millialani | Recent Entries

There are never enough hours in the day to get everything done, and never enough to put aside to read something for my own enjoyment. It's been far too long since I've managed to sit down and really enjoy a book without trying to rush through it when I do get the time to read.

I've been slowing myself down by annotating the physical books I have. It would take me more than a month to finish this book at the speed I'm able to do this, but so far it's been fun, and maybe by the end I'll gift this to a friend so they can enjoy it and add their own reactions as well.

This must be a warning not to take naps so early in the afternoon, but I just had the most stressful dream that my cat had run away on a spontaneous road trip to visit places I'd mentioned around it.

....I do not own a cat, and I have no clue how it could have found itself in America when I have neither been there nor do I live anywhere close by...

I've always found comfort in the silence and calm of the night than any other time of the day. While the working hours dictate that I spend the daylight with other people, there's nothing that brings me more peace than getting to sit in a quiet room by myself in the middle of the night to work on my hobbies.

I've been interested in bookbinding recently. My love of hard cloth bound books and notebooks paired together with the cost of a premade hardcover notebook has driven me to attempt making my own. It seems no matter what I do I always come back to paper crafts and sewing.

Now with the room to myself, an old song from my childhood I'd almost forgotten playing in my ears, and the sweet repetition of stitches, I'm tempted to say this is what pure bliss feels like.

Being in debt is a strange thing. Atleast in the way it's come to us. Life goes on, I work each day the same as before, but everyday it always feels like it's never enough.

Perhaps this is what persistence hunting feels like. It feels like there's a slow but ever approaching presence behind me, and I keep on walking but I can never tell how many steps it's taken for each of my own.

I wake up. I go to work. Rinse and repeat, and it takes another step closer.

Posting anything has gotten a lot harder now that my keyboard doesn't work properly. I don't use this laptop often (it's usually in the hands of my sister for her design work) but it is infinitely frustrating not being able to write when I've finally broken through my month long writers block. I could always just use my phone to write, but it's just not the same as tapping away on a keyboard.

Still, I'm grateful it's just a few keys on the keyboard that have stopped working. I'm still able to use it to draw, and once I drag out the old mechanical keyboard I'm sure to have lying around somewhere I can go right back to writing about my characters doing the most horrifying things imaginable :)

Current Mood: frustrated

Its been a while since I read a proper English book and so I've put myself to the task of re-reading Dracula. The last time I read it I was 15 years old and in the middle of studying for exams so needless to say I don't remember much of it.

Maybe not the best book to start with when my focus is this shot, but hopefully my interest in all things vampire and spooky will win out.

Hello friends, its come to my attention that I've never properly introduced myself here beyond my love for sewing so it's time to change that ^.^"

I am Mishka, or Mumu if you'd like a nickname. It's not written on my birth certificate that's for sure, but I think it's a lovely name and I've gone by it for a while now. I live on a little island somewhere in the Indian Ocean, and you're very likely to hear me complain about the weather every now and then.

My age shall remain my little secret ;) I need to keep some air of mystery about me (though i wont lie if you manage to guess it)

I happen to be one of those LGBTs, with a foot solidly on the B and partly on the T. I'm no man or woman, I'm just a Mishka, and i go by any pronouns you could think up for me.

I'm not an American, but you could say my politics lean to the left. I believe in a kinder world, and i don't think its too far out of reach.

You'll see me talk about sewing a lot. I'm interested in all sorts of fiber-crafts, i crochet, knit, and i have aspirations to weave and spin my own fiber one day, but sewing is what I happen to do most. I bookbind every now and then, read, watch as many horror movies as i can get my grubby little hands on, and spend my time hidden away doing any and all sorts of "arts and crafts".

While my personal sewing isn't particularly historical (I'm far too picky with my clothing to stick to proper historical styles) i am interested in learning about how things were made back in "Ye Olden Days", though that may refer to anything ranging from the stone ages to the industrial revolution. I love to learn is all the explanation i have for myself X)

I'm always open to talk, so don't hesitate to comment or message me, though no promises I'll be too timely with my replies. That's all for now!

Rigid plans never seem to work for me. Whatever ideas I may have for the future I must first take into account our hectic household and my ever present ADHD, which makes it very difficult to schedule things out neatly. I've found it's much more convenient to have a vague list of things that need doing, and tackle them bit by bit as i go. A few things moved here and there before I head off to work, a few things sewn before i lie down to bed, and my work seems to go by faster than if I'd waited to tackle it all as one big project.

I would have thought myself far too impatient to work like this just a few years ago, yet it's taught me that a slow and steady lifestyle suits me. I love the results, but there's a joy in savoring the effort and skill I've put into that journey as well. Now I'm just being far too sentimental, but I'd say it's given me a better appreciation for the work I've done when i look back and remember how i enjoyed the time i spent on it.

To bring up some personal grievances, in a world (especially the online world) that's designed to chug on faster and faster each day and turn our lives into an endless game of catching up, it brings me a lot more peace to say that i won't play that game. It saddens me to see people take a glance at the newest thing to come out and get bored within a week after some newer shinier thing comes out. A life of endless trudging through "content" produced to be "consumed" and spat back out with no appreciation for the work and time that the creators put into it isn't a life I want to live.

Current Mood: cranky

Lately I've begun taking my Friday's off from work, so I'm proud to say I got a lot of work done yesterday. There's always so much to be done in this house, with all my projects and all the organizing we've pushed aside for the past 20 years, but being outside tires me out far too quickly to make any headway with it after I'm home from work.

It's good to wake up early and know there's nowhere I'm expected to be. I'm a hermit and a homebody at heart, and i had all the fun i could have on a weekend just mending and making adjustments to the clothes I have.

I have a few more tasks thought out for the coming week now. Shortening hems for a few gifts that didn't fit well enough (it seems my preferred length is a bit too impractical for others), fixing up the collar for my shirt and so on.
The collar gave me so much trouble in the beginning. I was fully ready to call it a bust and throw the piece out, but after a while it grew on me. The interfacing i had was a bit too stiff (one i usually use for bags) so it was far more rigid than a normal shirt collar, but it gives it a bit of flair I think looks pretty. I'd like to add some lace to it to make it seem a little less plain. I don't have any shawls/dupattas that would match this color, so a bit of accessorizing should be the way to go.

Speaking of accessories, I am dismayed! Distraught! Utterly heartbroken! I put one of my shirts in the washing machine without taking off the little pins I had and they lost all their little rhinestones. They were a pair of cheap pins I got at a sale so it's no big loss but they were so so pretty..
Reminder to self to always double check clothing for whatever nonsense i have pinned or stored away in there before putting it aside to wash

I have a shirt i absolutely love because its one of the few articles of clothing i have that properly fit both my shoulders and my hips with how strange my measurements are, but its unfortunately a little small in the chest area. It's not so noticeable to be stretched but it does make the gaps between the buttons gape a little.
I didn't bother much with it as i only wear it inside the house, but someone suggested i add a few more buttons to close it up a bit more.

I quite like the look of these buttons but i don't have any more in their design, so instead of replacing them i decided to add some snap closures in between each button.
After days of putting it off i finally sat down to sew everything on.....and immediately decided that was going to take far too long and just sewed the whole thing shut ^.^"

It's no longer a button up shirt in anything but appearance but it looks a lot nicer in my opinion. The button plackets lie fully flat without any pulling and i left a little gap at the top so i can comfortably fit my head through it. I used a small back stitch in a similar color so the stitching is almost invisible unless one goes looking for it. Admittedly i only did it because i was pressed for time, but it turned out well. Sometimes you don't stick to your original plan but it all works out, and i have a few more snap closures to use somewhere else :)

I'm looking forward to writing proper posts instead of simply throwing out mini thoughts into the wild. I've always been far more verbose than most places like twitter approve of. Can't help it! I have a lot to say!