Crossroad, and Other Mail From Japan

Somehow I managed to miss the announcement that there was a novelization of Crossroad, the commercial from Z-Kai and Shinkai, but I now have one copy in "The Archives" and one on my pile of books to read to see how many of these kanji are sticking to my brain.

No pictures in this one so not much to show here, but the cover and band.

Oh, and the US, English language version of The Garden of Words manga is coming out in a couple weeks, October 28th!

Also in the box with Crossroad was the new "compact edition" blu-ray set of Kanon. (Air came earlier). After watching Angel Beats, I went back and watched the other series, Air, Kanon and Clannad/After Story. Given the way they recycle story elements, I guess you have at least three possible reactions, 1. watch them all, liked them all, 2. watched them all, hated them  all, or 3. watched them all, liked things the first time they used them in a story. I went with Option 1. Angel Beats and Clannad have US blu-ray releases, so I had those, but then I saw the "compact editions" of Air and Kanon on Amazon.jp.

And the cat got a new scratcher, but from Target

The international shipping Amazon.jp uses got me the Kanon set on the release date. Actually, Amazon.jp has been beating Amazon Prime lately... The shipping isn't free from JP, but if you're ordering several things, it's not too bad considering that I'll get a shipping notice overnight (given the time zone difference) which I will normally see in the morning and that evening get a text from DHL that the package will be delivered tomorrow. It's crazy, but crazy good.

As it turns out, one of the compact things about the compact edition is that there are no subtitles at all. I'm under the impression that the previous Kanon box set had English subtitles, but this set looks to be a good four hundred dollars less, so I guess that's an acceptable tradeoff. If you ask me, I'll say the picture quality is a worthwhile upgrade from the DVDs, but if you ask me to prove it with pictures, I'll have to point out the picture above was the best I could do without showing more of my phone in the reflection on the packaging than the boxes themselves.

I'm Going to Need More Fabric

Time again to set up the pillowcase factory so I loaded up on a new bunch of fabrics.

Then my mother sent the new batch of labels for them.

Uh... I didn't bother to try to count them, but I'm pretty sure I only have fabric for 25 pillowcases or so. Well, we're still a ways out from Black Friday, let alone Christmas, so I'm sure Joann's will have enough sales to get all of these used up.

Deeds, Not Words

The movie review you've been waiting for, coming soon!

While I was putting in an order from Amazon JP, I found that this was about the same price as buying the US DVD. The special effects are really going to be special in 1080p!

GenCon was so much fun, I don't know why my pictures are so boring. We had to try this food truck, and it was pretty good. Not as good as Grandma used to make, but I'll support a business that probably knows the difference between a Slovak and a Slovene.

Just to show how far I'm willing to go for a friend, I spent one morning painting My Little Pony for a birthday present. Here she is under construction.

 

My brother got in on the inaugural playing of The Cones of Dunshire but I could hardly get close enough to the tent to take a picture so I went to Anime Science Theater for "Fist of the North Star". That turned out to be the right call, since I would have had to stand in the heat for like two and a half hours getting clobbered by inconsiderate backpacks, just to not see it anyway.

Despite there being a pre-season Colts game in town too, we were still able to get right into Steak and Shake and is there anything better than this? The Royale, bacon cheeseburger with a fried egg. I am so jealous of this picture, and this one was mine!

Voices of a Distant Star, the Radio Show

Back in the day, there was a radio play CD based on Voices of a Distant Star, that despite being noted on Wikipedia, I didn't realize existed. I found a reasonably priced used copy on Amazon JP and included it on my last order. It showed up looking pretty new for a used CD, which was nice of them. I had a hell of a time photographing this, but never bothered to google "how not to get crazy reflections on everything you photograph with your iPhone".

The cover -

The CD -

As noted on the CD, here are the track titles from the insert booklet. The CD focuses on Mikako's travels to Agarta and some new characters like Kaori and Nozomi. I can't understand half of the show, but I've watched enough TV to know that if you weren't in the movie, you're probably going to end up getting the worst of a close encounter with a Tarsian. Like when Rhaskos, Crixus and Oenomaus get sent to the arena against Gannicus and a bunch of red shirts. Sorry Rhaskos! If I could get the subtitles working on my CD player, I could see if I'm right.

Auroras

Auroras, the test film by Niles Heckman, was posted last week. I've been waiting for this one since I saw the Kickstarter announced, name dropping Makoto Shinkai, which obviously is going to work on me... I thought the quote at the beginning and the expression at the end gave it a more positive emotion than I was expecting. With a Shinkai influence, you might be expecting "the feel good hit of the summer" (he said, sarcastically) but really Shinkai's movies have happy endings even if the audience has more trouble accepting it than the characters themselves in the films.
 

Auroras from Niles Heckman on Vimeo.

Tokohana!

The new CD/DVD from Nagi Yanagi came today, with the song from the Cross Road spot. After the past year, I cannot stop saying "Kotonoha", instead of "Tokohana", and I can even read the words now! I got the version with the DVD, but unfortunately though unsurprisingly I guess, the Cross Road video was not on it.

This was the last piece of my last outstanding order from Amazon Japan, and it was pretty cool getting it on the release day. I also picked up a new copy of the Voices of a Distant Star soundtrack for the "archives", so I would have a new one to backup my old second-hand copy. Somehow I had missed the Radio Version CD of Voices of a Distant Star, so next time I get an order together on there, I'll have to pick that up. Amazon US has it available to order, but in a "order now, we'll cancel in a couple months" sort of way it looks like to me.

 In sewing news, well, there's not much news. Despite back to back long weekends, there hasn't been much sewing to speak of. I did have to use up the latest round of vouchers and with no plan in place to pick fabrics by, I ended up with a couple pieces that I figured would magically turn into something later.

First is a bit of another pima cotton print. There's always something in this section if you don't know what else to buy.

Second, I went to my favorite section and after some indecision, I went with a longer piece of this lace. They had some really nice things that I might have bought had I not already picked up the pima cotton print, but at that point, I didn't have enough vouchers for very much of them. It's one thing to go crazy with a plan, but having no plan, I went with the more "practical" choice.

And just to show I haven't been totally slack, I did fill up the freezer with a batch of sauce. This time, I got out the smaller jars for the single size too (only one half piece of sausage per for that). The cat makes it a pain to make noodles anymore, but at least there's good homemade sauce. Just add Detroit cheese (aka Romano) and I can overlook the noodles from a box.

A Walk in the Park

I tivo a bunch of the shows on the half-hours on NHK and on this week's Tokyo Eye, I saw a familiar sight...

Looks a little something like this...

It was the second part of their tour of Shinjuku, which included the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, which everyone knows better as The Garden of Words.

I don't know why NHK has a half-hour news show between every show, but I guess it gives me a reminder to also watch the Emergency! reruns before the Tivo fills up.

Press On!

The last fifteen pillowcases have had thread tails tucked and trimmed and been turned and pressed. The labels are all used up so the serger has been put away until more show up in the mail some day.

Rotate Every 1,000 Yards

I ended up with some more fabric so instead of my original plan, I decided to finish off the remaining 15 bands and labels. I have 11 of 15 pillowcases done and should be ready to mail these by Saturday. Looking at the serger, I was reminded that the four threads aren't used up at the same rate.

After these last few are complete, I'll pull out the needles and thread and clean and lubricate everything, then put the cones back in the reverse order. It takes a lot of pillowcases to use up these 5,000 yard cones, but you can see some progress now.

Mother's Day

Is it too early to claim these pillowcases are a Mother's Day present? Fourteen more this week, and a dozen last week, and that's it until the next good coupon comes up. Somehow I managed to make a lot more band pieces and could do 12-15 more if I hadn't used up all the "body" pieces. In the meantime, I'll sew the tags on all these extra bands.

Now that I'm caught up on pillowcases and the house projects I'd been waiting for winter to end to do, I need to get back on one of my "couture" projects this weekend. Last thing I remember, I was screwing up on the Yui dress, so I guess first thing on the list is to cut out some new muslin pieces.

Nee...

Nandaka marude yuki mitai ja nai?

It's supposed to rain all day tomorrow and that will probably be the end already of most of the blooms. Well, I guess that's why it's a theme, but one more sunny day of them would have been nice.

The Garden of Words, the Novel

Yesterday, going to work in the morning, I thought the trees would be blossoming any day now. By the late afternoon, I could hardly see the cars parked under the row of trees outside my office window. It seems like the flowering trees around here, now all in bloom, are not as well filled-out as previous years, and I wonder if it is due to the "over-achieving" winter that finally just ended. Good enough, though!

The Garden of Words novel came today, and I neglected to notice that it is a hardcover. Since I was ordering them from Japan, I got three copies. One for reading, one for "the archives" and one more cause it's easier to get one more now in case anything happens to the other two.

The cover is nice, with the foil leaf details. I didn't get a picture, but the book has green and pink leaves on the cover under the dust jacket.

One copy came with this card tucked into the little band.

Speaking of "the archives", I immediately picked the nicest copy and put it along with the card into this waterproof plastic tub I got to consolidate all my "good copies" of books, CDs, DVDs, blu-rays and everything else. In case of fire, this is the first thing that gets saved!

The Garden of Words - Coming Soon

The Garden of Words novelization is out this weekend and I'm hoping to see it next week. Normally, I would have ordered it from Yesasia, but they didn't list it til just recently. So I made my first order on Amazon.jp since I didn't want to risk missing it, like I did when I was trying to get the individual chapters in DaVinci. Amazon.jp seems to have updated their website so you can see a lot more in English, plus I could read more of it than I used to be able to.

While I was paying the shipping anyway, I also added a reading copy of Place Promised and another copy of Voices of a Distant Star. I've been (trying) to read Voices of a Distant Star and only had the small version, so I got the larger one to save my eyesight.

Even though I selected the "as few shipments as possible" option, and the new book is coming out in a week, they shipped these two books already. I got a shipment notice late Sunday night and they were delivered today (Tuesday). Hopefully that's not just a lucky case and The Garden of Words will show up that fast too!

Compared to Yesasia, I paid more in shipping (Yesasia having free shipping at $40) but the books were cheaper so overall it was close enough to get me to try it. Looking at some other things I might order, price+shipping works out better for Amazon in some cases and for Yesasia in others. Other considerations between the two would be that Amazon won't ship some items to the US (eg- some soundtrack CDs) while Yesasia sometimes doesn't have or has some items for only a limited time (eg - She and Her Cat novel), so I guess I'll keep an eye on both. It must be time for news on Shinkai's next movie, and I'm enjoying all these books more now that I have some idea what they say.

100 Pillowcases

Since no one makes Angel Beats fabrics that I know of, I tried Spoonflower finally for the first time for a special request pillowcase. I took a guess on which cotton fabric to pick from their options and went with the poplin, I think because of the higher thread count. Not having seen the other ones in person, I don't know if that was the right choice but I ordered it as much to see how the printing would come out as much as the specific fabric.

I took the CUTE! picture of Shiina and used the mirror layout to make something that could be folded in half and show the same front and back. For the band, I used some pima cotton print I had already. The case turned out well enough, though the picture makes the colors look a little washed out (and wrinkly) but the printing is fine in person.

Not Dead Yet Bloggerfront

"Less snow than expected" sounds great, unless you get more ice than expected first... Maybe now I can get back to work on something a little more fun. The weekend's trip got called off, but I gave the serger a once-over and started back trying to catch up on this pile of pillowcase parts. Somehow I got cabin fever spending all my time outside shoveling snow and now I want to spend all my time indoors sewing. It makes sense to me anyway.

Ｚ会 「クロスロード」 120秒Ver.

A little something new from Makoto Shinkai.

Oops

This post is supposed to be about my test of the Yui pattern, but whatever I thought I was doing, I was not basting the pieces together right. I decided to quit while I was behind and will cut some new pieces out later.

In the meantime, it's time to start prepping a new batch of fabric for pillowcases. We're supposed to visit the Shriner's hospital next month, and I don't want to show up empty handed. Joann's has the 20% off your total purchase coupon this weekend, so it was a good time to buy a whole pile. This coupon works on regular and sale items. Their regular 40-50-60% off coupons normally specify "one regularly priced item" which means you can't use it on sale items (and get less of a discount) and you only get one cut of fabric. This way, between the sale prices and the coupon, I was able to get the 50% off ten or twelve kinds of fabric at once.

Try, Try Again

Here comes the first test of the Yui pattern. I traced off a copy of the Misato shoulder and marked the shoulder seam line.

Do I remember those waza names?

For this first pass, I just went straight on with the forward shoulder section to the jacket front. Putting the corners together and then the point of the other end on the jacket front line, the two sewing lines matched up almost exactly. Which is to be expected, since it really wasn't for shaping on the Misato.

Flip the shoulder piece over and hit the other side and this is what you get. When making up the muslin pieces, I just traced one half and then shifted the pattern over and traced the other half.

For the back, I moved up the dividing line. While I was looking at it, I thought the top half would end up with such long, thin points, that they would be difficult to handle. By moving the line up, I get shorter points, with less acute angles.

The pieces are cut so hopefully they'll go together tomorrow.

This latest bolt of muslin got really bunched up on the bolt and I'm pressing the hell out of it as I tear sections off, but it's putting up a good fight. Well, it's laying flat enough while I trace and cut out, but not very photogenic.

New Parts

Another bag of silk taffeta is what I ended up with from the last vouchers. This latest idea is supposed to have a dress and a jacket based on the Akari and Misato projects, so today in lieu of any great ideas, I started tracing out potential pattern pieces.

I'm thinking that the front of the jacket may not have any closure, just two edges meeting in the center front. I started tracing the two fronts, overlapped as the garment would be, but leaving out the "notch" in front.

The bottom edge is straight across and I put a center line in. This piece will get cut into two separate pieces eventually. A similar back piece was traced out, omitting the "step down" in back.

For the moment, I'll keep the shoulder and sleeve pieces from the Misato on top of the pile. I haven't decided on the neckline either, but I'm leaning towards nothing. The jacket may be heading boler-ish, just by coincidence.

For that shoulder piece, I'm debating cutting it in half at the shoulder seam and integrating the front section into the front jacket pieces and leaving the back section as-is. I could have sworn I took a picture of the rear body piece, but the combined front looks almost the same, so I'll use that for a quick idea. As part of this, I would split the rear body piece also as below and then sew a test up to see if it looks like it does in my head. In the meantime, I'll try to come up with fabrics and how I would use them if I go for that.

Fictional Garments

The latest round of vouchers expire at the end of the month, so I have to get back to work and plan what to get with them. I have a general idea what I want to do, but am still sketching and thinking. First pass, it looks like it will have some cross-over with both the Akari dress and the (Not) Chanel Misato jacket. How much that holds up though, I wouldn't want to bet on.

A new line, sort of

A new center front

Something in this direction, but not exactly

Unfortunately a mostly whole bolt of 44" muslin was lost last night when I went to tighten a light bulb and it exploded, throwing glass everywhere. The muslin was standing upright next to the lamp and as I was cleaning a million pieces of glass, I decided to skip not finding all them in the folds of the fabric until... Oh no, only 10 bolts left! Well, Joann's has a 60% off one fabric coupon at the end of the month if I can hold out that long.