Dress Reconstruction photos

Nearly there! Hopefully some pictures of it modeled next. 20 hours so far. I'm ridiculously proud of this thing, especially the waist.
The fabric is filmy and very sensitive to pin marks, basting, excessive fiddling, etc, so this has certainly been a learning experience. Usually I don't make things out of fabric so wimpy, but it has a nice drape to it and the pattern is pretty. Sometime I'll make another version of this dress in sturdy, thicker material like cotton or linen or maybe even a knit weave.

Remake No.1-floral 1940s dress

I've been logging serious hours (with occasional tea breaks) remaking a dress from the 1930s or 40s. The original (at left) is a nice cotton house dress, practical and sophisticated; handmade, perhaps even in my hometown. A very kind lady offered to lend me a dress form, which is another learning curve (literally) all in itself.
I've been photo documenting, taking notes, and drawing sketches along the way, but  it's quite a lot, so I'm only putting a couple of photos on here.

I'm not really considering this as a career choice or anything, but I do get very absorbed in it and the possibilities are endless. Sewing your own clothes is something that's just not done anymore, but I think it should be something everyone knows how to do. I'll keep the finished dress secret until it's...well, finished.

New Wrap Skirt

I made a skirt for myself today. This following draft is mostly for my usage, so if you do your own be sure to take your precise measurements!
   Measurements needed: a couple inches above natural waistline, hips
   Suggested fabrics (these are my dream fabric choices for this project. I may make it again if they're found!): bold rose print for base, navy blue/bright blue for waistband.
   Other notes: Length can be varied. This pattern has been constructed to sit on either the hips or the upper natural waistline. Have fun with designing your own waistband or, in this, cut one with a 3"peak that tapers to 1 1/2" at hips and back. (Meas. are before allowing for seam allowances).
My approach to sewing has kind of become THERE ARE NO RULES! Try to make: straight lines straight, curved lines curved, etc etc.) Double parentheses are suggested stitch length settings, but this also varies with fabric thickness, so determine that yourself.

1. Cut a 64" long, 18" tall piece of fabric. Hem LH edge inward about 5/8ths and sew along that, leaving 1" free at top of skirt. Cut thread.

     2. Starting at this point, sew ((@3 1/2)) with medium stitches, without backstitching, all along top, stopping 1" from end. Cut thread. Ruffle the skirt by pulling gently on one thread and moving the fabric evenly along. Distribute flounce and determine overlap on LH side of skirt. (You could do fun things like make the flounce concentrated on the hips, on the back, in only 4 areas, etc. Just make sure that during the next step you adjust the size of the stitch as you go over these thicker sections). Mark overlap (should be centred over hip), leaving about 1 1/2" to hem later. (It's a good idea to have the fabric that's folding under do so by about 9/10". This will place the underlapping edge in the front. Also it's a good idea to keep those 9" less ruffled than the rest of the skirt so it sits better).
     3. Lay waistband--I used two different fabrics (actually one was blanket binder), but one would be simpler--and skirt top right sides together. Pin and sew ((@2)) with medium-small stitches, taking care to sew below original gather thread. Cut thread. Carefully trim excess bunchiness from seams at waistband.

     4. Either tack down the shape you want for the waistband, folding the fabric over and giving a stiffer band, OR trim in that shape. Either way, slipstitch the edge in place by hand. Iron if necessary.
     5. Remember the 1 1/2" you left at the overlap edge? (Highlighted above in green). Turn it in nicely now, again using slipstitch. Remember, 1 or 2 threads at a time, check often. Also turn in this side of the waistband neatly. Do what you want with the waistband that will be hidden, but try to make it as flat as possible, turning it in neatly too.
     6. Position the skirt how you'd like it to sit. Pick out a button/buttons. Mark for buttonhole(s) and button placement with pins. Sew on and then carefully cut buttonhole using X-acto knife, fabric cutter, etc. Bind using one of these methods, depending on fabric: coletterie.com/tutorials-tips-tricks/handmade-buttonholes
Using a small hook and eye, secure underlapping waistband to outer waistband. Hem bottom of skirt, use bias tape, or put an edge or lace on it. Better pictures later. Haven't hemmed yet.

September Tidings

There has been a lot happening lately. I'm headed out to the West Coast for 10 months, which means wrapping a lot up before that (October 9th!) departure. There's been music and gardening and family; animals, packing and panicking.
  About two months ago I started making little felted hair fascinators: plus.google.com/photos/109340179484608660365/albums/5924609850214898577?banner=pwa
They are available for sale if anyone wishes to contact me: thewellnewspaper@gmail.com (a set is $7/8/9, singles $4/5, tri-ornaments $9). Prices still being worked out. Negotiable. Bartering welcome.
There's also been work on:
a copy of a windmill painting
and
a sleeveless peasant bodice
(both of which will be photo-documented soon).
There is a youtube channel where I'll be putting things up sporadically: www.youtube.com/channel/UCWuVpsSw0tPi_BfNdm-KMdg
And of course there's still itsfunnierfirsthand.blogspot.com with an archive of rather confounding comics that only I understand!
Bonus toad picture:

We finally have toads hiding in our gardens again.  I actually had time to find my camera, traipse back out, and photograph this guy. He really thought I couldn't see him.

Quote No.24

“If you can find money to kill people you can find money to help people.”~Tony Benn 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Benn
A fantastic British gentleman (with the usual lengthy collection of first names). If you have not yet heard of this dignified person, PLEASE check him out. He's a capital human being with lots to say and plenty of wisdom for today's masses. I could listen to his voice all day. It has that tweed-jacket, pipe-smoking English garble that brings to mind misty mornings and dusty, well-worn books.
     Listen while you wash dishes, drink tea, sweep, etc. Not a sit down video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBsaQ5ltcK8

Impossible

Some days
the simplest task
shelling peas or speaking a sentence
seems impossible
like trying to capture clouds
on a windswept afternoon

A Stranger in my Hometown

I've been cultivating this feeling lately, transporting my mind into a state of unknowing wonder in familiar places. Pretending that I don't know these streets-don't know that that avenue leads to this one, or that that road is a dead end, that coffee shop isn't great, that person is a postman on weekdays.
  One of my favourite things in all the world is entering a new town or setting. Why not experience it where I live, too? It's an interesting experiment and I notice more than if I were to just zone out due to familiarity.
  Someone once said: http://amyvdh.tumblr.com/post/144770640/everytime-we-go-out-into-the-world-we-can-choose#notes-container

Colds

One of the greatest inspirations for shifting a cold is the notion of once again enjoying the full experience of drinking a cup of tea.

Miracles In A Straight-Lined World

One of my favourite pictures overall-the ceiling in casa battlo’s morning room

flower pots on wall

There is an odd, asymmetrical pattern to Antoni Gaudi’s works that I find enchanting. The glaze on one tile will be duplicated in darker or lighter shades on opposite sides of Barcelona, on two structures that couldn’t be more different from one another, and you just stand there going “….how did…..” And then shake your head and just accept all the imperfect geniuses of the world.

  I remember when an elder man in my town proudly showed me pictures of one of his great loves-Casa Battlo-and I just sat there trying not to cry. It was that beautiful. And I thought, if I ever get to see this, my life will be complete.

Now I have seen it.

And it’s not.

Because of course I want follow-up. To sit for hours and sketch and observe and watch the light play over the walls and curves and tiles. Feel the textures; trace the shell-like spiral on a column, the roughness of the stones, the smooth arm of a chair (little known fact that before Gaudi’s architecture career kicked off he designed beautiful, ridiculously comfortable furniture).

  And then there’s the Sagrada Familia, which, dare I say, is almost too much for little human brains to look at all at once and simultaneously appreciate. That takes time, attention to detail, staying in a place for a day, a week, years…..

Gaudi arch

Stairway to heaven 

Casa Battlo, House of Masks

luminous hallway

the dragon's spine atop the roof

Parc Guell-As though a deep fissure had opened, streaming sunlight down, and we were able to descend and wander about in Hell’s anteroom, a Dante’s Inferno-esque landscape of twisting pillars and craggy angels and jagged stalactite jaws. Also I just felt like a Middle Earth dwarf. 

 We also took a stroll (with our stellar, bottomless-wells-of-kindness hosts) through a textile community that Gaudi helped design, “Colonia Guell.”

World's longest bench

looks like a ship deck
Sometimes I feel as though we bumbled our way through this trip-not planning anything, not googling the best sights here, the best restaurants there.

And other times I feel as though what we ended up doing by chance-stumbling across things and into famous squares or along main streets-was perfect. Just the thing to do. Why 
explore cities any other way?

Of course you have to tailor your preferences and needs according to your location and all, but it was nice not to feel tied down by reservations.

  I felt- in order not to panic and think about all the things we wouldn’t get to see-I just had to let go, walk around, live the situation, and accept that yes, right this moment we could be doing this or this, but we’re not, we’re here. Look nearby and see what there is, etc.

There were times when we made special trips to things-like La Ramblas, the Sagrada Familia, or the train stations for departures and arrivals, but other than that we came upon most of my favourite memories by accident. Simply rounding a corner, and oh look, there’s the local market or the Picasso museum or Santa Maria del Mar or….

Cluuuurthes

In today's society, where little is made to last (even L.L. Bean)....I just don't see the point of buying brand spanking new, expensive clothes. There is so much clothing circulating or stuck in the backrooms of thrift stores everywhere, yet factories keep pumping out more and more, with labels that read: made in China, India, Bangladesh, Taiwan...
  It's rather disheartening. Imagine if everyone wore thrift store finds! The mish-mash styles would be much more interesting than current trends of unimaginative conformity.
being in Europe was really eye-opening for me fashion-wise. Everyone is wearing what they want. And it's all different. Where I live, nearly everything seems to be Hollister and Aeropostale, etc etc. That's not to say at all that if people don't genuinely like those brands they shouldn't wear them, but I do wonder how much of it is fitting in and, perhaps unconsciously, feeling the need to demonstrate wealth through appearance.

Human

I think it's sometimes very easy to separate the environment from ourselves. We always think of it as that thing, over there, that we all have to chip in to save. It turns into a chore, a fad, some kind of charity group for a distant unfortunate lifeforce that we feel guilty and worry about in the 'oh right, I need to see to that' sort of way.  No. It's us. We are what we're trying to save. We are the environment, that huge unknowable, mysteriously working thing, breathing that air, drinking that water, soaking up that sun.
  It needs to be impressed upon us in a very real sense, impressed upon us on every possible front-the news, the papers, the internet, everyday conversation-that each change we make is a change that affects our very core. It does not necessarily affect a Siberian tiger or a chimpanzee in Africa (though hopefully these too). Because we need to know that in addition to helping others, we are helping to cement our very own, real, personal survivals. Let's face it, humans are (and have been for the past 200,000 years) a tad selfish in nature. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing.
  A belief needs to be deep. Before it's, to use the stale, oft-used term, "too late," survival instinct has to be re-kindled into one of the focal points of our moral code, into our DNA. We're all too comfy. We can adjust air conditioning and turn on warmth and flip a switch for light and heat foods in 30 seconds and it is weird and we need to understand that it is.
  I need to stop taking things for granted. Everyone does.

Junebug Dance

It's humid here. Unnaturally humid. So humid, in fact, that, like weird city-dwellers trying to crawl off the pavement, we were forced yesterday to stay in the shade until evening, and today-well today it was 86 and too hot to do anything except loll around inside, sip water, and moan.
86 may not sound hot, but we're Mainers, and it's jungle-like. Were it a dry heat, instead of a muggy, oppressive one, no one would mind much. But it's the kind that brings the blackflies (our state bird) hatching up out of their fetid pond sludge to attach themselves inside your ears and nostrils and eyelids.
   I don't remember it being this hot in Spain. It must have been at some point. I do remember one day when the thin shadow along a low fence was enough to excite one quite beyond reason. And then you'd run over and bask in it for a moment, before trudging back out again and up the next dusty rise. It was always on the city outskirts, with the radiating cement and the pounding feet and the unattractive buildings sending up waves of heat in the distance. There was one endless sidewalk......7 miles long.....
Anyway. Back to what I was saying.
  Every once in a while a blessed breeze twitches through the trees and rolls sluggishly across the grounds, but other than that...Well, it's blooming awful. Speaking of blooming-the apple trees are! All bursting at once. Today we had petals tripping in through the front door.
  As a sort of miserably macabre end-of-May farewell, our beautiful goat caught a raging infection and passed on today. We tried to give her a chance to recover (turns out not such a good idea; would have been best to let her go out earlier but she wasn't really in pain then....It's so difficult to tell with animals). I was fairly torn up about it, but a good friend (who's had much experience with this sort of thing) put on a bracing demeanor and, giving a solemn cyber-space back pat, said "sometimes being a farmer sucks."
  Ah well. The goat had a good life, eating all our trees and leaping up on cars and butting the donkey and generally being cute and sassy.
  Spring is definitely here though, and with it, as it should be, gardening.
We've put in plant-sale romaine and oak leaf lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, all of which may even survive, if the now-grown skunk from yesteryear ceases his nighttime buffet trips.

We've even got some parsleys and leeks; tiny little things, but they'll pull through. One of my favourite things about plants is their resilience. You stick the seedlings in the ground looking bedraggled, and the next day, after a bit of water, sun and acclimation, there they are, straight up and perky.
  The Junebugs appeared the other night. We weren't on our toes about shutting the doors in time, so they all pelted about in dizzying circles, bouncing off the lamps and the 11-foot ceiling, with me chasing after them swooping a yoghurt container through the air. They seemed to prefer latching onto my hands with their persistently clingy, spiney little legs, which had me a bit squeamish at first, having actively perpetuated the idea of escaping scrabbling Scarab beetles with my colleague as (smaller) children thanks to The Mummy. (The two do look a bit alike though!)
http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/resources/identification/animals/bug-id/alphabetic-list-of-bugs/scarab-beetles 
http://stlouispestcontrolblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/june-bug-.jpg

The cats, of course, hadn't had such fun since the Christmas Tree Ornament Massacre of a couple years ago. (Tinsel everywhere, angels missing wings. Awful business.) Moxie kept pinning the whizzing beetles to the carpet and I'd have to rush over and cup them up and let them buzz off into the dark outside.
  Despite the heat, I am glad summer's here: I love watering and listening to the ground thirstily soak it all up. Standing in the soft night and listening to all those sounds which you never hear in wintertime (Cause the party don't stop at sunset round here). Lying in tree shadows reading.

Tricks for making cleaning more interesting

• Be a Downton Abbey maid
• Wear leather gloves and pretend to be a thief looking for diamonds and whatnot (but leaving things tidier)
• Listen to the Micmacs soundtrack. All that fast accordion works a wonder on boring jobs.

Observing the World Round Here

I love the details that make up a person. The way they say certain words, how they wear their hair or  put on a jacket. The stories from which they are sculpted and the dreams that fuel their journeys.

Fellow Writers, Please Explain

I see a lot of pretty people. Everywhere: in magazines, on the telly, on polyvore, in films. But I'm thinking. Pretty, when you really come down to it, means looking in a mirror and liking the PERSONALITY, the individual, un-copyable style reflected there. I've always silently hated it in books when all the characters are described as good looking (in different collections of words, but the message beams through). Why the hell does it matter what people look like? I'm certainly guilty of this in my own writing. This is partly why Charlotte Bronte is brilliant: In a time when beauty and status meant more than anything, she was writing Jane Eyre, removing looks from the equation, and focusing solely on the protagonist's MIND. She purposely repeats again and again that the two main characters (both of whom I liked very much) are "plain" and "ordinary", the man being hawk nosed and unattractive, and Jane having no sense of finery about her. And by golly, it all works out fine and they get their relatively fairytale ending. I would like to see more books with statistically probable main characters; average people, people like us. Writers try, they do, but apart from certain categories, modern writing is just....it's really hard to find normal people. And also, if the people are described as plain and simple, when book is turned into film, gorgeous actors and actresses are inevitably cast.