Costume College 2026 Recap, Pt. 3

Sunday morning, bright and early, is the Bargain Basement sale!  Which is all things that Costume College attendees donate, and subsequently shop for.  The proceeds go to the scholarship fund, to help new people come to CoCo, as well as to help those who might need a bit of financial aid.  The way it's set up is just a touch sadistic, considering it's the morning after the big event Gala Ball.  Basically, numbers are given out at 6:30am, and the doors open for shopping at 7:30am.  Prices are negotiable, but it does fund the scholarships, so...  At 11am, it switches to "clear it out" mode, where you buy a black plastic trash bag for $5 and drag away everything you can stuff in it.  I've always gone for the latter mode before.  But this year, I'd spotted a few things I particularly wanted.

E. and I got up at 6am.  I got quickly dressed in civvies; she remained in her pjs.  We ended up as #19 and #20 in line.  After getting our numbers, she went back upstairs to get dressed; I hung around the lobby killing time and doing my morning set of word puzzles on my phone.  At 7:30, the first 35 people got let in to shop.  One of the items I wanted had already been snatched up, but the 1920s hat I had my eye on hadn't, so I got that and dug through the tables heaped with fabric, etc.  I did browse through the patterns, but only picked out four vintage ones that had some interesting details to them.  Some of what I got is for me-sewing, some is for doll sewing.  I checked out my purchases, then went back a bit later when it was not yet trashbag time, but after everyone who wanted the early stuff had already gone through, and I sifted through the three gallon bags of thread on wooden spools, sorting out the silks.  My grand total for both trips through was $52.

I didn't attend too many panels on Sunday.  Paint Yourself Rainbow was an interesting overview of types of body paint, and Introduction to the Known World: SCA 101 has left me with a bug in my ear about getting in touch with my local group.  Then it was time for the workshop I'd been most excited to get into, after three years of trying: How to Make a Hat Box.

I was... disappointed.  I feel like I can finish my hat box by myself, but to a certain extent that might be in spite of the instructions?  It was the last class of College for me, and the instructor said that we could stay in the room and keep working for the next hour.  Except I couldn't, because I was meeting my writing group for dinner that day.  If it was supposed to be a three hour class, why was it only scheduled for two hours long??  In the end, instead of having a mostly-done hat box that could be a carry-on item, I had a quarter done hat box that needed careful packing into my luggage, and most of the bits and bobs (except for the cardboard, which I will need to source) to finish it:

So a bit of a downer to end on.  But dinner with my friends, who I only get to see in person once a year, was fabulous, and it was great to catch up with them in the flesh.  Plus I got to introduce Marcia to beignets.

E. had already left for home, but I've learned my lesson about flying home Sunday right after College, so I'd booked my room through that night.  I got almost everything packed.  Woke up on Monday and had my leftovers from the night before for breakfast.  Fried okra, it turns out, is quite tasty cold as well as hot!  I double checked the LA Metro website, waited a while longer, then checked out of my room and left my luggage at the bell desk.  Wearing sensible shoes, I set out walking and caught the bus.  My destination: the American Girl store.  I got there about half an hour after it opened, and actually got to see the upstairs this year!  (Last year I was there within an hour of closing, so it was already shut.)  I spent about an hour perusing books and looking at dolls and clothes and triaging my wishlist by means of "no, that really doesn't look as good in person as I'd hoped."  I did not get a doll, but did pick up a couple things, most especially an outfit that is perpetually on backorder on the website.

I grabbed a quick lunch, and then it was back to the hotel, getting my luggage, and heading over to LAX to spend a couple hours waiting for my flight.  My luggage (and everyone else's) finally showed up on the wrong carousel, and Wonderful Husband and the boys picked me up at the curb.  Which is NOT a "park and wait" zone, people!!  (Wonderful Husband was waiting in the cell phone lot, as one is supposed to.)  I think my luggage weight on the way down was 23lbs, and about 43lbs on the way back up.

And that was my Costume College 2026.

Costume College 2026 Recap, Pt.2

On Friday at 9am the classes commence!  I started off bright and early with the Intro to Irish Crochet Lace Making class.  Unfortunately, I was not able to make the lecture on Dressing Like Your American Girl Doll, as it was opposite that.  After that, I dipped into Creating a 1930s Gown, From Fabric Scraps to Fashion, and Costuming for Every Body panels, all of which were fabulous.  The Lounge was also open at this point, with tables of snacks to grab, and hot tea, coffee, lemonade, fruit punch, and iced tea to drink.  I kept popping in through the weekend to fill my tumbler with that last one. ^_^

After classes ended, the Marketplace opened!  I went and perused, though I held off on buying anything until Saturday.  There was also the Friday Night Social, which I avoided.  In a crowd, the low buzz of background conversation often makes it difficult for me to hear what the person right next to me is saying.  Hooray for auditory processing issues!  But my roommate E. went and had a good time.

Saturday started slower for me.  I went to Creating an Elizabethan Capsule Wardrobe and took lots of notes, followed by Trash to Treasure Costuming.  Then it was time for my second limited workshop of the weekend, Beginner's Bobbin Lace.  I initially struggled with it, but after I finally understood the instructions, I loved it.

My bookmark isn't quite finished yet, but I've learned two patterns and am poking at resources to see where I can learn more.  I'm not sure yet if I want to invest the time/money/energy to going heavily into this craft, but it's certainly intriguing to me.

After that class finished, I grabbed a bite to eat, perused what had been donated to the Bargain Basement, and rounded out the day with Custom Costumers Luggage V.2 (which was largely identical to last year's version of the class, but has reminded me to be on the lookout for college trunks at thrift stores), and Finger it Out: How to Fingerwave Your Own Hair, during which I took copious notes.  Then I went to the Marketplace and shopped!

The Marketplace at Costume College is a truly dangerous place to one's wallet.  Particularly with Atelier Mela being there for her last year, and Silk Baron's drool-worthy wares.  In the end, over Saturday and Sunday, I limited myself to largely notions-and-trims purchases at Lucky Deluxe:

 and Acme Notions:

I fully admit to being jealous that E. lives incredibly close to Lucky Deluxe's physical store.

Saturday night at Costume College, is, of course, the Gala Ball.  Which I don't attend for a couple of reasons.  One is the aforementioned noise issue; another is social anxiety; the third is a lack of fancy garb (and a lack of impetus to make said fancy garb).  Instead I used Google Maps on my phone and walked about a mile to the closest In-n-Out in my 1920s clothing, and ate there.  It was warm but not oppressive, and though it was the busiest In-n-Out I've ever been to (which, being fair, I was there on Saturday at dinnertime), it did have the advantage of being right under LAX's landing path, which was cool.  After I got back to the hotel, I checked out the auction and raffle items, didn't see anything I wanted, and went to take a shower and get into PJs.  Also to handwash a pair of my 1920s nylons and hang them to dry, since while I thought I'd brought three pairs, I apparently only packed two!

When E. got back from the Gala, she and I agreed that we wanted to get up in time to get tickets for the Bargain Basement sale in the morning, so I set an alarm and we turned in.

Costume College 2026 Recap, Pt. 1

So we went to England for just shy of a month (of which I will do a separate recap later), and then I had one week to recover from the jetlag before I hopped onto another plane to go down to Los Angeles for Costume College. Literally one week - we stumbled off one plane on a Thursday and I got onto the next the following Thursday.  Fortunately it was just enough time; I started feeling on top of things again on the Wednesday.

I did not take a lot of photos at CoCo.  In fact, hardly any at all.  I've frequently felt like something of a dove among peacocks there, because, much as I love it, costuming takes up such a small portion of my life and energy and I don't have any big fancy garb.  But I do love learning the crafts, and... well.  Some medical stuff here.  I've finally tipped over from being pre-diabetic to actually diabetic.  I get it from both sides of my family, genetically, though not everyone has it.  But what that meant is that my doctor prescribed me one of the Ozempic clones to help keep things under control and, incidentally, help me bring down my weight a bit.  Said doctor actually tried to prescribe it for me last year for diabetes; insurance rejected it.  He tried again earlier this year, this time prescribing it for weight loss.  This time, my insurance approved it.  Which is exactly the opposite of what should have happened.  But whatever.  I am now taking a bitter pill each morning that reminds me of the flavor of grapefruit pith, and I have lost twenty pounds.  Which is... not terribly visible from the outside?  But it does mean I have a bit more energy and my ice skates have stopped hurting.

This weight loss also meant that though I don't yet fit into my medieval garb, I do now fit again into one of my old 1920s dresses.  The one I made many years ago from Decades of Style's 1925 Zigzag Dress pattern.  In light of that, I went with a theme: 1920s all weekend.  Which has the advantage of being comparatively light and small to pack.  I also wore my blue linen striped '20s dress, and the black and gray one I refashioned from a thrift store dress, which I've apparently never photographed for here either!  Due to weight loss, my corset was just barely fitting this year; hopefully I'll need to make another for wearing these dresses in the future.  I did get several compliments, and took a class on finger waves which gave me some idea of what to do with my hair, that (in addition to makeup) being a field in which I am hopelessly incompetent.

So!  Upon arrival at Costume College, or, more realistically Thursday evening, you check in and get your badge and bag for the weekend.  Then you can stand in the line for the other desk in the lobby, and sign up for any of the limited workshop classes that still have room left.  I didn't; I had already signed up for one each day, and none of the remaining classes that didn't overlap or conflict really appealed to me that much.  Instead, I sat at the coloring table and got to work!  For the last several years, CoCo has has these nice canvas bags, and a table near the registration desk absolutely loaded with markers and Sharpies so that you can make your bag yours.

On the right you can see all the badge ribbons I picked up over the course of the weekend.  The lacy one is the finished project from the Intro to Irish Crochet class I took; I thought it was terribly clever to have the class project to be a badge ribbon!  That said, I'm not sure I'll take it up as a hobby.  Anyhow, that's why I also got the I Finished My Project In Class ribbon.

I also decided to decorate the back of my bag this year.

And after briefly browsing the Trunk Show (small vendors selling their wares) which was combined with the Thursday night social this year, I went back to my room, pulled out the bits of fabric and sewing gear I'd brought with me, and added an interior pocket to hold the pen and notebook that every attendee gets with their bag, because in past years I've been sick of hunting for the pen in the bottom of the bag.  I also pulled out the schedule and used the Sharpie and highlighter I'd brought from home to mark my copy of the schedule for the limited workshop classes I had signed up for, and the lecture classes that I wanted to attend.

One Plane To Another

We spent a month with family and friends in England!  I took some handwork with me and promptly got it done, leading me to pivot to writing.  I ended up writing 30,000 words while on vacation!  Four of the last five chapters of my magnum opus that is going to end up being 205 chapters long.  I start posting those chapters next Friday.  Because we got back Thursday of last week, and Thursday of this week (ie, tomorrow), I hop on another plane to fly down to Los Angeles for Costume College!  So, I'm going to be busy on this Friday....

That said, one of the projects I took with me was this!

You may recognize the fabric from the Fiesta dress I made my Josefina doll, and the pattern from the green dress I made for Addy, both last year.  Truthfully, I've had this dress cut out and half finished for a long time, but what was stymieing me was applying the soutache braid.  My main sewing machine is a Singer 15 from the 1950s, and I was trying to find a foot that would allow me to machine sew the soutache trim on.

Such a thing does exist.  It's rare and costs over $150 when one comes up on the market.

So I finally accepted defeat and sewed all the skirt trim on by hand while in England.  It actually wasn't as bad as I'd been expecting, just slow.  Doing it on a doll size dress is... acceptable.  Backstitch works much better than running stitch.  But if I ever wanted to decorate something for myself with soutache, however, I would buy another, newer, machine that has a foot that can handle it, and dedicate it to that purpose.

Anyhow, the pattern is the Cape Island Dress by Kindred Threads, and while I have two tweaks to it (take some width out of the center of the front collar piece, and less foldback on one side of the skirt) it sews up very nicely.  I will probably use it again, as I have six yards of pink soutache to use up at some point....

But for now I need to go start packing for Costume College.

Run as fast as you can, just to stay in place

Post title borrowed from Alice in Wonderland.

It has been... a busy six months.  I am not quite burning out but I am definitely feeling like I have too many balls in the air.  Thus I have told the Quilters By The Bay guild that I will not stand for re-election as secretary in July.  I've done it for six years; someone else can have a turn.  I have also stopped doing the Block of the Month for them, since routinely one person participated.  And who that person was varied from month to month.

I haven't done much too much sewing since my last post.  Only a pair of pajama bottoms for Wonderful Husband, and these two doll dresses.  I ended up using a glue stick on all the rick-rack for the blue dress, to get it to stay in place while I sewed it on.  My fingers got so sticky!

I have been volunteering a fair amount at the elementary school, being one of the docents for Hands On Art for Jazzy's class, and running Popcorn Friday for the whole school every week.

Costume College is coming up and I haven't sewn anything new for it this year.  Not that I'm ever the most creative and dedicated of attendees.  I go more to learn than to show off.

And I'm struggling to finish off my eight novels' worth of Tales of Arcadia epic fanfic.  I'm so close, but it feels like the nearer I get to the end, the slower I write.  I've got chapter 200 three-quarters done.  And I promised myself I wouldn't end up with another abandoned story.  I need to finish it, then I can pivot back to original writing.

Just got to find my mojo...

CoCo25 Wrap-Up

At the beginning of the month, I attended Costume College!  I had a blast and managed nutritional things somewhat better than last year.  I am even thinking about resuming teaching next year, though it would probably be lectures not hands-on workshops.  OTOH, if I did workshops, I could lug supplies down and the space in my luggage would then be empty for whatever I acquired at college....  Gonna need to think about that, and about what I might want to teach.

Anyhow!  About two weeks before College, I got a bug in my ear to make something new to wear.  About one week before College, I'd gone through my patterns and stash and made a decision: Simplicity 9699.  Which I did have to size up.  But I made my alterations and sewed and sewed and sewed.  The result:

The shoes are Clementines by American Duchess, which I'd bought on pre-order.  The rest of the outfit was made to more-or-less match.  I admit to hand-sewing endless miles of the white daisy trim (added for a touch of that 1950s kitsch look) between the two navy stripes on the skirt in the airport, on the plane, and in the hotel lobby!  And also hand-sewing the buttons and buttonholes of the jacket at the hotel.  But it's very comfy and I'm quite pleased with the result.  I also rewore my two 1920s dresses from last year.  I think I'm losing weight?  Or at least inches?  My '20s corset wasn't as snug as I remember.

And as you may guess from the background of the photo, I did go to the American Girl store in LA.  On Sunday, after College was over, when I was having dinner out with my writing group friends.  We got there about an hour before closing, so the upstairs was closed and I did not get to browse the books section. :(  I did not break the bank, just got a small tiara for my dollies, an AGLA patch to sew onto something, and a packet of doll clothes hangers.  Good thing too, since my luggage was stuffed from the Marketplace, Trunk Show, and Bargain Basement!

At College, I took beginning workshops on tatting and fingerloop braiding.  I also attended a good variety of lectures - everything from eco-dying to mid-century hairstyling to a fascinating class on Scythians.  I'm not sure yet how a good portion of it will be useful, but that's the glory of the creative process: you never know when something will spark something else.

My roommate (Bunny) and I got along well, in a quiet way, despite having never met before, and we've agreed to room together again next year.  I got to talk with a nice array of fellow costumers while hanging out in the Lounge, and a niggling idea or two is fermenting in the back of my skull.  We'll see if anything comes of it.  I did not attend any of the "big" events but I never do.  There's always too much background noise for me to hear what anyone is saying, and my particular brand of social anxiety kills the rest of the enjoyment for me.  But I got my projects finished, and read the three books I'd brought with me, so it's not like I was staring at the walls in the meantime.

And then I got home and spent a day washing and ironing everything and putting it away!  Since then I've been slowly tackling my WIPs.  So many projects to finish, before I start new ones.  Plus blackberry season has just started....

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....

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!"

Charity Quilt Top

I had guild meeting this week - and it's the one of the three guilds I'm in that I'm currently attending.  Kind of have to, since I'm Secretary.  The other two... well, one meets during the day, and the boys are on summer vacation, so that's currently out.  The other one I haven't been to in quite a while, as I can't take Squiddle to his vision therapy and make it to the meeting.  But at some point he'll be done with that, who knows when.

Anyhow!  I had undertaken to make two more blocks of this set, after the guild's last sew-in, and make them into a top.  But none of the blocks went together!  Since the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month was red, I rifled through the bins of fabric I have for my guild's charity blocks, and pulled a few different reds.  And a cow print.  Sometimes, if nothing works together, you just have to go for a fabulous border, right?

The colors, I swear, were a bit richer in reality than they are in the photo.  But, regardless, scraps used up, top turned in, at some point it'll be a gender-neutral gift for some kid in the hospital or foster care.  Win!

That said, I am feeling a bit melancholy about not being at Costume College right now.  Though, as I understand it, there was a hotel workers strike going on last week, which I don't know if it's still continuing or if it's impacting the convention in any way.  I'm also getting hit with a bit of cognitive dissonance when I see pictures - the convention is at a new hotel this year, only the third since I started going.  The new hotel is quite close to LAX, which would make it very convenient for out-of-towners like me....  Maybe next year.  Hopefully Jazzy won't have Summer Boost school for reading improvement, if so.  Though at least that's done!  (Three weeks, getting him to school by 9 and picking up at noon, half an hour drive each way since, because of insufficient enrollment, the program at the local school was cancelled.  Not to mention afternoon swimming and rock climbing lessons for both boys.)

Catching Up

No pics for today.  It's quite late as I write this (everyone else is abed).  I've been trying to cudgel story words out of my brain, but they don't seem to want to come.

I've finished a quilt that's been on my sewing machine in various stages for the better part of a year, and got the next one lined up to baste.  It's a homely top I got for $3 at the thrift store, but it spoke to me and there's lots of room for quilting feathers and such.  Homely quilts are nice to snuggle under, and you never really have to worry about staining them or anything.  Jazzy actually took a couple hours' nap with me under my favorite homely quilt today!  Which never happens anymore now that my babies are big boys.

The boys are off school this week, which they're enjoying.  Squiddle, now 8, has tested into the district's Highly Capable program, but it will mean him changing schools next year.  After his eye exam today, he and I drove by the (potential) new school and looked around a little.  I think he's willing to make the switch.  The only downside is, Jazzy was really looking forward to riding the bus with Big Brother next year, so we'll probably request (and it is not guaranteed that we will receive) a transfer for him to go to the same school.  Which I think will work out with his IEP?  But I want to talk with his teachers about that.

The weather has been something of a yo-yo lately.  In the seventies one day, frost on the roof another.  And it's windy!  There's pine/fir pollen all over the driveway, and my A-frame pea trellis has been blown down twice.  I've finally banged four stakes into the garden bed and tied the trellis to them.  I need to get on the ball about building this year's addition of three more garden beds and getting them in place.  I bought starts at the store!  Though I was virtuous and did not get the three or four more chickens I want.  The neighbors are going to borrow the brooder setup later in the month when they get chicks, and if I get more, I'll need to build a bigger coop.  OTOH, if the boys and I have scrambled eggs for breakfast, that's six eggs, and I only have four hens, so it's a case where I'm having to be mindful of consumption versus production.  Sigh.  Next year.  The potted dwarf peach and nectarine trees I bought have all started leafing out, as have the in-ground cherries and blueberries; I need to check the in-ground apricots and persimmons to see if they're going to break dormancy soon.

I guess the last thing for now is, I've decided against attending Costume College this year.  Attendees are required to be vaxxed and masked, but there's also two long plane trips in there, the cost, and the imposition on others around me for child care.  It was immensely more affordable when I lived in SoCal and it was literally day-tripping the con and putting up with horrible miserable no-good traffic on the way home on Friday.  Living 1100 miles away greatly increases the cost - roundtrip airfare plus hotel room plus meals plus either cab fare or car rental.  Yeesh!  Plus the social pressure of rooming with people I don't know because I have difficulty making friends.  (And, yes, I know, not going doesn't help with the making friends in the community thing.  But.)  So, not this year.

In Bloom!

Well, as expected, Costume College is calling it for the year and moving to 2021.  At least I hadn't bought plane tickets yet, so I don't need to hassle about it.

Not much happened today other than me getting a start on the other four planets in the painting.  Uranus is done!  Mercury, Earth, and Jupiter are all going to be varying amounts of pain in the kiester.  Well, more work on them tomorrow if I can get up early enough.

And some of my fruit trees are beginning to flower!  The cherries are leafing out, and the plum tree finally starting to break dormancy.  But I'm most amused by how I can tell the pear branches from the quince branches on that tree.

Pear, blooming and ready to go:

Quince, hmmm, maybe considering flowers, it'll get back to you on that:

But I'm most excited by the pretty pink of these apple blossom buds:

A bit of thrifting, and Costume College panic!

I'm mostly recovered, hooray!  In demi-celebration, demi-cabin fever, I took Jazzy thrifting yesterday.  While Goodwill in Port Orchard was a bust, I did find a few things at St. Vinnie's.

A fitted and flat sheet set for Squiddle's bed, with cute cartoon sharks on them: $4.50.  Five pillowcases, four vintage and one Disney Princess to go with the quilt I need to quilt for Niecelet: $.94.  Two butterfly faux stained glass pieces ($2 each), a mirror to start the wall of mirrors I want to build in our walk-in closet ($3), and a yard and a half of vintage navy (the color, not the military) fabric: $1.50.  A Green Toys tugboat: free toy.  And three more sets of jigsaw puzzle tracks to go with the mini train set we brought back from England: $.50.

The state has for several months now been working on a new bridge over the creek closest to our home.  The work started very shortly after we bought this house.  When the new one is finished and the old one demolished, it will free up something like 25 miles of creek for salmon spawning grounds, which is a big thing in Washington.  (Seriously, it is!  The boys' school has a special tank near the entrance for salmon eggs, surrounded by posters about the salmon life cycle, and there's a state hatchery less than two miles from us.)  Today the new bridge was finally finished and I got to drive across it!  And between when I left and when I came back, the workers had de-asphalted the old bridge.  I'll be interested to watch it being deconstructed.

AND!  Spurred on by the announcement that room reservations are opening tomorrow, I finally talked it over with Wonderful Husband and signed up for this year's Costume College.  Next I get to panic and flail, panic and flail!

I need to dig out my storage bins of costumes (fortunately I know where they are), figure out what I have, what I need, what I want... and then comes going through the boxes of patterns (know where those are) and boxes of non-quilting fabrics (know where those are, too) and addressing the discrepancy between where I am and where I want to be by July.  So... just under six months.  Can I do it?  Theoretically yes.  Practically, I know I won't get everything done.

I've never gone to the Saturday night Gala.  I don't want to take time away from classes to go to the Sunday afternoon Tea.  And the one time I went to the Friday night Social, I was miserable.  That leaves possibly the Thursday night pool party (theme: Swimwear Through the Ages) and Sunday Brunch (theme: Gibson Girl Breakfast Party).  Aaaaand... I don't really care about either of those themes.  (I miss when the brunch was Sunday Undies.)

So, had I my druthers, I'd have a nice, pretty costume for each of the three days.  For one, I'd like a new t-tunic.  I already have the chemise for it, and I know I have some fairly lightweight wool in one of my boxes.  I just have to get over my sewing-with-wool phobia.  For two, I'd love to do a Regency dress: the hot pink silk for a bodiced petticoat, and the acid-burned butterfly fustian for the gown.  I think I have a chemise for that period also.  For three.... I don't really know for three.  Something comfortable, cool, and capable of being made solo.  I must think on this.  Maybe something 1920s?  (Maybe I'll luck out and get inspired by rediscovering my stash...)

Meantime, my sewing machine oil has arrived, so time to give my Singer 15 a good lubricating.

Rag Quilt Progress

Well, I got the rag quilt sewn together and bound yesterday:

In hindsight, maybe I should have swapped around my choices for brights?  Because those two plaids touching diagonally in the center are a wee bit distracting.  But I suppose I would've had two plaids kissing each other like that no matter where I placed them.

The binding is another scrap of flannel, one that wasn't wide enough for me to cut any 8" squares out of, and the pale blue backing with yellow stars is (a) consistent throughout, and (b) something I've actually already backed a different quilt of Squiddle's with.  I got about half the clipping done yesterday, being careful to quit when it would've hurt my hand, and I'll try to get the rest done today.

I'm also currently considering Costume College.  I really would like to go again this year, but we're no longer living in California, and depending on when my parents move up here, there's the question of am I taking the boys with me to visit them again?  Am I staying with them and commuting, or entering the roommate lottery and paying for hotel as well as flights?  Plus, costumes.  I have two inside my head that I'd like to do, but who knows where the patterns and fabric are....  (Well, I know.  In boxes, in the garage, probably labelled.)  And I'd like to make Leia's costume from Rise of Skywalker, but that will have to wait until I have the movie and can freeze-frame and analyze.  None of the screencaps or costume images I can find online show it from the back, and I remember there was something interesting there.

Catching Up

Gah!

So tomorrow we go sign papers and give away a rather large chunk of money and become homeowners again.  Stressful~!  Then we need to deal with moving again.

On top of which, tomorrow morning is Squiddle's first day of "Jumpstart," which is basically a few weeks of practice kindergarten, from nine to noon.  Which he is doing at the school for where we currently live, but then we need to get him transferred over to the school where we will be living.

Aside from that, I've been making some blackberry and some blueberry jams from what I've picked, and been washing, drying, and freezing blackberries then transferring them into quart bags for the freezer.  Did I mention the house's owner is leaving the deep-freeze for us? ^_^  I've also actually been sewing a little - Niecelet's Christmas quilt is half done, and I started working more on the Double Irish Chain quilt that I've decided is probably for my own bed.

And a couple weeks ago there was Costume College, which I still haven't blogged about.  The boys and I flew down on the Wednesday before it so we could spend some time with my parents, and on the Thursday I took the boys for dental appointments (no cavities!) and haircuts and we went to downtown Disney for lunch.  So hot~!  I also did a drive-by on our old house in Anaheim and was surprised to see the new owners hadn't changed anything yet except for a new front door.  Which had long been on our to-do list anyway.

Friday I borrowed my mother's CRV and drove up to Woodland Hills for Costume College.  Not knowing if I was staying there or not, since my theoretical roommate never answered her phone or responded to my voicemails or texts, I took my stuff with me and told my mother I'd let her know.  Long story short, I ran into said theoretical roomie and she was rooming with someone else.  Whatever; she added about six hours of commuting to my weekend but I'm over it now.  (I wasn't then, but I was polite.)

The classes I took were interesting: Making a Miniature Top Hat, Elytra Beetle Wing Embroidery, Gold Bullion Embroidery, and Italian Hem-Stitching.  I've only got my sample for that last one complete yet.  And the class I taught, Beginning Blackwork, went extremely well.  I feel that all fourteen of my students left feeling confident in their newly-acquired skills.

I kind of want to go to Costume College again, but... it's no longer geographically convenient.  In addition to registration, there will henceforth be plane flights, shuttling to and from the hotel, room costs, and meal costs.  And I'm a SAHM.  So I need to think on it.

I did manage to scavenge the Bargain Basement when it hit the point of "free, please haul it away" and got mostly quilting fabric, about half of which I donated to one of my quilt guilds down in Orange County.

Because while I was down there, I managed to meet up with my quilt guild friends, and also with my writing class friends!  Though that latter actually ended badly, when I got a call from my mother that Jazzy had gotten into her pill sorter and taken some of her meds.  Most of which were benign, but we took him to the ER about her diabetes medication.  In the end, he didn't need to be admitted, but it was quite a scare.  And quite reminiscent of the time Squiddle did the same thing with Wonderful Husband's meds almost three years ago.  (Although he was admitted, and six months we later found the pills under the fridge, so he didn't actually take them, whereas Jazzy definitely did.)

Still, overall it was a good trip...

A Bit of Progress

Today, after we got back from house-hunting, I bought my (and my boys') plane tickets... me for Costume College, them to have a few days with Nana and Gampa while I'm at Costume College.  And Wonderful Husband to have a week of peace and quiet while we're gone.

That said, I still haven't heard back from my theoretical roommate (I've texted her and left her a voicemail) so I currently have no idea whether I'm staying at College or driving back and forth to Fountain Valley and crashing on an air mattress at my parents' house each day.

I'm definitely not doing any costumes for College this year (big shock, I know).  My fabric and patterns are all buried in the storage unit, and I have no oomph with which to do that level of sewing.  That said, I did finally sit down for another spate at the sewing machine today, and finished off the last three green string blocks, for a total of thirteen:

Now I just need to decide what my next batch of sewing will be....

Cosmic Coincidence

Amusingly, the same day I posted a picture of my Spiraling Geese quilt, Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting posted a picture of hers!  I didn't even know she was working on one, so clearly this is some sort of meant-to-be thing, no?

Since we had an afternoon house showing yesterday, I didn't get much sewing done.  Everything got cleaned up and put away in the morning, then Wonderful Husband and I left our boys with my parents for a couple hours and went to see Mary Poppins Returns.  It was good, but felt different than the original.  Emily Blunt's portrayal of Mary Poppins felt much closer to the books than to the first film.  That said, there were two costumes of hers that I absolutely loved.  I must see if there's an artbook, or something, with details!  I was also charmed that Karen Dotrice (Jane in the original film) had a cameo!

And, somewhat relatedly, I submitted my class proposals for Costume College.  I had been e-mailed asking if I might reprise my blackwork class, and last year I was asked if I could teach a free-form embroidery blackwork class in addition to the counted-stitch class, so that was two, and for a third I offered to teach the Beaded Fringe Evening Bag class I haven't taught in a couple years.  As I'm expecting to have moved out of the area by then, classes with easily transportable supplies were on my mind.  Well, I'll know in a couple months what I need to prep supplies for.