Author: Elliott Evans

bookmark_borderMovie Review: SW ch.9 The Rise of Skywalker

Posted on by Elliott Evans

I liked it, overall. It is first and foremost definitely a Star Wars movie. It failed to do some things I was hoping it would do, but it also declined to do some things I was hoping it would not do, so I guess that’s a wash. It did do some things I was not expecting it to do, but that I am glad it did, so that’s a net positive. I suppose that I am most impressed with the way that it resolved some things that had to be resolved, but left open some things that were more important to leave open. Well done, Mr. Abrams. There are still plenty of people who aren’t going to like this on its own, and people who aren’t going to like it as the finale to a 9 film series, but I think it’s good.

bookmark_borderMovie Review: Knives Out

Posted on by Elliott Evans

I am an unabashed Rian Johnson fan. His first three films, Brick, The Brothers Bloom, and Looper, are part of my permanent library. I’m not sure why Disney thought it would be a good idea to have him lead a Star Wars main line film, but I admire what he tried to do, dragging the franchise in a new and unexpected direction. Knives Out is a return to what Johnson does best: Twisty little stories about people who’ve made bad choices.

I don’t mean to say that Knives Out is one of those mysteries that misleads you every step of the way. In fact, it’s one of those that lays out nearly everything you need to know, just may be you don’t realize it at the time. If you’ve seen the trailer for it, you know that a veritable wreath of murder weapons is in view for much of the film. The rules of drama dictate that something should happen, but how? Is it just a rack of red herrings?

The dialog is sharp, and yet realistic. The acting is enthusiastic, and yet not inhumanly hammy. The set is gothic, and yet not baroque. The detective is smart, and yet not brilliant. The protagonist is a good person, and yet not an angel. The script is funny, and yet not comedic. This movie walks the finest tightropeimaginable, and it never wobbles.

Each time I watch a Rian Johnson film, I feel like had I never watched one before, I’d go back and find out what I’ve been missing. See this one. Watch his other films. Look forward to the shape of the plot. Pay attention. I promise you will find the experience rewarding.

bookmark_borderBarony Braids 2019

Posted on by Elliott Evans

Normally, I try have a half dozen black and gold medallion cords braided by the time our local Agincourt event rolls around in October. This year, with everything else that was going on, I just managed to complete the sixth braid.

Barony Braids 2019

As usual, these are all about a yard long and all made from lace-weight silk yarn.

bookmark_borderAction Embroidery

Posted on by Elliott Evans
  1. Download the bitmap image that contains the part you want as embroidery.
  2. Crop and edit the bitmap image to isolate the part that you want.
  3. Simplify the color palette in the bitmap image to decrease thread changes.
  4. Convert the bitmap image to a vector format.
  5. Simplify the vector image to reduce the number of shapes and decrease shape complexity.
  6. Export the vector image to a common format.
  7. Import the common vector format into the digitizing software.
  8. Generate stitch patterns for vector shapes.
  9. Save resulting embroidery file.
  10. Copy the embroidery file to the thumb drive.
  11. Set up the embroidery machine and insert the thumb drive.
  12. Hoop fabric and mount hoop on embroidery machine.
  13. Load embroidery file and first color of thread.
  14. Press the “START/STOP” button.
  15. Wait, change thread colors when the machine asks you to, resolve any mechanical problems that occur.
  16. Try to fix problems with the physical expression of the embroidery pattern.
  17. Curse everything, and the horse it rode in on.
  18. Take a picture of the resulting embroidery.
    Bob the Angry Flower
  19. Post about it to your blog.

bookmark_borderWordPress Configuring

Posted on by Elliott Evans

One of the reasons I wrote and ran my own blog scripts for so long is that WordPress is really way too complex. It’s difficult to understand how to achieve the effects you’re looking for, and it hides so much stuff behind PHP and CSS. All your content is in a database someplace, and I don’t know how to insert or extract stuff sideways like I wanted to do.

For this new incarnation of my blog, I decided to just go with WordPress, and work on learning all the stuffs. It took me a while yesterday to find a WordPress Theme that was simple enough to start with (“Noto Simple”), and then most of the rest of the day to bash on it until it looks like I want it to look.

I removed the silly boxes from around the posts to give myself a little more room for content, took the navigation menus out of the header, figured out how to get those tails at the bottom of each post, fiddled with the margins, and here we are.

I also manged to deactivate the weird composition plug-ins my hosting provider helpfully included in my installation, which makes creating posts in the browser much less annoying.

bookmark_borderHitsu Project Completed

Posted on by Elliott Evans

This is a project I started way before I got the blog going gain, but I finally added one of the final details to make this project complete. This is a “hitsu“, a Japanese storage box. They’re often used to store armor (which would make them a “gusoku hitsu” or “gusoku bitsu”), and often when you see a set of Japanese armor on display, the armor stand is sitting on top of the storage hitsu. They often have bail handles so a pair of people can carry one or multiple hitsu slung from a pole, and sometimes they have carry straps so a single person could carry the hitsu on their back.

The body of the box is thin plywood to keep the weight down. It’s framed in on the inside with 1×1 lumber, to give the nails something to bite into. The corners are also reinforced with brass hardware that I made myself by cutting it from sheet brass with snips. the latch is a sash lock, which isn’t the best, but it looks ok and is beefy enough to keep the hitsu closed during carrying.

All the wood is protected on the outside by spar urethane, so I think this will be good for carrying things around on drizzly days at Pennsic. that’s the main reason for this project, carrying things around at Pennsic.