I love you, King Richard's Faire.

Stolen from my husband's blog, derbywidow.blogspot.com. Forgive me, honey.

We went to King Richard's Faire this weekend, and I loved every second of it. When I was in high school I was a total renfaire nerd, and I wore bodices and curly toed elf shoes to school. Yes, kids made fun of me. No, that didn't stop me, because I was too awesome. If I can find photos of any of these outfits I'll upload some, because they were epic.

You'd take me seriously if I wore
these all the time, right?

I still love this stuff, and seeing the Moresca booth this weekend at the faire was almost more than I could stand. Just like when I was 16, I wanted everything. I walked out with an extremely full skirt that I never want to take off because I love it so. Thankfully I managed to force myself to leave before maxing out my credit card on more skirts, a couple of bodices, at least two dresses, and a pair of shimmer-satin bloomers in every color they had in the store. My "fun stuff" budget is completely blown, but I'll have plenty of fun hanging around my apartment eating ramen in my new skirt.

These look like SO MUCH FUN  to wear.

When I was in high school I used to live for my yearly trips to King Richard's because it was the only place I could look "normal" while simultaneously finding more of the clothes I wanted to wear. It's weird to go again now that I'm sewing, because I can look at the clothes and figure out how to make them myself. Granted, a lot of these things are more difficult than I can handle right now, but there are plenty that possible with my skill set.

I reeeeeallly want to go back again before they close up for the season, and hopefully I can work out one more trip. If I can go again I want to really look at the construction of some of my most-wanted garments to see which ones to try to attempt. Unless, of course, someone wants to buy me a new wardrobe.

Clothing construction class: day 1

Pictured: not my first project.

Heck yes. I like this class. I'm too cracked out to post more than a few quick things, but here's why I'm looking forward to next Monday:

1. The professor is charming. She seems like she has a sense of humor, and she's easy to listen to.
2. The class seems to be full of people who want to be there.
3. I'll have an excuse to sew on the regular that will help me fight the siren call of Adventure Time.

We went over the syllabus and took very detailed body measurements. I apparently have a high waist, which is news to me. Our homework is to get the list of supplies and find a commercial pattern for our first project. I can't wait!

Thought I was dead, eh?

Nope. Not so much.

The silence was due to four things. The first was a nasty case of strep throat (yes, it came back), a trip to Provincetown, the Goblin War, and the start of school. Because of these things I have started a bunch of projects and not finished any of them. Why have there been no pictures? Well, I haven't gotten terribly far on a circle skirt, and the maester's robe I was making for the Goblin War had me so angry I didn't want to look at it.

While I don't have any photos of finished things, here are the unfinished things I have going on:

These are the pasta pots I scavenged from around the house
so I could dye all the fabric in the universe.

"All the fabric" is a technical term. It means 9 yards of linen.

Fancy dyes + recently boiling water = blue fabric.

Recently boiling water also = burns.  Apparently fresh skin
takes dye better than older, more experienced skin.

Burned skin also takes dye better than 9 yards of fabric. 

More dye and tons of cutting time later, the flaws
appeared. For instance, this is supposed to be the
sleeve and the armhole. Yes, I cut them correctly.

I gave up and opted to wear a corset to the Goblin War instead.
Thus, I had more time to make favors. Yay favors!

I dyed and burned muslin all day. The whole house smelled
like coffee, tea, and burnt cotton/skin. Worth the stink.

There will be more photos and activity soon, though. I'm starting a clothing construction class tomorrow and I should have plenty to write about. I'm glad, too. I missed sewing and I want new clothes.

So THAT's how it works.

My mechanically-minded teammate, Crown Joules, sent me a neat link today:

I admit, without being able to see it move, I've had a tough time really getting how sewing machines get the thread to balance on both sides of the fabric. I love how this animation shows the movement of the bobbin and the needle.

Goodbye strep. Thank goodness.

I finally feel normal again. Granted, skating in the playoff bout while I was still pretty sick probably set me back to square one. While I was sick I mainly sat around on my butt doing not so much, which likely helped me heal, but was boring as hell. Thus no fun blogging about new clothes, as I wasn't making any.

I've made up for that over the past day or so. I completely rearranged my attic studio to accommodate a new cutting table. My folks offered me their old dining room table, a 55" x 36" Scandinavian thing that's in excellent condition and is thus way too nice to damage with my rotary cutters. I found this link on a DIY cutting table process and it inspired me to go get some homasote to create a pin-able, cheap surface on which to cut. Pics soon once I can find a decent angle, as the new arrangement is hard to capture.

One thing I did photograph was my little "man, it's dusty in here" solution - sewing machine covers. I have three machines now, and they kept getting covered in debris when I moved around the furniture and hammered nails into the walls. I made these rectangular placemat-looking things with little ties on the sides to protect them from future attic-mess, and they seem to be doing the job nicely.

Or rather, they will once I finish beading the hell out of them because I can never leave well enough alone. I'm slowly beading them as I watch episodes of Dr. Who, and my cat has taken to sleeping on them because they're exactly his size. I might actually use this same basic shape to make him a real cat bed out of fleece and a little batting in the middle to floof it up for him. However, he'll have to live without the beads, because he loves to chew on them and I don't want him to ingest any.

Still too sick to sew, but at least I can look at fabric.

My spoonflower samples came in the mail. Whee!

http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/691535

http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/691558

http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/691576

The light colors came out really well. I may be way too sick to do anything with these, but I plan to order some soon so I can make a bizarre tooth fairy dress.

More posts coming once I stop hallucinating (or, holy crap I'm sick)

I haven't been sewing much because I've been too busy curled up on the couch, trying to talk my husband into smothering me with a pillow. I have some kind of monster killer death flu, and even though my fun new fabric from Spoonflower is sitting on the table waiting to be sewn, it''s just not happening. He had to come and get me from the pharmacy that's only one block away from our house because I couldn't walk back by myself. When he found me there I was crying. I feel so pathetic.

Once I can function again I'll update with more tales of sewing stuff. Until then, more cough drops.