Dolly Interlude

A week or two before Costume College, I went to the St. Vincent De Paul thrift store up in Port Orchard.  Probably combining that stop with an errand to Joann Fabrics since the nearest one to me is just down the street from that particular thrift store.  And there I found, for $8, an American Girls doll.

I'd known of them before, but my interest had probably been piqued by Lady Rebecca, who posts both costuming and American Girl doll videos on YouTube.  (And I did see her a few times at CoCo... and on the Sunday she had her Kirsten doll with her, and was cosplaying to match her.)

So for $8 I bought myself a dolly.  (And I can hear my mother groaning about how I am just like my grandmother.)

I let her sit on top of the toys shelving until I got back, then lint-rollered away the dust that had been on her in the store cabinet, and set to work detangling her hair.  There are no "before" photos.  Why am I so bad at taking before photos?  And I set to researching which one she was.  Apparently her name is Nicki Fleming, one of the "modern" dolls.  Also apparently the patterns that The Pleasant Company printed and sold for the dolls back in the 1990s are available to download online.  Which I did.  Plus I also had a handful of 18" doll size patterns I'd picked up at the thrift store at some point.  So, using the "Kirsten's Pretty Clothes" pattern, I made a few things out of scraps of linen left over from Costume College sewing.

Chemise and pantaloons.

Petticoat - actually not using the pattern because I didn't realize there was one for this.  The lace I got at CoCo.

An unlined red dress, made from a remnant in the bins of fabric I hold onto and tote around for the quilt guild.  Trimmed with baby rick-rack.

And an apron to go over the dress.

After watching several Sewing with Nancy videos with Joan Hinds, about making 18" doll clothes, I decided to try lining the bodice to make several more seams enclosed, and thus cut down on the need for as much fray-check.  So then came this dress:

Which has nearly invisible growth tucks.  And, hey, Nicki now has shoes and socks!

Still, I hit one or two small snags, which did not render the dress unwearable.  But I figured out how to resolve those on the next dress, and made this outfit from a very-happy-to-fray tweed I picked up at Costume College's Bargain Basement:

And a matching hat!  I accidentally cut the skirt where it was on the fold, thus that bit pieced into the center front.  There wasn't enough fabric to cut another skirt piece out.

So I think now I've finally figured out this sewing-for-dolls thing (she says confidently, haha...), and with her mother's approval, have bought Niecelet a used Kirsten doll (her favorite of the AGs thus far) for a Christmas gift.  She'll have arrived, stained and naked, by the time we get back from England, and I'll give her and Nicki a thorough cleaning and destaining then (Nicki has a mark on her lip, and one on her leg), and make some more clothes.

Costume College, pt. 2

On Friday I wore my Roman garb, which was oh so comfy.  Having watched several of Janet Stephens' videos on Roman hairdressing, I was left with the impression that doing it properly would require a second person, which I did not have.  (I had tried the Aphrodite knot, which could be done solo, and it looked stupid on me so clearly I was not doing it correctly.)  So I winged it - did my hair into eight braids and criss-crossed them on the back of my head.  No pics; no ideas if it looked okay or not.  I did get a couple questions about what era I was dressed as - most guesses were Viking.  Alas.

Saturday I wore the beaded refashion dress, which I'll go over in another post, and on Sunday I wore this:

The shoes are from Clark's, many years ago, and are probably not quite right for the decade, but they're comfy and I already had them and they're close enough.  I made the dress following the classic "one hour dress" pattern, which is a misnomer.  Underneath, I wore this:

The linen chemise is also made using that same pattern, and the corset (because women, especially us stout ones) did not just give up their corsets in the 1920s!) I sized up and adapted from Norah Waugh's book Corsets and Crinolines.  It's a single-layer corset, more like a binder really, with spiral steel in the seams.  I got the rainbow garter clips and the back-seam nylons both from Sock Dreams.

I added a little bit of an accent on the sides to cover the gathers.  And to make that navy blue neck tie look less out of place.

And some almost invisible details... there's three tucks on each sleeve because I thought that would be fun.  Not sure if you can tell in any of these pictures, but there are threads of silver (probably mylar?) running through the otherwise 100% linen of the dress, adding just a little sparkle.

And on the inside of those gathers shown up above, I wrapped a strip of bias tape around the exposed raw edge.  Because linen does like to fray!  And I finished each seam edge with rayon seam binding.  Because what use is it, making a dress, only to have it fray to uselessness after five or ten washes?

Costume College 2024, Pt. 1

I am home from Costume College, which was, as always, a wonderful weekend!  I flew down Thursday afternoon since CoCo starts promptly at 9am Friday morning.  The flight was blessedly uneventful; I did not get caught up in the security break that affected lots of computers and cancelled flights.  But I did, alas, discover that the Chipotle at SeaTac has unfortunately closed. :(  I read Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone on the plane, found the shuttle to the hotel with ease, and checked into my room at the LAX Sheraton Gateway.  I didn't have a roommate this year - by the time I stopped waffling and decided to commit, there was no one left looking for one.  On one hand, not having to worry about modesty or snoring or late night comings and goings of a roomie was nice... on the other hand, it was pricey.  Ah well, it's a once a year splurge!

The hotel in general was pretty good once I'd internalized the layout.  I ended up in room 667... and was vastly amused that there was in fact a room 666 right across the hallway from me.  I'd half thought the hotel would skip that number out of superstition!  My hotel room was nice and clean, but my god the Sheraton really needs to replace the hallway carpets.  From overheard conversation, they really needed to replace them a year ago too, but... haven't.

Every year CoCo gives out tote bags to the attendees as well as a pen and notebook and the usual program and schedule and such stuff.  This year the tote bag was made of canvas (nice!) and there was a table set up near registration with a ton of Sharpies in lots of colors on it, so everyone could personalize their bag.  I really really hope this repeats in the future; it was a great idea, and makes it less likely that someone might grab the wrong bag and not realize it.

I met up with my friend Brittany and did go to the Thursday night pool party in my 1960s stunt dress.  That was the only one of the major social gatherings I attended - I skipped the Friday night social and the Saturday night gala.  I don't cope well with large crowds; I'm bad at socializing and even if I'm with friends, there's sufficient noise that I cannot pick out their voices and converse.

I love the classes, though!  I'll go over those tomorrow, but for now, here's one of the things I made.  From the 1920s Garden Party Hat class:

Surfacing For Air

Between the boys being on summer vacation and me working on outfits for Costume College (t-minus one week) I haven't been posting.  My apologies!  But I've finally finished the first of my three outfits: Roman matron's garb.

The base layer is an Ionic chiton, best explained by this image: 

It's hand-sewn out of some linen I bought from Fabric Mart that turned out to be a striped sage green rather than the striped deep emerald my monitor showed it as.  The outer layer is a stola, which indicated a married woman, made out of some 100% linen from my stash.  I got it about a decade ago at a Joanns that was closing, for the bargain price of $1.69/yard!  The stola was also entirely handsewn, and really the only difference is that it has two buttons at the shoulders instead of eight.  If I wanted to change up the look, I could switch the buttons on the two.

And the cording is lucet cord made out of crochet cotton.  I'd started it many many years ago and finally finished the length of cotton in time for this project.  Not the most glamorous outfit, but it's certainly comfy!

Now, to finish the last 10% each of the other two outfits...

Costume College Prep

So!  I have booked my room for Costume College.  I have sewn the 1920s slip, and a cream/pale blue striped linen dress to go over it.  The latter actually needs a bit of tweaking - it looks like a potato sack right now (a common charge levied at 1920s fashion, to be fair...) and needs the sides taken in by about 4".  But I am also constructing a 1920s corset (waiting on the hook and eye tape to arrive for that) so I want that to be finished before I make any changes to the garments I'll be wearing over it.

I have also found a dress at the thrift store for $3.50 which I have taken apart and partially reassembled into another 1920s dress.  It's of a very lightweight 100% cotton, so it should be comfortable in the summer.  I've pleated in the top (three on either side of center in the front, and two on either side of center in the back, following the fashion lines of a mid-20s frock I found online) and added a center stripe, on which I plan to put small pearl buttons for decoration.  I need to finish the internal seams, then I can re-face the neckline and put the sleeves back on the blouse part.

I think I forgot to mention that I have also invested in footwear to go with these dresses.  Since I haven't really sewn for myself for, oh, several years, and am now a very different size post two babies than I was a long time ago, my old costumes won't fit anymore.  So when I decided to do CoCo this year, I felt like I needed to commit to the bit and actually sew garb for myself.  And (theoretically) Regency and the 1920s are the easiest eras to sew for.  I didn't want to do Regency since, while that era is never out of style in the costuming community, right now Bridgerton is a thing, so there're going to be lots of Bridgerton dresses at Costume College.  So 1920s it is!  But I literally live my life in Reeboks, which are... not remotely historically accurate.  So I went to the website for American Duchess, the gold standard for re-enactment and vintage footwear.  And oh my gosh, they actually make some wide size shoes now!  So I perused what was available in wide and ordered the Paris boots, knowing I have some brown/brown striped linen that will work well for a dress to go with them.

I love these boots.  They fit like a glove and are so comfortable!

But even though they'll work perfectly for outfit #3, which is going to be the Isabella dress in that striped linen, they're not as great a match for the other two outfits.  I've taken a risk and gone up half a size, as AD recommends, and ordered the Parker shoes as well.  They're en route, and we'll see how well they fit.

So.  Corset cut, awaiting hook and eye tape.  Dress #1 awaiting corset and minor refashioning.  Dress #2 under construction.  Dress #3 in planning stages.  One chemise done; I want two more.  Shoes either here or on the way.  I still need to worry about hats (I have a 23.5" head - the usual is a couple inches smaller, so finding hats that fit me is... ahahaha); I've been collecting patterns to make them.  And I need to look at Sock Dreams' website and buy some stockings.  I would like to make a coordinating purse or two, but if I run out of time, I'll simply take one of the komebukuro (Japanese rice bags) that I've made to act in that stead.

Six weeks to go!  Knock on wood, I think I can make it.

Stress Bunny

So I have been absent here for nearly a month.  Sorry!

What I've been doing during that month, though is... mostly stressing.  Some sewing.  A bit of writing.  A bit of gardening.  But mostly stressing.

After biting the bullet and signing up for Costume College, I ended up in the last group to get to select limited attendance workshop classes.  Did I get any of my first or even second tier choices?  No.  But I did get three classes which will teach me skills I do not yet have, so that's something.

And I booked my flights for CoCo!  Which is its own level of stress.  We also booked our flights to go visit family and friends in England this summer.  (And, imagining keeping my 7yo entertained and happy and bringing on board food he will actually eat during that long flight... yeah, yet more stress.)

I still need to book a room for CoCo....

But!  I have also shifted into sewing garments and deep-diving into the era I want to dress from (1920s).  And despite having been quilting relatively steadily for the past several years, and sewing the boys' Halloween costumes... sewing for myself, particularly with any level of historical accuracy, is another ball of wax entirely.

I started by making a linen nightgown for myself, to replace my favorite cotton one that's developing holes.  That went mostly okay, though I have some pattern notes for the next time.  Then I pulled out my Given a Chance dress pattern from Decades of Style, and some quilting cotton to make a stunt dress.  I added some extra ease into the body of the dress because I am busty.  The result is... okay.  I think next time I'll try slashing and hinging the pattern to get more volume in it because it's not as loose and flowy and wide at the hem as the illustration indicates it should be.  But it's nicely sewn, and I experimented with using horsehair braid for the hem, which turned out quite lovely!

(And, yes, I know, I need to get pictures of these garments....)

Currently I have on my lap the pinned pieces of a 1920s slip, cut from that same linen as the nightgown.

Next... will come the corset.  Because apparently that image of "they threw away their corsets and let everything hang free in the 1920s" is a LIE.  Especially if you are, as I am, what the adverts of the time euphemistically called "stout."  And since the two overbust corset patterns I've found for that period have absolutely terrible reviews, I get to draft it myself.  Joy.

But!  I also finished a project which has been sitting folded on my ironing board for a couple months now:

Made from the charity scrap blocks thing I run for the guild.  It's 70.5x84.5, and I finished it last night and turned it in to my guild, and it is one less thing stressing me out right now, which is good.  And my guild president was very impressed by how neat the backside was and insisted on showing it to the rest of the guild, which makes me wonder what other peoples' sewing is like.

But for now, I go to the sewing machine, and get this slip started....

Miss Leann's Quilt

For the past several years, Squiddle has been going to vision therapy to help with his amblyopia.  It's about half an hour away from us in University Place, across the toll bridge, and pretty early on I made him a deal that he could have a McDonald's milkshake on his way home.  So mostly it's been okay.

But his vision therapist (Miss Leann) is retiring at the end of this month, and her successor has to pick up her child from daycare by 5pm so she can't do the 5pm appointments that have worked for us.  (Squiddle gets out of school at 3:30, so maybe we could get there by 4pm if I wanted to commit to leaving the house at 2:30 so I could be among the first 10 cars in the pick-up line.  But the cost of vision therapy also jumped by 50% at the beginning of this year, and our HSA is drained.  So between that and diminishing returns, we're calling it quits.)  So his last appointment is this evening.

But a retirement, as well as her many years of friendly help with us, surely warrants a retirement gift, right?  So I pulled out the stack of blocks I've slowly been making from the guild's scrap bins, and put them together into this:

Each block is 8" finished, so the whole quilt is 64" x 80", which I thought would be good for watching TV under, or building forts with her granddaughter under, or something.  And on the back is this fabric:

Because over the years, Miss Leann has been given a collection of flamingos that decorate a corner of her workspace.  So when I saw this Tula Pink fabric at the guild's sale last year, I knew it somehow needed to be for her.

April's I Aten't Ded Yet Post

So.  What have I been up to in the last month-and-change?

Stress and falling behind on things, mostly!

That said, hmm... I've been plugging slowly along on my Old World Map cross stitch.  I'm on the final corner!  Then I have all the borders to do.  And after looking at schedules and such things, I bit the bullet and will be attending Costume College again this year.  For the first time in four years!

Squiddle is finishing vision therapy on Thursday, due in part to his vision therapist (Miss Leann) retiring.  Her successor has to pick up her child from day care, so can't do the 5pm appointments that work for our schedule.  Between that and the 50% price increase earlier this year plus the fact of diminishing returns, we're stopping.  Squiddle will miss his weekly milkshake and fries from McDonald's (his reward) but he will love having back more free time.

Since a retirement seemed worth celebrating, I've made Miss Leann a quilt.  More on that tomorrow.

For today... y'all know that I run the charity scrap block drive for one of my guilds?  I just finished all the prep work for April's block.

I knew I wanted to present a 12.5" (unfinished) X block, but I couldn't find the instructions for one!  So I found a tutorial that finished to 14" and rejiggered the measurements.  Here's the instructions for my version, should anyone want them:

For each block, cut:

• One 10 1/2” square of background fabric
• Four 3” x 8 1/2” rectangles of “X” fabric
• One 3” square of center fabric

To make the block:

Cut the 10 1/2” square in half twice diagonally, making an “X” with the cuts. Sew the resulting triangles on either side of one of the 8 1/2” rectangles, using the short side of the triangles! The resulting two pieces will look sort of like the rectangles have wings extended on either side. Press the seam allowances outward, toward the triangles.

Sew the remaining two rectangles onto opposite sides of the center square. Press the seam allowances in, toward the square. This will help with matching seams.

Align the two triangle/rectangle/triangle sets to either side of the rectangle/square/rectangle set, matching seams, and sew. Press the seam allowances as you desire.

Centering the now on point center square as best you can, trim block to 12 1/2” square.

A variation of this block, with different dimensions but more construction pictures, can be found here.

Pi Day!

I made these for Squiddle's class:

The upper two are apple, the lower two are blackberry (from the berries I picked last summer).  I am a little disappointed in the other parents, because out of 39 sets of parents, only myself and one other parent signed up to bring in pies for pi day.  (And she only brought in one.)  I get that not everyone bakes, but surely it's not that hard to buy one from the grocery store?

(I would have done two more - pumpkin - but I literally did not have any more pie plates.)

Old Quilts and Modern Activities

So in the process of going through antique malls and shops with my mother, there have been a couple quilts that caught my eye.  It's funny how few quilts there are in such places nowadays!

Snowball isn't an uncommon design, but I loved how the center ones were scrappy and then there were three rows of controlled color border.  I think the finished size of the snowballs on this one were about 2 1/2".

A largeish block, but one that could be fun to make in a scrappy assortment

And an applique sailboat design that I'd not ever seen before.

Let's see... what else has been going on?  We went to Emerald City Comic Con a couple weeks ago, the first convention Wonderful Husband and I have gone to in what must be close to six years now.

Jazzy and Squiddle held up marvelously, far better than I had expected.  Jazzy got an articulated 3D printed dragon, Squiddle a Litten plushie and keychain (each of them spending their own money), Wonderful Husband a dice game, and I found a flight of actually spicy hot sauces from Gindo's.

I am now considering whether or not I (we) also want to attend Norwescon in a couple weeks.  There are an awful lot of writing panels I'd like to attend....

In between now and then, Wonderful Husband and I have tickets to see Rent at the Tacoma Little Theatre.  Unlike Cats a couple months back, we decided this one is not age-appropriate for Squiddle and Jazzy.  The last time we saw Rent was in NYC when he proposed to me!

Clearing Things Out

So among the mess atop my sewing table was this bundle of 9 1/2" Friendship Star blocks, which I had apparently won from the Orange Grove Quilter Guild... at least six years ago.

Seventeen blocks doth not a quilt make.  And even after I made three more red stars, I was still going to have one extra blue.  Oh well, put it in the corner, no one will ever notice that the last diagonal stripe is blue not red.

Ramen has taken to his role as the household's new quilt inspector quite well.

I had a nearly-a-yard remnant of red from Joann's Fabrics that I had intended for some other purpose, now forgotten.  It made the sashing.  Plus I'd picked up a couple yards of red and blue stars on white print from St. Vincent De Paul for a mere $.65, which was probably the impetus for finally working on these blocks.  That fabric became cornerstones and, eventually, the outermost border.

I dug through my blues to find one which looked good for the middle border.  You can't really see it, but unlike the red, it is hella pieced.  Very weirdly shaped scrap!  But it's mostly used up now.

And finally I did math to figure out how wide to make the outer border to use up as much of that stars fabric as I could.  It looks kind of dingy in this shot; it's better in person.  The final measurement is 69 1/2" x 59 1/2".  It's currently folded and hung up in the closet, waiting its turn to be quilted.

Too. Much. Stuff.

The weight of all the stuff heaped on (1) my sewing desk, (2) the ironing board, and (3) my desk desk have conspired to keep me from creating.  Too many different projects in too many different stages competing for attention, and thus I work on none of them!

So I've decided I'm going to clear out one project a day, one way or another.

Friday I finished sewing the four pillowcases that go with the Legend of Zelda quilt top for Squiddle, and hung them on a hanger in the closet next to that quilt top.  (I am certainly not going to be getting up to any quilting until I can at least see the surface of the quilting desk.)

Yesterday I finished cutting the last fifteen sets of four white muslin side triangles for a red/turquoise stars quilt.  So that is all kitted up, the ziploc bag sealed, waiting for the next sewing day.  If nothing else, the Gig Harbor Quilt Guild will be doing an all-day sewing day next month!

Today I am working at cutting the last sixteen blocks for a very scrappy Double Four-Patch quilt.  The only constant for that one is the chain, which is unbleached muslin.  Two blocks down, fourteen to go as of this writing!  Then that ziploc gets sealed and set aside like the stars, waiting its turn for a sewing binge.

Other things heaped on just the sewing table: blocks, possible sashing, and fabric for alternate blocks for a patriotic quilt; I won the star blocks at a block exchange many years ago at the Orange County Quilt Guild.  (I ran the exchange, so I never put my name in, but one month I was out and someone else ran it for me, so they did put my name in, and I won.)  Let's see, what else.  A Christmas tree skirt.  Two bags of scraps to be cut up into strips and squares.  Piles of strips and squares from that cutting up process.  Some old dinosaur fabric that might become a quilt back for Jazzy.  That, I can actually probably return to my totes for now.  The box with the completed blocks and some pieces for last year's Treadle On Block of the Month.  And a couple miscellaneous pieces of fabric that, like the dinosaurs, can probably get put back into stash for now.

Then there's the stuff heaped on the ironing board and my desk.  We'll get into those another day, because if I list those out too, I'll get depressed!  For now, I go back to cutting blocks and getting my one task a day done.

Plodding Along

Grief comes and goes in waves.  I think I'm fine, and then I come downstairs in the morning and look over at the white Ikea fake sheepskin on the sofa, expecting to see a white cat on it, and there... isn't.

I'll be picking up Sushi's ashes tomorrow, and then at some point, probably in the spring, will inter them in the ground, probably planting them under a rosebush.

But I'm not in a constant state of grief, so things move on.  I've been working on the Olde World Map cross stitch, and have repigmented the figure in the lower left corner.  Given he? she? is clearly supposed to represent Africa and maybe Asia, having them be lily-white rubbed me the wrong way.

So I went through my box of floss and pulled out three shades of brown that seemed to work well together, and voila!

I've also been seriously thinking about attending Costume College this year.  For the first time in... four years?  Thinking about it seriously enough that I've finally washed that 15 yards of lightweight muslin and found a pattern or three I want to start working on.  (The first two are corset/chemise and bodiced petticoat respectively; the third is the gown to go with them.)  That said, the patterns are download-only so I'm going to need to transfer them to a thumb drive and take them to Office Depot and say "large scale print plz!"

No Crafting - Just Grief

So this has not been a good week.

My cat of 15 years, Sushi, had not been doing great.  I'd taken him in to the urgent care a week ago yesterday, and they gave me some anti-inflammatories and painkillers to help with his limp, which we  think was the result of Ramen, the kitten (catten, now, I guess) wrestling with him too enthusiastically.  And they helped.  A little. But he kept not eating and barely drinking and by the time our regular vet was open yesterday morning, he was not doing well at all.  Nothing came up on his bloodwork except that he was cold, and very dehydrated.  So they were going to keep him through the day, getting fluid and electrolytes into him through an IV, and I was supposed to pick him up before they closed at 6.

A couple hours later, I got a call that he had just... slipped away.

And nothing had come up on his bloodwork or the x-rays the urgent care had done, so we don't even know why.

I keep telling myself that he was warm, he was being cared for, he knew he was loved... but it's hard not to think I could have done more; I should have done more.  Given that we don't even know what he died of, though, that's probably objectively not true.

Adding to my grief is the fact that Squiddle, at 10, is now also processing loss at an adult level, and this is the first time he's lost someone.  (Jazzy, at 7, is sad but not grieving.  There's a difference.)

And, cherry on top of the Shit Monday Cake, my uncle has been diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer.  Five year survival rates are 5-10%.  Realistically, he probably has a year or less to live.

2024 had better be front loading all the bad stuff for me, and it had better be done, is all I can say.