Rabbit parts

I have made a little headway in my Halloween costume. As usual, the White E opened its magical portals and I found the basic pieces I needed to create most of my costume.

This is the best picture of the color of these pants, although I think in real life they a lighter cream. They are lightweight corduroy, blousy around the thigh, and I will cut them off just below knee-length to make britches. I plan on embellishing them with some lace and satin ribbons.

Here is the rest of the fabulous I hunted up out of my stash. My vision is a decrepit, fraying-about-the-edges Victorian toy, hence the creams and ivories and taupes in place of the bright whites of the Disneyfied Rabbit.



I like this linen shirt a lot. I like the frocking detail and the tiny Peter Pan collar and miniscule pearly buttons. I think it will be hard to wear a cravat with it, because the collar is so small, but perhaps I will veer from my primary inspiration - the Tenniel illustrations - and wear a ribbon tie instead. I do love the idea of a cravat, though, even if it would be a bit warm.
Finally, the E graced me with a set of rabbit ears. These are being reconstructed as well, as I find them a little bit Playboy the way they are right now. I haven't decided yet whether I want to add elements of the rest of the story to my costume; if so then the ears will be attached to a wee top hat fascinator. If not, then I plan on removing them and attaching them to a headband that is covered in cream satin or velvet, together in a V off to one side. Gratuitously, here are the shoes that I ordered, because I am insane enough to order shoes specifically for a Halloween costume.

So far I have done no actual crafting, but I have lots of inspiration and plenty of materials. I also found in the depths of my stash the prettiest black Bavarian ribbon with hot pink and red roses on it. I think it will be perfect for trimming the dirndl part of Miss Thing's Red Riding Hood costume. If I can convince her that she wants the dress in sky blue instead of red, we'll be in business soon. Otherwise, it may be a slight delay while I figure out fabric options.

The Cap'n has decided he wants to be Thriller Zombie Michael Jackson for the high holiday, so I need to lay hands on a decent makeup kit and maybe on a Jheri-curl wig.

Hopefully the next time I post I will have started on the construction of the vest. I am just awaiting brocade in the mail...

At long last!

I know that you all only come here for the parts when I talk exhaustively about costuming, sewing and crafting, and that you were sorely disappointed last year when I copped out so hugely. Breathe your sighs of relief, then, because I have determined that I will NOT spend three hours desperately wiring rubber snakes together in an effort to make it seem as though I put effort into my costume choice. NO, this year, my lovelies, I am going to make a costume.

It is not as inspired as years past, but my criteria were different. It needs to be packable, longwearing, lightweight for temperature reasons, and reasonably clever. No sticky makeup, no fussy accessories, nothing I will need to constantly check or fix. This immediately disqualified my best ever costume ideas - the story of the green ribbon, and the gutshot cowgirl - and made my favorite forerunner for this year - a steampunk mermaid - seem unfeasible. I settled on something iconic, easy to put together, and yet challenging enough to make me actually want to work on it. I decided to be the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.

The elements are simpler than you are imagining. A vest, some pantaloons, a pocketwatch on a chain, some rabbit ears (fascinator style, natch), and a little pink nose. I am rather pleased with myself. I even have a pattern for a vest that I have been holding onto for years, waiting for the occasion to arise where I might need it.
Also, I might have gone ahead and bought a pocketwatch today. I need one anyway!

HRH is going to be Little Red Riding Hood, which I am also making. I bought a set of red velveteen curtains at a garage sale for $5.00 and threw them in the washing machine not long ago. I hope they survive the trip. They smelled about a thousand years old. IF so, they are going to make a really beautiful, heavy, hopefully warm cape. I want to make a pinafore trimmed with Bavarian ribbon, too, and then she can wear a white shirt and white tights and black shoes and carry a basket.

So now I have a plan, and two patterns and the fabric for one costume. Now to dust off the sewing machine and set to work. I'll post updates - hopefully with pictures, even! - as I make progress.

Guess what time it is, kiddies?

That's right! I have made my decision on my Halloween costume, and the research has commenced. I was determined to have a gaping wound this year, and since I figured that my original idea, the gutshot cowboy, would prove sticky over the course of an evening, I decided a smaller, more localized trauma was in order. Bust magazine had good instructions a few years ago for slit throats, and the seeds of my costume were planted.

I was inspired by this story, which I think I probably read for the first time in one of those lame urban legend books that fall into your hands, usually via Scholastic book club orders, in the formative years of your youth. I remember that the young man in the story was a noble, maybe even a prince, and that the young woman insisted she was a commoner who carried herself like an aristocrat. Or maybe that is just a few too many Georgia Heyer books in junior high.... Anyway, I have been lusting after a mid/late-Victorian bustled evening gown (1873 is the magic year) for a really long time now. That in mind, I have made the decision to set my costume and thus the story in the Victorian era, and to give her a reason for her head to fall off: it was nearly severed from her body in a cruel and gruesome crime of passion.

I am so excited.

Here is what I think I'll need:
1)a new Victorian corset, maybe with a spoon busk if I can justify the expense
2) a bustle, either stiffened lace (a la the 1870's) or "hoopwire" (otherwise known as polyethylene tubing - I LOVE the hardware store)
3) a petticoat
4) corset cover
5) skirt and bodice
6) several yards - 2 1/2? 3? - of green velvet ribbon. I am leaning toward willow or loden.
7) hair extensions
8) neck wound prosthesis
9) latex, fake blood, miscellaneous wound makeup

I like the idea of using pink to underscore the green of the ribbon and emphasize the rosy glow of my slashed neck. I still have many yards of hot pink shantung that never became a holiday dress, so it may find new life. I have to think hard about matching it with the moss green. One solution may be making the base of the dress ivory or pale gold, and just accenting with the bolder colors.

I obviously am still in the planning stages, but I know that I will need patterns for the bustle and gown, and most probably the petticoat, too. That is where I plan to start. I have spring steel still from the MA corset, but no more tips. I will require a busk and about 300" of lacing for a Victorian corset, too. Oooooh, exciting. I'll try to be better about progress pics this time around!

The US Postal Service is so slow!

I finally got all the fabric for the costumes, and I started work on it all yesterday. As usual, I am terrified to cut into any of it, so I am just hovering around the edges, making things out of my stash. Read: constructing only things I know how to make already. This happened to me last year, too, and I was (mostly) satisfied with the way my costume turned out. Someday I will replace all the trim on that one, though, because I hate that it's so slipshod. Bea is completely in love with the stuff i got for her tail, and if allowed will wrap herself in it entirely. I think that instead of just a skirt, which is what I had in mind before, I will make her an Empire-waisted dress, just to take advantage of the glorious pink-ness of it all.


You can kind of see in that last picture how the holographic foil is wonderfully rainbow-y. The frilly hotter-pink stuff is mine. Originally it was going to be just for the top, but I think I will try to incorporate it into a tutu somehow, if I get my hands on a ruffler foot or something.

I WANTED to show pictures of what I made for Princess Japonski for her birthday, but since I keep forgetting that New York is the other side of the planet, practically, she has not yet received it, and I refuse to ruin her surprise. So you have to wait, too. I'll post terrible pictures of its awesome as soon as she opens it.

I am mustering up my courage to cut fin pieces today. Wish me luck!

It's time to sew for Halloween again!

Actually, it's far past time to start sewing again, but since I've been occupied with planning and playing gigs, and friends visiting, and last minute(to me, seven weeks ahead of time is last minute) changes of plan, I am just now settling in to really get some work done. H.and I, because we are remarkably similar in our tastes, got all giddy and excited to dress the band as a circus troupe for the High Holiday. She will of course be the ringmaster, although I secretly covet that exalted position, and I will be the equestrienne/tightrope-walker/acrobat/sitter-atop-elephants/etc. Or the knife-throwers assistant, which only makes sense if there is a knife thrower, I think. Anyhow, I am determined to keep the costumes as 40's/50's pin-uppy as possible, so I am thinking that I will take my costume in a sort of burlesque, Dita Von Teese direction. But still sort of based on the Ceil Chapman aesthetic that I was basing my original costume on. I have already ordered black satiny stretch stuff and pink fluffy mesh stuff and I have some black point d'esprit that I have been hoarding like gold for two years, so that's in as well. I'll dye a few of last year's ostrich plumes pink, and we're golden.

Miss Thing (you know of whom I speak) wishes greatly to be a mermaid this year. A pink one. Okey-doke, say I. Oh brother. What have I gotten myself into? I managed to steer her away from her covetous longing for the officially licensed Disney Little Mermaid nonsense, and am instead contemplating making her one of the pictured tails, complete with fluke.



I am tickled by the idea of the long tail on a train, but I don't know how realistic that is for a fiddly preschooler. I suppose the ankle-length skirt with the floor-length flukes will have to suffice. We've ordered fabric for this, too, a silver on pink spandex extravaganza, with silver for the shells and even (this is how cool I am) some glissenette to make a shirt out of so the fight about a warm coat is preempted.

I am getting over the end of a wicked, grotesque ear infection that required antibiotics and a full two days in bed. Once my hearing returns (!) I will start the muslins for these. I am not using patterns for Li'l Bit's, and mine I am using a dangerous combination of several heavily modified things I have laying about the house, as usual. Oh, and for those who care, Cap'n Jack has decided to be Danny Zuko from Grease, so all that's required on that score is some pomade and a cheap leather jacket. Awesome.

Well, it's finished.

I am done, as you can see. These photos were taken at the beginning of the night, before I embarked on an ill-advised round of general debauchery that culminated in my complete inability to actually have anything to do with a living, breathing member of the male persuasion who expresses admiration for me in any form. To wit, even stripped down to my chemise and related underpinnings, even dancing my fool head off, even when being flirted with overtly and outrageously, I still could not work up the gumption to actually act on any sort of impulse that might actually get me any sort of action. In other words, I choked up on the bat, and bunted.

I had to remove most of the costume, after the contest, which I did not win,

45 hours of work notwithstanding. I really wanted to dance to the band, the Dusty 45's because they were swinging like tomorrow's just a word, and it was not happening with eight yards of satin appended to my shoulders. So off it came, and I danced around in my chemise, looking scandalous and making sultry-type eyes at Billy Joe, the lead guy and flaming trumpeter extraordinaire. This behavior unfortunately did not see its logical conclusion, i.e., when the ball ended. Instead I had to drag it out until very, very late Monday night (or early, early Tuesday morning if you must) when I ran away from the boy who was singing Ring of Fire and smiling in my direction. Damn principals for intruding and reminding me of his conspicuously absent wedding ring.

Now is the let-down. Inevitably, this project has come to its conclusion, and now there is really no reason for me to continue this blog. I suppose I might have a few more pictures from tonight, but that, as they say, is that. Now what? is the question. All of my musings, and what it ultimately comes down to is the best damn birthday a girl could ask for, barring a few stolen kisses with a rock and roll boy, and a very heavy, antiquated set of clothing whose real purpose was to stave off its creatrix's impending winter depression. I suppose I will have to invent something new to help me hold back the darkness, or succumb and spend the rest of the winter indulging myself in what L. calls the Braffian doleful stare and trying to block out the memory of a pair of tight blue jeans topped with a truly magnificent smile. Or I could just give in and make a late Victorian bustle-back evening gown, a picture of which I might add later. Suggestions from my adoring fanbase? Comments? Applause or derision? C'mon, people, would it kill you to say a thing or two?

Don't you judge me!

I know, two weeks is unacceptably long between posts. But in my defense, I have actually been working on my costume rather than gadding about online. I have managed to do lots of stuff - cut the crap out of a pair of shoes, cut the crap out of my finger, cut the crap out of a yard of my not terribly expensive but scarce fabric, and actually complete the jupe and a muslin for fitting purposes of the lining for the contouche (see, I said I was going to call it this). Of course, there were several moments when I realized that I am in WAY over my head here, such as when I realized that the sleeves in no way resemble modern sleeves. Of course, I also figured out from doing some judicious (read: panicked) research that the pattern I chose is notorious for ill-fitting sleeves, and that the redraft I did is nothing more or less than anyone else has done. They are snug on me, I won't lie, but I will probably fudge them rather than fix them properly, because I am starting to feel the press of time. Instead, I chose to spend six hours this weekend rebinding the corset, because when I tried on the lining muslin, it would not lie flat over that evil phlegm of Satan disguising itself as faux-suede trim. In the process, I also trimmed down the unnecessarily bulky shoulder straps, and miraculously, this seemed to make the corset fit better. If you care at all, which you probably don't, I am still getting a tiny gap at the back of the armscye, and I can't for the life of me figure out what to do about that. Whatever.

I am just going to pretend that I meant to do it. You will notice that although there is little I can do to actually appear slender, the shape I manage to achieve is very like the ideal 18th century silhouette. Thank Dieu.

I have ordered some gigantic ostrich plumes for my wig, and I am going to start working on the embroidery for the stomacher tomorrow, if I can figure out what I did with the sketch I made.

This is on an entirely different subject, but I discovered the name of my mystery crush and immediately disqualified him. Not because of his name, which is disturbingly like the last name of my ex-husband, and not because he's (ahem) eight years younger than me. No. It's because he is a JV. That's Jesuit Volunteer for those not in the know, and I have to say I have nothing against them. Except they are very Catholic and they go on retreats together. And most of them are vegtetarian. Not that I have anything against vegetarians. But I don't really want to date one. It's the same way that I love tiny purse-dogs, but I would never subject myself to the calumny of owning one. He is lovely though, and funny. I will have to content myself to prodding fun at him, and smirking in satisfaction when he can't follow my train of thought.

Shoes next time, my lovelies!

I'm only a few days behind my self-imposed deadline

But I'm not really done. True, the underpinnings are wearable, but they aren't really finished. The chemise is unhemmed and the sleeves do not have the engageantes, I still want desperately to change the trim on that ridiculous excuse for a pair of stays, and the pocket hoops need a different closure or they won't last the night. But it is sufficient for me to begin the part that people will actually be able to see, and none too soon. Halloween is right around the corner, although I am sure there are lots of you out there who think that a few days or even a week or two is lots of time to think about what to be and how to accomplish that. Well, fie on you. I'm not inviting you to my fabulous Halloween party, which I'm not even holding this year. Or have ever held, for that matter, but I think about it a lot, and how intensely marvelous it would be. I have a whole list of ideas to make it great. Or I would if I were the sort of person who makes lists. The point is that I have four or five times as much work ahead as I have already done, and that means no more slacking. Just working.

The picture you see to your left is B-Fed, who has taken a few minutes out of her busy schedule promoting her new album(Nap this, B**ch) to endorse my brilliant mothering skillz. You will notice, please, the tiny baby wife-beater, the low-slung jeans, the bare feet, and the insouciant expression, all courtesy of yours very truly, although the Look I'm not really sure I should take credit for. Rebellion is the natural consequence of neglect, which is what I feel I'm doing when I spend three hours holed up in the sewing room, ripping the same seam over and over again because the damn chemise is just rectangles, you can't tell top from bottom, and I'm too lazy to actually mark things with tiny notches the way you're supposed to. I know that this blog isn't about me, it's about Her Majesty, La Reine de France, but L. pointed out to me on the phone that I am the only blogging parent on the face of the planet who hasn't posted a virtual wallet foldout, and so this is my obligatory nod to my babes. I will hunt up a suitably intriguing photo of Cap'n Jack for next time, if I get around to it. And if I feel like it.
And by this time next week, the jupe must be finished and I think the toile for the robe finished. I think I should start calling the robe the contouche, tho, because that was the contemporary term for it. There is a little evidence that robe a la francaise was actually a French term of English origin. Damn Brits.

Alrighty, kiddies, that's the update. If anyone find a suitable cicisbeo to accompany me, my dance card is remarkably free of entries. Send 'em my way.

My pouf has arrived!

I'm really excited about this, as you can tell. Now, I have to confess that between the departure of La Fab, and catching an irritating cold (not evil, really, unless it was caused by a really minor demon, possibly an imp), I have not taken a single stitch on this costume in a very long time. This is not to say I haven't been working on it, just that I haven't been sewing. I've been researching a lot, and I've decided on the embellishment for the robe and for the stomacher, and I've almost cut the pocket hoops twice. I really don't want to order hoopwire just to make these stupid paniers, so I am trying to track down a suitable replacement, and that is causing a considerable hold up in the whole process. I can't fit anything properly until these hoops are done.

I am in a fit of doubt about my own abilities again. The robe pattern I purchased is not quite the way I would like it, and I think that I am going to have to draft a pattern instead of using it. But anyone who knows me knows that I don't really buy into the process-not-product argument, and will take almost any shortcut in a reject, provided it does not cause a gown to magically melt away from my body. For example, I once made and wore an Alaska Day gown that had all the trim - almost thirty yards of it - applied with fabric glue. It warns you right on the bottle not to get it wet, and I just prayed that we would see one dry October day. Luckily, I got a ride, because it did rain, and I would have ended up looking like Cinderella at quarter after. The point of all of this is to say that pattern-drafting is painstaking and not for the faint of heart or for the impatient. But, dammit, the alternative is a gown that WILL NOT flatter me. I need a waist seam! I do! And this pattern is without one. So draft I must. All this necessarily takes place before the sewing.

And for those of you who are not costumers or obsessive checkers of facts like myself, a pouf is a construct of wire and wool that ladies of M.A.'s court wore to support the ridiculous hairstyles of the day. In my case, it is a wig of honey-blond curls and ringlets that I intend to stuff with tissue ( so it will hold its shape) and hairspray and powder to mimic those architectural miracles.

Once again, I have no pictures for you, but I have nothing nothing worthy of documentation, so there you are. I have given myself a new goal: all underpinnings completed in ten days' time in order to move on to more exciting things.

Fifty three days until Halloween. Fifty until the Ball.

Becoming Anne Bonney

The corset made its official debut at the Pirate Jamboree on Saturday. I know most of you reading this were there and therefore ogled it in all its (and my) glory, but for the two or three of you who are passing thru or reading this and never commenting, here it is. Of course, La Fab was interested only in was what UNDER the corset, and so all the shots are of the front. The back was unremarkable, except that I only awled half the eyelets and left them unfinished because of time (I was too busy making the treasure chest cake.) I decided to awl them rather than cut them because of the rather tempetuous nature of the rayon brocade I chose as the fancy outer fabric. It likes to fray a lot, and I worried about it fraying under either the metal eyelets or under the hand-binding ( I have yet to decide which I want to do). Since an awl just pushes the thread aside, you tend to have less issues with weakening and with fraying as well.

I used the world's crappiest faux-suede as a binding for the seams, as I have seen several examples of period stays that are bound with fine skin of some sort, either kid or deer. Unfortunately, the synthetic stuff I used had NO stretch at all, not even on the bias, and it was thicker than I wanted and deceptively tough, too. I started hand-binding for neatness, but eight inches into it, I gave up. Six layers of fairly tough material was too much for my meager hand sewing skills. I resorted to the machine. It did not turn out so well. It was bunchy and uneven and just. plain. wrong. It looks fine in these images, but it was so stiff on the armholes ( the cap, not the scye) that it made it stand out from my body and deformed the line I was trying to achieve. You can also see in the pictures that I managed to sew the top line completely crooked. Luckily, it's so close to the Twins that no one will ever be looking at that. The chemise I am wearing is actually a nightdown that I hacked off at knee length and tucked wily-nilly into my gauchos. I plan on doing a very simple chemise in a sheer cotton (no can do flax linen) at some later point, and provided I can find some lace that seems fine enough.

First I need to concentrate on making the paniers and the toile of the robe a la francaise. After actually feeling the weight of the fabric I plan on using, I think my original plan of going with 1/4 " boning spring steel is not going to work out. The hoops will collapse under the strain. So I need to find something stronger, and hopefully inexpensive. I want to maybe try to see if I can finagle some lumber strapping from the local timber yard, or maybe they can give me pointers. Ahh, hardware stores. A costumer's best friend. If that fails, we'll go with the pattern recommendation of doubling featherweight flexible boning, but with the understanding that they will have to be replaced sooner rather than later. One night's dancing is all they are likely to take. Like I'm planning on making several robes that will require paniers that can withstand more than six or eight hours of dancing. Sheesh.

As the papaya satin was prohibitively expensive - at $9/yard - I have reluctantly made the finally decision to not have the peachy confection of a gown I was pursuing. I will let you know about the colors next time, soonish I hope.

BTW, Blogger doesn't like the pirate pictures as they are. It steadfastly refuses to load them. Go figure. I will try to mess a bit and see if I can make them ore blogger-friendly, so you can actually see what I'm talking about.

Toodles!

Eh.

This whole week has been spent cutting boning for the stupid corset. I am working feverishly to finish it before La Fab's Jamboree in three days. The most trying part has been cutting the spiral steel, of which I needed thirty pieces. I ended up cutting like thirty five because I kept screwing up. All the corset making sites are so breezy about it - merely clip the wires on either side of the boning and pull it apart gently. Pardon my Francaise, but bullshit. This stuff is made out of steel, and I think it must be some kind of tempered steel, and it requires not just clipping but wrenching, twisting, cursing, scratching, more cursing, and bleeding. You would think the burly-lookin' shears I got for this purpose would do the job, but no. The wire laughed at it, and managed to dent the jaws, as well. After many bitter tears, I managed to get all the pieces cut this afternoon, finally. I am giving my hands a break before tipping the last half dozen. I did not cut them in the manner explained in the instructions, which was to cut each one to fit the channel you've just sewn. Screw that. Too much switching. I finally started cutting the bones one section of the corset at a time, and inserting them all at once. I am also not basting closed the ends once the bones are in, but the corduroy is holding them in okay. It only took me about six bones to figure out the most efficient and secure method of attaching the tips to the spiral bones, too. Oh well, live and learn, right? I am planning on making another, and next time I think I'll find it a breeze. It will probably be an Alaska Day costume, just because AK Day gives an opportunity to actually sport all of that fun mid-Victorian costume. I do enjoy the late Vic. era stuff, too, the square necks and bustles and bare arms... Hmmm... I begin to see a long line of lovely costumes ahead of me.

My hands hurt too much to take pics. I'll get completed ones at the party.

'Tis folly to tease the gods...Let them eat cake, indeed.

This is what happens when you attempt tomake light of something that cost people's lives. The gods of toast crumbs abd sticky things that won't scrape off take heed of your wretched, ill-conceived existence and conspire to take you down a peg by irritating the holy hells out of you, one tiny thing at a time. First the UPS thing: I managed to track down almost all - almost - of the components I needed from various sources, and THEN I get Sarah's email telling me to have it all shipped to her parents house. Then this girl goes and makes my dress. Not nearly my dress, or something like my dress, but my dress, down to the colors and the serpentine ruching I was planning and the slight train and whimper whine whine whine. I actually had that fabric bookmarked because I thought it would be fun to be a little flashy, before I realized the power of subtlety. But in the half light she used to photo her work, it looks an awful lot like papaya. (Before anyone gets indignant on my behalf, let it be said that I am still going to make my dress according to plan.) Then I find out that the corset pattern I am so worried about isn't actually period-correct, which probably doesn't sound like a huge deal to the rest of anyone, but since the other patterns I am using are period correct, we could have problems with fit and hang. Namely, the bosoms have to be flat, flat,flat, and nearly at collarbone height, and that would be ruined by a big lump of lacing in the middle of them. So I need to modify the front of the stays.

The final blow, though, was opening the pattern for the robe a la francaise (technically a lengthened pet-en-l'air) and finding inside a pattern for a completely different gown. Minor, I know, but it will be at least ten days to exchange the damn thing. Meanwhile, I check every day to make sure no one has purchase more than 110 yards of papaya-colored satin, as I need at least 11 to make the thing.

For anyone who cares, the pattern was for a 1770's style caraco. It is similar to the pet-en-l'air, so I can see how it got mispicked.

Und now is the time on Shprockets when we whine.

There are a few things about living in ALaska that I hate. I hate when people call me at 6 am because they forgot the four hgour time difference. I hate when people complain about the rain, even though they live in the world's largest temperate rainforest. And I hate, absolutely hate, when I try to order something online and it either costs $9 zillion to ship, or they don't ship to AK at all. I ran into this problem yesterday. I have set myself the date of August 25th as the completion date for the corset, becasue DJ Fab's Rocking' Pirate Adieu/Birthday Jam will be held the following day, and I intend on debuting the corset as part of my pirate gear. I realized, then, that I needed to get my Francophilic ass in gear and order the materiel for the underpinnings at least. I spent an hour just trying to decide whether or not I really needed to order coutil - a specialty fabric manufactured just for corsets - and then I finally found a website that would provide all the things I needed at a reasonable price. After poking around the site, and deciding on purchasing even a few things I wouldn't normally, I went to check out - and lo and behold, they only ship to the continental states, and they ship UPS at that (UPS shipping to AK is prohibitive.). So now I begin my search again, and hopefully I will find someplace that sells everything I need so I don't have to place several separate orders. Feh.

On the bright side, I have finally managed to choose colors: a dusty coral color that is inexplicably called 'papaya', trimmed in a muted seafoam green and pale gold. I am just waiting for the robe francaise pattern to arrive in the mail so that I can figure out yardage.

I will be digging out my Ren skirt to wear with the corset, I think. I want to modify it so it can be hiked up a la polonaise - a little cooler in August. Sometime soon I will begin adding pics to this site - stay tuned!

Still asking myself what the point is.

As the first flush of creative fire dies away, I am beginning to question my own motivations for undertaking such an enormous task for so little reward. The real reason, aside from wanting to because I can, was that my best friend is leaving for parts unknown at the end of next month, and I have no earthly idea how I will pass the time without her around. (insert sniffling here.) I jokingly told her that once she is gone, this dress will become my best friend. She was less thoroughly amused than I thought she might be. This could be because she had chosen to move to literally the end of the earth, the point at which you are so far from civilization that you begin to head back toward it again. This is the place that used to be in the time zone past Hawaii, the one right before the International Date Line. Then she changed her mind. Something about being so close to tomorrow...

Anyway, I can no longer use her for an excuse. To be sure, she is still heading far away, but it still seems closer than her last choice. If you are wondering, she is contemplating Japan, which is, I realize, on the far side of the IDL, but it seems closer somehow.

So then, if distance is not the motivator, the question remains: What is? I refuse to believe it is sheer ennui.

It is puzzling, to be sure, but if I dwell on it I think that I will become obsessed with finding the answer to that in place of the truly important and daunting task before me. I received the patter for the underpinning today in the mail, and I am now attempting to figure out precisely how much spiral steel I will need - doesn't it seem that 12 yds is a lot to hold in one (admittedly increasingly matronly) figure?

Shell or dusty pink?

In my research - which has admittedly been on the web, and so could be considered somewhat suspect - I have found lots of interesting facts, some that are even pertinent to this project. The one occupying my thought-space right now is this: rococo dresses were invariably in shades of pastels, with blues and pinks being right at the top of the list. I tend toward colors that are a bit brighter - my favorites this season are the saffron yellow that Michelle Williams wore to the Oscars and the ever-popular paprika, as well as teal. The pastel thing, then was a quandry. I knew at once that I could not sport ice blue, tho it was apparently La Reine's favorite. She is pictured in it more than once in the portraits done by Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun, and since she was Austrian and presumably blond (she seems fair in portraits), this would suit her well. I have an unexplainable aversion to the color, though, so I decided that something in the pinks family would work better. The question is, of course, which of the pinks to tend toward. A dusty mauve-ish sort of pink ( I know, mauve itself wasn't invented until the mid-19th century, but who is going to quibble?) or a warmer, pale shell pink? Today, my inclination is to go with a sort of apricot and honey approach, a peachy pink with gold accents. All of this is speculation, and contigent on my finding this fabric online and reasonably priced. My dream, of course is silk, but this is, after all only a Halloween costume. It seems to me that it would be unwise to spent a small fortune in the fabric alone.

I have ordered the patterns and am awaiting their arrival. Until then I shall bookmark fabrics that I like, and hopefully sometime soon I will begin to gather supplies.