Castell Harlech

March and April edition. Because I'm that far behind.

March

The Challenge: Stashbusting - Robe a la Francaise

Fabric: Brown silk

Pattern: Mix of draping and the Larkin & Smith English Gown pattern

Year: mid-1700s

Notions: silk thread, trim, pearls

How historically accurate is it? Well, with the exception of the lining, it is all hand sewn

Hours to complete: Too many to recall. The problem was that I worked on it over the course of a couple months- I got pregnant after starting it and was tired all the time (yay! first trimester). Got it done the day before the event. Phew!

First worn: March 28th, 2015 for the Francaise Dinner in Alexandria.

Total cost: $9 for dress fabric silk (re-purposed three silk curtains from a thrift store), $5 for silk for trim I found at a red tag sale at Joanns (surprised how nicely it matched), $6 for silk thread, $9 for pearl beads/decorations. The total being: $29. How much of it was stash? Both fabrics were purchased the previous year with the intention of the curtains to be made into a Francaise dress, the other silk just because I thought I could use it, half of the decorations were stash leftovers from broken jewelry bits I didn't use in the centers of my flowers, the other half was purchased new, as was the thread.

( Photo of dress )

April

The Challenge: War and Peace - Because needs must, I took a different look at this theme. I was planning on going to Fort Frederick Market Fair and needed something to wear that would fit. Being pregnant, my body was at war with itself (or at least with stays), so I adapted something to work for me. This meant I finally completed the first pair of corded short stays I had started two years ago and had abandoned being too big for me, and made a new jacket and petticoat.

Fabric: Pink cotton sheet for the jacket, lining fabric taken from the underside of the duvet cover I used for the petticoat fabric (it was Matelasse cotton). All I need to do to finish the stays was to finish the binding and put eyelets in.

Pattern: Stays were from the Sense and Sensibility pattern, I used jacket pattern A from the J.P. Ryan jacket patterns, and the petticoat was from practice. I took inspiration from this post at Arachne Attire.

Year: 18th century

Notions: Self-fabric buttons, ribbon for stay closure, pink and cream thread, binding fabric for stays.

How historically accurate is it? Well, considering it was a mixture of 18th century clothing with Regency stays, I'm actually well pleased with how it turned out. And it was super comfortable to wear all day- with the exception that my petticoat did want to slide down and had no proper stay shaping at the bottom to help keep it in place. Just my stomach which did not provide the correct shape at all. It was also almost all done by machine sewing.

Hours to complete: Grabbed a few hours here and there over the course of two weeks. Finished day of due to being slow and discovering that the petticoat fabric would be a bit too thick after the pleating to be done by machine, so hand-sewed the pleating down and binding.

First worn: April 25, 2015.

Total cost: $3 for pink sheet, $10 for duvet cover, $5 for sundry trim/binding tape/etc.

( Pic of outfit )

So, I've been very please with my accomplishments so far this year. It is going to get trickier, however, from here on out, learning what to sew for this changing body.

I just had a Hobnob.

Let's see if I keel over and die during ballet tonight!

I don't think I will be able to get to sleep tonight. Maybe writing about it will help. For you see, over the past couple of hours, I have worked myself into a state of pure panic and now I'm jumping at any little (or big) sound in and around my apartment. I haven't been in this bad shape for a while now, and I thought I had grown out of this. I had hoped.

But now I'm thinking I might not last to see another morning. You would think I had spent my evening watching Psycho and other horror/slasher films. Closets are checked, bathtub is checked. Attic? ::shudder:: I'm not going up in that creepy place this late at night. Not to mention I could never get the trap door shut and I'm really not going to go to sleep with that open.

If only one of my neighbors would come home, I would feel ever so much safer. But right now I jut feel that something dreadful is going to happen.

I have to agree with Judy Abbott, and say that the first Monday's of the month are perfectly awful days. Though, in the book it was a blue Wednesday. Things could not and would not go right at the library today. Driving to work, I was thinking, "yay! I get to stack lots of dvds and then do training for a break." Because that is all very exciting. Except, upon arriving to work, we were presented with whole stacks of books/dvds/audio books/etc that needed to be checked in, and no way to do it. Because our lovely library system/internet was down so we could do nothing. Time to whip out the pads of paper and do it the old fashioned way. At least, I thought to myself, I could get out of most of that because of training. Unfortunatly, it was web-based training, hence the importance of an internet connection. So, they sent me to Centreville to the main library branch to complete training there with Allison (their children's librarian). And that was all sorts of fun and excitment. The funny thing was that the Horizon demo program our instructor was using managed to break down toward the end of the instruction period, which does not bode well for when we have it for real, and then his telephone connection disconnected, but he didn't realize it, and all of us who were listening to him were bored of watching him move the mouse around the screen but not hear him say anything, so we all decided that it was time to leave the session. We do get more Mark fun tomorrow! Hoorah, I can't wait! Plus, it means I have to go to work early tomorrow. But still stay until 8.

When I got back to the library, everything was still a mess, dvds were piled high, and that was only a good thing if you wanted to borrow The Devil Wears Prada which is apparently the top movie everyone wants to see, goodness knows why. We had three copies just sitting there waiting to be put away and reshelved. I felt like running through the library yelling out that copies of that movie were available. Line right up! But, I didn't.

Came home with the intention of putting the heat up since it is so freezing cold out, only to discover an electric bill that was way higher than I wanted it to be, though after consultation with my father, he says it is probably what it should be for this time of year and don't be a silly goose and to turn up the heat. So I did, moderately.

But, I did read a good book tonight (Gossamer by Lois Lowery), watched a movie (Miracle) and transfered an online video (Le Roi Soleil) to dvd. All the while crocheting... something. So, I wasn't completely useless today.

I am stubborn. Really. And sometimes it makes me go to extremes (to quote Billy Joel). Like tonight. "She Who Will Not Be Named" asked me to stop tapping my spoon on the table because it annoyed her. And something clicked in my head and told me, "fine, if she doesn't like me making this noise, I won't make any noise" and thus, I stopped talking and interacting. Dead. And yet, the other part of my brain was like, "you are silly and going to an extreme and nobody finds that pleasant". Well, guess which half won?

I can't make excuses for myself. This is just me. Feel free to defriend me if this is unacceptable.

Oh, and find of the night? Jasper Fforde's Well of Lost Plots in hardcover (U.S. edition) for $5.23. Two down, two to go to complete my American hardcover Jasper Fforde collection. Like I need two sets of them. Sheesh.

My brain is entirely to dead to go on, and I am so behind. Behind in my studies, behind it keeping up with everyone here, behind in life. I don't know how I'm going to get through this month. Like, I have a 15 page paper due in two weeks that I haven't even really thought about (as well as a 5-6 page paper due that same day). But, who cares. So what if I fail.

I'm too tired to go on, I'm going to sleep. I'm so sorry that I've been so bad at responding to comments and commenting lately. I do care. I do.