PCOS vs. Body Image

I haven't been doing much in the way of new cosplays these days.  There are a few reasons for this.  First I haven't had the financial stability to do so until recently.  Second I haven't had the physical space in my living conditions, which as also recently changed.  Now that we have moved we are working on unpacking from the move still.  (A.K.A. Everything is in a state of unorganized chaos.  We just found the silverware today, and we have been here for over two weeks.)  Third now that I have to the first two things I haven't had the time.  I currently work two jobs and go to school full time.  Summer semester ended last week.  I have one week off before fall classes start.  If I have free time I spend it trying to relax a little bit and organize the chaos a little bit.  And my final reason, I'm self conscious about my recent weight gain.

This is my cat Alucard (A.K.A. Squeakers) .  I added this picture no reason other than its cuteness.

  Now I understand the whole idea of love your body, and positive body image.  I have even gone though my list of coplays that I want to do, and found some that I would be more than comfortable doing with the extra weight.  However, I am still going to loose that weight, and it isn't because of body image.  I have much more important reasons as to why I will loose the weight.

I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).  The excess weight will lead to diabetes, heart disease, cancer, infertility, even more rapid extra weight gain, and most likely a host of other ailments.  When I am at a "healthy weight" as designated by my doctor, all these ailments become less likely.  With the extra weight the are almost certainties.  So, you can see why loosing the extra weight is important to me.

Now, why am I telling everyone this?  I am currently about  50 pounds overweight (or about 4 dress sizes), and I have had many people tell me that I look great or hide the weight well.  I am taking medications, doing what I can to eat healthy, and with a bit of luck I will start exercising soon.  Even when I am at my doctor recommending healthy weight I can't stop eating healthy and exercising.  If I did stop I would start gaining weight.  The last time I was in my healthy weight zone I had many people accuse me of having poor body image or being anorexic for doing what I had to do for my health.  I had many people trying to body shame me for wanting to be healthy.  They made me feel guilty for doing the things that my doctor told me to do.  They people that I was hoping would support me instead did the opposite, because the media and all the other information outlets talk about body image and weight.  As if the only reason someone would be dieting is for weight loss.  Or the only reason someone wants to loose weight is body image.  There is far more reasons than those.  Remember you don't know the struggles that others are facing.  Do what you can to support them through their struggles.  They will appreciate that more than anything.  Yes, there are people out there that DO have bad body image issues.  I'm not saying they don't.  I just don't think it is as common as you would think.  I am working with my doctor on this, and have been for more than 10 years.  I'm just a woman struggling with health issues that is getting tired of all the false body image issues the people keep accusing me of having.  I don't think I am the only one either.

All I ask is please be kind to one another, and try not to judge someone until you have all of the facts.  (Better yet, don't judge them at all if possible. They need your support far more than your judgment.)  Have compassion for each other.

World of Warcraft Valentine's Day Gift

So it is April, and I'm posting about what I made my partner for Valentine's Day.  Yeah, I'm a bit behind on my blog updates.  But, my homework is up to date.  (Can't blame a college student for being busy with homework.  Right?)  Sorry, for the late post either way.  This year I was struggling with finding a way to show the special guy in my life how much I love him, and do it in a way that is uniquely him and me . . . on a very, very tight budget.  My health has been really bad since last December and I was unable to work the first few months this year because of it.  (I am much better now for those that are wondering.  Even if doctors still have no idea what happened or why.)  But I settled on making a counted cross stitch bookmark with a World of Warcraft theme.

 The first thing I needed to do was create the pattern to follow.  My guy is a "Horde for life" person, so naturally I had to use a Horde logo.  I personally don't have any real pull toward either faction other than I like playing with Dustin so, I play Horde.  I also have some Alliance characters.  I play Pandaren.  I am quite happy on either side.  If you would like this pattern modified for Alliance or with a Hearth Stone feel free to message me, and I will see what I can do to make that happen for you if you are unable to modify the pattern yourself.  >^.~<

I pulled this off of the Blizzard Gear web page, but it looks like they no longer have it posted.  Otherwise I would have posted a link.  This is what I used to pull the Horde logo from.

I then took this file and edited it so I had a cut out of the Horde logo.

Lok'Tar Ogar!

From here I put this into my graph paper file and then made it slightly transparent so that I could see the the lines from the graph paper.  I then filled in the corresponding spots to make my logo.

Every crafter need to have graph paper.  Especially if you ever plan to make your own pattern.  I've used it countless times for cross stitch, kitting, and other things.  It comes in very handy.  I created this file years ago, and I still pull it out when I start a new project.

Your typical 100 X 50 graph paper.  Feel free to download and use this for your own purposes.

If you don't play World of Warcraft there is an annual event called "Love is in the Air" that corresponds with the week of Valentine's Day.  There is an item you can buy during this time called a "Bag of Heart Candies".  One of the heart candies reads "I'll follow you all around Azeroth".  This was perfect for my Valentine's Day gift while being both equally nerdy and referencing actual game content.  I found a font I liked, and followed the same steps I did for the logo to make the rest of the pattern.  On a note about text with patterns:  make sure each instance of the letter matches.  (Such as all your "A" need to be the same.)   There are other things that need to match up also.  If you look at the "E" and the "F" here you will notice the similarities.  Much like the "R," "D," "O," and "U" all have similar characteristics.

And here we have the finished pattern.  The center of the pattern is the red line between the Horde logo and the text.

The fabric I opted to use was unbleached.  I felt that it had a more Horde-ish feel too it.

This is is my fabric choose.  I would have preferred a 16 or 18 count, but they only had bleached white in those counts at the store.

I always mark the center lines on my fabric with a color of thread that is completely unrelated to anything I will actually be using in my work.  I also normally will put masking tape around the edges of the fabric so that it won't fray.  But, in this instance the more frayed the better.  That way it would look more warn and battle damaged.

Sorry, it may be difficult to see the green thread, but this is what it should look like.

My guy likes shiny things.  So I used one strand each of DMC E321 and DMC 817 for the red, and DMC 310 and E310 for the black.  This is what it looked like before I did any back stitching.  As you can tell I also added a bit of extra fabric around the edges.  I added 10 squares from the edge of the design on each side.

You can see a bit of how the shiny thread will catch the light.  It looks amazing in firelight.

I did a black back stitch around the Horde logo, but left the lettering as is.  I also took out the green guild stitching I put in at the beginning.

And here is the finished bookmark.

I added my initials and the year in the lower right hand corner of the bookmark.  This is completely optional if you wanted to do something similar.  And there you have my nerdy rendition of Valentine's Day gift giving 2015 in April.  It was finished in time for the actual Valentine's Day gift giving . . . the blog update was not.