Recent Entries

Entry tags:

about me,
ode blabs

Sticky: Introduction/About me

Hi, I am the Odekiisu and I go by many names. You may call me Ode, or Kiisu, or Odekiisu, or Liisbet if we’ve talked before. My pronouns are they/them.

On tumblr, I mostly reblogged stuff, but I also draw stuff and (rarely) write stuff. I’m still not 100% sure how to dreamwidth quite yet, so I suppose here’s a list of things that might appear on this blog?

Crafts: sewing (especially historical sewing and corsetry), maybe knitting or crochet if I get inspired, but don’t count on it.
Biology – especially genetics or evolutionary biology.
The occasional baking experiment
Original art (advice welcome re: where to host art)
Fan art, maybe fanfic
Fic recs, meta??? (I’ve only done meta like. once. It was on Pern firelizard biology and evolution, if anyone’s interested I can find it and post it here.)
Musings on gender

My fandoms include, in rough order of how likely it is I'll post about them:

Star Wars (esp. Kylux, but also Clone Wars and others)
Venom (symbrock; don’t worry Gen I’m putting it under a cut)
Dragonriders of Pern
Fantastic Beasts
The Black Magician Trilogy (haven’t read any of the other books in that universe yet)
Doctor Who
LotR/the Hobbit (mostly the movies, I read the books a looooong time ago & can’t remember much)
Possibly some others

Other places to find me:

If you know me from tumblr/elsewhere: say hi! I don't bite, I promise.

Entry tags:

Mystery Project!

So work has been quite tiring lately, and thus the Mystery Project hasn’t been progressing as quickly as I’d like. However, starting next month, I’m likely to have an extra day off per week (yay long weekends!) and I thought I’d do an update on how far I am before then.

( Mystery project photos here! )

I was thinking of giving some kind of a prize to anyone who can guess (or at least get close to) what the Mystery Project actually is, but I can't think of anything so uh. Internet cookies? Maybe a doodle? I'm too tired to make Actual Proper Art right now.
I'll keep you folks posted on how this thing goes.

Entry tags:

ode blabs

Life update

Gosh, it's been a while since I've been here. Here's some stuff that happened:

My laptop fan broke. It took me ages to get it repaired though I managed eventually, but the end result is that I'm now mostly using an old laptop just because that's where all my tabs are open right now. Will probably switch back once I run into issues re: this laptop being in German and me not understanding enough technical vocabulary in German.
Remember that job I got an interview for but didn't get? They called me back, saying that they have another opening in the same lab. So, I have a job now. It mostly involves putting test tubes of blood that suddenly materialise out of nowhere (or, occasionally, out of the ER tube) into various machines. And occasionally getting up close and personal with somebody's spinal fluid.
I am almost done with sewing a knockoff Ferris Corset. It has many, many issues. Will post when it's finished.
I am in the planning/material prep stage of a certain Mystery Project. Hoping to post more about that too at some point. For now, all the information I'm giving you is that it's a historical costume.

Entry tags:

corsertry

I have committed a grave corsetry sin

I -le gasp- eyeballed a corset pattern!
And guess what!
It ended up being my actual (corseted) waist size! (The bust is overall ~8 inches too small according to a rough measurement, but that was entirely expected considering how curvy I am and how curvy the original pattern isn't.)

I'm trying to re-draw the Ferris-ish corset pattern from De Gracieuse to look more like an actual Ferris waist, or at least what I can guess one would look like based on the copious photos of one on antique-gown.com. That, apparently, involves a lot of 'ehhh let's just duplicate panel 2 and change the shape of the top edge' and 'I'll just make 3 slightly different versions of panel 4 because I like it better than panel 5, except one of them will be half the width of the others because that's what it looks like from these 2 photos'

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Un-boned corsets?

There's this thing I found (via sewhistorically) that mentions athletic corsets with essentially no bones or cording in them, and I decided to Do An Experiment. Since it's not science unless you write it down, here be some notes.

( Click for Corset Science )

Current Mood: devious

Entry tags:

victorians at their bullsh*t again

(no subject)

Snippet from a 1892 sewing book:

"The first law that should govern underwear is purity, and dyes even of the best quality do not give this nor do garments dyed even in the most delicate shades of color suggest purity. The fad at one time prevailing of entire suits of black underwear was certainly revolting and anything but wholesome."

Well, that is one rule that, now that I know it exists, I am going to break as soon as possible. With glee. Probably cackling the whole way through sewing a pair of all-black drawers. With a matching chemise, of course. Hell, maybe I'll make the combinations that I need to have for a Future Secret Project out of black batiste, with black lace trim and red ribbon accents.

Current Mood: full of sugar

Entry tags:

ode bakes

Cake review

Last night I made 2 cakes from old recipes (source unknown, got em from this list)

Note that one of them requires 6 egg whites, and the other one 6 egg yolks. That is why I selected these 2 recipes :P Neither contained any instructions on how hot the oven should be, how large the tin(s) or how long they should be baked for, which may have been what proved fatal for these two recipes...

( Click for cake )

Entry tags:

reblobs

Reblogs

Apparently, using euphemisms such as 'blue hellsite' and suchlike for websites/brands/people etc is now called Voldemorting.
Now, my mind immediately jumped from this kind of periphrasing of names to Old Norse kennings. That's an interesting comparison, but unfortunately I'm not enough of a linguist to delve deeper into this - anyone have any thoughts on this?

A ton of historical cookbooks, arranged by year. Note: apparently some of them are racist.

I've been listening to linguistics podcasts while sewing; specifically, en clair and Lingthusiasm. They're great.

As an aside, job search related news: I didn't get the job I interviewed for. Oh well, saves me from having to decide whether or not I'm willing to do night shifts.

Current Mood: annoyed

Entry tags:

ode blabs

(no subject)

(tw blood)
There are 2 things I have discovered about hand-sewing, which are annoying individually but extremely frustrating when combined.

I get poked by pins often, but it usually does not draw blood.
Occasionally, however, it does draw blood. Usually when I'm working with white fabric.

Guess which one happened just now.

(It actually happened twice in a row. The first time, working on a corset for a friend of mine, I noticed it before I got blood on my precious coutil. The second time, doing some hand-stitching for an apron, I only noticed that I was bleeding when the fabric under the poked finger started feeling sticky. Said apron-bits are now hanging in the bathroom drying, guilty pins and all.)

(Of the previous 2 corsets I have sewn, both acquired bloodstains at some point in the making. I can't remember if I managed to get both of them out or not; I think I did but it may be that one of them was just covered up with a bit of lace.)

Current Mood: confused

Entry tags:

victorians at their bullsh*t again

Oh wow

So for various reasons I've been trying to find Victorian recipes and cookbooks (mostly for cake, because, y'know, cake) and the first cookbook I start looking through... is racist as fuck.

I mean, ok, this is from 1866, you kind of expect people to spout a bunch of imperialist bullshit. It's just. You don't really expect to see it on page 1 of a random cookbook you pick up?

Current Mood: amused

Entry tags:

victorian

Starching

So I had to wash and starch my petticoats after wearing them on new year's eve, and I learned 3 things:

Starched petticoats repel dirt better than unstarched ones. Never go out in a floor-length, unstarched white petticoat. You will regret it.
Let the starch cool before using. No, you don't need to make that much of it. Resist the urge to test its temperature with your fingers, because that way lies Pain.
Similarly, let the petticoats dry almost completely before pressing. Dampen them if you have to. Just. Don't press them if they're too wet. It will take a ridiculous amount of time.

Also, using full-strength (or almost full-strength) starch will result in the petticoat being able to stand up by itself, like this:
( Picture + starch recipe here! )

Entry tags:

victorian

Happy New Year

I ~~finished~~ made this dress wearable just in time for new year's eve dinner. And of course then I just had to recreate that one photo with the teacups. Because that's What I Do.

The Odekiisu wearing a red 1870s day dress, balancing a pair of teacups on their buubs

The Odekiisu wearing a red 1870s day dress, balancing a pair of teacups on their buubs

(Full post on dress to follow, including pics of the Big Ass Bow. Because you bet this dress has the option of a huge bow on the butt.)

Entry tags:

ode blabs,
reblobs

I found a funny thing

It's about Narnia and contains the words 'by the express wishes of God's fursona'.

In other news, I survived my job interview yesterday. The person who was supposed to do it was sick, and it seemed that none of the 3 people who interviewed me knew what they were doing.
The lab itself was 99% automated, so the job would be mostly putting samples in machines and doing quality control and maintaining the machines. Also, since it's a hospital lab that has to be open 24/7, the shifts can be at awkward times, including 4 night shifts per month, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Entry tags:

ode blabs,
reblobs

Today's reblogs & how I'm doing

I’m shamelessly stealing the idea of a daily sort-of ‘reblogs’ link post from this person :P

So, here are 2 interesting things I came across in the past few days:

Fandom history - 2 reblogs of the same original post, but with different replies to it. Started off from some of the AO3 “discourse” going around the tumbles. I was looking for something else on my blog, then found these, and re-reading them was especially relevant to the state of things right now.
An important message about feeling sad

In other news, I got my first job interview! Ever! (Note: I have very little idea how to job interview. Any advice is appreciated. It's going to be on the 28th.) We shall see how it goes. I’ll have to figure out how I can convincingly pretend to be An Actual Functional Adult. Also, I’ve started working on one of my sewing projects again, and I’m gonna try and finish it before the new year (though I’m not entirely sure if I’ll manage that, because I still have to finish making everyone’s Christmas presents… eek!)

Entry tags:

Self care, odekiisu-style

So with everything that's been going on (tumblr purge, irl shit and the current political climate, as well as the actual climate), I've been needing a lot of warm fuzzy feelings to try and ward off the Spiral of Depression.

Solution? Lots and lots (and lots) of Newt/Credence fluff and H/C. It works. Temporarily, at least.

Here, in no particular order, is some of the stuff I've been reading for the past week and a bit. Do mind the tags!
(put it under a cut because this got long & I have no idea how things are done here. Do let me know about long post etiquette on dreamwidth if you do know.)

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

ode blabs

Hello

'Tis I, the Odekiisu. I have no idea how to dreamwidth. I shall try at least.

I'm not sure how much I'll be using dreamwidth, but I do have a few ideas for posting things, so. We'll see.