c_de_montigny

The fabric 18th century mitts refused to cooperate. So, last night I decided to try knitting a pair. For Saturday. And here's my progress so far:



Not bad for just over a day's work, I think!

The pattern is Mara Riley's mitt pattern with size 2 double pointed needles and Blackberry Ridge lace weight yarn in chestnut. All of which I had on hand.

Just pinned and put on the stand. And the cat helping.

i really think I'll have enough silk left over to do something interesting.


Oh did you knwo if you pleat a solid red fabric for long enough you start to see stripes on the fabric? Well I did.. it was the light reflecting off the fabric and leaving those "sun" marks on my eye ;) The clue was when the "sub bleached" marks moved about. I was fairly freaked that the silk I used had faded over time...

My goal of having no papers to grade this winter break? Not going to happen. I'll still have fewer than usual, which is something!

But, three more days! Yay!

Hooray! Cunning skirt plan is working really well. Having some interesting pleat discoveries as well. I am more convinced than ever that the pleats are mounted to a supportive layer because of this :)

Hmmm, I keep changing my mind on what to use as I would like it to be hidden but strong. So my cotton sateen is out ;) But it will make for a very pretty set of underwear for it :) And with my pinking shears I will have lots of pretty ruffles :)

I think a firm calico will work. I might have to hunt out some black, the original may have a pale colour as there are a few peeks of something light in the afore linked photos.
I will need it asap as I want to sew the pleats up sooner rather than later so I can use all those pins again :)

The reprints of Volumes Five and Six of Girl Genius have now shipped.

Just in time for us to start worrying about the reprints for Volume One (color, this time, did I mention that?) and Three, then Two and, of course, the release of Volume Nine. Woo. Hoo. Augh.

Recent movies I loved. Zombieland and Julie & Julia.

I just saw J&J today and was completely inpired by it and connected a great deal with both women. Especially Julia at the Cordon Bleau.

Zombieland was just good fun with just the level of inappropriate humour to be funny without being too crass. Yeah, in a zombie movie ;) Agreed it is not quite up there with Saun of the Dead but it really was a lot of fun.

So it takes an hour to pleat each panel because I am being anal and measuring the height I am pinning at as well as the depth of each pleat. Basically this is so that when I come to hand sew each pleat in place (oy!) I can just sew where there is a pin.

I have two panels so far, four or five to go. I want to do another panel but my back is not going to let me so better stop now rather than do something permanent ;) Oh and I haven't ironed the pleats down yet either. Saving that all up for one go. I'll probably pin the hem at the same time. It looks like the hem was hand sewn, so hooray ;) Oh man and I wind up with only 17 pleats per 150cm wide panel. There would have been more except I decided the 3cm wide pleats looked better than 1". It winds up the same width though.

But now that I am pleating I need to decide on how to do the supportive layer that acts as a lining and support for the handsewing. I suspect the thread between each stitch runs between support layer and silk as well so that there is no chance of snag. I just need to decide on fabric type and colour to use ;) And how to actually sew the layers together. It may just be spread over the table and packed away each day rather than work out some way to pin it all to my large frame.
I took a screen cap ages ago that shows the lining/support layer. I need to find it again.

New books are always good!
Today I got two--Extremes of Black and White and Shades of Gray and Garibaldis, Engageantes & Cages: American Fashions of the Civil War Era 1840-1987 from the Shippensburg University Fashion Archives and Museum.

The Civil War book? It has a great scaled pattern for an 1840s wrapper. Both look really good. They're little, but full of pretty things. And one cites a 1996 list of reasons to wear black. In a look what they wore then way. I feel old :)

Anyway, yay! New books!

So far today I have managed to pattern a fairly difficult bit of a costume for next year, find all the parts for pressies for two friends and pleat a panel of silk.

Very happy wth the silk it looks super pretty and now to hunt out my old petticoat and get that pleated up as it will save me a lot of work with cutting fabric ;) I mean I don't have to cut into the 11m and risk making a mistake ;)

I figured some of you all ouldn't mind being kept abreast of the latest happenings in sickie land ;)

I have been taken off my disease modifying drug. This has upsides and downsides:
No more immunospuression for a while so no more massive infectiosn of the sort that have been so rampant this year. No more having to avoid contact with people for worry of getting sick.
Well acually still a little of both as my immunes system is effed up and too busy trying to kill off those really nasty self tissues ;)
I can drink again! Woot! Six years or more of having to teetotale or near enough to keep my liver happy is over! Not that I was ever a big drinker but now I can make my way through that list of cocktailes I want to try sooner :)
Maybe no more hair loss?
Hopefully my skin will heal again and I won't have to worry about more scars :)


But the down side is I will have less control ove my RA. I can already feel it affecting my large joints and ribs again. So I may have to go back on it again if I have a real big flare.
Given I was put on Leflunomide because methotrexate wasn't working and only had side effects this is pretty much to be expected.

I am also having my adrenal and renal systems checked over some more- more tests and another specialist. My long term prednisone use has made my cortisol levels go way down. Tthis means low ability to cope with stress, amongst other issues.
I do have a bit of cortisone in my body from the steroids I take but it is a matter of finding out if the various levels wind up making up for that or not. I suspect not. Also to see if other adrenal fuctions are ok.

While I would love to get some more projects out of the way I won't. I had high hopes of getting my 1837, 906 and reinette dresses sorted before the end of the year but that seems really unlikely. I need to recover.

If I'm going to get a paper grading free winter break, I need to grade more papers than I've been grading. However, I want to finish a petticoat hem tonight. Which will be more important? The hem, I think. I did grade one class's papers anyway! Sigh. Essays are annoying things. Oh well :)

At least the second of the two batches I have is more interesting!

To do either though, I need to get offline. Hmm...

PaperDragon by *girlgeniuscomic on deviantART
Ooh, deviantART is fun. I got a lot of the back yard cleaned up yesterday, and this morning there was a little tiny bit of snow falling. It didn't stick, of course, and it's stopped coming down now. Still, I am reasonably sure we'll eventually get some accumulation, and it's not like the back yard doesn't need to be tidied up anyway. So I'll go out there a little later and finish up. Then, when it snows, we'll have lots of space to play!

Also yesterday, Phil went out and chopped down our volunteer Douglas Fir, which finally got large enough to remove from its inconvenient spot in our front yard. It's in the living room now, all covered with little dirigibles (and other things, but there are certainly a LOT of dirigibles. It just happened, over the years.)

I found this really cute perchy little hat at H&M the other day for only $7.99! I'm not a big fan of the glittery bow on it but it's a nice felt and could be easily trimmed to look even better than it currently does and the price is unbeatable!

Great big honking hugs to all my friends both here, other side fot he country and other side of the world :)

I wish I could spend more (or any) time with all of you.

I finally cut the silk for my gown. It used 7m of fabric because of the huge sleeves ;) And this means that I finally settled on a sleeve pattern. I'm happy enough with it but it is not as pretty as my older one.

I am so glad to have found this silk. It is perfect as I keep finding similar shades of maroon from this area on men and women.

Now I need some lining and interlining ;) But first to tidy and make things easier to get to work on. Also I need to finish a project forsomeone else so I can finally get that out of the way. It is the single trickiest item I have ever made and that includes the Leia with all that casting! OK so it's more tricky and fiddly and annoying than hard. And totally fabric too.

Now for the end of year list ;)

It's not wuite the end of the year but I am stuck at home not at a lovely SCA picnic as I have blisters on the bottom, top and sides of my feet. yes, it was self inflicted. I wore shoes. I mean I should have seen it coming ;) A foot bath full of Dettol is about to commence.


Anyway I updated my site as you know and in doing so I went back the last three years and added them. Oops, I did not realise it was so long since I updated that part of the site ;)

In doing so I realised how much I actually have done this year. I tend to focus on what I didn't succeed with rather than what I did. And considering how really sick I was most of the year (might be seeing yet another specialist or two about it *headdesk*) it's quite a lot.

Finished:
Slave Leia, recreation, fibreglass and resin costume
Heuke, historical, 1560s regional cloak for women (also added all the guards to the wool Cleves dress to finish it)
Surcoat and kirtle, 1560s Cologne inspired
Catwoman, recreation, Batman Returns, Mark II
Mara Jade, recreation,
Jem, recreation, cartoon classic
Admiral Daala, recreation, grey uniform
Austen girls, historic, inspired regency dresses
Lizzy dress, inspired historical, striped regency dress

Unfinished, planned to finish next year:
Mystique
Reinette
1837 cotton dress
1860s velveteen dress
Spanish 1600 ensemble
Mina red dress (I got to the point of crap not enough fabric then holy crap yes I do! So yes I can)
Light blue francaise (yay for pinking sheers, now to mark up the smocking...
c1500 Cologne wool dress
c1520s Swiss dress in wool.
Hannibal dress, working on the beading again. Mwhaha, now that could be a fun twist ;) The base costume is a slave girl costume...
Padme fireside ensemble.
1906 day dress

So those are the plans for costumes to finish. Though I'[m sure I have mo

We had so much fun last night! What is it about wearing costume that makes something so much more fun? Tons of people asked (even when we went out to dinner afterward!) if we sang. Uh, no.

And I had a total hair blow out at the end of the night. I try something a little different every time and I wanted to put more hair in the front twists. I liked how it came out, but unfortunately there wasn't enough hair left in back for everything to grip to. Uh, live and learn?



Visiting Santa :)



No pony ride for me!



If the scale is correct, my clothes weigh somewhere in the region of 15 pounds. And people were worried about us being cold :)

( More pictures! And I finally have good pictures of the purple paletot! )

And the quote of a night, when speaking to a woman about our costumes.

The woman: You did all this detail work?

Sarah: Yes, she's insane!

The woman: And you're not?

It was great. She later took a picture of the three of us :)

A few talks and online ponderings recently have clarified a few things.

I am a freak.

No really. Aside from the obvious ;)

I used to be a fan. I'm not any more. Not of anything. I also don't collect. I used to but I don't now. This is going somewhere to do with costuming ;)

My fandoms are now likes and loves. I love Wicked but I did not use my savings this year on a trip to Melbourne to see it. Once I would have- and have, for Phantom. Though once I would have had the funds to do so and be able to make them up in a month or so. So I'll wait until it comes here.


So likewise I don't collect costumes I make them. I don't make them so I can have them I make them for the making. Even if my life were different and I could buy the parts I need for a costume I wouldn't. I have asked for help when I physically could not (or should not) do part of a costume and I am very thankful for those who have been able to do so :) For all of them.

But I have noticed that the recreation costuming side trends towards a collecting mindset. It's fine! But it's very different.

I think it's pretty obvious I don't go out there in my costumes for people to go Ooh and ahh look at the sexy. That would be patently ridiculous *looks at icon*. I go out there because costume is not meant to be static. It comes alive when worn, it's supposed to be on the human body.
Costume museums have this same trouble. How to display historic garments that allow us to glimpse the past. The added issue of not destroying the garments in the process just makes it that much harder.

If I had a local friend who could take photos of my costumes I might be more inclined to finish a few other projects and not take them out into public as they so cause offense.

But then my deadly sin is pride. Oh yeah the more people try to knock me down the more likely I am to get up and do again. My competition is within myself. I have enough insecurities to keep myself down, and they are a lot worse than anything anyone can dish out at me- perhaps less crude more cruel. If I can get over mine I can get over theirs.

I suspect though my self reliance has made things difficult. I suspect people think I don't want to work with others. It's not true. It's just difficult because those same circumstances that have lead me to be self reliant lead it to being difficult to work with someone else's time line/get to and from their place. And anyone who knows me, really knows me, also understands that I do not ask if I think I am going to be a burden and make people work around my schedule.


So yeah. Freak. I do stuff for quite the most uncommon reason (go me and my weird ass Cleves gear when I could be in pretty dresses) and then to actually make it as well?

Oh and just because I know subtext is everything and can be really misapplied: no I do not think it makes me a better person! It makes me a costumer who wants to do everything and anything.

Zombie Galinda. It has to be done.


That is all.

things that made me happy today

1. All the tile and wood floors have been scrubbed, cleaned, rinsed and polished. It was a pain to do but the whole house smells wonderfully clean and seems somehow brighter and happier now. A house really does need more than just maintance cleaning. Darn it.

2. I baked holiday cookies for the first time in forever tonight. My special chocolate chip cookies - some for the Mary Kay Open House on Sunday, more dough ready to go for the Christmas gifts I will bake next week. Yum! I'd forgotten how much fun it was to bake while listening to Christmas music...

3. My hair was cute today, despite a lack of victory rolls. I think my hair is just too long for them to look the way I want. So I tried a slightly different style, equally vintage-y and surprisingly easy - thanks to Super Kawaii Mama for the idea. See:

What do you think?