Sewing: Very little progress. Buttonholes are boring. I think I need to spend some serious time cleaning my sewing room - It's such a disaster that I can't open the door completely anymore...which really makes me not want to enter the room :-S *sigh*

Reading: I keep picking up good but depressing books; I started to read The Onion Girl this weekend... it's very well written... but I think it should be issued with Prozac. It's the most affecting piece I've ever read on child abuse. For all I'm guessing it's a tale of recovery I'm not sure I can handle finishing it. Reading it is certainly one way to put one's troubles into perspective :-S I admire Jilly (the main character), and her determination to see the wonder of life despite everything. I'm sure if I ever ended up in the hospital due to a car crash or serious illness her experience as "The Broken Girl" would be comforting (along the lines that misery loves company)... but.... I keep putting the book down wanting to ball my eyes out.

Not that I'm on an emotionally even keil right now, anyway. Not that I have any idea what's wrong. Just feeling really down and unmotivated for the last few weeks. (Hence the really really slow sewing progress on the GFD). Big case of blahs and not sleeping well. Usually I'm good at not worrying about things I have no control over and can't do anything about... but I'm not doing so well lately and it feels like the sand dune I'm standing on is eroding under my feet. *sigh* At least the weather's gorgeous - can't blame the blahs on that. :-)

On the happily obsessive front, I've fallen in love with two new fabrics:

• this lovely salmon taffeta (which is ever so much more fabulous in person) that really really wants to be an 1867 elliptical ball gown. I've wanted to make a BRIGHT, preferably orange-ish colored ball gown for years (see, proof - this post was in 2007!). This fabric is so going to be my birthday present to m'self ;-D.
• I wondered into Calico Corners on Saturday, 'cause I was hoping to look at this fabric in person. It wasn't possible. The fabric's been discontinued - which is probably good for my pocket book. Besides, this similar fabric was no where near as "right" for the mid-18th century in-person as it looks online - the design in real life is too big, although the color isn't nearly as dark as I thought it would be. So, I've decided to have sour grapes and pretend the same was true for the first fabric to make myself feel better. However, I browsed though the store anyway (addicted, y'ken ;-) ) and I've fallen head-over-heals for this print taffeta (whose online picture also gives the wrong impression of the size of the pattern). It wants to be an 1845 ball gown (it told me so! ;-)) . Not that I have any need for an 1845 ball gown, nor is the fabric 100% perfect for that era (to be perfect there ought to be lines of ivory satin in plaid though the ivory ground as well as the pretty pink and green print medallions that are actually there.) But the fabric is incredibly charming in person. It would look good on me. And would make such a sweet dress with short pleated sleeves. If I put removable long sleeves and a pelerine it would go charmingly with a little salmon or dusty rose bonnet. Maybe lined with celery colored silk. Mmmmmm :-D *happy fantasy*

In my angst over my gothic fitted dress this weekend, I reverted to an earlier project: the YWU'd single pattern project. I made a mock-up of the skirt in muslin! I love the skirt pattern; it's very full both in the waist and at the hem. I feel very elegant in it. :-) If I hadn't been a doofus, I would've taken pictures of the mock up for you all to see what I mean. But I'm a doofus. So you'll have to wait.

I spent a while agonizing over whether my version should have a train or not. The issue being that I'm pretty sure my inspiration outfit did not have a train - it was a (relatively) practical cotton summer walking suit, and as such is easily washable and probably wouldn't have a train. Especially since a train + white fabric = washing nightmare. However, 1) the pattern I'm working from has a train. 2) Trains are by far more common in day dresses then lack-of-trains in my non-statistical survey of the oodles of photocopied images I have. 3) Trains are trés elegant and I luvs them.

I decided on having a small train (many thanks toeestep for marking it for me!). My dress, for all it's based on a practical day dress, is NOT a modernly practical outfit. It's going to be dry-clean only because

1. my machine washed swatch of the ivory cotton pique got spotty during my test. (The ivory dye bled; ending with white and ivory splotches, like a tabby cat. :-S Not horrible, but I paid extra for IVORY. I want IVORY.)
2. BLACK wool soutache braid on IVORY? I have nightmares about the black trim bleeding during the wash.
3. Black WOOL soutache bread. OMG, what would I do if the wool shrank in the wash? Too nightmarish to face. (This last worry at least wouldn't have been too much of an issue in period, as washing would've been done by hand.)

So my dress is impractical, no matter how practical it might've been in 1869. Therefore, I get a train. na-na-na-na-naaaaa-na. ;-D

Next up: I have to decide how big/deep a wave pattern to use on the hem. If you look closely at my inspiration outfit you'll notice that the hem is not straight - it's wavy. That'll be the next challenge. :-D

Warning, you're not going to hear too much from me for awhile... I'm having painful tennis elbow issues (from either sewing or computer usage... and I'd much prefer to limit my computer usage ;-) However, I need to waste an hour. So I'm going to be posty-mcposty tonight ;-)

 samuelpearce  was complaining that it's hard to find non-Tolkien based elves in modern fantasy. I, however, claim that  the Fae (or Sidhe, if you prefer) are a sub-category of urban fantasy. So, here's a list of novels with the cruelly beautiful celtic-mythology inspired elves and other fairies:
 

Three hours = 9 buttons. This is going to take forever. Not that I've figured out how many buttons I need, but I'm guessing 20-ish per arm. They're tiny! They're cute! They're roughly the same size as the ones in the Museum of London book (it's got a 1:1 scale photo that I compared all my mock-ups to).

Anyway, photos on Friday - I have the day off  =D

I still haven't finalized my sleeve pattern... still not happy with the sleeve head, and I haven't decided on how to handle the sleeves - line or not to line? Add more facings then the extant sleeves or not? Simply make a chemise with much longer sleeves? I'm also waffling on whether to try to add a card-woven braid to the button hole edge - the MoL book has lovely photographs of such, but the text does say that not having the braid was more common ( at least they mentioned examples without braids, I might be misremembering the "more common" part...) Not that I have any clue how to do card-weaving, which is an argument against trying I suppose...but it would be so very very keen and show-offy 8-)

There are no pictures in The Decameron of the inside of a kirtle. There are 4 (or 5?) pictures of the overdress tucked up showing a white lining. Which might or might not be fur. i dunno. One of the pictures very much looked like a non-wealthy woman... and I wouldn't think they'd have a fur lining to their dresses... After all, in the new costuming book The King's Servants you go half way up the social ladder before you get to fur lined robes (and not the fancy furs either!) Not that Tudor 1485-1513 lining tendancies in the crown's purchases for employees have any bearing on a 1430s Flemish kirtle...but it was an interesting observation. ;-) For those of you who haven't got your copies of The King's Servants yet - it's much more research-oriented then The Tudor Tailor. It still has some patterns at the end, but the majority of the book is looking at purchases for various individuals in the various rolls and account books. Something I shall have to sit down and truly read rather then just flipping though for the pictures.

There's a flash flood warning for Cleveland and most of it's environs. Including Euclid and Cleveland Heights where most of my friends live. *worry* (This morning is the first time I've ever heard the radio emergency system used for anything but a test of the system. This doesn't help my level of worry....)

Well, now that I've gotten the eyelets done, I need to figure out how I'm going to do the hem.
 

• Do I treat the linen and wool as if they were one piece, and hem them together? If I do that, I run the risk of the linen bagging out, as it's likely to stretch more then the wool. (My "Bayeux Tapestry" style t-tunics are linen, and hemmed to the top of my foot, theoretically. By the end of a day wearing them, they drag on the ground.)
• Do I hem the linen and wool separately? If I do that, then I also run the risk of the linen stretching so that it's much longer then the outer fabric. Unless I hem the linen much higher then the wool...

I wish that some of of the linings (if there were linings) on the Museum of London fragments survived. *pout* The Uppsala gown is lined from the waist up, only. I'm allergic to wool, otherwise I'd've solved my hem problem that way... There is no mention of lining for the Moy Bog dress. I'd be surprised if linen lining survived... I've seen pictures of the skirts tucked up that obviously show no lining (ex: the June image in the Tres Riche Heures du Duc de Berry) which isn't helpful. There are also images where the lining is a different color, but it changes sharply at the bottom of the dress (like this one, which is the overdress... but I'm being lazy, as it's such an obvious example of what I'm talking about, by a very detail-oriented artist...so you're stuck with this example ;-)) This could easily be sewn, but keeping the linen from bagging down and showing beneath the hem line would be neigh impossible :-S...again, not terribly helpful.

Now I'm wondering if the pictures in the Romance of Alexander showing the ladies with their skirts tucked up (here), showing a white under skirt with a colored band around the bottom are actually showing the lining of the dress rather then a separate under-dress? It's an idea... the colored band would mean if it stretched and showed a little, that'd be ok... Anyone know the text references - wills and such? Is it a silly idea? Granted, the Romance of Alexander is about 100 years before the time period my GFD is playing in, so whatever the answer, it wouldn't be applicable to my GFD... but I have been mooning over the 1330s-40s lately ;-) There's also this c.1455 picture (later then my period-of-interest), which might be the lining with a gray band at the hem... but it's such a fantasy picture that I don't really want to make that argument... I do have a lot of gray lindsy-woolsy, that I could use if I went with this idea... it would also add a bit of "floof" at the hem, which wouldn't be bad for the full-skirted look of the Decameron... i dunno. i really dunno. I think I need to go see if anyone has her skirts tucked up in the Decameron. Sadly, my memory says that the Decameron images show no linings. But my memory is notoriously bad - it's soaked in too many costume images and mixes them up. All the time. *har-rumph*

The eyelets are done!!!!

But that's all the progress I made.... I got hijacked by a novel (Emma Bull's War for the Oaks. :-D, I can't get it out of my head...my biggest complaint is that it ended. *grumble* ) I'm afraid the audio book I was listening too while sewing was so annoying I was avoiding sewing. Bleh. But it's a classic and therefore supposedly good for me... humph. I finished that book (The Warden by Anthony Trollope) last night (finally!) and am seriously considering going back and re-listening to a book I already know I like... just to be sure it doesn't happen again. Of course, it didn't help having a headache all *()!)!&*)!#$ weekend. I despise being a human barometer.

I've also been avoiding writing about the facings and eyelets and stuff (comparing what I did to my sources - mainly the Museum of London book) 'cause that's like work. Mostly 'cause my scanner is SLOOOOOOW. But I do intend to post about it... I haven't forgotten...

I want to have pretty new costumes!! RIGHT NOW!!! Why do these things take so looooooooong?!?!

blah.

I still have 8 eyelets to go. And I need to figure out the sleeve lining/facings. And... I've spent this week doing boring-responsible-adult-like-things. ick. and reading silly romance novels :-D I need more money to support my costuming habit. I need more time to indulge in my costuming habit. *grumble* Luckily I have 2 4-day weeks coming up! Hopefully by July 6 I will be all finished with my spiffy yellow GFD. *crosses fingers* (Actually, if I am very very lucky, I might have it finished before the holiday weekend and I can spend time doing either finishing touches on the "peasant outfit" version or I will make great leaps and bounds towards actually owning an elliptical day ensemble. Can't I have both?! NOW?!? yes, I'm impersonating a spoiled 5-year-old today... *sigh*)

Strange question - do I want another 1515 Florentine dress in colonial blue wool? 2/3s of the way though the red 1515 project I was sure I did, and bought me some pretty fabric. ('Cause y'know, I'd already done the hard patterning part. Not that I can find the pattern now... besides which, there was a ginormous amount of fitting that happened after the patterning :-S) I can't say I find the project enormously interesting... very "been there, done that". Instead I could re-purpose the pretty colonial blue wool towards a 1330s overgown with tippets. Mmmmm, Taymouth Hours :-D Romance of Alexander. MMmmmmmmmm. I'm starting to think the 1330s style might not be a passing fancy and maybe it deserves a real place on my to-do list. *eyes period with speculative interest* (yes, I have been reading romance novels lately, why do you ask? ;-))

Given how much I've fallen for my GFD, even when I was reluctant to start on it m'thinks I ought to consider focusing on styles that I fell in love with very early in my costuming career:

- Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
- bliaut a la Chartes Cathedral
- "Proto Tudor" (Really 1520s Flemish a la Golden Weavings: Flemish Tapestries of the Spanish Crown by Guy Delmarcel - curvy gfd shape plus bell sleeves! what's not to like?!?!)
- 1850s evening gown (hoops! pointy waist! portrait neckline! oh my! ;-) )
- regency (flowy white embroidered dresses *dreamy sigh* )
- 1900s statuesque elegance ("we must all frou-frou until we can't frou-frou any more!" oh yeah!!!)

These are all periods I come back too again and again and again.... of course, I've felt the pull of the 1820s, the 1910s and the 1480s Burgundian for a long time too... I just acquired those passions in college rather then highschool... oh and the 1830s - Wives and Daughters was a seriously dangerous movie, y'ken?

oh well. back to the eyelets.

P.S. Did I mention gwacie made me a lacing cord!?! 'Twas so wonderful of her! Unfortunately DMC cotton floss only seems to come in almost-9-yard segments, which makes for roughly 1 yard of lucet cord... which isn't long enough for my front opening. We're going to see how knotting multiple of them together work, 'cause I really want the lacing cord to be as close to the same color as the dress as possible, to try to get that "invisible front opening" effect. We'll see how well it works. *cross fingers*


P.S. 2, I forgot to crow about this last week... Kari said that if reasie and I made him hose and a short-short cote he'd be happy to wear 'em. Oh baby! Eye candy! 8-D (Good lookin' fellows should be encouraged to show off their assets, imho, especially when they're very sweet! Plus, he would look so very good in an outfit a la the Black Prince! *scheme!* I might even classify the scheme as a general barony-improvement-project. heh. :-D ) ‘Course, along those lines I should finish Calum’s outfits… I’ve started two for him…must finish someday in the forseeable future... really, the Maciejowski one shouldn't be difficult to do at all - I finished the braies and hosen eons ago (November, 2007!), just need the shirt, tunic and headwear. Not much at all. Maybe I'll spend some time looking for fabric that would look nice on Calum during Pennsic. A nice light drapy blue wool, by reference. *hummmmm*

Only 8 more eyelets to go!! (out of a total of 62!) Of course, then I'll get to move onto the sleeves and the buttonholes...

So, 'cause I'm in the long hard slog part of the project, here are the new fantasies:

1. I found the perfect bright peach to make an elliptical ball gown out of - there are two extant ones in almost this exact color... *purrrrr* Of course, since it's taffeta rather then satin, I don't know that I want to try to get away with minimal decoration, which was my original idea for a bright-bright 1867 ball gown... *think*
2. I keep running into 1820s net dresses with colored padded satin decorations and underskirt. I want one. or two. or three. I got the Decorative International Silk charmuse swatch book (which I figured could be used as a good stand-in for light satin) and the colors are absolutely fabulous! At least for me - lots of dusty colors - peach, teal, dusty blue, dusty pink, a couple surprisingly wonderful greens! Very nice with my skin tone :-D  I got the new 19th Century Embroidery Techniques book (which isn't quite as cool as the 18th Century Embroidery Techniques book but it still interesting - it covers a lots of styles of embroidered embellishment, but many of them aren't for clothing, so it's less interesting for my purposes) anyway, the 19th Century Embroidery Techniques book has a lovely photo of a blue satin and ivory net early 1820s evening dress. I ADORE the skirt. The bodice is so-so. But the skirt is tres fabulous! There's a peach version of a net 1820s evening dress (worn by the sister of the blue dress's owner), but there are only pictures of the embroidery, not the entire dress *pout*. The embroidery is fantastic. Though I don't know how to do the funky shaped satin pieces - it's like they're stuffed. But on a net base? Unfortunately the text is mostly about the metal beadwork in the peach embroidery rather then the stuffed satin shapes. Anyway, some on-line examples of the style are: here and here
3. I have fallen in love with this 1820-22 taffeta dress. I think I want to make it in the beautiful blue and gold shot taffeta I bought a few years back "on spec" 'cause the fabric was too pretty not to own. Of course I was also sure I wanted to do a teens evening dress out of the fabric... I think that plan will just have to fall by the wayside. Or I will have to get more. ;-)
   

Of course, what I SHOULD be doing is working on my elliptical day dress. But I would like to have my gfd finished for Pennsic... o'course, to completely finish that outfit I still need to do:

1. complete dress (duh)
2. shift (have a back up one)
3. socks (also have a backup set, but they were purchased and don't fit well - i have little feet and big calves :-S)
4. hood (which means I need to either get more red wool fabric or cut out my sideless surcote and hope there will be enough red wool left over...)

17 out of 62 eyelets are done! That's just over 1/4 done ;-)

I am now kicking myself for deciding to do eyelets every 3/4" down the front... There is only one fragment with eyelets in it in the Museum of London book, and those eyelets are spaced (roughly) 1 1/4" apart. I almost used that distance. I also was almost lazy and thought about a 1" distance. Unfortunately  both of those seemed like a very long distance and I was being paranoid about gaping. And now I'm paying for it. Whatever was I thinking?!?! The next GFD I do will have a decent distance between eyelets! I swear.

Also, I think it's time for me to explore the brave new world of thimbles. Generally I despise using thimbles - I loose too much fine-manipulation and the obnoxious things make my fingers sweat and catch on what I'm sewing. But my finger tip hurts today... (I put an eyelet though the front gore seam allowance last night. ouch.) I need to find one of those fancy top-less thimbles - one that actually fits my finger. The only one I've played with before fit my thumb. Not very useful, that.

I would've made more progress but I got distracted by a fantastic novel: Patricia Wrede has started a new series, and the first one, Thirteenth Child arrived on Friday, right after I'd finished my last novel *happy sigh* Gulp. Mmmmmm :-D I LOVED the novel. I nearly read it in one sitting, except that I had to get up early on Saturday. Frankly I'm tempted to go re-read it right away, and am panting for the sequel.... the one-sentence blurb for it is that it's Little House on the Prairie with mammoths and magic :-D The story is mostly a growing up/coming-of-age tale (much like the Little House books). Our heroine  Eff Rothmer is a very engaging lass who has the misfortune to be born the thirteenth child (equivalent to being born with a curse in Avropan [e.g. European-ish] magic-numerology theory) She has a twin, Lan, who's the auspicious and naturally magical seventh son of a seventh son. The majority of the book is the trials and tribulations Eff has growing up, going to school, dealing with family, illness, etc. and all the while wondering if she really is doomed to "go bad" in a really spectacular way. Eff's point-of-view narration is engaging and real, helped in some ways by the fact that Eff tends to be more of a thinker then a do-er, so we get to learn about magic theory and the wonders of her strange flora and fauna though her own contemplation & exploration.

Apparently the novel has sparked a fair amount of controversy, as it's set in an alternate-universe American Wild West, but without Native Americans (at least none that we meet in the first book). However, it's a 19th century America apparently without a history of slavery (or a vastly different history)... so.... The world also has mammoths, and saber tooth cats, and steam dragons, as well as a Great Barrier Wall along a Mississippi-like river, created by the famous magicians Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. I very much hope the controversy will not affect the publication of a sequel, 'cause I want it NOW! ;-)

I'm biting my nails over an e-bay auction that's ending in 4 hours... here. I want this skirt, but I can't afford it if the auction goes too much higher. :-( The design is simple and loverly. Even more, I want to see the silk lining on the sheer skirt. I expect this will have significant bearing on my thinking for my lingerie dress. *bite nails*

I'm wondering if I need to re-think the idea of using taffeta for the slip skirt (top petticoat) under the lingerie dress... somewhere recently (I think on the comments in someone's LJ post this week, but I'm not finding it *pout* How come I didn't tag the post as a memory?!?! *sigh* Or maybe it was one of the advertisements on lamodeillustree?) I ran into a quote something like "it is now fashionable for petticoats to swish rather then rustle" If I'm remembering correctly, and if that applies to circa 1904 then taffeta is out, and something else is in. Maybe. Probably. I really wish I could figure out where I read that. Am I dreaming? Does it apply? So very confused... if not taffeta then what?

I really want to get back to my petticoat project. I ran into this picture in my futile search for the remembered phrase. Wouldn't it make a nice taffeta petticoat? Simple decoration, but nicely tailored. Plus, all those tucks in nice stiff taffeta!?!  It would totally floof out! :-D It might go nicely under a tailored skirt. Which I want to make to go with a totally floofy lace shirt illustrated in Martha Pullen's Kent State Museum book (unfortunately I don't remember if it's in vol. 1 or 2, but it's illustrated on the back cover, whichever book it is... the shirtwaist is simply COVERED with drippy lace *happy dreamy sigh*)

Not that I get to play with my petticoat project anytime soon. I really must do the elliptical day dress ASAP, if I'm going to have any prayer of finishing it for the YWU'd contest this fall. Plus, I have non-costuming foo that is going to be highly discommoding and time consuming which I will also need to juggle. :-(

You might be able to tell from this post that I'm at the long-hard-slog stage with the yellow gothic fitted dress, when I'm wanting to think of and work on anything but the task at hand. This is really sad, as I haven't even started putting eyelets into it or button holes on the sleeves :-S Am also feeling intimidated by the lucet cord for the closure. I know gracie  taught me once... but I think I've forgotten... *blush*
 

1. My attempt to match the exact shade of fabric in paintings means that the fabrics I already have are very much in the available natural dye range.
2. I totally wish I could order FABRIC in these colors not just embroidery/lace-making wools. The blues are fantastic - I don't tend to wear blue 'cause I don't think I look very good in it, but the swatches are all totally blues I'd be happy to wear! And the pinks!!! There's the OMG bright neon/salmon pink seen here  (a shade I still regret not being able to find in 100% wool 6 years ago...) and maybe 15 other peach-to-pinks that are lovely shades (again in tones I'd look good in, despite my normal avoidance of pastels!) By far, there are more oranges then anything else; tawny, peach, pumpkin, and lots more that I can't think of names for - but NOT safety orange. That shade gives the color a bad rap! *humph*. Even a small number of bright, clear greens *happy sigh*. Lovely, lovely colors...NUM, Num, num *SIGH*  I totally want these colors in fabric! Preferably a nice light gabardine that can be used for summer or winter wear to recreate most of the medieval-renaissance period. 
3. I guess I'd've looked good if I'd been born in medieval or renaissance europe ;-) (Which I suppose is not surprising as my ancestry is very British Isles, and my coloring is also pretty standardly English. Rather Ingres-esq  in fact, provided I don't go and burn/tan myself to a crisp like I did last month...)

Well... hand-sewing slippery silk facings onto the gothic fitted dress is more time consuming then I expected (plus I've had less sewing time then I expected... *grumble* ) Pictures to come. I do like the way the facings work/feel - doing a running stitch though all layers of fabric at the very edge of the garment means you don't have any issues with the lining rolling around the edge and peaking out, like one does with bag-lining. (The facing stitching technique is being taken from the Museum of London Costume & Textiles book... with ingenuity where required ;-) )

In non-sewing news life's a bit of a slog at the moment, and I can only day-trip NOWM. (Frankly I probably shouldn't do that either, but... I have responsibilities, and NOWM will be good for my emotional outlook. For non-local people, NOWM is one of Cleftland's big annual SCA events: Northern Oaken War Maneuvers)