New Year's Eve Updates

I got a little sidetracked from my Tudor project due to the overwhelming amount of gifts I had to buy/make, and also because of the fantastic light box I got from Val for Christmas. On Monday I spent the day at Kristina's photographing Uvellire products (my jewellery) with her behind the camera and me setting up the displays. I will be posting up pictures as soon as I get them to shareable visual perfection, but in the meantime I'd like to share something else.

Here's my work station: as you can see, it's a sewing machine on a chair.

As I've mentioned before, I have presents to make. Emily got a wonderful pencil case which I didn't get a photograph of because I'm a silly goose. A bunch of people got jewellery. Dad got a sweater, mum got business cards, Val got a hat, Kristina and Nadia got makeup. Heather is getting a vest, which I will be blogging about because I am sewing it, and I finally remembered that I wanted to track my projects!

The inside of Heather's corsetted vest will be green (because I have a ton of that fabric), the outside will be black with a little bit of gold trim. So far, I've figured out the pattern for and cut the green parts. The reason I say figured out the pattern is because she's slightly bigger than me in the torso area (I have a very narrow back!) and needs a size 5 while I'm a 2. Hopefully my pattern expanding works. Anywho, the visual data pretty much accounts for it all. The green fabric used to be a sheet (which I bought at ValueVillage!). A King Size bed's worth of green fabric for two bucks = win. Just because my work conditions are somewhat depressing, here's a picture of my cats to contribute to the [myth?] that all seamstresses and costume people are also crazy cat ladies.

Here's a sexy posing Lucy, sleepy Shoura, and Sylvie in the Tree :)

Painting is like Riding a Bicycle

The title of this entry makes as much sense as "your face is like your mom". Essentially it is, because you share genetics, but the two joke-retorts form a similar structure to a double-negative: something you don't want to use. Unless of course you don't have full command of English yet, and you want to tell your friend that they look just like their mother. This blurb has nothing to do with the rest of my entry, but it was fun to write.

Today I realized that if you don't use it you lost it. Maybe not completely, but seeing my art skills wane, definitely made me lose it a little bit. It's really frustrating not to be able to imitate what I see onto the page in a close enough likeness, especially after my head grew so large from getting the Mona Lisa (almost) correctly. Out of my (re-) growing obsession with Tudor history, I decided to draw the Anne Boleyn miniature, and, while it's coming out not as bad as I'd thought it will, her neck is far too long and I'm terrified of starting the face. This is bad, ladies and gentlemen. This is what happens when you've neglected your talents for half a year. You get back on the bike, you fall, you feel stupid.

As inspiration, I've been looking a whole lot at the works of my favourite Renaissance masters, such as Hans Holbein, and the ninja turtles, need I say more. (Hans Holbein and the Ninja Turtles sounds like the name of a band. Maybe they play lutes and bang drums with paintbrushes? While eating pizza?) I find the use of colour particularly fascinating, just because of how lit the paintings look. From candle to face to scenery, everything is so vibrant almost like it emits light in itself. I should also mention the spectacular portrayal of texture in fabrics! I have never been able to reproduce a fabric so finely that you can tell at once that this one's silk, that's taffeta, and this one is the richest of velvets. I guess, though, that's why they're masters, and I'm the university student who forgets to paint because she forgets she's actually good at stuff.

ANYWHO, the whole point of this ramble is to remind myself to paint more often, and to remind anyone who reads this (not sure why I have a delusion of an audience but it's always a nice thought) not to forget to do what brings you pleasure regardless of the challenges in its way. If you say "well partying brings me pleasure" I say no it doesn't because you get drunk and then don't remember what happened. Also, it doesn't take skill. You feel better about yourself when you feel useful.

Tudor Musing

I have decided to get back into my wonderful wonderful obsession with Tudor history. With reading another one of Philippa Gregory's fantastic novels, I realized that I wanted to make a new gown, because the old one is not fit for wear in public, unless public = a photographer. While the last one was made with equally intricate research, the sewing was done on a whim, with fabric I could afford, and while watching (on a loop) the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, which no doubt had an effect on the appearance of my gown. Often I've gotten comments on its likeness to Elizabeth Swan's wedding gown, which is way forward in history, but I digress.

Given my current conditions: being broke, lack of space, upcoming lack of time, and rarely being by myself in any given room, I will have to compensate by taking forever to make it. Hopefully this time I won't fail to document the making of it, as I have wanted to before (before I realized that it would be an embarrassing documentation indeed. Also, hopefully, unlike last time, this gown will come out spectacular and crowd-worthy.

Word for the wise: It is not going to be entirely historically accurate. I am cheating in many ways, such as Velcro and sewing machines and all that jazz, because I am aiming for looks more so than technical historical accuracy.

What have I so far? A fair idea of what I want my gown to look like, am engineered design in mind, and a few cut-outs from muslin which will serve as part of the bodice. When I have a better idea of what I'm actually doing as well as some photos, I will update. When I have concrete research I will also update.

Here is a photo of the old gown for starters. The french hood is photoshopped, but is another part of the costume that I am hopefully going to get around making this time around. Because I am namesakes with Anne Boleyn, I added her signature for fun.

Ta