Mrs Maupin

- Shoe exhibitions at the MAD, Paris, 2020 + some jewelry from the museum


- Yves Saint Laurent Exhibition and Musée des Tissus, Lyon, 2020

Guys, bookstores ahve always been a dangerous zone for me, but I suspect gardening stores are becoming one, too. I went home with chard and lettuce (more grown that mine - I only sowed the chard yesterday), so that we don't have to wait as long. Then mint and coriander, carnation, a gooseberry and a raspberry bush. And another strawberry bush, because there will never be enoguh strawberries for our son. And RHUBARB. I will be good and not plant right now, as they predict below freezing temps during the night for two more days. that will give me time to find a place for everything. 
I am SO excited, this is starting to really be my dream garden.

Bonus : the littl eplants were cheap, organic, and locally grown. And I bought fresh italian pasta for tonight.

Once upon a time I thought last week "Oh, I'll get some down time once the big wedding gown is out of the workshop" Hahah WRONG ! First, let's place two days of intensive draping, patterning and sewing with Lady Darkstone at the start of the week. So this happened :

EnregistrerI have to tweak the hem of one of the skirt layers in the back, add a zipper to the bodice's CB, and finish the neckline and armscyes with piping. The original plan included flutter sleeves but I'm not convinced they are really needed now. All fabrics came from stash !
We also patterned "Furisode", the Japan-themed dress - which will feature the blurry patterned fabroc on the right of the picture. It was amazign to have Lady Darkstone with me to chat, sew and drink tea. Sometimes working from home alone can be a little solitary.

Also, yes, this is my workshop/living-room; and yess, I have rolls of fabric waiting to be used there. And I have two ladies coming for variosu projects this week. I might need to tidy up a little tomorrow, right now the room is a war zone.

In non-sewing news I have baby tomato plants growing on my desk now, and the zucchinis and pumpkins are still on the balcony. I wanted to put them in the ground this week-end, but visitors left no time for gardening. If I went by the book I would'nt put them outside before next month, but we have had pretty steady temps for a while now, reaching 27°C yesterday.

We have started practising for the end of year show at ballet, so the lessons are a little less extreme for me and much more fun. And I managed to squeeze some time to pattern and grade the costumes for my daughter's group between two fittings today. Another Mom is supposed to have access to a larger format copier and make copies for everyone, while I make the tutorial.

HJ :
4-7. A quiet day after the mad rush to finish the wedding gown. I finished flossing Murielle's corset, and started working on Titania's underdress.
4-8. Our dance teacher finally settled on a fabric for the kids' costume, yay !
4-9. First picninc in the moutains of the year ! We went to a beautiful pass where there is a bog and a trail that goes right through it, with regular stops to show the specificities of the place. We walked a little, showed the kids around and just sat in the sun while they played - not in the actual bog, obviously.
4-10. Working side by side with my best friend while drinking tea and being silly about politics. I dug out an old campaign song from 1981 :p Also, my tooth infection almost disappeared within minutes after the dentist saw it. Before I even bought the bow of antibiotics.
4-11. Good workou day - I have been a little lazy with yoga as I was a little pressed for time and tired or sick, and it felt good to really get back into my groove today. And the day ended with a cool ballet lesson. I feel a little bit sore but very happy.

Time is getting tight for the FR contest entry. I am drowning in a sea of tulle and hav elittle time to catch up. The corset is... sorta okay. There are issues, mostly camouflaged by surface treatment I added. It isn't as perfect as I would hav eliked, but since I didn't have time for a mock-up, I guess it's okay. I will make a mock-up and overbust version at some point, though, because Lady Darkstone's figure is just too damn interesting to use as practive. I made a really nice modesty panel, tough.

I have a crinoline (hacked from Ikea - the bumpad is nolonger needed actually), but I am starting to doubt I will use it, the tulle is already super-froofy. The chemise-thingie is mostly done - I need to bind the armholes and add trim. Hem is considered to be optional if I want to get the photoshoot done on Saturday.
I have the underlayer and yoke for the tutu. Many, many more layers to cut and gather. And trim.

Happies from the past few days :
1-24 - it's more of a gratitude thing than a happy moment, but I'm really happy with my body. The yoga + ballet combination, + doing some sporty stuff with the family seems to have some effect, I am feeling in better shape, and finding some ease I had as a child while dancing. I still get the occasional aches in the joint,s but my back has calmed down a lot from where it was a few months back, and I feel fitter.
1-25 - the kids had a long debate at lunch about the shape of letters in cursive. It just made me so happy that they have each other, and are not so far apart in age so that they can discover things together. Then the HG went home and announced he managed to get a little something from our insurance. It's about 5% of the actual value that was stolen from our home I think, but only half of what the "expert" evaluated. Still better than nothing.
1-26 - we haven't had confirmation from the insurance yet, but the estimate we got for the car is actually higher than I thought it would be.

I woke up yesterday just after a dream where I was sewing (I was making a completely ridiculous corset with all sorts of embellishments stacked onto it, it was hideous but in my dream I found it beautiful... dreams are weird !), and I got up all motivated, eager to sew and suddenly feeling like my motivation is BACK !
I almost hit a snag right after dropping off the kids at school, though. I had barely poured myself a cup of tea when the phone rang, and I was asked to please come pick up Toad, who wasn't feeling well. She slept on the couch for the whole morning, and was amazingly un-clingy during the whole day. In fact, both kids were adorable and let me work with almost no interruptions. sometimes miracles happen, I guess :)

I zoomed through cutting out and assembling mock-up  #3 for a bride, and the fitting today went perfectly - I am really really proud of how the dress and jacket fit her. Now onto the real fabric - if I could just find a fine, ivory and navy striped charmeuse for the jacket lining that would be perfect.

I also finished altering the pattern for the kid's costume. I'm buying the fabrics tomorrow and I will probably get it done by Monday (no sewing time foreseen on the week-end).

Maybe, just maybe I'll manage to get pictures of myself in the 1895 blouse during the week-end - come to think of it, I will have a period-looking house at hand on Saturday. In the meantime I have taken a few pics on the dress dummy, and I'll do a full write-up in the next few days.

I have added all closures to the 1895 blouse. That took well longer than it should have - I'm always slow when adding closures perhand. The sleeves are almost done. They need a small buttoning band added at the wrist, buttons and buttonholes obviously, then they can be put in place and the blouse is done.

I made five more turbans for Mom. I'd have liekd to make more but couldn't find many nice knits at the fabric store.

We're probably going to the museum thsi afternoon. There's Kandinsky exhibition and my daughter has been pestering me to go for almost two weeks now. I can't really complain :)

I managed to blog my 1895 bathing suit. totally weather- and season-appropriate, of course. and I noticed after uploading the post I have forgotten (and likely lost) the black bow that's supposed to go at the neck. Oops.

Anyway, the post is up there, with more pictures, and the Flickr album is here.

That took most of my morning, but I managed to make a good dent in my to-do list. I did not venture into the workshop today, though, which is always a bit frustrating. Maybe I'll get around to play a bit with fabric this week-end...
As of now, my 1895 blouse like this - no closures yet except for the hooks and eyes that keep the lining shut, no sleeves,, and still missing the piece that craps around the lower back and probably something to spice up the collar. But all edges on the body of the blouse are finished in neat, invisible handstitches.

So I didn't get as far as I wanted (do I ever ?), but I have been productive. Diane's bag is done, and I have found fabric to make new headwraps for Mom.

And then the tartan at the bottom just screamed my name and jumped into my shopping bag, along with the four skeins of yarn for legwarmers. Because it's getting cold, I need legwarmers to cushion my ankles for ballet, and I will wear my one pair out or get bored with it if I don't knit myself more.

In regards to which I splurged and bought myself a KnitPro interchangeable set of knitting needles. The cheap bamboo ones are falling apart one after the other. I am hoping it gets here before the needle I'm using for my Sadler's Wells give up the ghost.

Monday was also a good mail day, my new sewing machine feet finally came (after, like over a month) !

I don't know how to use about half of them, but they do fit my sewing machine, and there's alwasy YouTube to get the hang of new toys. They seem well-made, and the box was really cheap.

So the body lining of the bodice/blouse is done. I ended up moving a seam and the two front darts, adding a little horizontal dart at the bustline at CF (there's one in an 1895 dress in Janet Arnold, so I felt justified in doing so), changing the armscye, and I will need to take my usual small dart at center back at the neckline.
It fits nicely enough - maybe the armscye is a little too high on the shoulder, I will see. I mocked-up the standing collar and did neither choke nor get mad at A Thing Around My Neck. This is good, because I'm really bad at tolerating anything that hugs my neck too closely.
I haven't touched the sleeve itself much, jsut cut out the lining part for one to check how it works with the new armscye.

I got the clothes I ordered for the kids' Halloween costumes, and one of the leggings is the wrong color. Toad decided she wants to be Harley Quinn afer all - so I ordered black leggings and what I thought were red ones. except they are a dark pink/cranberry color. Nope nope nope. I am probably going to just use the black, add some red decoration on top, a red tulle skirt, and make her a two-tone hoodie.