Sunday Train Viewing

On the Sunday just gone, I took a fun and unexpected trip to go and watch steam trains at a heritage railway! It was a really great day out, I really love heritage railways and I would visit this one in particular a lot with my grandparents when I was a child.

For my outfit on this day, I wore one of my favourite dresses, which was this Sheglit dress. I really like it because of how comfortable it is, it has no waist so there is little discomfort around the middle. I wore it with a collar from Atelier Pierrot over it, I feel like this combination has a cute and comfortable appearance.

I realised recently that one of my favourite things about a lot of the dresses I own, is that the way the collar sits on them, it allows necklaces to press on the collar rather than feeling their weight on my neck. I noticed that I tend to prefer wearing lighter necklaces when not wearing a collar for this reason.

It was a fairly chilly day, but the sun was out, and because of my layers, I only needed to wear a cardigan over the top of this outfit. While out I took a few photos of trains, and I also bought some framed train-related illustrations from the 1930s to put in my house.

This was my favourite train :) It was smaller than the others.

Work Lunch Coord

I spoke in a recent journal entry about needing to go into work yesterday, and how I wasn't sure what to wear for this. Once again, Physical Drop was the answer! I really love this tartan - it appears as though it's pink or purple, but up close it's actually red and white. I don't see tartan in this colour quite as much so it's quite unusual. I was worried about being overdressed, but to my surprise one of my female colleagues actually wore heels, so I felt a lot more comfortable.

I was also really excited, that it was finally cold enough to be wearing a cape! I had bought this cape back in summer, and hadn't had chance to wear it at all. But yesterday I wore it, and I felt so cosy and cute. It was also really useful because one thing that I worry about a lot when heading into the city, is having things stolen from my bag, especially since I need to use a backpack to carry my laptop. But I was easily able to fit my backpack under my cape, and this made me feel as though my belongings were safer since it was harder to get into my backpack without me noticing. So this was a real win for cape day.

Coordinate Collages

I created a lot of coordinate collages recently, since I'm trying to plan what to wear to a gothic event I'm going to soon. I'm going to add them all below. I'm having a lot of trouble choosing what to wear. Since it's a gothic event, and I know I will be spending a lot of time stood in the cold at train stations, I would like to wear a longer skirt, though I'm not set on it. Since I know I'll be on my feet a lot, I'm planning to bring a pair of New Rock boots to wear no matter which coordinate I pick.

Favourites:

I recently had one of my dream dresses be delivered, which you can see in the Shiro (all white) coordinate collage above. However, I also am tempted to wear black, since white seems like it'd be quite a standout colour at a gothic event - and I was also so excited about receiving the dress I had dreamed of having, that I am maybe a little bit worried about staining it when I wear it. I also would need to bring my white New Rock boots for this coordinate, which are a pair that I haven't broken in yet.

The other coordinate here is a bit of an outlier compared to other coordinates I am sharing today - it is made up of items from Atelier Pierrot's Heli-x collaboration - which to me feels a lot less classically romantic gothic, and a lot more of a playful feel. I shared it with a few other lolitas, and it was mentioned that this coordinate is the most "lolita" out of all of the options, when viewed by Japanese lolitas. I really love the tights and the overall feel of it, as it has maybe a bit of a chunky and old-school feel to it with the striped tights and big boots, but I also am very interested in wearing the romantic shiro coordinate. Since I am going to be meeting other lolitas there, it might be nice to wear a more lolita style gothic outfit, rather than going very goth.

Comfortable Favourites:

In this grouping I have some beloved tried and tested main pieces - my red corset OP and my black long bustle JSK, as well as my long bustle corset skirt which is incredibly comfortable. I love how the red corset OP has a really vampiric feel to the colour scheme, and I love the sheer comfort of the other 2 pieces, which keeps me coming back again and again. These are all pieces I love, but I'd also like to wear pieces that are a bit more standout.

Maybe:

I've been wanting to wear my Bustle Corset JSK sometime soon, but I feel like I'm just a bit less excited about wearing this coord than some of the coords I've put down in the above category. I'm not sure what it is, because I really love purple, but I just am not that excited about this coord in particular. I also feel like the necklace doesn't go in the way I want it to. Though I do like the Marble blouse with this JSK, and that is rather bringing up the score and interest.

Probably Not:

I wanted to try balancing this pink corset OP into a black based coordinate. I think it's almost there, but I don't think that the corsage I have here is really working that well for what I have in mind. I think a deeper pink/red colour would work a bit better, potentially with a black lace base.

Website Updates!

The past couple of days I've been working hard to add a lot of new stuff to my website! First of all, I added almost all of my legwear to my Wardrobe. I also added a few more accessories, and separated out my Neant Glass jewellery from my other jewellery, since I decided I wanted to keep these pictures separate.

You might also notice that some of the formatting on my older Journal entries has improved! I wanted to make the navigation look a little easier to read and interact with, so it's just a little cleaner now. I still think it could be better, but I haven't gotten around to coming up with a design for this yet.

I also have been working on adding an art page. So far I've created a space for my pixel art, and I have added only a few of my pixel creations to it. Over time I will add more. I'm a little disappointed but I've lost a lot of the original sized pixels, so a few of them will be scaled up. I also need to figure out how to display art that isn't pixel art, so I'll have to think about this soon. But more important than that is to create a button on the homepage to link to my art page.

As for other things I've been working on on the website, I updated the "Links" page, I formatted it more and I added a few more links. I want to make it a useful resource for myself as well as others. I don't have a particularly good understanding of some of the social aspects, like maybe the rules, of the clubs I come across on this section of the web, but I wanted to start joining some pixel clubs, to encourage myself to spend more time creating art. I started off with the charm bracelet club, and I made a pumpkin charm for halloween! I hope I can continue with these kinds of activities.

I recently found out about The Quilting Bee, an interactive pixel art community that was disbanded in 2014. I felt really sad to discover this whole online culture that had vanished just as easily as it had came about, and I hope that one day I can have involvement in this kind of community in the future, and share in the kinds of community creations that are made for these. I have never been especially good at completing real life, or physical, art and quilting, so I'd love to have a place in online art and quilting.