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| "Charles, I SAID tell me when you are READY to take the picture, and not ONE SECOND BEFO--" |
I don't blog very much about sewing here anymore, but I am planning to change that.
Actually, I don't blog very much here anymore, period, but I am planning to change that.
Some of you who know me "in real life" may already know this, but I am mildly involved in Civil War reenacting, with a keen interest in being involved on a deeper level. Time constraints, financial constraints and the fact that I don't live in the middle of a national park slash historic battlefield all contribute to limit my participation in every living history/battle reenactment that comes down the turnpike. However, I'm in possession of a job, a car and a chaste selection of unoccupied weekends. I could go to more events. My biggest problem?
My wardrobe right now doesn't cut it.
See, I started going to Civil War events "in costume" (you're supposed to say garb, not costume, in the Circles Who Know What They're Talking About) in the early summer of 2013, at which time I sewed an 1860's-ish (pay attention to that suffix ISH) day dress out of quilting cotton. I vaguely followed the Simplicity 2887 pattern and the finished product was... well, it wasn't great, but for a first Victorian-esque dress it wasn't horrendous. However, it is not period correct for a multitude of reasons. That dress is now a "ball gown" (again, pay attention to the quotation marks) and you can read more about how it got that way by clicking the link above. Still... not half as period correct as it could be. Although the lace is fun.
Later on I made myself a somewhat Little-Women-inspired ensemble that consisted of a skirt and matching zouave jacket, but since I knew very little about appropriate fabric use and since my inspiration mainly came from book covers that I had liked when I was younger, the dress was made out of a solid red broadcloth and trimmed with polyester black braid.
Heh.
Again, it served its purpose for the time and I got a lot of wear out of it and enjoyed the process of making it (AND learned quite a bit about putting together a garment that would actually fit) sO I definitely don't consider that dress a wasted effort.
Still and all, I need some new clothes, and I need some new clothes that look right. And since half the fun of sewing things is getting to show them off, whether in person or online, I fully intend to document the creating process here at the blog before I wear the finished product to an event. Plus, writing posts about what I'm sewing is great motivation to, y'know, actually complete whatever it is I started. My mom could tell many fascinating stories of the half-finished articles of clothing that have been stashed away and never seen the light of day again because I got bored halfway through. Um, anyways.
So, if you've followed this blog for slightly snarky movie reviews in the past and do not wish to see anything else, well, you may not be stopping by quite so often in the future. (Not that there's been much to read about in the past few months anyway... cough cough cough.) I'm certainly not intending to make this blog into a strictly needles-and-thread domain, which is why the title is staying the same and nothing is changing as far as the Look and Feel at the moment. But blogs change as people change, and my interests today are not quite the same as those of the sixteen-year-old girl who first hit publish on her inaugural post at this domain nearly five years ago. So, expect to see a good deal more about what I've been stitching, and if that's not your thing and you'd prefer not to stick around, I completely understand. (I may hop back in with a tongue-in-cheek takedown of Julian Fellowes' new monstrosity Doctor Thorne at any moment, though, so consider yourself forewarned if you hit that unfollow button.)
What else, what else... oh! And I made an Instagram for sewing stuff too. So take a sneak peek if you feel inclined, because there are snippets there from what I'm working on right now. A real post about THAT project will follow.
....Soonish.
