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Back After a Gap...

3/7/2019

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For various personal reasons I have not been blogging lately, but several people (I'm looking at you, Rosanne!) have told me they miiiiiisss meeeee!  So here are some random updates to tide you over until the next scheduled post (a long research-y one will go live on March 25th) or the next time I write one (not sure when that'll be). 

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All the dresses I haven't sewn...!

12/3/2018

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When I was a kid, I used to drape curtains and sheets and such on my sister, using every safety pin I could get my hands on to get her "dressed".  The best materials always got used first, on her, and as an afterthought I'd drape myself with the leftovers.  So when people at work ask me if my draping is a skill or a talent, I think it's both.  It's a skill because I've acquired techniques through practice, but it's a talent because the practice comes naturally to me. 

My lovely co-worker likes to take pictures of my "drapes", and I love it when she does, because I'm super proud of them!  It's nice to have a fan, and nice to have a record of my work!  Manikin-draping is otherwise a very Dadaist art... fabric pinned into a simulacrum of clothing, then taken down and sold with no hint of its past pretending! 
Picture
This soft sweep of charmeuse and ombre-dyed chiffon is a "dress" right now. Someday it will be something else. Sic transit gloria mundi.

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Purging MORE Stash Stuff

11/29/2018

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Stuff is never just stuff.  Stuff is, as my brother put it, ideas.  Every item I own is an idea I've had, about who I am or want to be, what I want to do, what I value, fear, or need.  No wonder I've found that getting rid of items clears my head marvelously!  My room is slowly but surely becoming an oasis of Karen in a world of not-Karen, which is a relief.  My true desires and priorities are coming into focus, and my to-do list is shorter and more imperative.  I hope to have this process done by the end of the year so I can start 2019 with a clean slate! 

Today I'll post about two harder, sewing-related purges: my pattern collection and my historical costumes. 

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If You Can't Be Productive...

11/5/2018

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. . . at least be purgative! 

You may recall my sew-from-stash resolution at the beginning of this year.  You may also recall that I did a bit of stash busting since then, but not early as much as I wanted.  And all year I've held off on buying new fabrics (with one exception) because I still had stash to bust!  Then, midway through October, my pile of fabric (as well as mental clutter, disorganization, and personal stuff) reached paralyzing point: I could neither move forward nor back until I cleared something out.  I felt overwhelmed by my to-do list, the guilt-trips attached to my things, a feeling of paralysis and creative inertia, et cetera. 

Talking with a counselor helped bring me to this point.  Until I started looking at and naming my emotions instead of avoiding them, I didn't realize how much I was motivated by guilt, and usually needless guilt.  (This isn't fabric-related... the fabric was just a symptom.)  Even my perfectionism breeds guilt: when my imagined standard is perfection, then I can hardly start working, and un-finished projects lie around the place, reminding me of "failure".  Thankfully, I have wonderful friends who mustered to support me with prayer, phone calls, and ideas.

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Brief Hiatus

10/14/2018

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When I am avoiding a task, I'll often procrastinate by doing other, easier tasks, to give myself a false sense of accomplishment.  It doesn't work, as I still know I'm avoiding the thing that needs to get done.  Recently, I sat down and wrote two lists of sewing projects, my "Hafta List" and my "Wanna List".  My Hafta List is neither long nor difficult, yet it's been keeping me from my Wanna List for too long, and in the meantime, I've been blogging, because writing a blog post is a pleasant distraction and an easy "accomplishment".  (This was, in fact, one of the reasons I resisted the idea of blogging for many years... I knew I could become addicted to doing it, and use it to avoid my life instead of living it.) 

I desire to break this pattern of procrastination, and to be able to blog again as a pleasant side project.  So I'm taking the month of October to power through my Hafta list, and in the meantime am not allowing myself to blog.  I'm also barring myself from other time-wasting activities that I use in the same way.  When I'm done my Hafta List, I can do my Wanna List, and that'll give me fresh things to blog about! 

So for the next little while, there will be no posts here.  You can expect a post to go live on October 22nd, but I wrote that ages ago and it's simply in the queue.  I'll be back to posting regularly sometime in November! 
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Draping for Display

9/3/2018

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Picture
When I was designing the 1919 dress, I explained the difference between draping to work up a pattern (which is what I've done before on live people) and draping merely to give the illusion of clothing in order to display fabric.  Today's post highlights the latter definition. 

I work at a fabric store, and one of my job duties is to drape displays to better sell fabrics.  I enjoy this part of my job very much! The task starts with picking some fabric or color scheme.  Then I cut yardage... there needs to be at least a yard, but often more, because when the display is dismantled, we need to be able to sell that yardage.  For a dress, I start with at least two yards, and can go up to three if the dress is long and detailed. 

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Still Sewing from Stash

6/21/2018

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Saints have been canonized for less forbearance and dedication than I have shown in keeping my New Years Resolution to sew from stash!  Every day I see desirable fabric (and imagine projects I'd make with it), and every day I leave said fabric uncut at the store.  At Fabric Depot, I put on blinders and get only the notions or interfacing I need.  At the Mill End Store, I marshal myself like a woman and a Roy and remind myself that if I want any of their delicious wool, or printed cottons, or textured silks, I will simply have to whittle my stash down to size!  At Goodwill, I don't even walk by the section next to curtains and linens that has their fabrics. 
Picture
Fabric Merchant of Samarkand. The Library of Congress [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons

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Glamor shots of a costume...

6/18/2018

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Picture
Photo by Alec Eagon
A few years ago, before I started blogging, I made this costume for a musician to use in a music video.  The costume came out great!  The music video got moved to a back burner and hasn't been finished yet.  However, he recently donned the costume for a photoshoot, supplying me with some lovely close-up pics of the construction details!  So today: pretty pictures but no sewing pictures. 

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Royal Wedding 2018

5/24/2018

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As you may recall from my post about ball gowns, I was looking forward to the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, mostly for the clothes!  I said then of Ms. Markle's dress that I hoped I would "either love of hate it.  The worst would be boring."  As the date neared, I remembered that Royal weddings in England are generally an excuse for fantastic hats and fascinators, and I got excited about those, too. 
 
So the day came, and I gussied myself up with fantastic fifties hat and floral dress, and co-hosted a tea party for other Anglo-philes!  We shared the savory course at the table, then loaded up our tea-plates and moved to the TV to watch the recording! 

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How to Iron Gathers

4/19/2018

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A tutorial, today!  Sometimes you need to iron a garment with gathers; if you put the iron right on top of the gathered area, you'll cause creases and make the area flat instead of full, so you need a different technique. 

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    Karen Roy

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