Advance 4858 (1947?) peplum blouse Part ViI: Finishing up

No pix right now.  The bias hem looks better, and the blind stitches more blind, now that it's ironed.  I did the buttonholes last night.  I vaguely regret not having allowed myself time to do bound buttonholes but . . . oh, well.  Not going to lose any sleep over it.  If I do another blouse like this is a print I like better, though, I definitely will do bound instead of sewn.  And I got some more seam finishing done.  I have to finish the finishing, do the armscyes, and put the buttons on, and that's it.

I'm wearing it with a lot of black--black skirt, black shoes, black handbag.  I found backseam stockings but they're also black and I'm starting to think that that's too much black and I should just stick with ordinary suntan stockings (I can't stand wearing shoes without stockings, so bare legs aren't an option.  Also, I don't want my cat scratches to show!).  I haven't thought about jewelry, and I haven't thought enough about hair.  My hair won't do much--it's long and it won't hold a curl and it won't really do anything.  So . . . ponytail.  Maybe I can get the sides to roll so it looks like less of an afterthought.

I have a pearl-type necklace I could wear if it's long enough; it belonged to a great-aunt and I think she was pretty small, so I'd have to see where it fell on my neck.  I also have a gaudy faceted crystal necklace (similar to this) that was my grandmother's.  I kind of want to see how that might look, just for kicks.  Where the heck would I wear such a thing?

Advance 4858 (1947?) peplum blouse Part VI: Bias hem

I think I could become addicted to bias binding as a finish for curved hems.

And, yes, I still stink at blind stitching.  Whatever.  Busy prints cover multitudes of sins.

Simplicity 4727 (1943) black sundress Part V: Done!

Listening: Justin Townes Earle mix

I didn't get this done in time for Austin last weekend but at least I got it done this weekend.

I had four yards of calico, which is a lot unless you want to do a long skirt with a flounce.  Flounces take up an unbelievable amount of fabric.  You think a 2:1 ruffle-skirt width ratio will look OK but the reality is that it looks pretty minimal.  Kind of skimpy.  This one is a 3:2 ratio, which is nice.  Fluffy, but not ridiculous.  The skirt is kind of bigger than necessary since it's two full widths (42" front and back) so I could use the selvage in place of seam finish, but whatever.  I like extravagant skirts.

I solved this by making all the facings out of plain black cotton-polyester (hacked up bedsheet) to save yardage for the skirt.  The inside looks like this (that's the back opening, the neck facing, the lining of the inset belt, and the pockets):

I used five different colors of hem tape on this sucker, too.  I have a lot of old hem tape to use up, and most of it is not black.  Yellow, teal, electric blue, dark blue, olive green.

Front:

The flounce is about six inches from the floor when I'm wearing it.  Nice length.  Long, but not mud-dragging long.

Back, with buttons.  I actually can get into this myself by buttoning the mid-back, slipping it over my head, and then buttoning the waist and nape:

Advance 4858 (1947?) Peplum blouse Part V: Down to the wire

Listening: Justin Townes Earle mix.  

I actually finished one (completely unnecessary) sewing project this weekend and made a lot of progress on this (completely necessary) one, in spite of Mispickel's best efforts:

Yeah, I'm not kidding.  She really knows how to maximize the amount of space she takes up.

I'd already done a successful-enough muslin of this but I still had to do some slight tweaking: The neckline was too high, the bodice was too long by about an inch, I had to jerry-rig the neck facings, and I found out as I was pinning the peplum on that I needed to take up bigger tucks and box pleats.  Luckily, none of it was enough to bring the project to a halt.

I got this far.  I have to do the narrow hems on the armscyes, finish the interfacing and blind tacking on the back opening, buttonholes, buttons, the hem (the pink at the bottom is the bias binding I'm using to face the hem; it's applied but hasn't been turned under and tacked), and a lot of seam finishing.  Still it's shaping up very well.

Now that I look at it, it looks kind of . . . outrageous.  And big.  And peplum-y.  Very, very, peplum-y.  Oh, well . . . too late to turn around now, right? 

New model: Dr Peaches

This post took me 23 years to write.

Okay, not exactly, but . . . yeah, kind of.

Breyer (the model horse company) started BreyerFest, their annual convention at the Kentucky Horse Park, in 1990.  Before this, they did Breyer-subsidized shows, but a convention was kind of a mind-blowing concept.  I've only been once, in 1991.  It's a huge deal now.  It seemed like a huge deal in 1991 but I'm sure I have no idea what "huge deal" even means any more in this context.

Of course, it had a special run model that was only available to BreyerFest attenders.  In 1991, the model was a portrait of Olympic endurance horse "Mustang Lady", in shaded gray on the Indian pony mold and complete with painted-on competitor numbers and freeze brand.  Mine, Kayutah, is mostly retired now but was a champion show horse in the days before original finish special run models became so elaborate.  I love this model; if I ever have to sell the collection, she will be on the list that gets kept.

Still, there's something about the "first" of anything that always seems a bit special.  The first BreyerFest model was the Thoroughbred gelding eventer "Dr Peaches".  He seems not to have made as big an impression on the rest of the world--most of the images I find online are of the model.  Breyer didn't have its BreyerFest model mojo going yet: It's as if they said, "Let's make him bay.  On the "Phar Lap" [never a collector favorite] mold.  Because there is no possible way that could be more bland."

(Sorry, this is the image from the advertisement from which I bought him.  I'll have a better one eventually.)

Yep.  Bay.  Gelding.  On a mold known mostly for being a weird scale and for having meh conformation and double-meh personality.  In fairness, he got here in the mail yesterday and not only was the seller totally not kidding about his "minty mint" condition--he doesn't even have hoof-edge rubs--but his paint is a lot nicer than it looks here.  He actually has a lot of shading for an early-1990's model, and a very nice semigloss finish.

He's not that big a deal now (which makes him cheaper!) but in 1990 I would have sold my younger brother for this model.  Although, since he was my younger brother, I probably would have sold him for a Slurpee and a Flutter Pony.  But I would have come up with a much better excuse to tell my mother if it got me a "Dr Peaches".

I don't have a name for him yet.  He'll be a Thoroughbred gelding and probably a son of my mare Vitesse (daughter of Rob Roy), but that's all I've decided so far.

Simplicity 4727 (1943) part IV: Incremental progress

Listening: Cowboy Junkies mix again ("Murder, Tonight, in the Trailer Park").  It was Son Volt in the car on the way in this morning; it seems that my mood hasn't changed much from yesterday.

I had to go to the store for milk last night but then I started installing the button placket in the back of the skirt.  I think I can get the handwork done on that and maybe on that second pocket today at lunch.  That leaves gathering the skirt into the inset belt, attaching the belt lining, and finishing up all that stuff, and then buttons and buttonholes.  I'm off the next three days and the house isn't a complete disaster so I should be OK.  

Then I have to get the Advance 4858 blouse done!  We leave for Missouri next week.

Feeling like 1994

I'm just in one of those moods.

Listening: Cowboy Junkies mix ("200 More Miles" as I type this).

It's cold in here and I'm lamenting that my baggy black dress wore out and I never made a new one.  I need a new one.  The grunge-look* ragdoll I was in high school needs it so she can wear that huge red flannel shirt the way it was meant to be worn.

Sometimes when I'm grumpy I draw ridiculous things with Photoshop during my lunch breaks.

*I say "grunge-look" because I never actually listened to the music.  The clothes, though, were a great cover for a girl who couldn't keep up with the aesthetic expectations of an upper-middle-class suburban high school.

Simplicity 4727 (1943) Part III

Listening: Lucinda Williams mix.

Not much to see.  I finally finished gathering the flounce onto the skirt, and I stayed up too late and put bias binding on the seam allowance last night.  Then Mispickel tore the bejesus out of my arm and I decided it was time to turn in.

I should have worn red shoes today.  I'm wearing the black denim skirt, white blouse, and a choker necklace of huge green wooden beads (think Lisa Simpson).  I was going to wear the baggy red sweater that I hate but that Mom gave me for Christmas and it was expensive and she loves it on me so I have to keep it, but I put it somewhere weird in the house and couldn't find it, and grabbed the threadbare but still adorable Pendleton Forty-Niner (mine is black and white plaid) I bought at Second Mile when I was in college.  So I'm all black and white.  The black shoes are OK but red would have been better.

Monday

I kind of feel like I've been hit by a bus.  Not physically, thank goodness, but mentally.  Never mind.  I was a long week and weekend.

We were shuffling offices around last week.  Friday was the biggest day--it involved professional movers and lots of heavy furniture.  We're mostly moved in except for some residual clutter and shuffling and a bit of squabbling about lamps and stuff.  Nothing big.

I went out of town with a friend for the weekend.  I kind of knew going into it that it was probably a mistake--the friend drove so I didn't have my own car, and there weren't enough plans to fill up the time.  It turns out you can totally feel like a fifth wheel even when you're one of only two people.  It wasn't awful, but it was very weird and awkward and draining.  And I felt super guilty for leaving Mispickel.

But on to the next thing, right?  I have a ton of sewing to do and I have to get the house put back together and all kinds of stuff.  Onward and upward.

Fundamentalism and American culture (George Marsden) Part I

I borrowed George Marsden's Fundamentalism and American Culture from the LOFM Little Free Library.  I'm on page 6 and I can already tell I'm going to be in over my theologically-uneducated head, but oh, well.  It's not as though anyone's grading me, right?  I still need to take notes, though.  I remember stuff better if I take notes.

(Definitions from Merriam-Webster online.)

Terminology:
Millenarian: 1) Of or relating to belief in a millenium; in this instance, 1a: the thousand years mentioned in Revelation 20 during which holiness is to prevail and Christ is to reign on earth
Pietist: 2) emphasis on devotional practice and experience.  (Actually, I need to look into this more, because that sounds to me like pretty much every belief system, ever.)  Pietism at Wikipedia; the Free Dictionary by Farlex; .

Vocabulary:
Quiescent: 1) Marked by inactivity or repose; tranquilly at rest.  2) Causing no trouble or symptoms [quiescent gallstones].  Obviously, in this context, the former usage applies.