Mrs Maupin

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.

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.

After a second mock-up, I decided the fit of the corset was good enough and I just went for the real fabric,  a "dot" coutil with tiny black polka dots on a dusty rose ground. I am experimenting with single layer construction, placing the (contrasting) boning channel on the outside on top of the seams. It is looking good so far.

The only hissue was my iron deciding to start spitting out brown gunk, twice on the corset, once on the cotton organdi I need to iron to make Chardon's petticoats. I tried giving it a good cleaning but it doesn't seem to be enough, and, well, it's kind of old. I can't recall very precisely, but somewhere around 7 years is not too bad for an iron I use daily, one that has made quite a few jumps from the ironing table to the floor. The plate is dented and a little bent, the plastic looks half-burnt in some places... I am probably updating to a steam plant this time, and one with a scale deposit control thingie.

I'd probably have bought it yesterday if I hadn't had a sick Heimlich with me. First cold of the season, and as usual it turned into a full blown asthma attack. Off to the doc now, as it's no much better today.

Second rehearsal for the 2017 show was on Sunday, and we all stumbled through the Feurfest polka. It can only get btter, right ?

Not really much sewing happened today - I worked a little ont he 1890's walking skirt. It now has piping at the hem and a partly attached large stirp of organdi at the bottom. when the strip is done I still have the waistband to finish, and I need to add something to support th epocket. and hope for the best as the skirt is insanely pieced.

I really really did not want to stay home this afternoon, so we tried out a museum I didn't know yet with the kids. Local history thing, not very big and a bit jumbled together. Half a room in bronze age, the next half room in iron age, then gallo-romans, then renaissance... On top of first Crhtistians stuff. Mostly I pointed out objects they might not know, oil lamps, coins, silex knives, and tried to give them big outlines. The museum advertised as including some kids' activities... couldn't find them, and the general language was geared more towards adults. they had pretty fabulous small scale models of prehistoric shelters and houses, so that was a clear winner.
The kids were pretty wiped after that, so we crashed at a nearby bakery and I let them have two pastries ech. Nazgulette ate one and a half, and the big roll ate his + what her sister left of her strawberry tart. I have *no idea* where he puts all of this. I was afraid they would'nt eat anything for dinner but they cleared their plate ( I guess making cauliflower pancakes helped).

I haven't been very good at posting my daily pictures, or at takign them. I'm trying to get into it again. Not really easy this week. Although I am very proud of the pictures I took of the kids today, because for the first time ever I shot in manual, and the result was reasonably good ! Woohoo ! Not going to abandon auto-focus anytime soon, though, I just can't see if the picture is blurry before it's on my computer screen with my eyes :(.

Nazgul-girl is down with a cold and  a fever. I think she's staying home tomorrow. That will somewhat put a damper on sewing things.

Coat #2 has been sent and weather-tested. There are some adjustments to make - including ht efact that for some unknown reason, the coat seems to have grown since the last fitting - or the wearer has lost a lot of weight. Or maybe I was drunk/high on jasmine tea while cutting. No idea, but we're figuring something out. Weird. Not big dal, just... weird.

Olympa has made some progress... and then I ripped the center back seam apart because it was pulling. It's sitting in the time-out corner of my sewing area now, because I'm angry at the dress. I'm thinking about adding a center back gore for more hem width, it might help with the pullign, too.

I have done a good job at adding velvet gore into the black 1890s skirt today. Tomorrow, if Nazgul-girl allows it, I want to add some length at the hem, apply the old pieces on top and sew the panels back together. Alternative plans for the day include finishing the blog post on my corset-cover and doing some painting with the kids - I was thinking about a museum visit first but with a sick kid that's out for this week.

Ok, I think I'm done with the phone and emails for the moring...

Checked some details for the latest commissions by email.
Contacted models for the runway project.
Organized one hair-dresser, possibly another make-up artist.
Invited them to next week's prep reunion.
Organized my participation in a group exhibition in two weeks.
Finished the blog posts about my 1780s stays. I still have a bunch of pictures to edit but I have enough to make the post.

Blog post to be found here.

On the sewing side, the corset cover is done and awaiting the right ribbon.
With some help from the Home Geek I tamed the zippers for the hiking coat, and I'm now back to sewing them in place. Still scared of zippers, but at least now the sliders can't zip off on their own anymore.

So the fabric for the hiking gear came yesterday, and I sent the first batch through pre-wash as soon as I was semi-functional. It dries very quickly but tonight I still have one length hanging in the staircase, because my machine had a hard time actually washing it. Naturally water-proof fabric is a little TOO waterproof for its taste.
I thought I'd be all cut out by tonight but most of the day was spent ironing (yay...), re-rolling, then planning out the steps to actually sew the whole thing. So many tiny details I'm really not used to. This is way way waaaay out of my comfort zone ! I actually made written list of all the steps and how I should do them. That's a first.
I have started laying things out on the fabric for one coat, but I'm not done yet. I hope I can finish tracing all pieces before the kids rampage through the living-room tomorrow. the cat has already found the fabric, but she's an old lady now, she just quietly sits on it and won't cause much damage.

Down to 15 eyelets to make on the corset cover, due to a few small breaks here and there and nighttime sewing yesterday. I'd really much like to get it done for the photoshoot on Thursday. I haven't yet decided on the lace I am going to use. I have the lace I used for my chemise and matching drawers, but only the fake (and a little scratchy Valenciennes, there's no more of the whitework. I'm considering only using whitework, I think I have enough in the stash of a scalloped something.

The blog post is slowly taking shape. It should be done by tomorrow.

The Oympe dress (modern evening/bridal wear for my protfolio) is mocked-up except for sleeves, which are partly mocked-up. I want to avoid making a full mock-up if at all possible. The skirt part should be fairly straightforward - simple angled panels for fullness. I'm running short on musling for mock-ups, I should probably pick some up before the kids come back, but I don't want to brave Ikea just yet.

Since I was good today I gave myself some time to play and scanned a bunch of pictures from my magazines collection. All of them from La Famille, January 1894. I'm putting them on FlickR for now, because my website is awaiting a complete overhaul and I don't want to upload things there until it is done. (BTW, I also worked with the Home Geek on the website, I'm waiting for him to arrange a few technical things and then I can get going on updating it for good. One more thing accomplished !)
Just a small selection of the pictures below :

I am trying to be good but there are a couple volumes on eBay that are calling my name right now. Not that I have scanned more than a teeny-tiny part of the whole collection, mind you. Today I have moved a few of the books, and I had to take some upstairs because they no longer fit in the downstairs shelves. Or maybe I should put the comic books upstairs and leave the living-room shelves for costume books + board games (another thing that we have an ever-increasing number of and tha I  have no intention of trimming).

I might also have spent a good part of my work breaks dreaming about 1790s riding habits. I might be thinking about a Théroigne de Méricourt inspired costume. What is sure is that right now I don't have the time for this, nor the occasion... But dreams of costume ar sweet dreams.