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20dollarlolita · 7 months

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Can you believe it? 20dollarlolita Pattern School Step 2!

Only took me a year and a half. For people who don't remember a year and a half ago, we've started a project about learning to sew from patterns. The eventual goal is to help people become proficient enough at reading patterns to be able to tell what's going on in a pattern with instructions in another language, taking a pattern that doesn't fit and resizing it so that it does, and taking a pattern that isn't technically lolita and make it work in lolita fashion.

Step 1 was to make a non-fitted item from a commercial pattern. There were two goals of step 1: first to ensure that everyone was familiar with notches, grainlines, and other pattern markings; second was to give people experience with selecting fabric and trims to help give a non-lolita pattern a more lolita feeling.

For step 2, we're modifying a commercial pajama pants pattern into bloomers. In this step, we're going to become familiar with how to prepare a commercial pattern for modification, to compare pattern size to body size and to use your tape measure to judge added fullness, and how to do some basic flat pattern manipulation to add in style ease. Bloomers are a great first manipulation/fitted project due to the loose fit and the fact that, in most lolita applications, the vast majority of it is under your skirt and therefore invisible.

For this specific sample, I'm going to use Gertie's Harlow Pajama Pants pattern for this. I'm doing this because I bought a commercial pattern from Green Store and then promptly lost it, and these pajama pants are a free download. If you are printing the tiled version on your home computer printer, you only need pages 41-52 and 58-71, which will save you about 40 pages of printing.

I highly recommed doing some research and having a good idea of how long the bloomers you want to make should be, as well as how they are decorated. This is my research board.

You can use any pajama pants pattern that has a casing (elastic or drawstring) at the top, and no zipper. In this case, pants with a looser fit are going to be easier to turn into bloomers. If you like wearing your pants at a certain point on your body, I'd check for pajama pants that are at that waistline. The pants that I'm using are designed to sit at your natural waist, which might be too high for some people.

Your first step is to assemble and fortify your pattern. If you're printing this on copy paper, it's going to be strong enough, provided you use enough tape when tiling your pattern. If you're using a tissue paper pattern, like the kind you'd buy at the craft store, it helps to fuse some inexpensive interfacing onto the back of the pattern. We're going to work with these patterns a lot, so it's important to make them a little bit stronger.

Now, you are going to need to go into your pattern instructions and find two important things. The first is your overall seam allowance. In most commercial patterns, this is 5/8 of an inch. Some other patterns might have different seam allowance.

The second is how big your elastic casing at the top will be. In this case, my seam allowance is 5/8" of an inch. Because my hem casing is .25"+1.25" (the amount you turn up plus them amount you turn up the second time), I know that my elastic casing will take up 1.5".

You're now going to mark on your pattern what the stitching line is. Your pattern has seam allowance included. This is very useful for when you cut out the pattern. However, if we take our pattern measurements with seam allowance, we won't have accurate numbers. So we have to clarify where the seam allowance is.

The first thing that I do (not pictured) is to write how much I'm removing along each line. In this case, I write 5/8" along the side and crotch seams, and "1+1/2" at the top where the casing is. Since we're going to drastically shorten these pants, it doesn't matter what the hem allowance is.

Then, I take my ruler, and I mark my stitching line. I do it in pencil, check that I'm correct, and then go back and re-draw it with a red marker. This helps me make sure that I'm following the correct lines.

Make sure you transfer your notches onto your new stitching line. You can see in the picture above how I'm using the ruler to measure where the notch is going to go.

The next step, walking the pattern, is a little tricky to explain. Here's a post that goes into it in great detail.

Basically, you're going to overlap the seam lines, to make sure they line up. The only problem with doing this is that both seam lines are curved. So, instead of lining it all up at once, you're going to go about an inch at a time, letting the pattern rotate so that it stays flat on the table. At any given point, you're only going to have an inch or so of the line overlapping, but that's all you need. If you run into notches that don't line up, cross one out and re-draw it so that it matches the other notch.

If this seems really complicated, you don't really need to do that on this project. It just is a good practice to have.

So you now should have a pattern with all the commercial markings, but where you've drawn the stitching line.

So now, you're going to put your two pieces together along the outseam. Since this is a pretty straight part of a pajama pant, it shouldn't be too difficult to get them to line up. Remember to overlap them on your stitching line, and not on the edge of the pattern.

We're putting them together so that you can measure them both at the same time. it saves us some math.

In bloomers, there are three major measurements to take into consideration. You need to know how big you want the leg to be, how big you want the booty to be, and how long you want the leg of the bloomer to be. In addition, you need to make sure that the waist of your pants will be big enough to fit your waist. In most pajama pants patterns, this isn't a problem, but checking it is good practice.

So, in this picture, you can see that I've measured the cuff of the pants. These two pieces together make up one pant leg, so I just need to measure the two pieces to know how big the pant leg will be.

I then take my tape measure and hold it around my leg at the same size that the pattern is at that point. I just use my eyes and judge if I think that'll be enough room to make my bloomers nice and poofy.

If your pattern doesn't tell you your hip line (mine didn't), it's usually at the point where the two notches on the crotch curve are. One of the reasons why we're doing this on a commercial pattern is that someone did the work for us and put those notches where they should be.

Now, remember, these two pieces are only half of the pant pattern. When we measure the hips of the pattern, we have to multiply this measurement by 2. Half the hip measurement x 2 is the full hip measurement.

Once again, hold this out next to your body and make sure that you like how much fullness you need. Remember that, in addition to having extra fullness because bloomers are poofy, you need room to be able to move and sit down. This measure between the size of my body and the size of the pattern looked pretty good to me. I could definitely have gone a little bit bigger.

The pant leg measurement is okay to be a little bit too long. You can always make it shorter. However, feel free to chop about 18" off the bottom of a full length pant leg. This just makes things a little easier.

Now, we're going to move the two pattern pieces until they're the size we like. If both the hip measurement and the leg measurement are too small, we're going to move both pattern pieces apart. To turn pajama pants into bloomers, this is likely to be the most common adjustment.

If the hip measurement is pretty okay, but the cuff measurement is too small, you're just going to move the bottom part of the pattern apart.

You'll notice that this is still enlarging the hip measurement a little bit. This is fine for bloomers since the style is for a lot of fullness in that area.

And if your cuff is the correct size, but your hip measure is too big, you can keep the cuff size the same and move the hip line apart until it's the size you want.

This technique of lining up the pattern pieces, and then moving them until they're the size you want, is the basics of flat patterning. As long as you follow the philosophy of keeping the measurements you like roughly the same, and moving the areas that you don't like until they measure what you need, you can easily resize a pattern without having to re-draw everything.

If you had to spread your pieces apart, tape some paper underneath the gap. This piece of paper should bridge the gap between the two pieces, turning them into one piece. Really quickly double-check that these pieces measure how you want. Then, mark a line in the middle of the paper bridge. Draw your notches onto the cut line. Cut the two pieces apart on that line. You've now made both pieces bigger. Tape another little piece of paper onto the cut edge of each piece, mark out your seam allowance, and cut that off.

Bonus points: swap the position of the pattern pieces, so that the crotch curve is one continuous line. Measure the length of that. Then, hold your tape measure along where the crotch curve of your pants will fit, and make sure that you have clearance there. I'm not going to photograph that, andi t's not super necessary with most pajama patterns.

Go ahead and cut your pieces out.Even though I'd shortened the pattern, mine were still too long to fit on a 2-yard cut of fabric. Since I knew that my pants were a little long, I just let the end hang off the edge of the fabric.

Here's the really magical part about this. Even though you've resized your pattern, you still have all your seam allowance, notches, grainlines, and your pattern instructions. Since you kept all your pattern markings consistent, you can now follow the instructions that came with your pattern. Go up until it tells you to hem the pants, and then try them on.

In my case, my pants were way too long to be bloomers. I knew that I wanted to do a casing with a heading, which does use s pretty big hem allowance, but even so, I'd need to shorten them.

Check out your bloomer research board to see how long you want them to be. I wanted some long ones that did the old-school bloomer peek, so I made them on the longer side. I also didn't want them to ride up into my butt when sitting in a wheelchair.

So, time to fold up the bottoms, add my elastic, and call the basic construction finished.

I looked up on my research board to try to find a good way to decorate these. One of the nice things about bloomers is that you can wear them with a wide variety of coords. This makes them one of those items where you can add some extra lace, and then use that lace in multiple coords. I feel like, since these bloomers are a good way of adding detail in multiple coords, it's a good excuse to add a little bit extra lace. You can see how much of a difference it makes in this picture. It really turns them from baggy shorts into real bloomers. I really recommend sometimes investing in a couple of big purchases of lace. If you have lots of lace on hand, you're more likely to include it in your projects, which can really help push a meh project into proper lolita fashion territory. I have a rule that I don't spend more than $1.50 a yard on lace unless it's really fantastic, and I manage to find things at that point on Aliexpress and sites like Cheeptrims.

Now go on and let them peek out of your favorite skirt. And remember, definitely don't press that skirt before putting this picture in your tutorial.

#20dollarlolita #dollar chan's pattern school #step 2 #lolita fashion #patternmaking #handmade lolita #lolita bloomers #sewing tutorial #hey guys look i actually made somethign #long post

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burplewrites · 4 months

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Hey there,

You know in OLB&A when MC and Cove go to the big park to see the fireworks, I think Derek was also there with his family. Could you write a story of them meeting then. Then perhaps reuniting later. They don't remember eachother right away, they're reminiscing on summers past (like in the lemonade moment) and be like oh hey that was you?

That would be awesome! No worries if you can't though.

reminiscing | derek rio suárez & cove james holden

𓆉 | fandom: our life: beginnings & always

𓆉 | characters: derek suarez, cove holden, reader

𓆉 | word count: 1,434 words 7,718 characters

𓆉 | a/n: AGDHDHSH MY FIRST REQUEST MWAHMWAHMWAH THANK YOU!! (sorry it took me so long to write this!! school was actually wounding me)

five years ago

as y/n and cove's families arrived at the big park, y/n's eyes filled with joy. this park was much bigger than the small playground back in their neighbourhood. there was so much to see, so much grass to run around in, and an extra bonus, more kids to play with.

since there was a community get-together, even more people were there, some regulars that y/n always saw when their moms would bring them, and some new faces. y/n wanted to meet them all.

y/n locked hands with cove as they bounced in place, matching the excitement of their older sister lizzie. cove looked... nervous to say the least but cracked a smile at y/n's excitement.

after everyone got drinks, and quenched their thirst, the kids were sent off to play in the sea of green. lizzie led the way, of course, having cove follow her with a frown and y/n skip along happily. lizzie introduced herself, y/n and cove, already making friends with the new people at the park.

lizzie, y/n and cove were introduced to hayden, lisa, and some other kids. as they were deciding what to play, a girl with braids raced over, a wild look in her eyes. she sprayed water all over them, hitting lizzie the most.

y/n brushed the water from their ear and neck, giggling at how absurd the situation was, but also how their sister got soaked. cove looked at y/n with an unamused face before sighing and shaking his head, which made y/n chuckle even more.

soon, with the help of lisa, hayden and some other kids who had been victims of the water gun girl, they started to chase her around the park.

a boy with brown spikey hair and green eyes appeared beside y/n and cove with a huge toothy smile.

"what are you doing?" the boy said, keeping up with the pace that y/n and cove were running with. y/n wouldn't be surprised if the boy could run even faster, like a cheetah.

"running," cove said, his focus now directed back to the girl. they were getting closer to her, but she was very fast and wouldn't allow herself to be cornered.

"it's a very long story-" y/n said with a sigh before continuing. "that girl with the braids sprayed water at us, and now we're trying to stop her!"

the boy gasped before talking. "can i help you guys catch her?"

cove and y/n looked at each other before nodding at the boy. the boy quickly caught up to the girl, and then ran in front of her, blocking her path to escape. a swarm of children all swarmed around the girl, and y/n pounced on her, tackling her to the ground.

with no hard feelings, and smiles all around, the chase turned into a game of tag, which kept them entertained. the atmosphere was more playful, filled with laughs and joy.

serveal rounds later, after the sun started going down and everyone had been 'it' at least once, kids started going back with their families.

cove was hanging around y/n, standing behind them, but smiling at the brown-haired boy in front of them. they had only known each other for a few hours but all three of them felt closer, like they were already good friends.

"so! we've been playing this whole time but i didn't even get to know your name!" y/n said, brushing the dirt off their clothes.

"i'm derek!"

"i'm y/n and this is cove! we should hang out some more, after we go eat and stuff!"

cove nodded with a smile, and derek laughed softly, smiling back at the duo.

"sure, i'll see you guys later!"

present day

I still think colander isn't a real word derek." y/n sighed as they brought out the sugar for the lemonade.

"y/n… it is a real word, I wouldn't lie to you, you know that!" derek explains, laughing a little. cove rolled his eyes at his two best friends, before fiddling with his bandage a little.

"you know, we're like really good friends." cove starts with a smile, making y/n look at him weirdly, and derek smile in return.

"obviously! like, it's us cove. the amazing trio, the three musketeers, the three amigos, yknow, whatever amazing trio that's famous." y/n replied smugly, watching the faces of the two boys in front of them turn into frowns.

the boys looked at each other and sighed as they continued cleaning up and just dismissed y/n's words with a smirk.

"as i was saying, before i got interrupted~" cove said, looking at y/n with a smile, before continuing. "its weird that we never met before this, like i know that you live in a different city derek, but you aren't that far from us, we could have met before."

y/n and derek looked at cove with blank stares before y/n started nodding.

"cove's actually right for once!"

"hey-"

"we probably already have met, and our amazing connection just brought us back together!"

"it was mr. holden and my dad's business actually-"

"hush! it was our connection i tell you, connection! we probably met at the park near your house derek, the one i helped babysit your siblings at."

derek looked to the side like he was in deep thought. y/n was mostly joking about the fact that they knew each other in the past, and even the obvilious cove had started to pick up on it, but for derek to be taking it so seriously threw y/n off.

"derek, you know y/n is just teasing… right?" cove said with a smile, looking at both of his friends. y/n left the sugar and came towards where derek and cove were on the other side of the counter.

"yea but they might be right, cause now that i really think about it… i think we actually did meet before."

cove and y/n looked at each other, both faces covered in disbelief before cove spoke up.

"where- or i mean how do you know? but also where..?"

"did you guys ever go to this community get-together in my city, at the big park, about five-ish years ago..?"

y/n nodded repeatedly, with a huge smile, like they were being transported back to that simple time.

"yea. it was the summer cove moved into this neighbourhood, that grumpy little kid."

"you act like i'm 4 years old." cove pouted, making derek rub his back to comfort him. y/n stifled a laugh, stroking their chin like they were a wise old wizard.

"its cause you are much younger than me, my dear cove. anyways! we were at this get-together and this girl i forget her name-"

"she had brown hair, if im remembering correctly.."

"yea!" cove and y/n said at the same time, looking at each other with wide smiles.

cove, y/n and derek spent the rest of the time filling in the gaps of their first meeting, talking about what type of kebab they ate, and if they got the desert from that box and how they enjoyed the firework show.

"i.. i tried looking for you guys."

silence filled the room as the two stared at derek.

"..what?"

derek fiddled with his thumbs, a small blush tinting his cheeks. he looked hesitant, but he knew from experience that he had two people probably definitely staring at him with puppy dog eyes wanting to hear the rest of the story.

"i said, see you later, and i meant that. i remember after eating, i ran off again to look for you guys but i couldn't find you. it didnt help that it was darker, and people were setting up the fireworks display. i was so bummed that i couldn't find my new friends since i thought we formed a… connection… but i guess fate brought us back together!!"

y/n sniffled, then grabbed cove and derek, shocking both of the boys and wrapped them both in a big hug.

"i'm so glad we're friends. honest. even if it took us like 5 years to meet you again derek, we'll be best friends forever."

derek chuckled, and wrapped his short arms around cove and y/n as much as he could. cove did the same, glad he was in the awkward embrace of his two best friends.

" wait guys, not meaning to ruin this moment-"

"youre ruining it by saying that cove."

"y/n…" cove sighed with a smile, knowing that y/n lived to tease. "shouldn't we finish the lemonade?"

derek and y/n looked at each other, their eyes wide before letting go of the hug.

"oh shoot!"

#cove holden x reader #our life #our life beginnings & always #burplewrites #derek suarez #cove holden #bantering mc x cove #step 2 #I feel like people would think this mc is annoying but they aren’t they are so precious istg #fanfic christmas present lolz

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vurelly · 1 year

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How do you... anatomy...

step 1: cry

#vu asks #step 2 #find body type u like and then keep drawing it

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aurora-daily · 1 year

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We Are Walking Portals: Aurora Interviewed by Monica Uszerowicz

Interview for BOMB Magazine by Monica Uszerowicz (January 6th, 2023).

The music artist on giving live concerts in the world of video games.

When you play Sky: Children of the Light, a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) by independent game developers Thatgamecompany, the first and last sound you’ll hear is Aurora. Tapped by Thatgamecompany co-founder Jenova Chen to provide the soundtrack for two of the game’s pivotal moments, the Norwegian singer, writer, and producer becomes an invisible guide, her preternaturally sweet voice navigating players through Sky’s most poignant scenes. Sky is wondrous, an inclusive game that incentivizes touch and communication with a narrative rooted in ancestral memory, communal care, and sacrifice. In addition to its foundational storyline, Sky features themed seasonal adventures, often involving unique collaborations; the last month and a half was the “Season of Aurora.”

On December 8, Sky presented a virtual concert during which a winged avatar of Aurora led an audience of nearly four thousand players on a journey of immersive music videos, call-and-response, and storytelling. We became butterflies, fish, manta rays encircling Aurora in a kind of fey, digital mosh pit. It was unlike anything I’ve witnessed, somewhere between a virtual reality, an online concert, and a cyber-choir—a brief, charged experience of togetherness. It was repeated throughout the day for the next several weeks. Aurora, who often sings and speaks about the importance of caring for each other and the planet in the face of real grief, is an apt choice for a game that emphasizes tenderness as the antidote to loneliness.

— Monica Uszerowicz

Monica UszerowiczYou care deeply for the planet, and you speak often about the magic in this world. You’re also a bit of a gamer. Do you find magic in virtual worlds too?

Aurora

Absolutely. I’ve always been a huge fan of games. I think it’s so cool to be able to live many lives and go on adventures with people. What I need from video games has changed. I’ve been gaming since I was eleven. When I was a bit younger, I found a lot of online friends and belonging in these worlds. I think I also learned most of my English from gaming. Now, I feel more at peace in my own skin, my own self, and in the world. The real world is as exciting to me as the gaming world; it’s healthy.

The themes of Sky remind me of the themes in your music. I’m curious about how you connected with Sky and came to work with them.

I connect with the soul of Sky: Children of the Light. It’s about connection and feeling at home—like you belong somewhere. I know many of the people who play Sky play it for this reason. The spiritual side of it; death, to me, is a very spiritual thing. It’s inevitable, and it colors the way we live our lives because we know it’s going to end, and that loving comes with loss. It’s just the entire soul of the game. I have a love for the people who play Sky and the creators behind it. They’re a beautiful, beautiful couple [Jenova Chen and his partner]. It’s impossible to not want to be included in what they create when you meet them. The first thing I did for them was a few years ago — the intro for the game and the ending song. I met them on tour, I think. They said hi, talked about their connection to me and how they think I would fit into this game. It was just us meeting. It was meant to be. I love them, and they love me. It’s based on nothing else: They are people, and I am people, and we like each other, and then we want to do something together. It’s very organic, this collaboration.

You’re written into the storyline as one of the ancestor spirits players get to meet. Did you design or write some of the quests that we play—set to your music—during “Season of Aurora”?

I wanted there to be someone to help in each song and chapter. There’s this reminder that you must help each other out, be good to each other, and then help yourself. I talked about what colors I think my songs have, and we chose the songs together, songs we felt had enough darkness and light. I figured out which characters and which small story fit with each song. We talked about it together and sent emails until we were happy. It’s been a very easy collaboration because we agree so much on most everything.

By the time this interview is published, you’ll have given a virtual concert in Sky.

Everyone’s going to be able to have a part in making magic. I think it’s going to be an emotional, beautiful moment for all of us. I’m very excited about it — I love the people. It’s very much about how you experience it and how it makes you feel. It’s a very individual thing, but I hope it’s going to feel like we’re a big family even though we’re all playing it from different corners of the world. I hope there will be a moment of true connection with all of us sitting in our homes and being lonely, but lonely together, which is very cool.

You’ve spoken at length about the title of your latest album, The Gods We Can Touch (2022), and the inspiration of Greek mythology. What happened in the space between your two most recent albums? What were you thinking about and researching in the quiet?

For my first album, I had space from people because I spent a lot of time alone in my house writing those songs. My second album was very full of people. It became more political because there were things I was discovering as a traveling human being, wanting to use my voice, wanting to make good warriors of light of myself and my fans. With this album, I had a break again. The biggest core of this album is playful, childish, but also divine and kind of grand. It talks a lot about religious, God-like images.

The album’s about this issue I have with modern religion, which is very modern because it hasn’t even existed for a smidgen of time. I wonder why we removed God from the earth, from ourselves, from the water, from things we could touch, and put him up in the sky far away and let him, or her, judge us for who we are. The Bible says a lot of things, and it’s up to every person who reads it to use it, hopefully in the best way they can. But when mixed with power, and the potential of having power by the way you interpret a book written by people you don’t know, there’s a lot of risk there. People have found weakness and exploited it. It’s a conundrum for the history of mankind and how we live now: what’s happening in Iran, women’s abortion rights, the way we turn against ourselves and against women again, the way that we go back and forth, in and out of progress as we please. Well, we don’t; but it seems that many of the men who rule the world choose to, and they drag us with them. It’s a complicated life, a complicated world, and this album is me just dealing with all of that, trying to remain free and playful within all the mess of how it is to be a human.

I think as long as we keep our inner child untouched as much as we can, as long as we don’t give anyone space or permission to touch what is inside of our soul, we’ll be okay. You see a lot of progress. You see people raising their voices for good for each other. There’s a lot of beauty that blossoms out of what happens in the world.

I'm glad you mentioned how important it is to maintain our inner children, that sense of self, as truthfully as we can.

The world can do a lot to us. It can hurt us in many ways. But our soul, our mind, is ours entirely, and can never be sold. It gives me strength, at least in moments, to think about what I do carry in me. We even carry the possibility of life within us, not because we should do it or have to do it, but just because we are a magical bridge between life and not existing, between new life and the world. We are walking portals. It doesn’t surprise me that the world is scared of that. It’s incredibly magical.

I do have hope for the planet, for the world, as long as we don’t get too overstimulated by the internet. As long as we remember that we do exist here together and that our ability to care goes beyond just the people we know. We are all here together. It’s a very Western-world idea to only care about your own cloud. The world is hard to understand, but luckily I can make albums and try to understand it a bit better for myself.

#aurora #aurora aksnes #collaborations #sky children of the light #season of aurora #the gods we can touch #step 1 #ioadk #step 2

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