Taxing Taxes

Luna Moth Beaded Tapestry Pattern

I filed my taxes today. The good news is that I'm getting some money back. The better news is that I didn't cry this year. Although I still might--from relief. I was going to be productive today, but I feel like the effort of filing my taxes (even online, without tears, and costing less than $100) should allow me an impromptu holiday. So there will be nothing clever here today on account me me being dead/celebrating my measly return.

eBooks

Pattern - Pirate Ship Beaded Tapestry

I went to hang out with friends last night (I have friends? what?? when did this happen?!), and we were talking about kindles, since a couple of us have them, and I kept making jokes about how I only read stuff on the kindle--which isn't entirely true, but I did embrace ereading like a fish to water.

Then I mentioned something about keeping a paper journal, and my one friend says, "Hang on, don't you have an electronic journal?"

...Just the LJ and the blog, but I like to have a paper journal, too.

I suppose it is a bit odd, but not if you look at it this way; I've merely gone and separated my books from their content.

Many people complain about ereaders because they 'love the magical feel of a book.' I'm not going to tell you that there's nothing magical about books, but I would like to say that a very large portion of that magic comes from the contents of the book.

Think about it; take all the words out of Harry Potter and all you've got is a bunch of blank paper, which we in the Know like to call a "journal".  These "journals" contain a completely different sort of magic.  It's like a potential magic--but only one that works if you bother to fill the covers of the book.

Whereas if you take the paper and cover away from the words--which would drop them into the world of eink--then you've still got the whole book, magic intact.

If it's a good book or a great book, then you'll get so lost in it you won't even remember that you're reading at all, and it won't matter if you're staring at paper or a screen; the magic will be there either way.

Steampunk Beading

Pattern - Airship Beaded Tapestry

I'm really, really proud of this piece.  I made the whole pattern myself, with no clip-art stolen for the background or anything.  I did use an actual photograph for the background, but it was one that I'd taken myself, so that's fine.  

It's among the largest tapestries that I've made, but it's also one that I would make again in a heartbeat (and ten day's work...).  I love that I made the balloon shaded, and that the sky has several colors, and the frame around the outside is awesome, the color choices are great... I just love this tapestry.

I also like that it's different from everything else I've made. Almost everything else is fantasy-ish, but this is...well, okay, it's only steampunk, which isn't all that far from fantasy on the sliding scale of genre (certainly their fan bases are pretty damn similar), but it's more...from my head, I guess.

I actually wasn't sure if I should tag it as 'steampunk' when I put it up--I worried that I had gotten too confused over what constituted steampunk after spending all my time at Regretsy, but then I looked up 'airship' on Etsy, and after seeing that everything even remotely steampunk is also tagged 'airship' I no longer felt bad about crossing that line.

The colors seem a bit bright for steampunk, though. I feel like I should have used a grayer blue for the background if I really wanted people to think it was steampunk--but I was making it for me, and if that bothers people, they can buy the pattern and make the sky whatever color they desire.

Asian Dragon

Pattern - Asian Dragon beaded Tapestry

This is an awesome pattern. It's another one from a bit of clip-art, although for the amount of cleaning I had to do to that one, I feel no guilt in listing it for sale.

The black one I made back in college.  It actually has the same background pattern as the cream one, but you can't tell because I used clear dark green beads and black thread.  It has two shades of red that you can just barely tell apart, although it looks better than usual in this image, and then of course I used that tarnishing silver for his claws, ect.  To look at he's not much--unless the light hits it at an oblique angle, and then all the colors glow and pop out of the tapestry and it's beautiful--or it used to be before the silver tarnished.

Anyway, I took the lessons I'd learned in color from the first one and applied them to the second, cream-colored one.  I meant to do more with adjusting the background, and they actually are quite different, but in the end that's almost the only thing that disappoints me about the second dragon.

I did say *almost,* yes.  I also ran out of the lesser background color, which wasn't entirely unexpected, but was frustrating because I couldn't find any beads that color anywhere--though I swore I'd seen them pretty recently.  I even went to the bead stores on the far side of town, but--nothing.  They didn't even sell seed beads, actually. But that's a different tale.

So i went online, and got something that I thought would be perfect, but it's a little off. Not enough to bother me, though.  But I also got more thread in that time, and the new thread was a bit thicker than the old thread (though it shouldn't have been), so there's a slight increase in the width of the tapestry towards the top. Not a bit deal, but I have some perfectionist tendencies--and then I found that I had more of the first thread that I could have used... figures.

Anyway, if you'd like to experience the joy and wonder of making your own Asian Dragon Beaded Tapestry, then I've listed the pattern on Etsy so you can try your hand at making the colors match and not making the sides wobble.  I dare you.

Luna Moth

Today's Etsy Listing: Luna Moth Beaded Tapestry Pattern

I've been thinking--I know, but sometimes I can't help myself--I've been thinking, that perhaps I shouldn't be posting here--blogging?--about the thing that I'm working on, since you won't see that until some unspecified date in the future, but instead that I should blog about the thing that I posted today, which I'm putting up pictures of, anyway.

I'd leave it to the readers to vote, but since there's only three of you--and actually all three are me--I think I'm pretty much on my own for decision-making.

There's a danger of the posts repeating every four months, but I'll worry about that roughly four months from now.

Today's Listing:

Inspiration: I was thinking about making a butterfly, but then I thought that Luna Moths were cooler than butterflies, so I made a pattern of one of those instead. Then I didn't care for all the blank space behind it, so I tried to find a pattern of the moon that I could use in the background. Failing that, I made my OWN moon pattern and put the moth on top of it.

Colors: The moth is naturally a selection of pale or pastel greens, but I couldn't find any, and also I love the more yellowy and bright greens, so I bought a bunch of those and made it work. It would have been easier if my local bead store actually carried green seed beads--they are pretty much guaranteed to not carry whatever I'm looking for, though, so I wasn't surprised. I over-compensated in trying to buy the proper greens for this, unfortunately, and now I have...far more green than I know what to do with. Watch this space for more dragons...

Technical: This is actually the second Luna Moth Beaded Tapestry that I made, since the first one sold, which is fine--awesome, actually--but I really missed it, so I made myself a second one.  I love the new one, but I don't like the accent colors quite as much; the light yellow and light blue are too big, while the shiny green I used is too dark. I think it turned out well overall, and I'm pleased to have my own version of it.

I'd also be more than pleased to share the pattern with others.