#tolrais rambles

[tolrais]

Every now and then @naia10101 and I get overcome with the urge to Get Away from the city where we live and go somewhere that is Not City.

This usually involves us packing a picnic lunch or tea and then getting in the car and driving for an hour or so, possibly longer depending on when we go, and going for a walk or exploring somewhere random.

It's been a while since we did anything like this and it was so nice to get out and just not be In the City, or at work. We visited Staithes, a fishing village on the Scarborough coastline that I figured wouldn't be too touristy, given that it's half term and neither of us like dealing with that.

It was very picturesque, though sadly with the house prices you'd expect: nearly £400k for a 2 bedroom cottage. It was, however, a two bedroom cottage right on the edge of the harbour. And you'd have some very friendly neighbours too; we came across a number off cats, all very friendly and willing to be petted with honestly, was probably one of the highlights of the trip!

Tucked around the north side of the harbour, we found a little path off to the side, almost hidden by great concrete barricades. Dropping down past a very accurate sign, warning of slippery footing, you find yourself on a slab of rock, coated in winkles and seaweed.

I'd read online that it was a good place to come rock pooling, and it was - tiny hermit crabs seemed to hide in each of the little pools we saw, and dark red fleshy anemones clung to the rock, fronds waving in the water.

When we got there it was overcast, save a thin ribbon of gold on the horizon and a few holes in the clouds which let shafts of light through, transforming the industrial morass of Redcar and Cleveland into something unearthly. After a little while though, the bite of the air got too much, and we retreated, working our way back to the car through the narrow streets, and finding ourselves on a holloway footpath along the top of a perilous drop.

All too soon though, we were back at the car and sending our way back to real life. We didn't get to stay for as long as I'd have liked, but as I have work in the morning and we didn't get there til 7, we couldn't stay too late.

[cosplaydossier]

If you wanna do Jester's jacket, or for the other anon, you could use McCall's 6800. Ironically, I made one in a jester green wool last year! My sister had the brilliant idea of quilting flannel onto airy low loft batting to make it drape right.

Thanks anon! Thats this one, right? A combo of D and B with some alterations would certainly get close. And thanks for the heads up on the flannel/batting combo :)

A

[tolrais]

Uggggh I fucking hate purity culture cause it makes my brain tell me I'm a bad person for liking media with shitty elements and fans...which is just incredibly stupid on many levels.

[cosplaydossier]

Hey! I also plan on making Jester's coat, and it's not going so well. I can't figure out if the skirt is pleated or just free fall, circle skirt style. Maybe a pleated circle skirt? What do you think?

So, cause tumblr is an ass and I'm on mobile I'll try answer this properly 😅

I think if i were to make the coat, the first thing would be a to make a toile out of cheap fabric (or charity shop curtains) that you can play with until you're satisfied.

One option i think i was considering was playing with the Simplicity 2172 pattern as i already have that, so I could start with that as a base:

Obviously you'd need to change it a LOT but the back could be used.

The main problem with jester's coat is that its supposed to be quilted, and quilted fabric in real life just...does really not fall and drape like that. (Maybe if it used like really really thin batting)

The other option i was debating was altering the pattern i made for an aysymmetric skirt. So that was two centre front panels, and two centre back panels (these were the same shape) and then one side front and one side back each side. It wasnt quite a circle (closer to a very generous A Line) because I only had 2 metres of fabric but you can see it in the picture below:

Obviously its a much thinner fabric and the front panel is knee length but the concept is the same.

I hope this helps!

[tolrais]

I genuinely feel that commuting time should be taken into working hours, especially if your commute is an hour or more

Especially since so many people do actually do work on their commutes if they're on the train, but also if you have to drive in, that's time you can't really spend doing anything else

I also hate the attitude of 'well I leave home at half 6 so I don't have to drive in the dark/in traffic' when the job doesn't start til like 8

[tolrais]

So for whatever reason our tv is turned to Great! Movies when we turn it on (we tend to only watch on demand cause my partner works shifts)

I swear the last 3 (three!) Times we've turned the TV on they've been airing the Hitman movie from 2007???? Like genuinely 3 separate occasions.

Do they only play Hitman on Sundays? Do they have the rights to other films?

[tolrais]

Started writing my draft again, roughly 10 years since I really started this project in earnest

Kind of wild to see how much the characters have grown and changed (and had backstories spring into existence 5 minutes after i finished the original nanorwrimo draft that demanded that they become a more major character and seduce the MC)

[tolrais]

I just realised that I am going to have to spend another three weeks in a cast, including my 30th birthday and and yeah ok I didn't have anything planned but it would have been nice to have at least had maybe some pictures where you know I look happy and reasonably healthy and instead I'm just gonna have to be sitting there with a hunk of fiberglass on my hand and I'm so tired because I haven't slept properly in three weeks every night I get woken up in pain

And the whole reason that this isn't punctuated properly is because typing is really laborious right now and I want to work on my novel and I can't really because I hate speech to text, but typing hurts

I can't sew properly and I had like six things that I wanted to get made between March and may and that would have been easy enough if I had a f****** working hand

I have a friend who really could do with some help. I have a commission that needs doing and I can't do anything realistically until 16th of April so I'll have like two weeks to do maybe two things in and I'm gonna be stressed and it's gonna suck and it was going to be the one time I was actually gonna have a chance to do stuff and not be like massively stressed and leave things to the last minute and now I can't not.

I can't drive which means that I'm entirely reliant on public transport or my partner, and I know that that is most people's daily life I know that's what a lot of my friends have to deal with because they can't drive or they might be able to drive but they don't have a car.

But having gone from having five years of being able to just go places when I want and go where I want without having to be reliant on other people and other things is so jarring like yeah I'll happily take public transport if that's the easiest option but having no option but other people is just a horrific and it's so stressful because the number of times I've wanted to leave for something or be somewhere and I'm just waiting on my partner to be ready and I'm just sat there waiting and getting more and more stressed and I'm wanting to leave like 10 minutes ago and he's not even got shoes on

I can't even wear my normal clothes because I can't do buttons or zips. I can't tie my own shoe laces or tie my own hair back.

And I know I'm lucky I really do I know that for a lot of people this is their forever reality and that really sucks and they have my deepest sympathies.

But it's just hit me that I'm only halfway through having to wear this f****** cast. And the last time I broke something I only had to wear it for four weeks and yeah that kind of sucked but when I was at the point I'm at now only had another seven days of having to wear something that massively restricted my ability to do basic tasks like opening bottles. And I was a student and I couldn't drive so that didn't really affect me anyway.

But knowing that I have to deal with this for another three weeks it's just hitting kind of hard right now.