o christmas Pip
Dec. 12th, 2020 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mandie_rwMom and I got the tree yesterday and Pip helped put it up. After some initial climbing attempts and stabbing himself in the soft palate several times while chewing on twigs, he spent a good part of today sleeping under the tree and getting the felt skirt absolutely covered in hair. Hashtag MerryPipmas. Guess he and the tree are friends now.
Productive sewing: I finished up a boring blue flannel skirt yesterday - it started as the skirt of a 1933 Vogue pattern but was a horrible sister-wife length when I tried it on to check the hem, so I chopped enough off that it doesn't look markedly different from all my 1950s skirts! Boring but very necessary, because I don't currently fit in any of my really cold-weather winter skirts! I also worked on something from the "please finish me" pile - a red woolen skirt from Simplicity 8747 (again, see: need cold-weather skirts). At some point I want to make the top half to make it an actual suit, but...not right now. I probably won't finish that this weekend unless I'm incredibly efficient at lesson-planning tomorrow, but I sewed all but one seam, and hand-stitched twill tape over the raw seam allowances to make it look nice.
It would be nice if I did finish it, because we have some Weather forecast for this Wednesday - snow! Although it's an all-day event and I'll be super unexcited to be snowed in to work... (I know 5-8" is peanuts to quite a few people on my f-list, but we didn't get any snow at all last year, and that much snow at once is fairly unusual for the mid-Atlantic these days!) Oh, well, still plenty of time for the snow line to move north and then we'll just get two feet of rain.
That Damn Turn-of-the-Century Outfit: Watch the tag change back, like magic! I was really close to compromising with the skirt fabric, and getting silk, because I can get that shade of green in silk, and it's unlikely to be cold enough to really make a lined silk skirt impractical. But it's still an ambitious project, and the sewing mojo I had when I found that fashion plate is already receding. The deciding factor in tipping the scales back was actually opening the package of the cutter fur coat I'd bought - it does have a few tears but it was a very nice quality of Persian lamb in its day, and will be an absolute delight to wear something made of it.
(Even if the concept of "Persian lamb" is a little creepy, even to me, who isn't really bothered by fur. Don't look it up if fur bothers you!)
So I'm scaling back my plans to accommodate the current lack of turn-of-the-century mojo. Definitely not making a new corset (never was sent the promised pattern, and I don't think I have time anyway), for one! Will just have to suck it up (and in) and wear the 1860s again, it works well enough. I have to make a hat because I don't have a winter late-1890s anymore, and obviously I want to make that little capelet from the Persian lamb (along with a matching muff). The rest of it...would be nice but isn't entirely necessary? Although I KNOW the navy flannel skirt won't fit any more, as I made it a titch on the small side four years and three inches ago... but I do have the lavender check skirt and a light blue skirt, both of which are lightweight wools (not ideal, but possible with layering!), that *cough* hopefully still fit, with a bit of hook and bar moving... Same with the shirtwaist. The lavender check bolero is not ideal unless we have super warm weather, but I could definitely still wear the checked silk shirtwaist. Basically...I can make old stuff work.
If I have time and motivation...I'll make a new, plain skirt out of the plum wool. If I have even more time and motivation, I'll make a bodice out of the plum wool - something like Miss on the right of this photo, with a bit of the Persian lamb. And if I don't...it's okay!
(I'm still filing away the wacky red and green outfit as a Maybe Someday, because I love it! Just not this time.)
Productive sewing: I finished up a boring blue flannel skirt yesterday - it started as the skirt of a 1933 Vogue pattern but was a horrible sister-wife length when I tried it on to check the hem, so I chopped enough off that it doesn't look markedly different from all my 1950s skirts! Boring but very necessary, because I don't currently fit in any of my really cold-weather winter skirts! I also worked on something from the "please finish me" pile - a red woolen skirt from Simplicity 8747 (again, see: need cold-weather skirts). At some point I want to make the top half to make it an actual suit, but...not right now. I probably won't finish that this weekend unless I'm incredibly efficient at lesson-planning tomorrow, but I sewed all but one seam, and hand-stitched twill tape over the raw seam allowances to make it look nice.
It would be nice if I did finish it, because we have some Weather forecast for this Wednesday - snow! Although it's an all-day event and I'll be super unexcited to be snowed in to work... (I know 5-8" is peanuts to quite a few people on my f-list, but we didn't get any snow at all last year, and that much snow at once is fairly unusual for the mid-Atlantic these days!) Oh, well, still plenty of time for the snow line to move north and then we'll just get two feet of rain.
That Damn Turn-of-the-Century Outfit: Watch the tag change back, like magic! I was really close to compromising with the skirt fabric, and getting silk, because I can get that shade of green in silk, and it's unlikely to be cold enough to really make a lined silk skirt impractical. But it's still an ambitious project, and the sewing mojo I had when I found that fashion plate is already receding. The deciding factor in tipping the scales back was actually opening the package of the cutter fur coat I'd bought - it does have a few tears but it was a very nice quality of Persian lamb in its day, and will be an absolute delight to wear something made of it.
(Even if the concept of "Persian lamb" is a little creepy, even to me, who isn't really bothered by fur. Don't look it up if fur bothers you!)
So I'm scaling back my plans to accommodate the current lack of turn-of-the-century mojo. Definitely not making a new corset (never was sent the promised pattern, and I don't think I have time anyway), for one! Will just have to suck it up (and in) and wear the 1860s again, it works well enough. I have to make a hat because I don't have a winter late-1890s anymore, and obviously I want to make that little capelet from the Persian lamb (along with a matching muff). The rest of it...would be nice but isn't entirely necessary? Although I KNOW the navy flannel skirt won't fit any more, as I made it a titch on the small side four years and three inches ago... but I do have the lavender check skirt and a light blue skirt, both of which are lightweight wools (not ideal, but possible with layering!), that *cough* hopefully still fit, with a bit of hook and bar moving... Same with the shirtwaist. The lavender check bolero is not ideal unless we have super warm weather, but I could definitely still wear the checked silk shirtwaist. Basically...I can make old stuff work.
If I have time and motivation...I'll make a new, plain skirt out of the plum wool. If I have even more time and motivation, I'll make a bodice out of the plum wool - something like Miss on the right of this photo, with a bit of the Persian lamb. And if I don't...it's okay!
(I'm still filing away the wacky red and green outfit as a Maybe Someday, because I love it! Just not this time.)
no subject
Date: 2020-12-14 12:31 am (UTC)