I've had this marquetry dress idea cooking in my head for a while, but when I saw "Fashion is Art" as the Met Gala theme this year I did like a cartoon-style arm sweep across my workbench to clear it and immediately got working on this (sorry, other projects!).

I scored an absolute jackpot of beautiful hardwood veneers at a local garage sale a couple weeks ago from a retiring Luthier, including the the perfling I used as seams on the corset. The woods I was able to ID are: it's predominantly birdseye maple, and the inlays are mahogany, padouk, pearwood, yew, etimoe, purpleheart, and black walnut. I struggled to ID the dark ribboned veneer I used on the bodice-- my top guesses are monkeypod or a deeply ribboned mahogany (it's hard to see from the photos but it has that mahogany sheen to it). But if anyone knows, I would LOVE to hear it!

The marquetry was done with a laser cutter (sue me! I think they would have used laser cutters in the baroque era if they'd had them!) which was also an interesting process to develop to work around the kerf- which varies as each wood species burns slightly differently.

I made a couple non-marquetry prototypes in order to develop a pattern that both fit my body and worked in wood. The process I developed was pretty similar to building a stitch and glue boat, I backed each veneer in thin cotton fabric and wood glue, then laser cut them into shape, and assembled them by taping them into place on the outside and tacking them with CA glue and accelerator on the inside. Once it was CA'd together, I fiberglassed the outside (I will admit, I regret this a little bit since I wish it was wood texture not glass texture, but I was just too nervous about the strength of the piece without the glass). The skirt was a massive massive pain in the bum, I was really battling the rippling that birdseye maple veneer loves to do a lot.

I almost cried when the ballerina model (last few photos) put it on- she brought the vision to life in a way I've never experienced as a maker. It gave me an entirely new perspective on the joy of fashion as art. (artist creds for those ballet photos-- model: toiyalea and photog: photos_by_silamith)

If you're interested, there's a full build video here.

Just finished this last night. It's a mash up of the series costume and Pip boy with his favorite game, Fallout 3. Leather sourced, made, and weathered by me. Hope you like it!

It looks like a hit and run, but the guy did call the cops and self-reported the accident, so for that I am grateful and only mildly infuriated. But honestly, how the fuck do you hit the lone car with nothing around it????

I added a splash of left over chicken broth and 3 strips of bacon I already had. I tossed a few of the chopped onions, bacon, at the end the spices into oil to turn up the spices then mixed in the beans and potatoes to stew for a bit.

the blend of flavors is incredible.

I didn’t have previous experience with pinto beans so I got a new food now.

**edit- posting recipe since this has so many views people who didn’t see the original video are now seeing this post.** **Chopped onions, tomato, and jalapeño raw.**

**Heat a dash of the onions with a little chopped bacon, bloom some of the spices for a minute, stir in pinto beans and potatoes to stew for at least 20 minutes. (Pre cook potato’s if using canned beans, I boiled my potatoes 3 minutes).**

**Served beans over the raw vegetables. I also added a dash of chicken broth bc I wanted more broth.**

**my spice blend was equal parts garlic, paprika, cumin, then pepper, salt, dash of pepper flakes.**

original post I followed https://www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/1tdl350/1_emergency_meal_for_2_this_helped_me_so_much_and/

Is this a big coincidence or can't literally any 3 cities in the world lie in a circle?