I've been feeling like the horrible creases/handles in my sides have been getting bigger - and I went up and weighed myself and I am in fact several pounds heavier than I was before. I don't eat that much of the catered lunches at work, I thought, but clearly something is going on. Guess it's time to sign up at the Y. BUT MY MONEY

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To sum it all up, possibly-leaving-doctor gave his resignation and is only staying until July 4, and has said he won't work with his nurse and PA in the meantime, so they have to leave. The replacement pulmonologist has to finish taking his tests (!?!) and probably won't be in until September. For now the nurse may be replaced with this other nurse who has a terrible reputation as a blame-shoveler and pest.

Of course, everyone else melts away into the back to discuss this and I do three people's work for quite a while and only find this stuff out in the last half hour. Not that I actually mind - it's exhilarating and fun to be challenged for once - but it was like, wow, guys. It's all a bit weird to me because the doctor seems pretty normal, and I could understand him having a problem with the mouthy nurse, but the PA is completely inoffensive. So there must be something up with him.

I really need to get cracking on sewing as well as PPT-making. I know I was thinking about a kind of robe de style-ish thing, so I could use the pattern for this evening dress:
( probably well-known picture from CoWCCollapse )
But with short afternoon sleeves, a solid body, and a longer skirt to be earlier in the decade. But then I was looking through the original-20th-century patterns later on in the book, which I usually don't - 1) they're much rougher and up until recently I was more into mathematical precision when scaling up patterns, and 2) my what you might call "obsession" with the late 1910s is relatively new. And I came across this 1921 pattern:
( probably less well-known pictureCollapse )
The trim makes it look more complicated than it is; I've seen a dress than actually could have been made with this pattern, now that I think about it. The 1920-21 natural waist would work for me, especially if the fabric's light and drapey. What do you think?

I'm actually toying with buying a corset from Kay Gnagey at some point. I came across her custom corset price table and it's so reasonable, compared to the internet fashion corsetieres. The woman is amazing, they cost less than a pair of Tavistocks and yet they're based on period patterns and are custom sized.

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The dirt really doesn't want to come out of the hem of the dress I wore last weekend.

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Okay I am so excited about this Floral Fete thing! See, it's Saratoga Racetrack's 150th this year, and Marylou Whitney was all over YNN (the obnoxious 24-hr local news station we have to have on) talking about the celebrations, and then Mom sent me a link to a Saratogian article about this "Floral Fete" - if you Google it, it apparently used to be a Victorian tradition. And there are going to be horses and things! And they want people to dress up, so you know I am THERE.

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COVER LETTER WRITING

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Yup, getting involved in another argument on Jezebel about historical fashion. This is my life now, objecting nerdily when people say corsets cause health problems or Chanel blah blah blah THERE ARE BETTER NON-NAZI FEMINIST FASHION ICONS OUT THERE

My legs hurt. I have a plan to scale up an 1870s corset pattern (... so I can not make it too, I guess) this evening, but I don't want to move off the couch because my legs hurt from walking around TulipFest and Albany. How many miles did we do??

Tomorrow, I am going to:
- pick up the area where I've been sewing, since I'm not in crazy-double-down-work mode anymore
- wash my sink and my bathroom floor
- really go through everything I bought online, decide what to keep and what to return
- fold and put away laundry from last wash
- cook an actual dinner

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So this dress I've spent all last weekend, every evening this week, and about four and a half hours this evening working on - I hate it. It looks awful, it's uncomfortable, and worst of all, somehow the overall impression is "shitty 'prairie' costume for fifth grade school play". You may know that I don't like the Sense & Sensibility pattern, but the dresses that come out of that are far and away more attractive than this one.

The kicker is that while the fit is admittedly not great (the armscyes are too small, not cut deep enough in front; the waistline could be about an inch higher all the way around; I don't feel like taking the time to articulate what's going on with the neckline), the biggest issue is the fabric. It looks like something you'd make a flannel granny nightgown out of. Sometimes I just feel like the most useless idiot. I'm really not 100% sure why I try, given that literally everything I produce just makes me feel horrible about myself.

And then the pink Kohl's dress I was thinking of as a backup? That looks awful on me as well. I'm still going to TulipFest for socializing, but considering what I'm going to wear to any extent is making me feel physically sick.

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I'm going to have to scan and share this booklet Mom found for me in the library basement/book sale room. It's from the 1970s, done by Old Sturbridge Village, and features women wearing actual extant 1830s dresses on their bodies. A couple pictures are decent but it is overwhelmingly a horror show.

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Did some good work on my 1920s presentation for Clermont. The main problem is that I don't care as much about the second half of the decade, so there's just not as much in there, and the next is that there just aren't as many securely dated fashion plates and such from 1927-1929 on the internet.

I hope it's not too complicated. I hate the way people dumb down fashion history (all history, really) into fun anecdotes and stereotypes, so I try to talk the way I would to, say, wereleopard, but putting in explanations where necessary, but I will have to run it by somebody soon and make sure I'm not being too obscure.

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I think I've finally figured out what irks me about Sinfest 2.0 - while he's doing a great job of being against female exploitation, he's falling into this weird early-Victorian trap of emphasizing how pure and above it all women are. Women are horrified by porn and generally uninterested in sex, and they only like to dress sexy if they're a) being employed by the devil or b) unenlightened.

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Okay, I think I have put together a basic lining pattern for the bodice. Also, today I was hardly allergic at all - when I drove home I left the windows up and turned on the a/c - and I am in such a better mood.

Hey, I didn't say before, but Neil Gaiman is coming to Saratoga and I bought a ticket to go and see him, plus get the book he's touring for. He'll sign it and one other book - which should I bring? I have GO, Stardust, most Sandmans, Interworld, American Gods, Anansi Boys (I think?), Neverwhere ... pretty much everything, actually. This is a horrible choice to have to make.

erinpuff, have you seen Magicians? It's a Mitchell & Webb film and it is wonderful. Not least for the montage of childhood photos at the opening credits.

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So allergic SO ALLERGIC SO ALLERGIC

Having some frustrated thoughts about where I am in life, etc. etc. Also getting a bit frustrated regarding Dress U: I don't really feel like I want to go that much anymore, but I registered to teach, but my stuff isn't on the site yet so maybe I'm not actually registered to teach, but I have a rooming commitment. I don't quite want to go because it seems even more focused on costuming skills this year - the trouble is that the CSA symposium is too academic/cultural studies for my taste and I never seem interested in more than a couple of papers there, plus it costs more, so it's not really a good alternative for me. But I'm only interested in a couple of Dress U classes I'm interested in. Being sick isn't the best time for making decisions, but I'm starting to feel like it's not worth it. (It being ten hours in the car and the social expense.)

I don't even have any of the things I meant to make for it done, and since that's like the whole point ... I just.

Just read a Jezebel article on Millennials that I thought would point out the flaws in the way we're perceived, but no, it was just "haha, yeah, we suck compared to previous generations, don't we?" I think what frustrates me the most is that nearly every bit of media and motivational whatsits taught us that it was the most important thing to follow your heart, not just do what your parents tell you will give you a lucrative career, because even if you only end up doing okay it's better to do okay and be happy than to pour your life into an awful job, but now everyone's all, "you dumbasses, why didn't you all go to school for engineering?" Never mind that back when I was in high school it was lawyering and doctoring that were supposed to be the perfect way to money, and now there are too many people with law/medical degrees that can't get jobs or pay their massive student loans. Never mind that there are plenty of people who would be shitty engineers.

Not to mention the fact that most of us are aware by now that it's not "work hard and be rich vs. kick back and be poor", it's "strive for your goals and don't make much money vs. work really hard and don't make much money".

Bah. I think what has me so frustrated (to use that word for the dozenth time) is that I can't afford to do the research I need for my publishing dreams - okay, and to buy the things I sometimes just want - without a job, but whenever I have a job I inevitably have no energy left for working on this, and I don't feel I can request days off for the necessary work-week research visits. Though I'm not sure if this latter issue is because I have a decent sense of what is appropriate or just because I believe I'm only likeable as long as I'm useful, so if I become less productive everyone will dislike me.

Also, my nose is chapped.

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No strong feelings about Journey to the Center of the TARDIS (okay, I did think ), but I do have a coupla things to say about OUAT, specifically: ( I feel bad typing thisCollapse )

---

I really, really need to get going on my TulipFest dress ... I'm just so tired after work, and I'm trying to get myself into bed with the lights off at ten tonight. But maybe if I get out a pattern and some paper I can at least get the bodice worked out.

Allergies still terrible. I forgot to take a Claritin this morning and was really just the same as yesterday, but maybe it needs to get a certain concentration in the system to get going? I'll try to remember one tomorrow.

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You know, in my ideal world I would buy cute fabric at bargain prices and then sew it up into cute tops and skirts to make a work wardrobe ... but instead I've recently bought two pairs of jeans from Levis.com (BOGO50%), three t-shirts from Gap.com (35% off), and a few things from the consignment shop in town. I don't like ordering clothes online, but I dearly need new clothes so I can throw out clothes that are on their last legs/have something dressy for a job and I just don't take the time to drive to Saratoga and do shopping IRL.

I use my phone and I'm constantly amazed at the ways we are LIVING IN THE FUTURE, but it's ridiculous that I can't click a size and see a model in that size wearing the garment.

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Trying to get better at using my fashion tumblr. I still REALLY wish I could change which one is primary - also wish more people had this issue so maybe Tumblr would eventually get around to it - but whatever. (Sometimes I consider just using mimicofmodes for the fashion stuff and the regular stuff, dropping itmeansapricot, but then I'm like "but everyone who just wants fashion stuff will hate me".) I thought analyzing the decoration on 1810s/1820s dresses was a decent subject. That's the trouble, it's a million times easier to write labels if you've got a fairly narrow theme, but I'm not always that great at coming up with them - so I end up writing bland stuff about chronology. But it is nice to go back to it when I'm not working in a museum, feel like I'm still connected in some way (meanwhile everyone else from FIT has a real job).

I always fall back to "nobody gives a damn about your text, they just like pretty pictures." I mean, look at the blogs that post constantly with minimal info and usually no links. People love them, because they just want pictures. I'm not sneering, it's just mildly disappointing.

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Welp, I just spent about an hour rewriting the tight lacing will kill you in horrible ways wiki page. It was pretty pathetic. Whoever did it up before cited one or two Victorian doctors for all the dire conditions caused by corsets, then "backed it up" with modern sources that said things like "severe constipation may cause death" or "blockage of this particular artery can cause liver failure" to prove that corsets kill. I'm still not sure if it was a deliberate attempt to make it look like modern scientists have proved that right (who would give that much of a fuck in that direction?), but I responded to them with VALERIE STEELE DISAGREES.

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So I did do some sewing today. I cut out a section on one side of the skirt and have sewn one seam and pinned the other. EXHAUSTING. I haven't heard from the temp agency so I guess I'm not going in tomorrow, so I will HOPEFULLY get the rest of this step done. Once I've got the first gore put in the second should be faster, right? (No.)

Yesterday I was looking at the VirginMobile website, because I've wanted a smartphone for ages and ages, and I figured I'd get a sense of how much they cost and budget for when I could get one. And it turned out that they have a $60 phone! ($80, but with $20 off.) Their smartphone plans all include unlimited texting and data, and for $35 you get 300 minutes of talk, which is more than enough for me. So I walked down to RadioShack and got me one. And now everything is awesome. I get a lot of anxiety at times over not being able to check email - if I'm meeting someone and I'm worried they've sent me a later message about where/when we're meeting, stuff like that. It sounds stupid, but this makes me happy, so eh.

Started reading this Rumbelle fic and um I sent the author a PM after the first chapter about some costuming/date issues that didn't make sense to me but apart from that? Much enjoyment. I mean, half the work is done in that any Rumbelle fic is a BatB story, which I tend to love on principle, and setting it in 1857 with decent writing also goes a long way.

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I'm hitting that point (that seems to come in all creative endeavors) where it starts to seem pointless and impossible. The skirt seems really narrow. I ended up using one width - fifty inches, I think - the front is flat, the back is also flat but it's supposed to get gathered with the bodice on the waistline, and I put in three or four pleats at the side back, just next to what will be the end of the drawstring when I put it in, since there's a significant amount of draw. I considered putting them at the center back, but I can see with the neckline that the organza does not like to gather at all, and adding stubborn pleats to the mix would not help on that count. I wish I had more experience with the Regency! I can't tell if it's impossibly narrow or just on the narrow side and okay for a costume. Opinions?!? I mean, I could cut the pleats out and put in a flared panel on each side.

ETA: I think I'm going to do that tomorrow. The front will be gored and I'll cut the back panels straight; the extra panels only need to be about ten inches each at the bottom to be useful. It'll look much better than the pleated and narrow version.

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I feel like I've actually achieved something sewing today, which is nice. The drawstrings in the neckline are in and now I'm looking at the skirt. Unfortunately one width of fabric is too little and two are too much, so I have to actually think about this. I hate wasting fabric. This is going to be very pretty, I hope the neckline isn't too wide and doesn't make the whole thing screwed up.

I am definitely learning things about Regency sewing, though! Considering what fabric to get for one of my own (even if I don't get any work done on the corset, I could just wear it over a bra in a pinch) - I'm liking this one, and I know you can never trust Fashion Fabrics Club, but ... the print itself looks very good, it's in a nice dark color, and it's got flowers on it for TulipFest. I'd have liked to go with pink but I find it very difficult to figure out which pinks I can wear. I've just remembered Renaissance Fabrics, though, and this is pretty. Or this might be a way to get the pink without going all pink.

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So I had a titer to check for chicken pox immunity, and then I found out that I had to have a second TB test "because if you haven't had one in a long time, it can just boost your immune system and give a false negative". Okay. But I got Mom to come with me and we went to Healthy Foods at the mall after and I got some bagels. So that's all right.

This sheer, checked silk is proving difficult to work with. I wasn't even sure it was silk, but I did several burn tests (I'm bad at identifying smells) and it produces char, not melty blobs. It doesn't like to hold a crease, though - you might call it organza. At least it's easy to get the needle through? So far I have the front and backs together, shoulder straps attached, and the left sleeve on (but unfinished at the bottom). But the armscye might be slightly too small and I might have to redo that a bit.

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