More doggie updates

Quick news update: Tiny won BOTH shows today!!! He just needs to go in the ring once more, competition or not to get champion!

Purple Turkoid = wearable!

I couldn't stand it, so I decided to re-do the trim. My mom came over the other day and helped me remove the beads. (Then did some awesome braids!)
So now my trim is fixed and I don't have to mope about it anymore! All the buttons are attached, so now all that is left are the loops!

TinyMan FTW!!!! (non sewing post, sorry!)

Even though Tiny was an absolute terror in the ring, he managed to beat out his gramps for "Best Male", "Best of Breed" and "Best in Show"!
Way to go, Mr. Tiny!!!

Little bit of progress, little bit of setback

I don’t have pictures at the moment, but I replaced all the nail heads on my chopines; I removed all the plain headed ‘pins’ (actually scrapbooking brads) and replaced them with honest-to-goodness decorative nail heads.  The effect is very subtle, but I like the new look, and the pins are much, much more stable.

Also, I mentioned the other day that I’m having problems with my sleeves…..if I can get through two sleeves without *$%&#ing up, the design looks like this:

I’m very quickly running out of fabric, so I’m thinking it may be time for a Plan B.  (Gotta figure out what that would be!)  If I had unlimited fabric of this color, I would bend it to my will and make it work No Matter What, but since I’m running so low, I’m scared of continuing and ending up with no sleeves at all.

I spent a little while last night making pearl ‘buttons’ for the coat.  I actually wanted to use decorative headpins, but all I had on hand were plain ole flat tops.  I made a few ‘buttons’ with just the large pearl bead and head pin, but found that the head of the pin kept wanting to pull all the way through.  No Bueno!

I went back to my stash and experimented with a bunch of different small beads to use as a ‘cap’, and settled on a small pearl.  Not the best/prettiest solution, but 1) it works 2) is stash.

Now for the final test.  Here is the trim with the bead buttons in place:

I still really wish I hadn’t made the trim mistake, however, with the buttons may be slightly less noticeable.  (I would be putting a crystal underneath the bottom most button to continue the pattern repeat)

So, what say you?  Can I get away with it, or should I plan on carefully snipping and re-sewing?

Pictures!

Left to do on the bodice do-over:
-Sleeves
-Buttons/holes
-Ruffle hem

As you can see, I changed the neckline from the last attempt....I'm kind of liking it! :)


I am inordinately proud of The Strid. She created a gorgeous vest from a sketch in just a couple of days! I should get a close up of her welt pockets, they are truly amazing.



And bonus happy dog.....

Hubris will be punished…..

I was feeling oh-so-good telling my little stories this morning…..I should have known there was something around the corner!

………well, I started on my sleeves, with everything going absolutely perfectly until over 3/4 the way through.  My stamp slipped and made a right mess of an entire sleeve. 

GRRRRRRR!

It’s the little things that keep one going….

Recently, a couple of interactions have really buoyed my confidence and made me feel really, really good.

At Laurels Prize Tourney, one of the other entrants came up to me and said “Oh! You’re the one who taught buttons!” I was a bit taken back since I didn’t recognize this lady at all, but replied that I had, in fact taught about fabric buttons at Kingdom Collegium last year. She went on to tell me about the outfits that she had made for herself and her husband using my technique, how well it worked, and had even taught a lady in her group that very same morning about the magic that is fabric buttons.

It seems like such a little thing, but she was so excited about it all that I was walking on air for the rest of the day. I felt reinvigorated to teach even more classes, and to get back to some sewing.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the presence of mind to exchange contact information, and I for the life of me cannot remember her name, but mystery lady from the North…..you MMD. Seriously.

I also had a chance to catch up with Beatricia. I tried to explain to her just how much she has influenced me over the years, but she tutted and said “Me? No – you were already well on the right path”.

But seriously, this woman has guided my every costuming thought*, though I only saw her but once or twice a year. She has always been so kind and supportive, giving gentle criticism when due, and praising the positive at every opportunity.

She certainly doesn’t only treat me in this manner, but has always been this kind to everyone. I truly aspire to be at least a little like her one day, she is my hero, both in costuming and in deportment. I love this woman so very much, she has given me an ideal to aspire to.

*I kid you not, when I’m waffling about something or thinking about taking a shortcut, I think to myself, “What would Beatricia say?”

Uh….if I told you aliens abducted me, so that’s why I haven’t posted, would you believe me?

What?  No?
Oh.
Um…..well, life has been capital C     C-R-A-Z-Y.
And then there’s getting ready for Barons War.  Which is only a few short weeks away.  Yikes!  Good news is, there is more or less only the whites for hubby and I to go (plus some other nit-picky things as far as the clothes go….I’ll get into one of those things in just a few paragraphs.)
But I should update on what I’ve been sewing on!  Although there has been silence on my end, and my steam is certainly running out, I’ve still managed to be somewhat productive.
Here’s me with tiredface and wild hair.  But look at my hair – not really the hair, but the pearls and bows!  Since all of my hairpieces match my old hair color, I also need to make more braids; I have two different shades waiting for me to test out and make up some hair pieces.  (The ribbons are gold….kind of hard to see in this shot, but are trying to mimic the pink ribbons in the portrait below….)



I didn’t have enough gold findings to do pearl-and-gold as I was originally thinking of, but I think plain pearl suits me better anyway.  I’m really mostly a plain-jane kinda gal.  Here’s one of the portraits that has the hair action I’m kinda going for:

Portrait of Isotta Bermbati Grumelli 1550-1555
Giovan Battista Moroni

Here’s one later than my target date, but is plain pearl, sans bows:

Portrait of Isabella de Medici - ???
(via Aneafiles)

And here’s the ‘big’ update……the Turkish coat is nearly done!  (I’ll explain the ‘nearly’ part in a minute…..)

Portrait of a Lady 1555
Titan

Over all, I’m pretty happy with it!*  It’s a bit shorter than I had originally planned, but what with limited fabric and somewhat wonky hem action, there wasn’t much I could do about it.
What is really bugging me, however, is the skipped space in the trim.  Of course it didn’t happen, yanno, on the hem in the back or something.  No.  Right.  Smack.  In.  The. Front.  See it?



Of course I didn’t notice it until all the trim was sewn on and I put it on for the first time and looked in the mirror.  I saw it and about had a breakdown. 
Anyway, so my options thus far are as follows:

• defensively walk around with my hand firmly placed like the portrait and cover up the mistake.  (Not too practical, I admit)
• try and forget about it, (Yeah.  Right.) and tell myself that no one will notice.  (See above)
• Re-do the trim from that spot down.  (Time consuming and especially difficult as it’s sewn down now.)
• Use that empty space for buttons.  (Most likely scenario)

I was going to put massive pearl buttons on the  edge like on the portrait, but because now of my epic fail, I may cut off the crystal spacers for 8” or so and pretend that I meant to put the buttons on the trim instead of next to it.  This seems like the least time-intensive option, though not perfect.  My ARness wants me to rip the trim off completely and re-do it all, but that is just not gonna happen.
Below is a detail of the trim on the portrait…..see how the buttons are on the edge of the trim?

Detail of:
Portrait of a Lady 1555
Titan

So, opinions please:  Just how dorktacular would it be to move the ‘buttons’ over to the center of the trim to hide my boo-boo?  Like so:



Ok, enough angsting about that for a minute.  Here is a close-up of both the neckline and the sleeve:



ETA:  I should mention that the reason I’ve not listed re-spacing the beading as an option is because the trim has little spaces for each of the elements, so I’m not sure if I’d like putting the crystal in the ‘X’ of the undulation rather than in the center as the rest of them are.  Dunno.  Does that change anyone’s opinion?  (Um, yeah, it is much more obvious IRL than it is in this crappy pic.)



Also of note, whether I end up using the partlet I’m not-quite-in-love-with-for-this-outfit is done, thanks is large part to my momma and Elizabeth!  I do like this partlet, but maybe just not for this dress.  I’m still undecided!



Also of note, I picked up the blackwork for my camacia (potentially new/4th partlet) from the ever-fabulous Jaquelinne this past weekend.  It is smashingly awesome.  Seriously, you have no idea!  My goal is to get that piece into a finished garment by the end of the week!
I also dropped off linen with my Apprentice sister at fighter practice yesterday and she posted last night about her blackwork progress for my hubby’s shirt.  Holy cow can that woman embroider!!!



*It’s short, the sleeves are much wider than I had intended (but look less crazy big when my arms are in there), the bust/waist are not as fitted, but hey, that means it’s more comfy?