Blogging woes and and award

You know the worst part of blogging?
Maintaining. It.
Especially when you are the only one reading it. Maybe one day I'll be a super cool guru of something and someone will come along and want to see my early pages though, so I plug along. Or am trying to commit to plugging along.
That and it irks me to no end when I look at a blog that hasn't had any new content in forevah.
So let start back a bit.
This summer I made a third Roman Chiton. I prefer the Doric Chiton without a peplos fold such as shown below. My first one ever was with a peplos fold over but I was never quite happy with it. Second was a purple silk tissue, and it didn't have a fold and I liked it more. 

Me at Midge Marsh Melee, 2013

Number 3 was in some nice peach linen and I did some hastily gathered shoulder pleats for it while sitting in camp at Uprising war. Having no fibulae (yet) I permanently attached some metal belt bits that have rather large stones in the same peach shade.
I wore it with a tunica underlayer out of regular muslin, and made a palla out of some particularly lovely dark brown cotton tissue. My mom got the fabric off the clearance rack at walmart and WOOHOO. Prax made me some lovely jewelry and I feel pretty good in it.

So there we were, half of the house sitting around after dinner while grand court was going on. I was actually talking about how I'd always wanted to be one of those people they had to send a runner from court to. Not that I dislike missing court but sometimes with kids, its just not in the cards.Especially camping.  At the same time talking about this I was also explaining the joys of an Italian Zimarra. It's the perfect housecoat and just a great way to cover up a multitude of not dress/dirty sins. Such as being in an event kitchen all day. Or only being half dressed at camp. I happen to have a lovely green linen cotton one and it hangs BEAUTIFULLY.

Kneeling before their Majesties

Five minutes later and a house mate comes into camp letting us know that I'd been called into court. By their Majesties. Slight panic ensued as we all gathered clothes, shed aprons, hustled about and got ready for court. Hiked it up the the Kingdom pavillion with the kids in the wagon. They were finishing up with another member of the populace and I waited just outside the tent, chatting with some friends. The man bestie came up as they called my name, in full Fia garb and escorted me before the crown. He told me later it only made sense for someone showcasing my talents to walk beside me.

The scroll by Mistress Duchess Caryn, my Laurel

In any case, Damon and Veronique saw fit to admit to the Order of the Key Cross, the Artemisian Grant level arts and sciences award. My own beloved Laurel, Mistress Caryn created my scroll but was unable to make it (I got it at a later event).  Their Majesties said some lovely things about me, and I did tear up some.

But the best best best moment came as I was leaving court, thru the center of the pavillion amid clapping and cheers. As the roar died down some, above the hush you could hear clear as a bell, my darling darling lovely daughter Alyvia Jean yell out "YAY MOMMA!!!!!"

Curse your buttons sir!

I hate finish work.
It's one of the reasons I still use lacing rings instead of hand bound eyelets, why I rarely have sleeves and all my hems are machine sewn. I get impatient towards the end and want to just wear my pretty new frock dammit.
This is the same reason why I rarely go back and finish something. The lovely green dress of twelfth night sits in a pile. No pearls, hem untacked, bodice undone to fix straps. The work on the sleeves ground to a halt. I love that dress, and it *almost* rivaled the taffeta V in compliments. But I haven't come back to it. Might be an emotional thing though.

Anywho...

I went to Pocatello a few weekends back to teach some people some simple Persian esque stuff. Nothing entirely completely accurate (see client choice). But it also resulted in some small sewing and construction method lessons.
The wife of my good friend made herself and her husband some really rather nice matchey matchey coats. For a novice seamstress she really put a lot of effort and love into these coats and hey they are really nice looking.

Along came the buttons. I got his coat at war, all assembled, just needing closures, a handful of buttons and  a 'I like your loops better'.

*gulp*

Thankfully wife isn't the big upset type, laughed it off, and admitted she liked my loops better (she sewed her loops out of cord). With a promise to teach her how I make mine i took button less coat and ran.

Two weeks later.
I hate these buttons.
I loathe them.
They have come off three times now. There were nine all together but he doesn't button all the way down because of his white knights belt and they just pop off anyways.

They wouldn't lay straight in a row.
They wouldn't lay in the same direction.
The spacing looked dumb.
The spacing looked worse.
Too close to the edge.
Too far from the edge.

:-\

Unhappy me.
Finally in a fit of 'WTF is the problem they are just stupid buttons' I got out my chalk and lined out a grid to get them on. A somewhat success and I was able to get buttons and loops on. Almost completely straight to appease my OCD.

And that's why I hate rogers buttons.

Finished but bad light 

The green dress saga

So remember the plan of awesome? It *sorta* happened for 12th night. I'm still working on the sleeves and fixing some stuff but it kinda happened. Here's the lay down. The first thing I did (after some ironing, gathering interlinings and the  like) was cut out my pattern ala Noelle from Adventures of a Wannabe Seamstress. Noelle always gets this awesome fit on her dresses, and has fit a lot of different body types so last spring I took a jaunt to her house and begged for a bodice pattern. She of course, in gracious fashion obliged. 

Here's where it gets kinda odd. The straps from the back. Which was working my nerves. Of all the blogs, tutorials and the like that I've poured over during my years of Italian, I have never, to my recollection, recall seeing a bodice with straps coming completely from the back. It just.. didn't make sense to me, not to have them finished and pretty, right?? RIGHT?!?!?! I mean I know she's a laurel and she has like this amazing bodice-fu that makes them all look gorgeous, and I'm sure she knows what shes doing but but but but...

But time was of the essence so I started getting that pattern cut, and meanwhile sewed some boning channels into my interlining and my felt/flannel padding. I spend a good good part of an entire day/afternoon working on it (home sick with a kiddo)and voila. I have this bodice. This AMAZINGLY well fit bodice.. forget my fatness, forget my uncertainty, I have a BODICE!! It's smooth, it fits well, the straps are amazing and OMG, look at how smooth and unwrinkled it is!!

I sew on some rings (yeah the eyelet part is something I'm gonna have to work on, cause the boning was in the way on one side, and blah blah blah blah.. I used rings.. sue me) take a few shots to send over to the Bestie Hastings because Provo is too far a drive to just "Pop in" (though we do) and TADA!!

 Next up its time to do something I've never even attempted on my own before.. Hello cartridge pleats. First problem however, is that my skirt is not as wide as preferred. I normally have at least 3 full panels of fabric to make up my skirt. Because I didn't buy this fabric, it was gifted down to me, its not as much as I would buy, couple that with the fact that it has a pattern and I try to match up as much as possible and we have wasted fabric that can't go into a skirt. So I think in the end I had like 120 inches or so of skirt. That's not all together a small figure I know.. But when your waist is in the upper 40's... it makes for a not so full skirt. Either way, I got out a marker, started making dots on my plaid flannel as a guide and started stitching.

Front, much better

Back, kinda loose

My pleats aren't as tightly packed int he back as I would prefer but still.. I DID it! I have a cartridge pleated skirt and man am I happy I did it.. I know a few things I'll change next time (like the finishing of it and more panels) but its a LOVELY way to attach a skirt and once I got going, it really was not difficult in the least bit.

Hemmed up the skirt (which is too long by about 10 full inches dammit) and this is where our saga ends for 12th night.  I wish I could tell you I had the presence of mind to have the boyfriend  ex (sigh) take pictures of me in my fabulous dress that day, but I didn't. There isn't even a good picture of me full front. What I have is this.. I wore my green zimarra over it for some reason, and ended up taking it off when I was hanging out. Can you see that hem!! Lord..

 Fast forward to the end of February and I have decided to finish the dress to wear to Coronation next weekend. I worked some on the sleeves a few times during the last month and sorta got a pattern I think would work. The best thing I can say about these sleeves is that the seam is actually in the back, so completely correct. Also, their lattern sleeves, with a CUT pane instead of strips made and attached. It took a little doing but I got the pattern made. So I took my normal sleeve pattern and put some cuts into it right where i figured I'd want the slashes, then I spread those out a bit and cut my lining and fashion fabric from that, just for a little extra in the shoulder for the splits. Is this correct? No idea. Did I do it this way because I was trying something out, you sure betcha. 
Then I started attaching some pleated sections of my silk batiste to the lining very loosely so I had enough fabric to pull thru. Truth is, I don't really care for that, and the puffs aren't as big as I'd prefer so now I'm going back and just going to baste sections in place for the slashes. 
I'd been working on pearling my trim for a bit, I had this idea of how to add it and now looking at it i think it looks okay but I'm not sure if I want to take the time to actually put it on -- since then I've actually added a few pearls to my sleeves and might just leave the trim off.. though ya never know. 

In any case I need to fix the hem, and a small issue with the straps, and the sleeves before this Friday. We'll see how it happens.