Today was a good day. Its not like every day is some sort of horror fest, but its nice to be able to just say a day was a good one. I'm not totally over the flu-like misery of the last couple of days, but I felt well enough to get back to some of my normal routine, although a lot later than I prefer. I feel even better tonight, so I think tomorrow will be another good day!

I spent some time working on commission stuff, but mostly spent my sewing time on something for one of my dolls. Normally sewing for myself is saved for the weekend, or later on at night. But, since I am mostly caught up on everything I had been backed up for so long, I figured it wouldn't hurt to spend most of my time today working on a new pattern for my Delfs. I found this amazing hoodie/dress/top on facebook, and I just had to make it for one of my dolls. I initially couldn't decide who to make it for first, but since I needed my Delfs out for a present commission I just started officially this week, I figured it would be really fun to make it for them first. I got my Juri06 head some time ago, and while he is sharing (more like *taken over*) Coal's body, he needs something special just for him to wear. He gets the first one! I will post more on this later, on a blog entry just for this project.

Now, onto the rest of what made my day so awesome! I am almost caught back up on my German after slacking horribly for last 2 weeks plus. Not abandoning it completely, but really slacking. Latin got missed a few times, but German kept getting skipped. I'm almost done going back over the last few chapters to where I can start studying new material again.

And now Latin. I am so excited. I have gotten a really solid hold on the first and second noun declension families. And now I realize how simple the third is! I had been so intimidated at first with the third declension especially as there are several cases that have no set pattern to what they are. Of course it has helped my confidence to get a solid hold on the first 2. It's given me a much deeper understanding of how the language works, which makes new stuff much easier to digest at this point in my Latin self studies. I will need to work with them some more to get even more familiar, but so far, I'm excited to study them! It's not scary any more. I'm also getting a really good hold on adjectives. The 1st and 2nd declension adjectives are easy, and third likewise is not so scary. I'm not quite to where I can say I have memorized them, but I am not worried that I won't. I'm pleased at how much I am holding onto the imperfect case. I really need to study the future case more, as its the one I still get a little tripped up on. I've also gotten an really good hold on the present and imperfect forms of "sum" and "possum." Again, I need to get a better handle on the future, but it's coming along nicely!

I know I have a whole lot more to learn before I can think about reading actual texts in either language. I am very much a beginner, but I am really excited about my progress. I'm having fun with it, and I feel pretty confident. It's nice to see that just because it seems ungraspable and really hard, and that there is no way you will actually hold onto any of it, its not true unless you believe it and quit. It's not quite been a year yet that my obsession with learning Latin started, and even less with German. (Funny, I started German to boost my confidence with Latin as I thought it'd be easier. *snort* There's just a whole lot more material out there to learn from. Less complicated than Latin, yeah, but easier, no. I'm glad I started learning it though, as I have found learning 2 languages at once makes it somehow more enjoyable and is actually increasing my ability to learn.  And I LOVE German.) It's amazing to me just how much I am getting a hold - a small one maybe - but a real hold on Latin. German is coming along slower in some ways, but I also started it a few months later. Its exciting to think of how I'll be a year from now with my learning as long I keep working at it as hard as I have been thus far. (Got to stop the occasional slacking that I mentioned earlier! It's not out of losing interest, more like just running out of quality learning time.)

At one point I will go over which books I found the most useful, and why. But this is not the post for that!

Okay, this has gone on long enough! I'll end this post here, and hopefully be backed to blogging more good stuff soon!

Progress with the Pumpkin Costumes!

Here's how it is coming along. I think I put in my last post about this project that I had finished the costume for my white mouse, so I won't go over that again. So, this post will be short and sweet! Here's the 2 mice together.

The plum colored pumpkin still needs to be stuffed, and I am seriously debating about re-making the bottom. It just hangs funny, and kind of bugs me. I really want to work on the green one I started 2 weekends ago. So maybe tonight I can do that. Good thing I started this in August, ha ha.

On another happy note, I think I have settled on a name for my white mouse! Rudolph, but he goes by Rudy. Rudy goes with Harold quite well. So, fingers crossing it sticks!

Its been decided! The anthro crew's theme will be....

Pumpkins! I spent some more time making lists of possible foods to use for their zombie food theme, and then got to wondering just how easy it would actually be to create the right look for the zombie part to be convincing. Then I briefly wondered if I should do it more like Killer Foods, which would remove the necessity for zombifying the costumes. I was kind of excited about the Killer Tomato costume. I mean, that would have been hilarious. But then someone suggested just doing a cupcake theme. A good idea, but I wasn't sure how much I would enjoy making that many cupcakes. While I was making lunch, it came together in my mind perfectly. PUMPKINS!!!

This is perfect. Pumpkins in different colors, pumpkins with different faces. :D Another positive that unless I am getting fancy with the faces, making a pumpkin costume is actually really quick. And not having to create new patterns for nearly 20 different dolls is going to save me a LOT of time. I no longer have the pattern from Harold's costume, but I just measured it and re-drew one out. I have a suspicion something is slightly off with it, but it could also just be the stiffer felt is giving a slightly different hang. I'll know for sure when I get another one made. I'll have to adjust the pattern making it about an inch longer for the regular Jr. PI bodies. That will wait though until I have all the Cheese Mouse costumes done. I can't wait to make Jelly Bean's out of that sea foam color! Perfect for a little easter town bunny. :)

I went to the store and got a few more colors of felt to add to the possibilities. I was pleased to find a more rustic orange rather than the bright orange that is always available. Here's what I got:

The colors didn't come through real well. There's the bright orange, the darker orange, a dark green, hunter green, a sea foam and then more of a light reddish plum. The fabric at the bottom is an olive green knit. I am planning on making them little body suits to wear under their pumpkins, but we'll see if I get to that or not, or if I think they need it once I get all the pumpkins sewn. It'd be a cute touch, but we'll see!

I already made one out of the plum color. It ended up going to my white cheese mouse, who still cannot be named!! That little guy is hard to pin down. I started on an acid green pumpkin for Grape Jelly. (Purple cheese mouse.) I got a little ambitious with what I am going to put on the pumpkin, and I am not really sure how well it will work. If it turns out I will feel quite pleased. If not, then its not that much time wasted. :P And you never know until you try, so its worth the effort. I'll take some pics of the costumes as I get more finished.

Halloween costumes for the anthro crew ideas!

I am in such a Halloween mood. I mean, I am always in a Halloween mood, but I am in a serious get-ready-for-Halloween right this minute mood! The Halloween stuff has appeared at Joann's, and the feeling in the air is so very Autumnal, even if its been a warmer day in the upper 80's in the first week of August. The air just had that feel.

After going into Joann's to find some fabric I needed (some is for an outfit project planned for my Pipos Baha Honeysuckle this weekend. :D) I got overcome with the excitement of planning out costumes for my anthro crew. I was sitting in the car (spared grocery shopping which I normally don't mind because of a migraine, yay!), listening to some creepy carnival music (cue high praise for Derek and Brandon Feichter on youtube. I love their carnival and halloween music.) with ideas running through my brain.

I thought of some cute ideas, but then it hit me. Why not have a zombie food theme? I'll have to think of foods that will be easy enough to construct out of felt. I don't really want to go to the effort to create super highly detailed costumes, even though I could if I wanted to. No, these are going to be silly, fun and hopefully quick to get together. Sometimes its nice to take a break from super detailed projects and just have a blast with simple stuff.

With my anthros, Honeysuckle is the party planner. Being a bit of a control freak, she would of course plan out costume themes for everyone. So her plan (ha ha, mine) would be to have the little guys be zombie foods, and the big guys be the chefs turned zombies that infected the food! I have thus far, 9 little guys (well, 2 are technically en route, or supposed to be - my tracking is still on pre-shipment) if I only count the Pipos, and 5 big guys if I again only count the Pipos. I'm not sure if my 3 Dearmine Beans will participate or not, and I know Vlady, my Zuzu Wolffy wouldn't be caught dressing up. So that's 13 costumes at this point. Yep, I better get started now if I have any hopes to finish them by Halloween!

Ideas thus far:

1. Harold (basic beige cheese mouse) - Zombified pumpkin (I still have Harold's original pumpkin costume I made him years ago. Somehow I've hung onto it through the chaos of these last few years! He always wants to be a pumpkin, so I will simply sew on a removable set of eyes and mouth so he will have his pumpkin again for next year. That saves me making a new one!

2. Zombie pizza slice and maybe a bread stick? I'm not sold on the bread stick as I am not sure how easily I can make felt look like an actual bread stick. They don't have to be fancy, but I don't want anyone to have to guess to figure out what they are supposed to be!

I think I can pull off the pizza, just not quite sure how just yet. The easiest idea would be to make a full figured slice of pizza, cut a face hole, and then give it straps to go over the critters shoulders. Or better yet, have a head hole in the middle, and just have the front and back pieces. That depends on who is wearing it - getting over a large cheese mouse head with the big ears would be interesting!

3. Slice of cake. I've got a pretty good idea how to go about this one. It'll be pretty cute. If I can get it to work, my peach mouse Confetti Cake will be a zombie confetti cake!

4. Avocado. I'm googling food costumes, and saw this one. Perfect. I can totally do that.

5. Strawberry. That would be really cute. I can see that on my white cheese mouse who has yet to settle on a perfect name.

So that's 5 ideas that may or may not work. I'll have to put some more thought into this.

For the 5 big guys, I'm not sure if I could get Halloween (white Heero) to go along with the zombie food chef idea. He'd want to go something much darker and more sophisticated. I was thinking Praline and Punch (caramel and cherry blossom Bahas) would look adorable in chefs clothing, and Honeysuckle could be a waitress. Percy (Bao, the postman) could also be a waiter. How to really clearly state 'zombie' with their costumes might be a hard sell without their faces looking zombified. As that isn't an option, I'll just have to hope it comes across somewhat like I am hoping it will.

Out of everything on my list, I am most settled on the avocado and the pizza slice. I probably won't get to sewing on them this weekend just yet. I'll let my plan ripen to perfection before expending any wasted energy. This weekend will be for Honeysuckle's Apple Picking dress! (If all goes to plan...)