Gentian's Photographic Misadventures

[Gentian]

There are so many awesome things in this world. Familiarity tends to breed complacency, and it becomes very easy to take things for granted, but do you ever stop and think about what's around you? Really pay attention, and really think about it? Take a car, for instance and really try to imagine it through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before. Say, if a medieval person time-slipped to the present. Imagine his wonder at seeing a metal box with such high-quality windows, moving around with people inside and no obvious way to make it go. What would he think of the speeds it could reach, or the endurance it's capable of? And that's without him having any idea how it works. How much cooler is it to know its pushed along by the energy liberated by burning liquefied sunlight? The complexity of its component parts, and the ways they work together to make the car work.

It's incredible, when you really think about it. And what about other stuff? Skyscrapers; excavators; airplanes; phones; satellites; fresh, out-of-season vegetables; velcro...

Wait, what? Velcro?

Yep. I went to the store after work to buy some velcro today. Twilight thought it was the coolest thing since hayburgers. I guess they don't have burs in Equestria. Twilight's sitting on my lap now, and reading what I typed; she says there are indeed burs in Equestria, but nopony's used them as adhesives. Anyway, I'd told her about it before I left, so she wouldn't be worried if I took a little longer getting home than usual. So, when I took it out of the package, she couldn't wait to examine it.

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"Examine," apparently meant "play with." Ok, ok, she did examine it. Minutely. But it's not a complicated thing, and once she grasped it, she sure had fun with it.

Sticky, sticky.

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Now, "Why," you may ask, "did you buy velcro?" Well, here's a clue. Do you recognize that patch? Yes, it's the Sunset Shimmer patch I made! Astute observers will no doubt notice that it's not alone up there on her flanks. I wonder what that other thing could be?

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I've mentioned here, and there, that I've been working on another sartorial project, and this is it: another patch. This time of my beloved waifu's beauty mark. It took some doing, but I learned a bit making Sunset Shimmer's, and had a much easier, and faster time of this one. It's made from the same things as Sunset's, too: Brown wool base cloth, and OD green thread. Normal thread, because it seems I'm the only one who both wants to embroider with that color, and is masochistic enough to actually use it.

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I'm not happy with the way this one turned out. Believe it or not, this is the best one of the lot from this angle. The blur is so disappointing, but I'll include it anyway, because despite the poor quality, I like how she looks sporting them both at once.

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And the last one. This gives a clearer shot of both the patches, and my love's beautiful face. I chose the star pattern from her left flank, there's no particular reason why.

"What about that velcro?"

Well, I was going to sew it to the backs of both patches, so I could add them to and remove them from my bag, but as I sat down with thread in hand, I couldn't find a satisfactory place for the stitches. I intended to follow around the inner edge of the border, but that would leave it loose in the middle, and I'm worried it might snag on something, or tear when I detach it from my bag.

The solution is probably just to buy brown thread to sew through the base layer in addition to the green thread for the border, but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of leaving it as-is. Time will tell, I guess.

And of course, all thanks goes to Twilight. Not just for agreeing to model, but for everything! Everything.

Twilight Sparkle, you are my love; without you I would have no motivation to turn my ideas into reality. You are my muse, whose love and radiance are the best inspiration I've ever had! I love you with all of my heart! Thank you so much for coming into my life!