THE ESTHERIAN BLOG

Okay, welcome to the second season of the conversation series. For the first episode, we will be picking up from where we stopped. We will just be diving right back into the awesomeness of the conversation series.  There is no special guest here today, instead, it is going to be in-house. So I have Aeon here. So let’s start with an introduction. OK, my name is Chineye Adaobi Gloria, I attend the University of Nigeria, Enugu campus. I am a 400 level Accountancy student, and my pronoun is she/her. I like the fact that people are stating their genders and the way they want to be addressed since gender has become more fluid. Our topic today is something I have made mention of in the season finale, and it was supposed to be with someone else. A lot of things happened and Aeon happens to be here instead. The topic is; The human condition: Intimacy and Vulnerability.  Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Have you ever been interested in understanding wha...

At Transformation Church, the word of the year, or rather phrase of the year is “Here Is Holy” and for the past weeks, Pastor Mike Todd has been teaching what that means. On the 3rd week of the sermon series, he asked us to identify where Here is.  I think it is human to want to escape from uncomfortable situations, to always be caught up in the facade of better days ahead. We are always trying to run away from here and according to PM, we tolerate it. If I can be honest, I don't want to be here. Here is: scary, lonely, being everyone's friends and having no companion, emotionally draining, exhausting, filled with uncertainty. Here feels like a valley, like the lowest place I have been, even if it is not. It is not pretty here.  And maybe we are right too because the days ahead devalue here. The days ahead of us make us look down on here. Soon, I am going to be a doctor(there) and that makes being a student(here) less than. Being a doctor will forever be better than being a st...

And in your fears, in your insecurities, in all the parts of you that you are yet to accept, in those parts you rather push away, I will always love you. I will love you on the cold nights and quiet days, on the nights when the crickets chirp a bit too loud, on the days when you wish you can be anywhere else but here, in the moments when your mind seems to be the loudest, on the days when you can't silence the voices in your head, the days when all they have to say is you are worth nothing.  I will love you in stillness.  And for the days you long for someone to hold you, the moment you decide nobody wants to be with you, the days your pillows are wet, and you go to bed exhausted. I will love you in stillness. Photo Credit: Zukiman Mohamad Source: pexels.com Stillness : (Noun) 1.  Silence; quiet; hush. 2.  The absence of motion. So towards the end of the year, Khadija Mbowe, a YouTuber, put up a post about loving with grace and space, and it was there I saw the phras...

It is only fitting to have at least one post that references Jon Bellion because I am a fan. Glory Sound Prep is awesome and the Hands of God is forever going to be a hit. But this is not an album review nor is this related to Jon Bellion in any way, it is just lost in translation seems to be the perfect summary of what happened. Photo Credit: Pixabay Source: pexels.com I planned to talk about this sometime as the year goes on, but somehow, fate beat me to it. Towards the end of last year, I became aware of the strain in my relationship with my close friends and I suspected something like this was going to happen if I take a moment to rewind my life, this looks like something that has been predicted to happen. There was going to be a fall-out, I feared it happening, and I became too paralysed to do anything about it. And here I am, right where I feared. So I had a phone call with one of my closest friends and the resolution of the call was, our friendship is not going to be the way it ...

source: Twitter January happened and the reality of the new year is beginning to dawn on me. How is 2022 treating you? By the way, can the people who said this month went by fast raise their hands and then apologize for the gross misinformation. January was a drag, and it felt so long and so tiring. Despite me saying that I don’t have any plans for January except for school, church and sleep, I managed to exhaust myself. Maybe it is the school that is tiring, or maybe it is because the sit-at-home has done nothing but make me wish I was back home and free to go out whenever I like. And if you are going to say, “but you don’t go out normally”, rest in the name of Jesus. Also, I thought I was going to be sleeping more, it didn’t happen. I didn’t sleep as well as I expected. There were days I was unable to fall asleep, and it can be so frustrating. But let’s move away from that. I was able to undertake a few projects this month, and it was quite exciting. I also joined an Interactive Mont...

Hello sewist, Welcome to another sewing adventure with me. Today, I would be sharing how I made these beautiful slacks, starting from the flat pattern making to the slacks themselves.  1. Pattern making/adjustment Starting off with the basic trouser foundation. For this pattern, I consulted “Patternmaking For Fashion Design by Helen Joseph-Armstrong” for reference. The pattern I used was the slack foundation(ch. 26) and it was pretty straightforward to follow. I made a bit of adjustment by introducing a front pocket for the slack and also got rid of the fly since I wanted the slack to have a side zip. So for this, I didn’t add any zip allowance. I used ¾ inch seam allowance for the pattern because I wanted to give myself enough margin for errors. After transferring the pattern and making adjustments for the front pocket. 2. Material needed     a.  Floral fabric: 2 yards     b.  Invisible zip The material I used is a floral sample fabric. The fabric is ...

Hello Sewist,  I guess 2022 is the year I make good on my promise to work on sewing and also share my journey with you. For this entry, I will be taking you through the process of creating a short gown that consists of a three-tiered skirt and a "corseted" bodice.  What do you say? 1. Pattern Making/adjustment For this pattern, I consulted “Patternmaking For Fashion Design by Helen Joseph-Armstrong” for reference. I based the pattern for the bodice on the princess torso foundation(Ch. 19), and the skirt on the separated tiers(Ch. 13).  For the adjustment to the skirt pattern, I added an extra one inch to the back skirt foundation to suffice for zipper allowance, and to complete the pattern, I added ½ inch as seam allowance.  The skirt pattern. I made it to be three-tiered For adjustment to the bodice pattern, I didn’t cut the centre front as separate panels, but as a single panel, as a solution to the challenge, I faced when I was doing a test fit for the pattern....