Twelfth Night happened.


Here is what my calendar leading up to Twelfth Night looked like. I left for Reno on the 21st of December with a bodice that needed eyelets and a smock that needed its neck finished. I had fully intended to finish those things while I was visiting my family for Christmas, but family is not a low key thing (at least mine is not) so I did not. I came back from Reno on the 26th. Every day I said to myself "I should sew. I should sew." I did not.

On December 31st, I invited Flidais over to eat some of the cheese we made and to sew. I did not (I was extra tired and actually took a nap after our lunch). And then I just rotted on the couch.

On January 1st I thought "I should sew!" and I maybe did some eyelets.

On January 2nd my husband went back to work and I sewed. What I actually did was wake up, dig around for my old patterns, realize I had nothing to transfer patterns to, bounced to JoAnn fabrics for 6 yards of True Grid, transferred hecka patterns and added seam allowance to them, cut a few things out, went to bed.

On January 3rd I woke up to carnage.

Pepper(onia), first of her name, destroyer of paper had been there. I realized all was not lost and I got the scotch tape out. Actual damn that cat. "You can't leave paper around a known paper addict" is now the joke of the year. I didn't think she would destroy because it's not actual paper, but I was wrong. Also I realized that yesterday I had totally goofed while ripping my partlet pattern off of an existing 10 year old doublet pattern.

I laid myself down on the floor, stared at the ceiling, dropped a few f-bombs wondering what I had done to myself with my procrastination and why I have been like this all my life. Seriously. In college I was that days before girl. My GPA reflected it. I was also like that in grad school, but grad school is shockingly easy and I had a 4.0 (for the first time in my life). Anyway,  I cut out the sleeves, I drafted the skirt for my kirtle following Adelheit's instructions, realized that I'm a chubster and when you're fat it's like ughhh and a 30 degree sweep was too much and I did not have enough fabric, ran back out to JoAnn's, got more True Grid, patterned a 20 degree sweep, and I started machining everything together.

On Thursday I sewed basically all day until 1AM. I machined my partlet together, and was happy and got down to the handfinishing the rest of it all. Side note - silk is the worst. I've sewn with wool and linen for basically my whole SCA life. I've only ever made silk sleeves, and a doublet and hose for Roger with help from Vyncent and Tullia. Silk is terrible. The collar kept puckering, I was full of rage, I'll probably sell off all the silk I own. Not into it. ANYWAY, the wool collar was set on the partlet with zero puckering. It was a Twelfth Night Miracle. I did not have to rip anything, re pin and sew it, and rip a seam again. Behold, the greasy haired seamstress. Also I had actually sewn my fingers raw.

On Friday I woke up at 8:30 and sewed until about 11:00, with some breaks for cleaning the kitchen and other stuff like cleaning the bathroom. I made a little superglue thimble that worked surprisingly well. I just applied superglue to my finger pads and kept on trucking. I ended the day with a smock neck that needed finishing, a kirtle sleeve that needed to be set, and the foresleeves that needed to have their seams pressed and turned under and finished as well as the Anglo Saxon wrist clasps from The Treasury attached (but those were with Laurie). The house elves/cats did not finish these for me.

On Saturday I woke up very disappointed in my critters around 6:30/6:45 and I finished those things up minus the smock neck. I got dressed, and went to Twelfth Night around 10:30 AM. I picked up my wrist clasps that had been gold plated and attached them to the sleeves, which were actually not beefy enough for them. I think I will finish the seams with some worsted wool tape to give them more body.

I talked myself hoarse at the artisan's display, and ended my day with a very late dinner with Greg and Laura.

Here's some of the few pictures of me at the event. NAILED IT. (except my foresleeves were too short somehow and I think I understand the mechanics of why even though the foresleeves and the kirtle sleeves were taken from the same pattern and the foresleeves ended 2" above the kirtle sleeves).





And then I slept from like 12:30 until 10:20 AM.

THE END.

(and never again. If I don't have most of my outfit done by Christmas, I'll call it. For real.)


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