You had plans, and look where that got you

I had a plan for sewing this year. It would ensure everything was done in time for deadlines, avoid ‘busy’ times of Real Life and give me a feeling of accomplishment for use whenever I was stressed.

• The assassins would be finished sewing by the end of 2014 (tick – finished at 3am on the 31st).
• Eowyn, a ‘quick’ and ‘easy’ costume, would be done by the end of January.
• Before Uni went back at the end of February I would have fitted the patterns for my Regency dresses for JAFA and got a fair bit of the sewing out of the way.
• March would have been spent finishing the JAFA outfits well ahead of the April event.

What actually happened was I finished Eowyn at the start of March.

Then, starting on my regency outfits, I discovered that my bodiced petticoat gave me terrible backache. I tried it on for 10 minutes and was still sore 3 hours later. I don’t know how I survived at JAFAs past. My short stays are just as bad – which I suspect is why I still thought the petticoat was an improvement; and it was definitely better in terms of bulk under the dress.

So step one was not fitting dress mock-ups but rather new underpinnings. I tried to adjust the bodiced petticoat but I couldn’t work out a way to fix the problem. I believe the pain came from the straps being too short, but if they were made longer the bodice no longer stayed in the right spot. So I’ve spent the last few weeks patterning and making long stays.  I will need a new chemise to go with the new stays but I don’t have time to make one now. I will have to make do with a bulky old one or perhaps my slimline 1913 petticoat.

Another complication was the expiry of my sewing machine. In 2008 I inherited my great aunt’s 1976 Husqvarna 2000. Aunty Gladys had been a keen sewer and wanted her machine to go to whomever of her relatives showed an interest in sewing. That machine served me very well but at its last service I was told it was broken beyond repair. So not only was I behind on my plan, I had to research and buy a new machine. I was able to use my mother’s machine for the majority of the sewing on Eowyn and the stays but needing to get my own new sewing machine was another thing niggling at the back of my mind. Last week I bought a Brother NV610 so sewing life is getting back to normal.

Now that I have a sewing machine and my stays are nearly finished, I have finally got to the ‘fit and make two regency dresses’ part of my plan. Except now I have two weeks instead of two months. My original plans were for a ball gown from a fashion plate and an evening ensemble of my own design. I am preparing myself for the likelihood that these may not happen. But the Uni holidays are coming up and I have made regency clothes before so I have hope… We’ll see what happens.