ACC

I am excited to be part of the Artemisian Costuming Challenge. After much research I have decided to do a Cranach gown for the following reasons

1. I get excited when I think about the embroidery.
2. I have always wanted to make a German style dress.
   
3. I can make up a story that fits my persona into that country and timeperiod with too much trouble.

I did immediately have a nightmare that I made the gown and went to an event and everyone else was wearing the same thing but given the recent trend in Italians I think I'm safe.

The dress itself will be relatively simple and I think I have fabric that will work. It is a dusty rose colored cotton fabric for the main part of the dress and a very dark green cotton for the guards. I am still debating whether I will add a gollar to the outfit. If I do I have black velvet and black wool to choose from and linen for the lining. here are some pictures of the fabric. The first is taken outside in full sun and the second is inside. The darker image for the pink is more accurate but the green looks better in full sun.

I am inspired to dance

I have been super drooling on the sublime stitching and Mr Xstitch blogs and am inspired to give their style a try. I have picked a couple of sayings that I would like hanging on my wall and just need to pick some decorative bits to add. The sayings are

"Life is not passing you by, it is trying to run you over!"

"one whiskey, two whiskey, three whiskey, floor"

I am thinking very tattoo inspired designs. Sublime stitching is helping by having a cool half off sale. bye bye paycheck......

Lessons learned

I entered the artisans showcase at Uprising. I am still alive to tell the tale. Lessons learned...

• Don't wear the day before what you wish to showcase the next day.
• Don't wear your best stuff, display it.
• Don't sit next to people displaying better work then you, sit next to the blacksmith or pottery.
• It is a good idea to empty the pavilion when it attempts to become airborne. The Uprising staff is so smart!

It was a good event. I found a lovely gold gown for Gwyn at the consignment booth and some very nice glass bottles that I plan to use to display cordials at the next showcase. The kids have new toys for their castle box and I didn't get sunburned until the ride home.

Unfinished projects

I have been working hard on a goal I set for myself this year. The finishing of unfinished projects. Yes the dreaded UFO.... I have accomplished a lot I feel and even have pictures to share. I have finished a lot of hand sewing, finished a brown kirtle I have been ignoring for over a year which involved 40+ handbound eyelets, and threw away a few things that were just not worth finishing. I have a pillow I have been working for something like 5 years off and on and I am so close to finishing it that I went a bought the appropriate pillow form yesterday. I have pictures of the embroidery......but I can't seem to upload them. I will edit this post after I figure out what the problem is. The design is a DMC kit titled "Butterfly" and I modified the border using a blackwork design published in the Linn Skinners book "100 blackwork charts".

In other news, we have been fostering a couple of dogs and I have to say it is much more relaxing then fostering kittens. We usually get a big batch of orphaned or abandoned kittens to nurse and love every spring. Its like taking care of a dozen babies with round the clock feedings and potty training all thrown together. But this year we got a couple of phone calls from folks hit in the economic crunch and no longer able to care for their animals. We have never fostered dogs but knew the owners personally. So we have a pit bull terrier named Sadie and a toy poodle named Teddy. Sadie will be going home after her owners are able to buy a house. Teddy is waiting for his momma to get better and hopefully leave the nursing home she moved to. They are both sweet dogs and have only reinforced my insistance that we need a fenced in yard. They have gone camping with us and hiking with us and on family picnics, and I love them.

Happy New year

Goals not resolutions. That is what I make. I have not had firm goals that I work on in a little bit and I feel disorganized and without guidance. I love goals. I love lists because they are like little goals I can look at and work on every day. I need more long term, forest not tree, goals however. The big goal I have made is going to be super fun. I have decided to go to England for my 40th birthday. This is a little bit over 6 years away and will actually take a bit to accomplish. I have to

• Earn the money
• Plan the trip, ie. hotels, food, sightseeing, geneology
• Contact my family there
• Get out of debt so I can rack more up overseas!
• Lose some weight so I am more comfortable on the trip.

I have always wanted to make this trip and the year that I am 40 is going to be perfect for it. My kids will be grown, I have plenty of time to get excited, I can include lots of other goals and use the trip as my reward. I plan on some regular touristy stuff but I want to see all the places my family came from so it would probably be boring for most people. Everyone is wanting to come with me and all I can say is "Good Luck". I won't include anyone on my trip because I am selfish but if you happen to earn the money on your own and go the same days as me it will be great to get to occasionally see a fellow yankee. My mother was horrified when she heard I was going planning to go alone. My husband laughed his head off when she declared that I couldn't possibly be happy wandering the UK alone. He knows me so well.

Let me know if you have taken a trip to the UK and have someplace you really want me to see. This includes shopping eating drinking museums castles. Extra points if you have a place in Wales for me to see and can tell me in Welsh. Yep I know Welsh. Had to, to translate the geneology.

Finally its Fall

I love the beginning of fall. Everyday is something different. Could be warm could be cool could be windy. The colors change and the air feels different. I tend to barely endure summer. I have no energy in the heat, I don't like to cook or sew or anything really. I just endure. So nothing got done. I mean it! Nothing. Now UU begins to meet again so I can cook and socialize. There are more SCA events so I can cook and socialize and sew.

Now I am going to talk about boring stuff so scroll down to the bottom for the dress diary. I had an interesting conversation about the local Unitarian fellowship and the need for alternatives to the local dominant religion. I was asked what my contribution would be and why I had chosen what I had chosen. Now this question from most religions would send me screaming into the night but I love CJ and she is a very cool friend so I was okay. I tend not to participate in the actual service, I donate regularly but not as a member of the congregation more as a supporter of alternatives. I help set up or clean up or tend the children. I bring a dish or a case of soda to the potluck and stay to socialize. I do not believe organized religion is necessary for spiritual growth. In all my explorations of religion the need to lean on others for learning or opinions or rules on how to be a good person seems wrong somehow, at least to me. I know that others do not feel this way and I am completely okay with that until they become not okay with that and proceed to bug me to change me. The local LDS visiting teachers after 7 happy years of monthly peaceful religious discussion and friendly visits have begun to tell me how wrong I am and how I should go to their church to become right again. I have told them how much I like their visits and how sad I will be to not visit with them again. They don't get a vote on this one sorry. My biggest draw to the local Unitarians is that they don't force anything. We have time to think our private thoughts in a peaceful setting. I like that but I still don't feel the need to enter a building just to do that. I will not dedicate myself to go to church every meeting because I will begin to resent it. I know the struggling non LDS community could use my help and my talents but I don't believe in what they are striving for (organized religion) so it would be empty and meaningless. The best I can do is help my friends when I have the time and means.

I know most of you reading this couldn't care less about my spiritual leanings but it has been a heavy topic in my thoughts and it feels really good to get it out and have it said. Now on to better entertainment.

I realized the day before Coronation that I was supposed to wear my new blue Turkish dress. This would of course require me to make the new blue dress. Here begins the tale of how to make Turkish in 10 frantic hours. First find your fabric and wash it. Number 1 benefit to Turkish is that it need not match pull any 3-4 fabrics out of your stash and go crazy. I happen to have a pile of blues that I had bought thinking they would make great middle eastern garb. I began by deciding I would wear my existing hot pink salwars. They are comfy and I love them.

Then I pulled out the sky blue cotton gauze for the under dress. I don't remember where I bought it but I will find out because it was wonderful to work with. Not too light not too heavy. The perfect weight and workability. I must have more in every color available. Take your bust and waist measurements, wince, get over it, take the biggest measurement divide by 4 and add two inches to that number. I have achieved the happy state of being able to use the whole width of the fabric. I am big and beautiful folks. Take a general measurement of your desired hem length. I like mid calf personally. Tear your fabric to these measurements. Yep its a rectangle. You will make 4 seams, front, back, and sides. I like the effect of using the seam to make my neckline. When I remember I tear two strips rather then four to eliminate the shoulder seam. Find the middle of your length or use the shoulder seam to know where your neck opening will be. Sew the front enough to cover your bust and belly and the back to cover to around your tailbone. On the sides leave a opening for your sleeves and sew a seam that goes to your hips. Yep everything will be open below this. No gores in this dress. Yep it is historically accurate to do it this way if you don't require extant garments for documentation. I make open long sleeves for my under dress by measuring my bicep and adding a couple inches and using my arm measurement to fingertips for the length. Its another rectangle. It doesn't need to be too big around because this sleeve will be open and very easy to get into. Here comes the trickiest part of the dress at least for me. Hem three sides of the rectangle and use the unhemmed short end to attach to your dress with the opening on top. Make sure your hems are facing the right way for you. The bottom is a little tricky to get attached properly, aka perfectly.

Pull out another fabric to make the over dress. This fabric traditionally should be a sharp contrast to the under dress and is usually patterned. Stripes look nice and so do florals. This is the fabric people will see the most of so make sure it is something you really like. Replicate the under dress measurements except for the sleeve area. You want to extend the sleeve out to the edge of your fabric or find some way to add 5-8 inches or more to make a sleeve. Cut the sleeve to that bicep plus 2 measurement and include a little diagonal to act as the gusset. The length of the sleeve is very much up to you I like mid bicep. I hate adding sleeves and a lot of my documentation supports my way of doing things so I just include the sleeve in the shape. Leave the front open. Sew the back to tailbone length and sides to hips length. Hem everything that is open. Pick some pretty buttons or make some. Frogs will be mildly tolerated. I like loops on my dress rather then holes. I make them by "sewing " cheap satin ribbon with a heavy duty needle in a u shape. I have seen the ends on the outside with a pretty bead tied on each end or knotted inside. The huge advantage of this method is that it is easily adjustable, replaceable and removed.

Now take a third fabric and make a 3 tier or circle skirt. Not necessarily historically accurate but way more fun to dance in. If you want to be boring and accurate just make you some cool salwars. Make a fun super decorated belt with bells and jinglies. You will catch crap for having tassels. If you want them be prepared to ignore and or fight garb nazi's. Tassels are not accurate for anything other then animals but they are fun and easy to make. Belts, scarves, and strings of bells are necessary to achieve the right look and can be worn all at once or separately.

I got all but the button loops and the skirt done in time for Coronation and that is only because I wanted 7 hours of sleep. Now it is time for pictures.

wow I really am sorry

ummmm wow I didn't realize how long it had been since my last post. I am terribly sorry. If it helps at all nothing terribly exciting as happened and my computer is being incredibly difficult.
We just got back from Uprising and had a good time. I am newly resolved to finishing sewing projects long before the event I wish to wear them at. But my children were beautifully dressed, well behaved and happy. I must say that the children's activities especially the boffer are really improving slowly but steadily. There was some amazing boffer armour and I will post pictures soon. Aroura and I have both noticed the loose teen problem but are divided on what to do about it. I am going to work on a few things she suggested and see what I can make happen. I need to help because after 4pm Aurora turns into a pumpkin. Any parties or anything for the teens would be at night and after a long day of keeping the children entertained Aurora just can't do it. Any parents of teens with suggestions will be appropriately interrogated for constructive information.