Geek Out!

So…I’m going to Geek Out for a moment. I recently discovered that my all time favorite anime is being remastered and redesigned in a no holds barred reboot. I am of course talking of Sailor Moon.

^^

Excuse me, while I have a Stewie Griffin going to Disney Land moment.

^^

For me, Sailor Moon was my first introduction into Japanese Anime. It is the reason I love shows like Cowboy Bebop, Gundam Wing, The Big O, and many more. In fact, I love the show so much it translated into a love of the Japanese culture which snowballed, culminating in studying the Japanese language in college.

I think there is a point in every young girl’s life where you wish for more. The elusive “more” that a teenager yearns for, but doesn’t quite understand. This transition takes place when you realize fairy tales aren’t real and that there is no White Knight coming to take you away. Sailor Moon kind of filled this void. The beauty of Sailor Moon was that Usagi was also trying to be more than what she really was and as a preteen in the late nineties I could relate to the want to be an adult while still gripping, if only a little, to the fairy tale aspects that resided in the story line.

Sailor Moon went off American airways more than a decade ago when Cartoon Network opted for a more modern anime approach in for their Adult Swim programming. That wasn’t the end of my Sailor Moon experience though. With the help of the expanding World Wide Web (hehe) I was able to dive head long into a new version of Sailor Moon--one never before released in American. Soon I was engulfed by the amazing art work, manga’s, and the original Japanese version of Sailor Moon. I, like many other Moonies back then, taught my self HTML and dedicated many self made websites on Geocities and Angelfire. These sites were crude compared to the new standards of web development, but they were my first taste of what my online experience and presence was going to be.

After exhausting every aspect of the Sailor Moon online experience (which included watching the subtitled version and the live action version on YouTube and Veoh) I succumbed to the inevitable and let my love of Sailor Moon drift to the past, with the rest of my childhood.

So it came as a big shock to find out that for the 20th Anniversary of Sailor Moon some particular Moonies were trying to revive the great, long since gone, show. I followed this information as best as I good, which was few and far between for a very long time. So long that I thought maybe the rumor was just that, a rumor.

Then, last week my younger brother (also an anime junkie) told me that Sailor Moon was really going to return. It wasn’t just a rumor. I immediately searched every current bit of information. Articles from every Nerdy blog, Anime Reviews, and Facebook posts exclaiming the return of the great show. I jumped for joy, as though I was thirteen again, running home from school to watch my favorite girls at 2:30 in the afternoon. Since then, I’ve been following the news and even watching the remastered originals on Hulu. My childhood returned in a blink of an eye and I could really appreciate those years where Sailor Moon was one of my few refugees from the horrors of puberty.

So, here's to all those girls who came of age in the late nineties watching Adult Swim’s anime. I hope a revival of your favorite show, which ever it may be, comes to a streaming network near you!

Moving...On to Bigger Things

Hello All, 

Recently, I finished my review of MSQC’s magazine Block it opened the flood gates for a review section that I’m hoping to devote some of my time to. I liked the idea of reviewing quilting magazines and it gives me an excuse to (of course) buy more quilting magazines.

With this acknowledgement, I realized my blog here on google is way to small to handle everything I want it to handle. So instead, I’ve created a full fledged website to my quilting hobby. It’s not overly big, but I have more space to accommodate everything I want to do.

This doesn’t meant that my blog here is completely obsolete. No, I will continue to update blog posts here. This move does have two repercussions, though. First, our move means that there will be a double post--one here on my blogger blog and one at the new website. This will remain in effect until I believe the duplication is not necessary any more. Second, I will not be updating the extra pages (Evelyn’s Quilt, Tutorials) here any more. Duplicating those pages would be too tedious and unnecessary.

I hope everyone following this blog will see this change as a change for the better. I sure do. You can find a link to my website, also called Awkward Quilting, below. But be sure to look out for the new domain, www.awkwardquilting.com, soon to come. For now, anyone can find my website from this post.

P.S. I chose Wix to host my new website. And I must say, I recommend it dearly to anyone wanting to create an easy website quickly.

http://eerunyan.wix.com/awkward-quilting

Review: Block, an MSQC Magazine

First and Second Issues of Block

Branching out from their traditional quilting shop activities, the Missouri Star Quilt Company (or MSQC) have developed their own quilting magazine. This is a big step for the small company, as they begin to push through the traditional quilt magazines, such as Fons and Porter’s Love of Quilting and Quilt Magazine, and grasp a foot hold in the wider world of quilting.

(The pictures featured here were personally taken by me, of my personal copies of Block, and are only intended for the purposes of this review.)

MSQC’s magazine, appropriately named Block, is a collection of everything that the small company embodies, while doing their part to keep this traditional art alive. Although Block is a magazine, MSQC has chosen to publish the issues as paper back books. MSQC have used the already completed projects featured on their tutorial and YouTube pages. I really enjoy this feature because if you get stumped while working a project, you always have the option to login to YouTube and view the corresponding video.

MSQC has personalized their magazine with small articles that accompany each project. These articles are first person accounts of quilting stories which explain how each project was developed. The stories come from a wide range of staff members at MSQC, helping endear each writer, and their love of quilting, to the reader.

Second page of each issue

After each story comes the actual project. Every project is dedicated to a specific technique that the MSQC hails as the simplest way to complete a particular task. For example, their signature way to make half square triangles (a technique required for most quilting blocks) is showcased in their very first quilt. Their crystal clear pictures and excellent instructions make it easy for even a novice quilter (such as myself) to complete any project.

Finally, MSQC dedicates their last few instruction pages to small projects and general instructions to complement the quilt you are creating. These techniques include items such as binding and labeling your quilts.

As my love for MSQC grows, I find that Block compounds my passion for quilting. The small magazine has everything that a amateur and expert quilt needs for their quilting projects. I recommend Block, for any quilter and especially for those who are just getting started.

Important Facts:

Price: $5.99 per issue or $35.99 a year (I did the year calculation myself, forgive me if it is incorrect.)

Subscription: Bi-monthly

Shipping: Free

Block© is a Missouri Star Quilt Company© product. All Rights Reserved.