Bits and Bobs

Hi guys!

I guess I don't have any "real" progress today, but I've been enjoying blogging about my sewing, as I feel like it helps motivate me. I can feel my creative side unfurling as I focus on this one project, and other projects seem to be coming together as well. For instance, I'm not feeling so hopeless about school anymore, even though the timeline I'm looking at isn't making me happy. In addition, I'm also starting to get some good ideas for my house!

Some of you may know that my boyfriend and I moved into a house together in October. Neither one of us has ever had our own home in our adult lives; we've both gone from apartment to apartment, moving every year or two. Getting settled in to something bigger than a shoebox is a little bit different, and a little bit chaotic, but definitely in a good way. However, we're coming up on six months in the house, and while we've made great strides in that time, the unpacking and pretty-ifying slowed way down when we had guests here throughout the holidays, and hasn't really picked up again. It's been difficult to find all of the things that we need, as we still have so many unpacked boxes, and our hall closet, half our garage, my soon-to-be sewing room, and his grandmother's garage are all cluttered with bags and boxes from the move. I wouldn't say I feel guilty about the clutter, per se, but I am anxious to see some tangible movement in the house again. Where am I going with this? What does this have to do with my sewing project?

Well, two things, really. The first being we went over to his grandmother's house yesterday, and I found a ton of fabric and notions. Very exciting! I found a big box of boning and ribbon and other odds and ends from Lacis, in addition to plastic bins full of fabric. I even found an entire gown that had gone missing! It was originally a Vintage Vogue pattern (1931, I want to say?) I threw together in high school after my sewing teacher gave me the cut pieces, and that was last worn in 2008 or 2009 to a Firefly-themed event. My other big find was a length of green fabric that I've been missing for around 7 years now! I had used it as a sash on my windows when I first got it, and after I changed my curtains it mysteriously disappeared. Mystery solved; it had been hiding out in a box in my dad's storage unit that he passed along to me in my last move without me really realizing what was in it. It's a bright kelly green, and I'd been hoping to find it to use with some brown velvet I have to make an early Tudor. However, now that I see it again, I think it may be TOO bright. However, it claims to be silk; I'll have to double check (if it is silk, it's a weave I don't recognize; papery, but lacking the luster crinkle that taffeta has; thicker than a crepe de chine), but if it is, it should be fairly easy to dye.

The other reason I bring up the house is that all of this sewing has opened up the creative floodgates for decorating the house, too. Right now I am obsessed with putting in a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in the office, along with a rolly library ladder. We have high, sloped ceilings, and I think tall bookshelves would be gorgeous and dramatic; I'm going for a whimsical-fussy look in there, with a bit of an Asian-obsessed-Victorian feel. My boyfriend is a Buddhist, and has a small altar set up in there. I don't want to detract from his love of Asian-inspired furniture, but I think it would marry beautifully with the Victorian aesthetic I'm picturing. Whistler's Peacock Room, anyone? If I could find a lush Persian rug in a deep pine green to compliment the current taupe and peacock green walls, I'd be in heaven. My other current obsession for the house is Cole & Sons Woods wallpaper. Our great room is a warm taupe grey that leans dusty lavender in warmer light, and although it's a beautiful color, the room is a bit plain. I'm trying to gradually incorporate pops of red into the space, and originally thought that painting a small inset wall behind our dining room table red would be nice. It would be beautiful, but perhaps too bold for my boyfriend's taste. Lately, I've been thinking that keeping it monochromatic by putting Woods on that wall might be a way to bring some humor into the space without detracting from the "elegant" look we've been favoring.

None of this is going to happen right away, but it's fun to think about these things; hopefully by the time we have a little bit of extra money to throw at these things, we'll know exactly what we want and be able to spend it wisely on a few key elements to breathe a bit of strong personality into the space.

As for the corset... I cut it out of some cheap canvas, only to discover it doesn't hold in the side-boobs the way it should after it squishes them from the front. I was thinking after yesterday's post that I never thought I'd find myself talking so much about my breasts on the internet... Oh well, c'est la vie, and it's a bit of a necessity if I want to blog honestly about the process of developing a corset pattern. I feel like everyone else takes some measurements, drafts a pattern, makes a minor adjustment or two, and voila! There's a corset. That hasn't been my experience with it, but I'm not complaining. I actually quite enjoy the process! Wish me luck; if all goes as planned, in the next week or so I should have a corset finished enough that I can try it on and take a few pictures! My goal is to finish the pattern today, and start putting it together tomorrow so that I can place an order for corset steel before the weekend. Then I can move on to working on the smock or farthingale while I wait for those last supplies to arrive. Good plan, right? We'll see what actually happens...