Updates Archive

(04.20.05) Good gods, woman, two updates in two days?!

Yep. Ain't that a kick? Believe it or not, I've been working on updates for the site for a while.... I just haven't finished any. So I'm in the process of getting all the stuff I've been meaning to finish finished. I put up some pictures of the Day of Wrong costumes I've done. There you go. Y'all have a good day, now....

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(04.19.05) It's that time of year again....

Normally, I declare an official start to costuming season when I see Berryweis at the stores again. Either I'm starting a little early this year, or they are shipping late. At any rate, I've got some commissions to be working on, and I'm altering an older dress that's been bought, and I started a new diary for doublet for me.

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(01.25.05) I'm not dead!

I seem to say that every couple months lately, huh? Many thanks to everyone out there who has expressed their concern, or offered me a little pep talk to get me back on track with this site. I didn't actually forget that I had a web site or anything, and I'm not giving up on costuming. I've had a couple of life changes in the last five months that have really impacted my free time and ability to sew. I decided to go back to school and try to finish a degree in Biology, and man, I forgot how time consuming college can be. It's like they don't expect you to have a job and a life or something! To further complicate my schedule, I started dating. And since I really like the guy in question and I want things to work out between us, I don't really want to blow him off to sew. (Ain't that a kick in the pants? I finally found something I love more than costuming. Before anyone dispairs that this will be the end of your friendly neighborhood sempstress, y'all should know that he's spent more time asking me when I'll have the new updates than anyone. He even offered to help with photography.)

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There's been one other major crimp in my costuming life. As though lack of time wasn't bad enough, I'm also coping with lack of space. I'd been renting a one bedroom, so I had the dining area set up for all my sewing stuff. That gave me something like a 7'x10' area to play with, with the ability to spill out into the living room if I needed to. Well, now my sister and I are sharing a a two bedroom apartment, and I'm more or less forbidden from taking over the dining room. (The words, "I will kill you" came up when we discussed it, and I think she was serious.) So now I have to set up my sewing area in my bedroom. Oh, and fit all my books in there. And all my stuff. And if that weren't enough, I still have to *sleep* in there. Huh? That's insane! Surely no human being could be expected to live under such conditions! Ok, so I got a little spoiled over the years of living alone. I now have all my sewing stuff (trim, fabric, crafty things, etc) and most of my costume storage set up in a 14'x2' area along one wall. This required a ridiculous amount of organization, and a lot of good old fashioned getting rid of stuff. Finally, though, a billion hours of watching Trading Spaces and HGTV came to my rescue, and I'm more or less done. Yay! I've got a lot of photos of the process so far, and I'm planning on stringing them together into an article at some point. I can't be the only one who's been forced to downsize her sewing area lately.

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(07.21.04) I'm back, and so's the site.... Mostly.

Oh, you mean *this* main index page? Le Sigh. My host has resolved a few things, and I can now put updates where you all can see them. Yay! Unfortunately, it looks like many of the images I've uploaded twice already still aren't coming through to the server properly. I'm working on uploading them again. I have a lot of images. This is taking a while. In other news, Denver is gorgeous and has way better weather than IL -- turns out it really is the humidity, not the heat. And their festival grounds are gorgeous! I tried to bring a mountain back to IL, but it woudln't fit in my carry-on. ;) I just loved it out there! Anybody want to help me find a job in Denver or Boulder? :)

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(07.16.04) Holy Crashing Servers, Batman!

There's some sort of technical hoo-ha going on with my host that's making things all bad in sempstress land. In the immortal words of Zilch the Tory Steller, "Dumber Booze, Nude!" I'm not entirely sure why some of my pages and none of my images are serving right now. I'm looking into it. Apologies. In other news, I'm on vacation in Denver right now (yeah, this is happening on my first vacation in forever). I'll be at the CO ren faire on sunday. Yay!

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(06.20.04) I'm not actually dead

Ok, so I've dropped off the face of the planet for a few months. I'm not dead. I'm not even not sewing. Actually, I've been sewing frantically for a couple weeks, but it's not for me -- it's for people who are paying me, bless their hearts. I should have pictures of the commission costumes to post soon.

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The highlights of the last couple months include: a class on bodice drafting/sewing, two court costumes, my own little (largely stalled) experiments with odd boning sources and petticoat bodies, and much planning and plotting of new dresses for me, none of which have amounted to anything.

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What's coming up on the site: an updated links page (ok, I admit, I haven't touched my links in years -- and I owe the nice folks at Denver Fabrics a link. They're a great source for all kinds of fabrics, and they link to my poor little Dial-a-Dress), information on my (newest) take on the whole petticoat bodies thing and how it works out for me, two new dresses for me including an italien affair with ridiculous sleeves, pictures of work for clients, and a heavy dose of my normal wit and charm. And how do you know this will all happen? I just took a look at Sarah's and Jenny's web sites, and I'm feeling like a total bum. When will things start going up? Probably not before the end of the week. But before Bristol starts.

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(12.12.03) Some long overdue updates....

I've been doing some photowork over the last couple months, but so far I've neglected to actually do anything with the photos. Well, I finally got enough of a break to do write up some of those photos into actual pages. So far, I have a new gallery pages for the irish peasant dress I made for halloween, and a page of instructions for making a bodice pattern from a corset that fits.

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(09.02.03) Faire is over, and I have my life back!

I'm pretty happy about that, in spite of the current state of said life. ;) Faire has actually been over for a couple weeks -- long enough for me to start imposing some organization on the choas that is my apartment and attempt to get a few other things straightened out (Shhhh! Be vewy qwiet, I'm hunting a job....). I've hit the part of the to-do list that says, "Update site with pictures Yvonne sent", so here we have it.... There's four new pages in the gallery -- for the blue&grey middle class from the diary, a new red&blue noble thing, and costumes for two of my favorite magicians, Ivanovich the Crazy Russian and "Dinty" the Moor. (Look, I'm a costumer -- I take no responsibility for what the walking props decide to call themselves....) In other news, yours truly will be at the MN faire this weekend, so if you see me, say hi! It'll make my day. :)

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(07.10.03) Dial-a-dress back online....

Speaking of sheep, *baaaaa* -- I feel sheepish. I didn't realize that the dial-a-dress has been off-line since I had to move the site. Many thanks to an astute reader who emailed about it.

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(07.08.03) Rain, rain, go away!

This has more or less nothing to do with costuming, but it's been raining on and off since sunday (and for those of you who weren't at bristol on sunday, I should mention that "rained" is an understatement along the lines of saying that tornados kick up a bit of a breeze), and I still haven't gotten a good answer to one simple question: Why don't sheep shrink in the rain? I mean, wool shrinks, and sheep are made out of wool, so shouldn't farmers be running out to re-block the sheep after storms and things? Inquiring minds are desperately trying to avoid their sewing right now.

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(06.024.03) New Dress in Gallery

I've got pictures of my new middle class dress up in the gallery.

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(06.09.03) Faire opens *WHEN*?!?!

Pooop! I haven't a think to wear! I've been sewing like a madwoman in my copious free time (I have none, but that's not the point). I just took a break and added draping instructions for a kirtle with fitted bodies, and the wacky Kohler kirtle.

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(05.27.03) New draped drafting instructions

I've been working on a little project to put decent pattern draping instructions online for the more common women's garments in period. I've just added a pattern for a bodice with an arched neckline, to go with the gored kirtle pattern (that I utterly forgot to announce!) Sorry for the recent lack of activity.... It's been a little crazy over here. (She says, as thought *that's* new.)

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(03.25.03) WE ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES....

Mea culpa, all.... Sempstress.org fell into the swamp. I'm not sure what happened -- dzones.com (my host, and the host of Sarah's ElizabethanLady.com) fell over dead, kaput, no more, boarded up the windows, barred the door, padlocked the gate, and shut us all out like a bunch of redheaded step children in the rain.... Not that I'm feeling at all betrayed about this. I'm using a new host now, and I'm trying to get the site restored. To add insult to injury, this happened within hours of me uploadingthe site updates I'd been working on for several weeks. It's just been a week; that's all there is for it.

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(03.22.03) Zowies! What did you change?!

What *didn't* I change is more like it.... :) The site's been reorganized. All old files will remain in their previous locations for a while, but it's time to update your bookmarks! Sempstress (the site, not the human) has lacked a feeling of direction for a while. I'm focusing my work now on pattern drafting and construction information, as well as the diaries you all know and love. In the process of the re-org, I've spell checked all the pages (you read that right) -- if it still looks wrong, it's officially a missa-ism. I've put up a new graphic for the master woman's doublet pattern (I still don't know what happened to the old one) and added a snippet on men's doublets to the doublets page. I've also added a page on setting up your dress dummy. Both of these are in the Patterns area. I've finally dropped all the dead links from my links page. There's an area for my sewing Experiments, so I can keep you all updated as I go. I finally wrote up instructions for Reverse Leather Applique over in the Techniques area. I'm pretty psyched about the new changes! I've also added a Support area, in case you're interested in things you can do to help support this site.

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(02.21.03) More Teddy's diary updates posted....

Teddy's most recent (I mean, even more recent than the last batch of most recent) diary updates are up!

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(02.12.03) Teddy's diary updates posted....

Teddy's most recent diary updates are up! I'm a bad human and have been neglecting them. Mea culpa, all....

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(02.12.03) Site Problems!

I seem to have been having some site problems over the last could days. Some were caused by a few changes I made to the css for the site, but right now it looks like there's some problems with my host and their apache server -- I do a lot of little server tricks, and those don't seem to be so much working at the moment. Apologies for the inconvenience; hopefully everything will be back to normal soon....

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(02.09.03) I'm updating the Gallery
I've added a page for the venetian courtesean gown, and I'm in the process of making some "special interest" galleries. Also, for those of you with bookmarks, the main gallery page has moved from www.sempstress.org/gallery/photogal.html to www.sempstress.org/gallery/index.html -- I really try not to move files, but that one's been annoying me for a little over two years now.
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(01.25.03) Costuming Find!
A good aiglette is really hard to find these days, which is why I was so excited when a woman I'm working with agreed to do up "just a quick set" of aiglettes for a dress I'm working on. Well, she really took off with the idea, and has been turning out beautiful beaded aiglettes by the score! You can order these lovelies through Maggs Creations -- email her and tell her you heard about the aiglettes. Yes, she does custom work. (The pink and pearl number in the center, for example, is mine. ;) )
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(01.25.03) Not Related to Costuming, but....
For anyone else out there running Jaguar on their computer -- do *not* attempt to revert from os 10.2 to os 10. It's bad. It's really bad. It's the kind of bad where your machine won't boot properly until you find the &^@#!! jaguar disks and wait through a full *&%!! re-install (choose the archive&install, preserve users and settings options on the install). And here I thought I was such a clever little mammal....
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(01.06.03) Shopping Tip
Sometimes, you find yourself in a fabric store, looking at a spectacular price on what *might* be wool (might not be wool, either -- hard to tell, even with a label sometimes), look at the selvedge. The selvedge on a wool, or highly wool blend, generally looks odd compared to the rest of the fabric. It's a little thicker, and you can see a kink to the fibers in it. It might even look slightly fuzzy. more tips...
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(11.29.02) New Article
I've been doing more and more research on period construction techniques, under the assumption that the elizabethans knew a bit more about making their clothing than we do. ;) I've written up a bit on the construction of skirts -- notably, whether or not they should be mounted on separate waistband, as is commonly done now, or if they should be mounted directly to the bodice -- here.
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(11.28.02) Thanksgiving
I don't normally do a formal "what I am thankful for" list, but this year has brought me so many changes (and accompanying periods of transition) that I thought I should. And I would like to share a couple things off if: I am thankful that, in these "trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha"*, I get visitors from many countries, most likely with many different beliefs and political leanings, who share a common interest in costume and the history of clothing. It's the passions we share that make us all family. I'm also thankful for my closest friends and the costuming buddies who have become close friends -- Lynn, Pam, Denise, Jenny, Sarah, and the indomitable evil bunny -- and my mommy, daddy, sister and notasister for encouraging my little obsession, helping me through my life, and generally being family. Y'all are too good to me. But mostly, I'm really thankful that I'm not a turkey. ;)
*quote: Tom Lehrer
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(11.26.02) New Look
11.26.02 New Look on the main page -- I'm moving towards a bloggier style main page. I'll be listing new updates, as well as tips, observations, and what have you there for your enjoyment and edification. This page will still have an archive of older changes.
11.06.02 Fans! -- a brief overview.
11.05.02 The Courtesean Dress Diary is finished. Yay!
07.11.02 Experiment: Reverse Applique with Leather -- I was playing around a little with doing reverse applique with leather last night. Here's what I learned....
07.09.02 German!!! -- I made a german dress, and discovered that yes, in profile, I am *very* german looking...... :)
07.05.02 Results and notes on this year's experiments -- I moved info on my construction experiments into its own page, and added results and notes regarding the success (or otherwise) of each.
07.05.02 A new spontaneous project -- For reasons that are not apparent even to me, I'm working on a german gown now. It seemed like a really good idea when I had it, I guess. Partially done photos are up here. (updated link to point to finished gown)
07.05.02 Added new photos -- Added new photos of the costumes for Robert Cecil and Nicolas Hilliard.
07.02.02 Started a "Tip of the Week" page -- Following Jenny's example, I've started doing a weekly feature. Since she has the market cornered on featuring talented costumers, I though I could offer a weekly tip or tidbit - the sorts of little tricks and stuff that don't really ever fit anywhere else (or maybe are listed somewhere else, but would require an awful lot of wading through my writing to get to ;) )
06.25.02 Added two new costumes to the photo gallery -- I had two commissioned costumes this year, for nice fellows portraying Robert Cecil and Nicolas Hilliard. The proof is now in the photo gallery.
05.20.02 The courtesean gown starts -- Construction and cursing alike have started with the gown for the courtesean dress....
05.20.02 The courtesean bodies are finished -- And about time, too.
05.10.02 Binding Eyelets -- Under the assumption that I'm not the only person who had to ask how a proper bound eyelet occurred, I wrote and article on it. This might save someone from having to ask....
05.10.02 More courtesean bodies work -- As always new info is at the bottom. Newest bits include the trials and tribulations of pleats, a bloody lot of eyelets, and proof that things really don't look better in the morning unless your house is inhabited by very industrious gnomes.
04.30.02 Parsimonious Patterns! -- All of the patterns that I could find, uploaded for your printing, enlarging, and sewing pleasure. Merry Sewing Season!
04.29.02 Dying the courtesean -- A little fun, dying with onions!
04.29.02 The courtesean Bodies -- More info at the bottom, about the trials and tribulations of pieces that shrink while you're working on them. Grr.