your intensely personal comments personally and that I won't spend hours crying, angry at you for being insensitive and at myself for failing to get you to understand).

Anyway. So there are a bunch of things that I read, pretty much daily (give or take going on vacation) where people other than me, with better gifts for prose, talk about the Things I Think People Should Get. Sometimes they are just screaming about how unfair it is; and sometimes they offer rational, informed commentary with clear explanations for the uninitiated. Some of these people write on things that I 'get', some of them write on subjects (like racism) that I personally have no experience of.

I'm very grateful to people who put my howls of frustration into words; and I'm very grateful to people who take the time to explain the mechanisms of oppressions that I don't 'get' so that I can start to learn about them.

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/
:on atheism and sex - NOT WORK SAFE (sex toy advertising)

http://pandagon.blogsome.com/
http://www.feministing.com/
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/
http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/
:(the 4 above) Mostly US-centric feminist blogs; rather more about the US election than is interesting right at the moment, but generally readable.

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/
:about sexism, racism (and the US election; also lots about racism in New Zealand)

http://kateharding.net/
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/
http://www.therotund.com/
http://the-f-word.org/blog/
:fat acceptance stuff (the 4 above)

http://muslimahmediawatch.blogspot.com/
:representations of Muslim women in the media

http://davehingsburger.blogspot.com/
:about disabilities

http://community.livejournal.com/feminist
:It squeues very US, also very "lets argue about trivial things" and has a lot of name calling. All the same it's quite an eye opener for lots of things. In handy LJ flistable form for your reading enjoyment.

http://community.livejournal.com/metafandom/
:OK, it's fandom. But a lot of the things that get discussed are about how people's racist/sexist/other-ist basic assumptions go unquestioned and worm their way into their fannish activities. Which can be interesting. Also some really interesting things have been said about fan communities being mostly female lead and etc. Also, dur, stuff about writing and fandom specific stuff that I bet most of you couldn't give a rat's arse for.

(If you go troll people just because I linked to them I will BASH YOU ROUND THE HEAD WITH A STICK; um, er, be rude to you; um, er, try hard to pretend I didn't notice - I'm a wuss. But please don't.)

naath @ 2008-05-07T10:38:00

2008-05-07T09:50:27Z

foreverdirt linked to this excellent talk about sexism in science, the talk is an hour long and there are introductions before and questions after so it is a bit long, but I think worth it.

One of the excellent points made, and one that I have failed to express when I wanted to, so I'll do it here instead - is saying things like "women are innately worse at science" is *actively harmful* to the progress of women in science, and that if you are thinking of saying such a thing in public then you really ought to be very sure that you are right; that just saying such things with the force of your reputation and your conviction that you are right will cause other people (in this case women) to internalise the message (and as a result be worse at science). It turns out that this has actually *been tested*; if you give girls a maths test then they *do worse on it* if you remind them that girls aren't good at maths before they sit it.

Book Review (ish) [public]

2008-04-21T12:43:33Z

One of my favourite books Of All Time is MZB's "The Saga of the Renunciates" which is actually three novels in one volume (and which I initially read in three volumes but that is neither here nor there).

It's on my "favourite books" list because it's the first book I remember read which makes what I think is a very important point. There are other books that make similar points, many are likely better written, less fanciful, more academic, and etc. etc. I have even read some of them. However this was the *first* I read (I was about 11 or 12) and it made an impression.

The novels have plot of course, but I'm not going to discuss the plot details; but you probably need some background to understand; so, these novels are set on "Darkover", which is an alien planet, they are on the boundary of SF and Fantasy (but probably more Fantasy because they are about People not Science, or something) some "Terrans" have shown up in their spaceships but the native Darkovans (who are human, as it happens) are living in your bog standard quasi-mediaeval fantasy world (which has some magic, which isn't very relevant). What most of the Darkover novels are about (as says MZB in the introduction to at least one of them) is the contrast between Darkovern society and Terran society; the conflicts that the contrasts cause and so on.

The "Renunciates" of the title of this trilogy are a society of women who have Renounced the traditional protections afforded to Darkovan women (such as being cared for by husband/father/brother and so on) in exchange for the freedom to run their own lives (Darkovan women get pretty much the same deal Mediaeval European women got, except for the part with the magic) some of these women Kick Butt professionally but not all of them, although they are all trained in Kicking Butt because on Darkover if you can't Kick Butt and don't have anyone to Kick Butt for you then you end up not being in control of your own life.

So what these books are about is the contrast between the way women live on Darkover and the way women live in the Terran Empire (which is a whole lot like 20th century Earth in terms of values and so on; except with spaceships and blaster guns). On the surface the most obvious thing to conclude is that Darkoven women have The Short End of the the Proverbial Stick - because, dur, Mediaeval society; but the thing that MZB does, that really affected me the first time I read this, and still does *every* time I read it - is to take the pov of a Darkovan woman and look through her eyes at why Terran women do *not* have the Long End, at the subtle ways that Terran women have it just as bad.

One of the interesting points (to me) is that in Darkovan society there is no pretence about equality for women - and women have the clear choice between doing what they are told and having the respect of society or of leaving that behind to get freedom for themselves. Whereas in the Terran society women supposedly have equality so they have much less ability to say "screw you guys, I'm outta here" because society would be more confused about why they felt that it was sexist.

Anyway, I think that's an important point about the Real World that I have to live in - that in spite of all our laws about equality and so forth that we *don't* have real equality, that a lot of people are still very sexist, and not always in obvious ways. And that sexism is (to me) much more harmful when it is subtle than when it is obvious - because obvious sexism is easier to shout back at whereas if you shout at someone for being subtly sexist then they are much more likely to claim that they have no idea what you are on about and so forth. And that inability to find an obvious entry point to start arguing back against that more subtle sort of sexism is something that leaves me feeling very trapped - that either I can just put up with all the shit that gets thrown at me; or I can try to fight back, fail miserably and be shouted at for daring to complain about "nothing".

I don't know whether I'm the only person who thinks these things about these books, maybe I am, certainly I'm not claiming to have read MZB's mind. Or maybe I'm just stating the Extremely Obvious. I don't know.

I also think that it is important that these novels have Women Who Kick Butt in them - something sadly lacking in most fantasy novels, especially in those that strive to be more realistic than a D&D campaign. It's an issue I think she handles very well - that of teaching women who are conditioned to rely on men for protection to learn to protect themselves. Some of the characters take the mercenary work like ducks to water, some don't - to me, much more realistic than a bunch of Warrior Women all of whom really like kicking arse. Again these were pretty much the first fantasy books I read where the women didn't just sit around waiting to be rescued but did some of their own fighting - and they are much more realistic than (also cool) things like Xena. (and yes, I have since read much other really cool, shiny fantasy with excellent women - but they still right the bad sort :( )

naath @ 2008-03-13T23:10:00

2008-03-13T23:44:03Z

So, do we remember the pirate gown of extreme coolness that I was all OMG, I WANT ONE OF THOSE over? (No? shocking have a link)well, the lovely harmanhay is giving the pattern away to subscribers to her magazine (OK, so if you sign up I get referral cookies if you tell them I sent you) for which this post isn't really an *advert* but it is a recommendation (I don't really care about the referral cookies, but maybe you don't believe me) because it's fantastic, but only if you like sewing things...

Anyway, so it a dress of great shiny, and I wanted one.

So I'm making one.

So here are some photos (they are click-through to LJ-gallery for bigger versions) so far

The first thing to do was order fabrics, I haven't actually got everything I need yet but most of the fabric came from some cheap fabric place in the US (which, even with UPS's rip off charge for dealing with paying my duty was still cheaper). It came in a large box...

Inside the box was shiny stuff! Some of this is silk dupion, some of it cotton (for the lining), it's all shiny; have a picture...

or two...

Also I have bought some lace (this is distressingly polyestery, perhaps I shall have to buy some better lace)...

and some ribbon (also polyester, damn John Lewis and their sinful modern-type ways)...

Stage one of making the dress is to make the skirt, which comes in two parts. First, the underskirt - which is, basically a big tube, it's in silk lined with cotton and here's a photo of the back, as you can see the top of it is not finished yet; I need to pleat it (because it's currently about 3* my waist measurement!) and put in a waistband.

But I had this idea, see, which was that the skirts would look so much *nicer* if embroidered. So I bought some embroidery threads (cotton) and a box (or two) to keep them tidy in...

And also some books for reference (no piccy). And began with flowers (have some pictures illustrating my un-l33t embroidery skills)...

The flowers are, right to left, common poppy, honey suckle, bindweed (yes that's a reference), violet, Bluebell (or harebell if you're English), hound's tongue, primrose, hottentot fig and chicory. Suggestion for other pretty flowers to add are welcome.

And that's where I am - not finished embroidering this layer, so not moving on to do the other layers yet. Here's everything back in the box...

So, this is taking a while; it may be some time before the whole thing is finished! Maybe my embroidery will improve along the way.

(And the black velvet backdrop to all of that is my duvet cover btw).

naath @ 2007-07-06T16:20:00

2007-07-06T15:23:46Z

I made this thing work! lalalala working thing! yay.

Bored now... MEME TIME.

2 memes

Would you...

1. give me your number?
2. let me hug you anytime I wanted to?
3. let me kiss you?
4. watch a movie with me...even a really sappy one?
5. let me take you out to dinner?
6. drive me somewhere/anywhere?
7. take a shower with me?
8. have a fling with me?
9. listen to me if I called you crying even if you were out with all of your friends?
10. buy me a drink if i didnt have money?
11. take me home for the night?
12. let me sleep in your bed?
13. sing karaoke w/ me?
14. sit in the doctors office with me because I didn't want to go alone?
15. re-post this for me to answer your questions?
16. come pick me up at 3am because my car ran out of petrol in the middle of nowhere?
17. Do you think im cute or hot?
18. Do you like my style?
19. Do you think I'm funny?
20. cry if I died?
21. dance with me?
22. sing happy birthday to me?
23. take advantage of me if I was drunk?
24. strip for me?

And

Ask me anything (give me something to do!). I'll respond in a later (flocked) post, er, probably on Monday because it's the weekend and I have Packing To Do.

Comments screened (but likely to not stay that way unless you request that they do), anonymous comments allowed, this post uncharacteristically public (so, er, make sure you don't mind comments being public - or ask me to keep them screened).