Site Notes

Sempstress should show up just fine on any browser produced in the last couple years or so. I used to have a picky statement about which version of what browser I personally liked, but I've gotten over myself. Sempstress includes CSS and Javascript. If your browser does not support these, you might miss out on some stuff.

The site graphic is modeled after a series of 16th century woodcuts featured in Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd. The two cats in the large picture are modeled after my own cats. (People who sew almost always have cats. I haven't figured out why. You'd think we go for an animal that doesn't like to chase string....)

Sempstress' graphics and layout were designed on a DVD iMac (tangerine, before you ask). Most of the site is hand coded HTML (I use vi), although I have now used one of those crazy web page GUI things to spell check the pages and stuff.

Sempstress is a remake of SewHappy, which many people have enjoyed and, occasionally, found educational. The decision to remake the site as Sempstress came when the host I used offered to cover my domain registration and hosting, and I discovered that, sometime during the year and a half life of SewHappy, someone else had gone and registered what was clearly my site name for her own purposes. Rather than fight it out, I decided to take a go at some long overdo reorganization and long missing content.

The original SewHappy site was made with Macromedia DreamWeaver and Adobe Photoshop, on an Intel something-or-other which variously ran all known recent window-shades, depending on what had killed it last time.

The rather odd creature maintaining this site is a recovering Windows & web developer. She is involved in a 12 step program, has bought her iMac, and is feeling Much Better Now. Her career goals are now mostly summed up with the phrase, "I thought I wanted a career.... Turns out I just wanted a paycheck." She has been sewing for a handful of years, and avidly sewing Elizabethan Costume for about 7 years now. (Ack! 7? Has it been that many?) Having been naturally gifted with the ability to make mistakes and a good dose of bullheadedness, she has ploughed gracelessly through most of the mistakes she can think of regarding the sewing of costume in that short time, and now feels qualified to share the results of that blundering with others. She often refers to herself in the third person. No, medication is not the answer.