A Dedicated Follower of Fashion

Ugh, today has just been One of Those Days, I tell you what.

(Only in sewing/costuming-related things; outside of that there haven't been any crises!)

Sewed up most of the WH '30s top last night and tried it on this morning, just needs closures. It would fit if I had a second set of breasts slung very low on my ribs! Great look. Two-piece tops that are bag lined don't allow too many opportunities to fix them while the thing's in progress... Should be fairly fixable with a vertical dart, but hello annoying.

Decided to pivot back to historical stuff, as it occurred to me this week that this is my last sewing weekend before the Virginia trip (busy next weekend!). Pulled out an ollllllld UFO 1790s open robe that didn't actually need much work, just finishing the sleeves and the CF band to close it. 1790s round gown for day and add the open robe for evening, easy peasy! Well, the sleeves were in fact dog shit, so off they came (WHO thought they fit three years ago? Fire that person. They were wrinkly and awful and too small in the front shoulder. No), which was fine because there are plenty of sleeveless open robes, and I remember being on the fence about sleeves for this anyway. So, picked off the sleeves and hemmed up the armholes, and suited up to try it on so I could mark and cut that CF band.

Oh but wait! My fat arms don't fit in my 1790s round gown any more. That's fun. Also the round gown is grody, like somebody left it out on the back deck for two weeks and it just got dirty. That's fun, too.

ALSO I noticed that the open robe has a stain on the back of the neck...probably from sitting on top of a bin under the shitty leaky roof. Even more fun!

So...I took the round gown (and my 1780s chemise gown, because that's also grody, and I have an event to wear it to in the fall) and chucked it in the sink to soak for a while. If it gets wearably less gross, I'll piece in a little wedge into each sleeve seam...probably with some other fabric because I don't think I have any more of that white stripe! Have to check the scrap bin.

If it doesn't get less gross...well, I will just be very cranky and either wear the print morning dress to dinner, or the 1780s chemise dress (THOSE SLEEVES FIT BTW) with a sash hitched up real high, as there's no waist drawstring!

I may spend the rest of my evening just grumpily eating takeout (yes, that'll help my arms get less fat!) and internetting, because the creative gods are against me today!

Actual sewing was minimal, but I did some cleaning of the Sewing Room Disaster so that can only be a good thing!

Tom bought some plastic storage totes as a "please try to corral your sprawling hoarder tendencies, my beloved betrothed" gesture, so I spent a good few hours in there on Saturday, cleaning up maybe a quarter of the godawful mess it's become. The more space I have, the more I spread out, and I like organizing things until there are things that have No Home, and then those homeless things just get piled up, and unfinished projects get piled on top of them, and then suddenly you realized you haven't seen the floor in that corner over there for two years...

So, uh, I made a bit of a dent in there. Culled and relocated the costume shoe collection to the top of one of the bookshelves in labeled boxes (it's ok, I have a wee stepladder and we're not prone to earthquakes) and relocated most of the fabric bolts to the shoes' old home on long low shelves. Even wiped down said shelves and put shelf paper down (because it's a crappy old shelf that was from the basement at the old house, and it's always been vaguely dusty no matter what you do to it). Also started some organization of the looming piles, and may have managed to corral all the fur bits that Pip pulled out of their box and dragged all over the room (thanks, jerk). They now go in a plastic bin, cat. Moved the cotton/linen fabric off its designated shelf and into a bin, so some of the random fabric lengths that have been piling up can now go on said bookshelf. Will probably need to designate another UFO bin (yikes), but the old UFO bin is a smaller one, so once I cull old projects and replace the old bin it might not be that bad. Might...

Oh, also the vintage hat collection went in a new big bin, too. Not an ideal storage method for hats, but an improvement over the "in random bags and stashed under things" method. At least they're smaller than my costume hats, which will in no way be contained by bins and I have no idea how they're going to eventually be moved without getting smooshed. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it...

Once I got tired of cleaning, I cut out and sewed the grand total of one mask - I need a few more (the christmas ones are officially banned form rotation now because it's SPRING, GIRL, so I need a couple new ones to go two weeks of school before having to wash them all), but I found a scrap of organdy on the floor that was just big enough for one mask - and since that's what I use for interfacing, hey, let's go for it.

I also found a lonesome scrap (a big scrap) of a bit of linen-rayon from a dress I made in 2014 (yes, I had to look that up, and HOLY 
SHIT do I keep things forever) that I'd always intended to make "a shirt or something" out of, so I did most of that as well. Sleeveless and very very simple, but it's one less scrap on the floor! Still have to face the neck and armholes, and do the hem, but it's definitely doable this week if I can peel myself away from the internet during my free time.

She says, while on the internet...

It's my last week of freedom before school starts, and I'm taking advantage of it by doing basically nothing! Somewhat in my defense, I caught a cold over the weekend - it's not a very bad one, just bad enough to be annoyingly sniffly (and grumpier than usual when having to stay past 10pm at work...). Not especially motivating to sew anything complicated, either.

I did start working on the Kannik's Korner cap again yesterday, since the old sewing finger doesn't have such a puncture any more. This cap's rather fussier than the two I made previously - lots more hemming!

I was going to finish one of the Nicer 1950s Dresses I started earlier in the summer this week, for a show mom and I are going to at Longwood Gardens this Saturday...but the forecast currently calls for rain. And since it's a rain or shine event and the tickets are not refundable (and I paid for them and they weren't cheap!) and you can't have umbrellas open during the show....I will probably not be wearing a nice dress to that!

(And if the forecast changes...well I've certainly got dresses to fall back on.)

So I sort of forgot that mom and I had plans for tomorrow-day, and then I have work, and obviously I'll be busy most all of Saturday...so I have essentially one day (with work) to finish the new 50s dress for the opera on Sunday! Hmmmm. I did sew the basic bodice together today, but this seems unlikely. You never know, maybe it'll go together very quickly! Ha. Ha. Ha.

Why did I suddenly run out of sewing time? Welllllll, I've been wasting a lot of time the past two days learning all about fountain pens. Um. Is that weird? You see, I came across an article linked on FB about how it isn't really computers that killed handwriting...it was the rise in ballpoint pen use. Oh. Well, that makes sense, actually! Those things are no fun to write with. You might've noticed that I enjoy pretty, oldey-timey things (WHAT?! NO WAY), so the enormous amount of pen and ink options available make me quite gleeful! (Zillions of colors! Shimmery inks! Eeeeeee!) So I'm treating myself to a pack of disposable fountain pens from a delightfully helpful website I found (I say "treating", but it's $7.50 for three pens, so not a huge expense), to see if I like them.

...I may have found an even dorkier hobby than historical costuming. xD

I want to start sewing on some project, but pretty much everything is at the "still need to buy X for this project but I shouldn't do that til next paycheck" stage. Boring. The polka-dot dress for the WWII air show is probably next, but I still need lining for that (going to use cotton lawn, but I usually buy that in 10yd lengths from Dharma since it's cheaper, so that's a chunk of change). Might cut out the pieces for it tomorrow though.

So I made myself do boring housekeep-y things, like put away clean laundry that's been sitting for *mumble* days, do a couple of small sewing repairs that have been sitting around for months, hand-wash a few of my wool sweaters in preparation for switching out my winter clothes for summer...super exciting stuff like that! Woo.

If I finish this last repeat tonight, I'll have met my goal and I can take tomorrow off! Come on, self! *drags feet*

I did have a copy of The Handmaid's Tale put on hold for me at the library, so it's very possible I'll swing by there tomorrow and spend the day reading, instead. Been meaning to read that for quite a while and now that they've made a show out of it, I really want to make sure I read the book first. (I'm one of those people, yes.)

Or I could finish up the walrus skirt that's still sitting around, and a pink linen skirt I unearthed today...I felt motivated to go through my bag of modern UFOs, and wow. Clearly I hadn't done THAT in a while. I am very much one to Save All The Things, but sometimes you just need to cut your losses and chuck things. The pink linen skirt was part of a dress that that weight of linen would have been wildly inappropriate for. There were also THREE cut-out dresses that I mercifully ran out of muslin to line and always meant to go back to; they were all super shiny fake-o "silk" sari fabric that I guess I didn't know any better? Or didn't care? Either way, they all went bye-bye. Really quite tragic. xD

These were a totally random find on ebay while looking for gloves for the 1790s outfit - definitely one of those "I probably shouldn't buy these but it's ok because someone will outbid me" things. Well, nobody outbid me so now I'm the proud owner of some vintage mitts, oops. No idea how old they are (20th century because they feel like nylon; 1950s if you forced me to guess, because the '50s liked pretty, delicate accessories, but that's a shot in the dark), but they're awfully purty!

Horrible laptop picture of me wearing them:

Perfect condition; I don't think they've ever been worn...and tiny! I can tell they'll travel downward a bit on my chicken arms, but they take some easing to get over the hand. Not much stretch in these! (Well I think we've found the answer to why they've survived unworn...)

I was going to get some gloves for the New Castle ball but I think these will do very well instead! Since I've bought them I ought to wear them, haha. They're actually a little long for 1840 (all the fashion plates I've found 1830-40 have gloves that are mid-forearm to just under the elbow, and they get shorter after 1840 - and these mitts are just over the elbow), but that's one of those things I should Probably Not Worry Myself Unduly About. I'm sure I'll get chucked out of the ball for having mitts that are an inappropriate length. Definitely. xD sewloud will disown me.

Another busy day! No sewing time today either (well, there could have been about an hour, but I decided it would be more beneficial as nap time). Had to be up early to model my aunt's toilet-paper dress for pics, and it took a little longer than I thought (hence the nap). And yes, it's a legit contest (sponsored by Charmin, naturally, LOL); the winner gets a $10,000 prize, and the top ten designers and their models get to go to NYC for the show. Yeah, a toilet-paper-wedding-dress-show. Not my jam at ALL but I'm happy to model it, hahaha. She got to go to New York last year with this dress (grrrr won't link to the pic, it's on slide 20), so you never know! (If she wins, do I get a cut for being the model? Haaaaaa.)

So itchy. So very itchy. Can't see the detail work on the front here but it's pretty damn impressive!

Two inches of snow so far! As of 5pm today, our store wasn't closing tomorrow, but the manager told me to not bother coming in for my shift tomorrow, so, snow day regardless! Wish I had the silk to work on my pelisse - a snow day would be very inspiring to work on that! Ah well.

I didn't sew at all today because I switched shifts with someone, and that completely threw me off, plus then I had some last-minute things to pick up before the snow started (aka wine and tonic, because what good is being snowed in with a bottle of gin if there's nothing to mix it with? And I plan on making mulled wine tomorrow).

In Which She Realizes There Are Two Weeks Left Til Fort Fred.

*flail*

Sew like the wind!

(Stop distracting me, Wolf Hall, you bastard! Oh, NOW you want to sew your K Parr dress. OF COURSE YOU DO. TOO BAD. Twit.)

In other random news, I spent my time yesterday before work getting sunburned and doing a promo shoot at Glen Foerd, for their Jazz Age on the Delaware event in August. Literally I saw it two days before on Facebook, and said, oh gee, a chance to play dress-up! All by me onsie, too. The other seven people there were very impressed that I'd made my dress (the green lawn potato sack I made a few years back for the NYC lawn party), which considering it was the green lawn potato sack, was amusing to me. None of them were costumers, you see. All worth it because we got to eat and drink the picnic props. Tiny tarts! Blackberries! Cookies! Glazed walnuts! Gin and tonics! Champagnes!

Will share pictures when I get them.