Thinky Thoughts

[nuranar]

I just said that I'm lousy at round-up posts. But I am good at planning posts. Planning posts actually help me organize my thoughts and map out a course of action, whereas round-up posts are a list of short-comings - it's always less than I wanted in quantity and quality - and serve no practical purpose.  That sounded pretty cynical! Maybe I overstated the case a bit. Round-up posts would help a bit for reference purposes, come to think of it.

Anyway, I do need to do some planning. Last year I had the most elaborate planning ever, for two reasons: I had ambitious costuming plans with a tricky travel schedule, and the Historical Sew Fortnightly gave structure and motivation.  The results were mixed. I did accomplish most of what I wanted, but I had the tightest/most stressful pre-Costume College summer yet.  Plus, the HSF resulted in a lot of projects that were good, useful things, but took time away from my primary sewing goals. When the schedule got tight, many of them were set aside unfinished. I'm usually pretty good about minimal UFOs (un-started objects are a different matter), so this is also stressful for me. And the piecemeal challenge announcements made it more challenging and stressful to re-assess and try to fit in the big projects.

So you'd think the 2014 HSF would be a stupid idea for me. Nonetheless, I'm undecided. Moving the date up to 1945 is a huge help, because a BIG part of my fabric and notions stash is WWII-appropriate. And since I keep attending reenactments with widely varied weather, plus vintage shows, I can get good use out of a 1940s wardrobe.

But I still have ambitious plans for other costuming:

* Beaded robe de style
* 1780s white wool stays
* Jesuit (already have fabric!)
* 1780s white silk gown
* Quilted Brunswick (haven't found the fabric, so this may be shelved for a while)
* 1916 ensemble

Maybe I'll wait on making an HSF decision until she announces the rest of the year's challenges.  Honestly, while the beading is an unknown quantity at this point, I still don't think it'll take forever.  The 18th-century stuff shouldn't be too terribly difficult, either, particularly if I let the Brunswick slide for a while. I can probably make the stays in a reasonable amount of time. And once I make a new basic bodice and sleeve, most of the rest shouldn't be too hard. Draping the Jesuit/Brunswick back will be interesting, but there's lots of info out there.

Since I mentioned the Brunswick: I want to make it in a medium/light blue. The quilted examples are all in satin. $40/yd satin is totally out of the question for this, particularly since it will be stuck full of holes and stiffened as it's quilted; but I know there are cheaper silk satins. So far I've found mostly whites, with maybe a pink.  White would be accurate (both English examples are white) but I'm already doing one white gown, and darn it, I want blue! I've done enough dyeing to know that it's not for me, but that doesn't seem to be the case for all of you. So, just on the chance: Would anyone be willing to dye white satin blue for me? It should be a straightforward dye job, since I want just a straight shade of blue - no green or turquoise, nothing to match. And I would definitely pay for the job.

Comments

[suededsilk]

Heh. I did a round-up post instead of a planning post because coming up with a planning post got too depressing. :) But I can understand why it would be frustrating to do a round-up with a bunch of UFOs, especially the HSF ones. I'm a little surprised that the categories weren't laid out much earlier; costuming projects tend to need a *lot* of pre-planning. Especially if you're doing so many.

BTW, did you intend for this to be DW-only? Because it's not showing up on LJ, and I know you usually cross-post.

[nuranar]

Thanks for letting me know - I wondered about the total LJ silence, which was unusual even for a post without pictures. I've gotten tired of using Semagic to post to DW and let DW cross-post, because then I don't have my LJ friends or groups or anything. So I'm trying to use the Semagic "post to multiple journals command" but I was just guessing on the settings. I need to fix that.
ETA: Very weird - I found the post on my LJ, and it's dated a day earlier, the 5th instead of the 6th. That makes no sense. I'll re-post manually for now, and work out Semagic later.

The lack of advance notice was a primary complaint last year among other costumers, particularly those who chose not to participate. I kind of blew that off at first, because it's possible to work items in tandem, and I was able to assign the first batch in a reasonable way. But as the year wore on, not only did I struggle to finish later items, but the new surprise challenges did not fit at ALL with what I still had to do. If I'd had the whole list at once (and known I wasn't going to Gettysburg after all), I could have done all my CoCo sewing in good time WITH the HSF.

I don't think I'd mind a round-up post so much if I didn't have to rely on my memory! You're a lot more consistent at posting what you've been working on. I want to post, but I also want to do super pretty picture-heavy tutorial-worthy posts; and when push comes to shove, I don't have the time or energy.

[suededsilk]

FWIW, I did see your "What I'm Doing" post (the one you just reposted, with your current projects) pop up in my feed. It's this one, the post with the Brunswick/satin stuff, that still hasn't shown up on LJ. (A blue satin Brunswick sounds very scrummy, BTW!)

If you do want to keep track, maybe keep a master list where you can jot down works in progress offline, and check them off as they're finished? (If you've done even more than you've blogged about, I'm sure the round-up would be more impressive than you're thinking!) I journal, so there are things that never make it to the blog, but I can refresh my memory if when necessary.

[nuranar]

Whoa, this never made it to LJ! Weird!

Actually - I do! I keep a project notebook! It was one of the many take-aways I had from Jenny-Rose's class on fitting at my first Costume College. Just about every single thing I sew has notes. And there's quite a bit - I had to buy a new notebook in December.