gwendolyngrey: (Anne- kindred spirits)
Somewhere during this past week I became much more reconciled to Michigan as a state and place of habitation.  Michigan is PRETTY!  We have gorgeous woods and trees and lakes which render oceans redundant.  The great lakes are amazing, just as good as the ocean only with the added benefit of not being salty.  I still want to see more of the country (never been to the south or southwest) and live in the UK, but I wouldn't mind coming back to MI to live at some point of my life.

This epiphany was prompted by a trip up to Michilimackinac with Katie ([profile] rvqavalon) for the first half of last week.  We drove up through northern MI, and spent the time in Mackinaw City and Petoskey. I volunteered at the Colonial Michilimackinac fort on Monday, and spent the day running around in 18th cen costume (Katie made me a wonderful little swallowtail jacket for the event) and cooking over a fire and getting "married" and generally soaking in the atmosphere.  There was a moment when I was all by myself in one of the houses (Piquet House to be exact) just chopping vegetables near the hearth, and I suddenly realized how incredibly fortunate I am to be able to experience this sort of thing... it's the magical sort of life that I dreamed about as a child.  It really made me want to be Tasha Tudor when I "grow up", and it made that sort of life seem all the more possible.

On a more realistic front, I still haven't found a new apartment... bit of worry there.

And I finished Rebekah's dress!!!  My first (and hopefully only) solo Irish Dance Dress is done and gone. 

And last but not least,  I have a dress form coming in the mail!!!! Rebekah surprised me with extra money upon finishing the dress, and I ordered a Uniquely You form on Thursday...  much excitement ensues!
gwendolyngrey: (elizabeth head in hands)
The Irish dance dress consumes my mind.

No. REALLY... it has entirely taken over every single waking moment... if I'm not working on it, I'm thinking about it, or feeling guilty that it's STILL not done and oh good lord she has to WEAR it on Saturday!

The good news is that it looks good so far.  Very sharp.

The bad news is that is STILL ISN'T FINISHED!

My Dad mentioned at lunch that I could always get another job to make enough money to buy a dressform (which I have to have within the next month or my senior project is dead) and I nearly started crying there at the kitchen table at the mere thought of taking on anything else.  Honestly, there were tears.  I'm very glad to be working with Ed on the mural, but that AND working at the fabric store AND making this dress and then having to build the rest of my senior project costumes this summer PLUS trying to fit in a LITTLE bit of time with my friends or projects of my own..... not to mention the new roommate bailed on us, so now Beky and I are stuck with higher rent than we can really afford for the rest of the summer...

I'm sorry for the blatant abuse of caps, but SOMETHING has to be done to try to express what this dress has done to me.

Rebekah... be glad I love you.

gwendolyngrey: (Anne)
My morning (and early afternoon) has been pleasantly spent making and fitting a muslin for a new Regency corset.  While it's nice to finally be able to make something for myself again, I'm finding it terribly difficult to settle on ONE idea for my corset.  I don't want to do cording... no, I really DO want cording... the seams should go here and the seams should go there... I should have a wide gap in the back, then it should be narrow.

At the moment, I have a well fitting muslin, and have told myself firmly that I am sticking to the current seam placement.  Now I just have to finalize the cording layout... I have a fairly good idea of what I want though, and I'll try very hard not to let my imagination run away with itself. 

My family isn't getting together until tomorrow, so I have the whole day and the empty apartment to myself.  Hopefully I'll be able to stay motivated and get a lot accomplished today.  The plan is to finish Beky's present, work on KatieJacob's present, cut out the "real" fabric for my Regency corset, and start work on Rebekah's dance dress.  We'll see how that works out!
gwendolyngrey: (BJD ciggy mouth)
I think I'm on a roll! I have six pages written now (out of eight) and I'm STILL talking about Copley and his portrait of Mrs. James Warren, and am only now bring a couple other Copley works into the discussion. I haven't even BEGUN to discuss Sargent yet, much less draw comparisons between the two!  If I don't keel over and can keep this up, it might just turn into a ten to twelve page paper. Me going over the page limit would be an event to immortalize in a journal for sure... it would be completely unprecedented!

But hey, I wasn't going to talk about homework!

I figure I should probably at some point mention that I updated my website several weeks ago and simply forgot to tell anyone. Poor KatieJacobs had to discover it on her own. I think I had made mention over the summer of the super comfy and very fantasy-esque outfit I made for Rebekah for our annual jaunt to Bristol.  We had taken a couple decent photos of it when we were there (Bristol) and I finally uploaded them and did a little write-up thingamabob fairly recently. I do have a bad habit of keeping my website updates secret... I just assume that everyone can read my mind and will of course know when I choose to get around to posting stuff.  As this is blatantly Not True, I'm taking advantage of the rare moment when I actually Remember Things to announce that yes I do have New Stuff up. Linky!

And speaking of sewing for Rebekah, I have decided to graciously postpone my own sadly neglected projects this Christmas break, and make her a solo dress for her dance competitions. We didn't find anything on our trip to Chicago a week ago, but I was inspired by all the flashy, elaborate (yet often poorly constructed) dresses and made up my mind to help her out and indulge myself all at once. It'll be very different from anything I've made before, and should push me in various, interesting ways. Fortunately I have sewn for her many-a-time in the past, and have lots and lots of ideas for designs. I also have a huge wad of swatches that I cut at work the other day, and we are planning on meeting on Mon to decide on materials and finalize a design.

Did I mention I'm getting a new sewing machine out of this deal? Well, I am, and high time too I say! The best part is that my new machine (which I get to pick up this Sun) has a function that allows me to unplug the presser foot, press a 'start' button and sew without having to use another appendage to make the thing go!!! This means I can sew while sitting on the floor!!! I'm quite excited.

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