Getting into husbandry. September 17th, 2023

This has been my primary focus for the past few weeks! After getting Megatron, I knew I had to make him a better tank. I've started raising some plants, and made him a self-sustaining tank. It took about a week before I could put him in because I was getting my plants situated, but I just put him in on the 15th. When I did so, I also added two ghost shrimp, three nerite snails, and a neon yellow cherry shrimp... Unfortunately, I looked over to see the yellow shrimp swimming around, and I saw Megatron swim up and bite his tail. Fortunately, I ran over quickly enough to grab a net and get Megatron to let go of the poor shrimp. I put Megatron in jail (in the form of this measuring cup, lol) and tried to see if the shrimp would make it. For a few hours, he just kinda limped around and couldn't swim anymore. I did everything I could to save him, even setting him up a separate portion of the tank, but he unfortunately didn't make it. Megatron doesn't bother the ghost shrimp, though. I cried a bunch yesterday, but now I at least know he isn't compatible with cherry shrimp. Fly high, Bolt. 9/15/23-9/16/23.

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Finally Sewing Something Again

While I've made several stuffed animals, a lolita dress, and various small things this summer, I never ended up making a full design until the very end. Initially, I became obsessed with this purple jacket you see here, but I couldn't find any material that I liked enough to continue it. Ironically, the two best designs I have made were created while waiting for materials to make other jackets I never ended up making. This one is the same

NCT 127 wear these jackets for "Kick It", and they are red in the music video (you can even see Taeyong wearing one on the bottom of this page). However, I already have a red bomber jacket, so I decided to make this yellow varient they wear for a few stage performances. I opted to use a raincoat material, because it was the best shade of yellow I could find, as well as a decent material. Plus, I have a bad tendency to make things not very weather-friendly. I initially ordered a snake-skin vinyl online. However, when it arrived, it had all these cancer warnings on it and was plastic wrapped on a roll. I made the decision to throw it away. Because I needed a really small amount of the fabric, I just found a snake-skin shirt on Amazon and cut it up. The snaps were a pain to put on, as I've never done it prior, but I much prefer the look of snaps as opposed to zippers on jackets. I made sure to use a nice, heavy lining to make the jacket warm. This is undoubtedly one of the best things I've made.

Other projects

Making a Custom Stuffed Animal (July 18th, 2023)

I'm sure you've seen the little character on my website. Basically, it's a fanmade character for the idol Taeyong of NCT, which my website is dedicated to. Tyongya, the character, is pretty much exclusively in plush form. It's hard to get them overseas, especially the full size ones. The 10cm ones go for like $50 or so here!! I really like to pride myself in the fact that I believe I can make anything if I want to, so I figured I would just make a stuffed animal of him from scratch. Here's that process, and it actually ended up being really funny.

Despite having a pretty extensive knowledge of drafting jackets, traditional clothes, and skirts, I did not have any knowledge of stuffed animal making. I understood the basic process of making darts, but that was it. I figured that once I got the shape right for the head, I could just slighly alter it for the body. Well, after sewing the first pattern, I think I laughed until I cried. The long one you see here was the first attempt. The next few attempts still looked like Family Guy characters. Eventually, the got less footballish and I got close to what I wanted. Next was the body. I had a rabbit stuffed animal pattern already, and I figured I could use a similar body shape. Unfortunately the weight of the head made it so he was unable to sit up on his own. I experimented a few times with leg and arm lengths and had a growing collection of Tyongya husks on my ground, but I got the pattern finalized and made him! I also made him a purple hoodie, and that was its own challenge, because he doesn't have shoulders, ha ha.