Let me preface my advice by saying that I've never seen Dr. Who and have no idea how to sew.

A1) Absolutely, it is my understanding that not only is everything prior to 2005 non-sense and irrelevant to the Dr. Who series of today, but full of Nazi and communist propaganda as well as vulgar and pornographic references to the anit-Star Wars movement. Plus, I believe that about 5 or 6 episodes into the 2005 season, the viewer discovers *spoiler alert* that everything prior was just an LSD-induced dream.
B2) No, "staystiching" is incredibly important. Without that step, your patterns could slip and you'll end up with one arm being tighter than the other. Then you'll be forced to choose between wearing the shirt-with-one-arm-that-is-kind-of-tight or turning your project over to the nearest donation center or round filing bin. If you happen to go with the first option, the lack of proper blood flow will eventually cause vein collapse, muscle death, and the amputation of said arm due to gangrenous infection. So, for the love of your working arms, please tread carefully.

You'll never get this level of quality advice on facebook, by the way. More like jerkbook, I always say!

Geez! A guy beats a Final Fantasy game and he thinks he owns the internet!

I find your notion of "pornographic references to the anti-Star Wars movement" frightening. And yet intriguing...

I do agree with you about the jerkbook thing: woe is the man who mentions philosophy on a guy's wall!

Doctor Who is Great

Hey,

Moving to PC China I got to watch all the Doctor Who episodes starting from 2005. I think it is a great show!!!!

Dr. Jen

Re: Doctor Who is Great

Jen? Have you been reading my blog for a year and half waiting for a Dr. Who reference? If so, I should have posted about Beanworld earlier!

So are you in China now? I seem to recall you did that right after COS...

Re: Doctor Who is Great

I have enjoyed reading your blog and hearing about your experiences.I don't know much about them which is why I don't leave comments.

Doctor Who is a totally different story though.

Beanworld... Miss that comic... It was a great read while sweating on a lipico. Here in China I read Bone which is also a great comic.

Yeah I am extending to do a third year in PC China.

Dr. Jen

Re: Doctor Who is Great

PS. I am not sure if I have been reading your blog for a year and a half. I ran across it on the website peacecorpsjournals in the Burkina Faso section. Even though you are not in Burkina anymore, your livejournal still appears there.

Re: Doctor Who is Great

Yeah. Nothing I can do about that - I was put on that list without my permission and it doesn't seem to update. Every so often I get a comment from someone who wants to know about Burkina, and I generally direct them to other blogs.

Congrats with your 3rd year! My travel bug is under control for now, but I'm sewing the seeds for opportunities later down the road. It's a huge bummer that Burning Man isn't a possibility - it's an unofficial Peace Corps reunion!

Anyway, don't be a stranger. I know I made fun of facebook above, but are you reachable there? At the very least, let me know when you're in the states sometime!

Re: Doctor Who is Great

Well facebook is banned in China plus I decided to stop using it due to personal reasons.

But your LJ is cool.

Unfortunately the standard Doctor Who advice is kind of annoying: it depends on what you're looking for. No matter what you start with you're guaranteed a certain amount of cheesy special effects, implausible plots, and cracktastic fun. Each Doctor is a little bit different, and sometimes the companions make a huge difference, too. Don't start with 2005 series two or with the Sixth Doctor. Other than that, sure, 2005 series one is a fine place to start; series two is very weak but it continues to get better. The current run (series five) is fantastic, and you don't have to have seen previous episodes for any of it to make sense. In fact, that's universally true, so I also recommend the old series' City of Death (Fourth Doctor) and Battlefield (Seventh Doctor). If you've tried before and had trouble with the old series' pacing, sure, watch some of the new series to get yourself hooked and then try the old one again.

Staystitching: can make your life much, much easier in later stages of the sewing process.

Noted. I'll be taking my time with this, so I'll try to remember to give season 2 a chance.

I do, in general, like the old Dr. Who, but I have no intention of watching the countless hours of it in the name of completion. Better to find a new starting point and keep it reasonable.

Some time later I'll check out City of Death and Battlefield.

As for the staystitching, I'm doing a "super easy" shirt free of pleats, cuffs, buttonholes, or any other pesky detail requiring experience. I'm basically stapling the sleves & collar to the body with a nifty "thing" on top of the other somewhat plainer thing. It seemed like the staystitching bit could be skipped for something this direct, and I was thinking that I'd try it out on a more complex pattern in the future.

...the only person I know who's trying to watch all of old Who is severa and she's insane. Better to stick to the good episodes, and then you always have something new to watch. :)

The place I find staystitching helps the most is in attaching sleeves. What it does is keeps the fabric in the same shape that you cut it out in -- fabric is flexible, after all, and that includes on the diagonal, which is something you don't (usually) want it to do. Staystitching the armholes helps making the sleeve and the body match without lots of pain, anguish, and swearing. (If the above happens anyway, I find hand-sewing the sleeves in to be easier than trying to make the machine do what you want.)

Stef is indeed insane.

Staystitching for the sleves, eh? That makes a lot of sense. I'll do that, thanks again!