Since Mother Eve in the Garden long ago

This season of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is just ... not working for me? I think the problem is that everyone has become way too well-adjusted - what made this show fun over the first three seasons is that just about every character was some level of mess, and Rebecca of course made terrible decisions that drove the plot. The songs were incisive and satirical, and they're still kind of satirical but definitely don't feel like they're poking as hard. I want to see everyone end up happy and well-adjusted, but like I want them to get there in the last few episodes, not just a couple of episodes into the last season.

Also, New Greg. New Greg was a BAD idea. Combining his self-improvement (which is again something one wants to see so the character can be happy, but also removes the dark, self-loathing edge that made him interesting) with a super bland-looking/sounding actor is just ... they shouldn't have brought him back! I wanted them to be together when he left in S2, but I've emotionally moved on, so just let this unmanned ship float out into the Arctic ice, okay? Nathaniel is the man now.

( Rich People Problems )

( The Cruel Prince )

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I meant to write a whole bunch of Yuletide treats (since I missed the signup window), and of course I have failed. :( I have one started but I will likely not get to finish it in time. Maybe tomorrow I can really pull out all the stops and get it done? It's a really cool prompt ... at least maybe I can do it as a Madness short.

"People are going to complain about Joyce thoughtlessly!!! writing on Walky's shirt," I thought, and sure enough.

Some more answers:
When did American women begin to wear stockings and when did they switch to tights. Is there any evidence as to why?
What's the difference between an heir apparent and heir presumptive?
A bit on Jewish communities in the Catskills to round out the answers we got to a question about rich people summering
A stereotypical item of medieval women's clothing is a very tall conical hat with a wisp of gauzy cloth attached to the top. How long was this actually fashionable for?
In Lady And The Tramp, there is a line from Lady's neighbors that boils down to 'one of us has to marry her to preserve her honor' after she's been hanging around Tramp too long. Was this mindset ever widespread in the U.S. (the movie's set in 1911)?
When Isabella and Ferdinand joined the houses of Castile and Aragon, they ruled as practically equals. Was it unusual for a queen to wield such political power and influence in 15th Century Europe; and what did contemporaries write about the extent of Isabella’s power and influence over Spain?

It's been a busy week.

As I'm making new friends from the friending meme, and maybe some from Tumblr(?), I thought I'd make some kind of introductory post to Me.

I'm a thirty-something, bisexual*, cis woman, long-term single, unfortunately with no pets. I work in a small museum as, effectively, the curator (stlawrencecoha), and am a moderator and frequentish poster on the subreddit AskHistorians.

*I've been intending to come out to you guys here for a while now

I'm a fashion historian by training and have spent a lot of time doing that on my own, through sewing and blogging and such. (Tired of trying to do it on Tumblr, where unless you work very hard to build up a sizable following, nobody listens to you, and Facebook, where it is all arguing over what is or isn't plausibly accurate in reenactment costume or just looking at dresses.) I also have a broader interest in social history, particularly relating to women, from commoners to queens. (Literally, I have bookmarks in Unexpected Heirs in Early Modern Europe: Potential Kings and Queens and Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and Household in Brigstock before the Plague right now.) My personal style is "1950s", so I normally have at least one sewing project going on at a time that's either from a '50s pattern or is proper historical dress.

I have a loooong history in Harry Potter fandom, first as a dumb kid and then as a dumb college student, and while I went through a long period of inactivity due to the post-books lull in the old-school group, I've been dipping my toes back in. I'm not active-active in any fandoms, but I enjoy consuming and occasionally writing meta about all kinds of fictional properties, old and new! Right now I'm watching and loving Deep Space 9, but I'm also into the Queen's Thief series, The Goblin Emperor, Diana Wynne Jones (partic. HMC), L.M. Montgomery, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Jane Austen, Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey (GIVE US MORE), random 18th and 19th century novels I find on Google Books or in book sales, whichever period miniseries the BBC or ITV give us ... Ficwriting tends to only happen in fest contexts because I need a deadline to force myself to finish anything (speaking of which, didn't I plan to write a few Yuletide treats?), but I have a habit of musing meta-ly about anything I happen to be consuming, usually when I'm about halfway through it.

Can't believe I forgot to mention: Patterns of Fashion 5 came in yesterday! It is so freaking amazing. The original PoF crossed with the V&A 17thc books.

... about whether I like it or I don't. (The second season is up on Netflix.) I honestly think we do need more adaptations of classic lit, particularly rosy kidlit, that explores characters that are marginalized in the original - like Jerry - and adds characters of other marginalized identities, whether the marginalization is added to an existing character, like Miss Barry being a lesbian, or new characters are added, like Bash and Cole. To that end, new storylines of course have to be added and old ones changed. And in general, I love getting to look at canonical characters from new perspectives, like the more internal looks at Matthew and Marilla.

But I just don't understand why this show is pretty good at dealing with these other marginalizations (the episode with Miss Barry's party was FABULOUS, and just about everything with Bash is great) and so incredibly clunky when it comes to feminism. Like ... there is a black community in Charlottetown, and they are treated poorly by many white locals, but we get to see that they are real people with their own lives despite that. Cole is a sensitive gay artist who's terribly uncomfortable with almost every aspect of his life, and gets bullied for being different, but the show never has to explicitly say what's up. But then when it's time to deal with sexism, it's like "Miss Stacy wears pants and no corset and rides a motorbike!" "Anne complains that trousseaux contain linens instead of only books!" "Various adult women make awkward statements about gender relations that would not have to be explained to anyone born before 1930!" "Mrs. Andrews wants Priscilla to go to college and Prissy runs away from her wedding!" It's like the other issues are in first gear along with the plot, but every time feminism comes into it we suddenly shift into third.

(And also, I'm cool with changes from canon, but Gilbert and Anne's relationship just comes off very oddly.)

When I think about it, they probably would have done better to adapt Emily of New Moon. For one thing, it just is a bit grittier than AoGG - Ilse's backstory? Perry being from Stovepipe Town? Mrs. Kent and her issues? DEAN?? - and then you have Ilse to make any political statements you want. But it's not well-known so you don't get that "this is Canadian Heritage" flavor.

I got out my last full Regency corset mockup, picked off the ridiculous number of stray threads clinging to it, tried it on with a shift underneath, and honestly, it fit better than I remembered! I had to unpick the tucks I'd put in the gussets "for more uplift" (part of why it was too tight) and unsewed the front of the straps (which pulled it up way too high, the other part of why it was too tight), but it's pretty decent now. I've put some quick eyelets in for the front of the straps and I'll try it on properly again tomorrow, but I think my memory of how bad it fit was somewhat skewed and I might be at "let's bind this sucker and someday when I feel I've got the time I can use this as a pattern for a nice hand-sewn, accurate corset". The eyelets may be somewhat too far under my arms now, but of course the beauty of tie-on straps is that you can very easily move the attachment points.

Petticoat finished! This was a pretty quick project, I did the cutting one evening, the vertical seams the next, and spent pretty much all of today gathering and finishing. Could probably be done faster if you were competent with a ruffling foot (or if your ruffling foot is less than a century old and doesn't completely stop working or make the needle fall out when you adjust the stitch length) or even used the ol' "super low tension on a modern machine" method of doing gathering stitches instead of sewing those by hand.

I'm making a light starch solution, but even without that it does pretty well at holding a skirt out. It does, of course, lack that very full hem + very full ruffle that your average nylon petti has to make a kind of solid bottom to the underside of your skirt (you know what I mean), but it's sufficient for what you need. Maybe with a second or with a lace edging, you'd get a prettier look.

I probs should have checked in with the Edwardian/WWI group on Facebook when I was choosing what to pattern - I tried several different platforms but I keep forgetting that the costuming community is all FB all the time now* - but it looks like everyone (bar one person) prefers my great-grandmother's 1919 or 1920 graduation dress for a pattern, so I'm working on that!

* It's so depressing. I'm used to comparing myself to more successful, attractive, and interesting bloggers and feeling bad about my lack of readership, but even the BNF bloggers are not getting the attention they used to.

I did all the digitizing of the base pattern yesterday, and have been working on creating sizes today. Then a few more days working on directions, intro text, and cover page design, and I should be ready to go. So far I've got Robin here, and people on FB are signing up quickly - so let me know if anyone else here is into it!

I made a simnel cake! Without thinking about how I would dispose of an entire fruitcake ... I'll be bringing much of it in to work and cutting it up to try to get other people to eat it. Spoiler alert: they won't, because nobody ever eats what I bring in. Maybe I'll just cut it up and stick it in my lunch for the next month instead.

On Saturday I got basically nothing done - went out to see the Met's Così Fan Tutte at the Roxy in Potsdam (it was set on Coney Island in the 1950s, with all these people who actually work at Coney Island now doing contortions, snake-handling, etc.) and then went to JoAnn, where there was a surprise pattern sale! I just needed zippers but picked up a good handful of Simplicity patterns, including - very importantly - 1940s pants without pleats.

Sunday and Monday I just sewed; Sunday I never even left my apartment or put more clothes on than pajama pants and a sweatshirt. Finished the gold and black dress and started on my 1940s blouse, which now just needs sleeves and the hem and zipper ... it felt like I'd done more before I said that. But I'm feeling extremely optimistic about finishing it and making a plain black skirt before the concert on the 14th/15th. Hair is the only real concern.

In order of watching.

( Black Panther )

( Jessica Jones )

( A Wrinkle in Time )

I need to reread the L'Engles I have read and read the ones I haven't. Mayhap I will stop at the library tomorrow and see what they have.

Just finished everything on my silky drawers save the button and buttonhole! These things are enormous when I lay them out flat but I've got to accept that turning my three dimensions into two makes for something that is not dainty. It'll be interesting to see how they wear - I think I noted before how my fuller slip has formed weird ripples in the weave where it sometimes catches between my legs, and both slips have certain places where they look a bit like they're fraying near seams, but they've been like this forever and it seems like the silk warp/weft are generally strong enough to hold up even when they're being pushed around.

But I want to get some crêpe-de-chine and try making some underthings out of that to see if it just works better - it's certainly the traditional weave (according to various stories in my Dorothy Parker collection, probably also some of the Needlework magazines I have in a box and have never finished going through). But Dharma only sells it in white (boring, impractical) and all the options at FFC are dull colors, probably for fall/winter, and various pinks. I want light blue! I would make do with a pink but I really want light blue.

Next try at drawers will also be set on an elastic waistband, maybe.

I'm also trying to figure out what to make for the spring concert. I think we're really going with the pastel on top, black on the bottom rule that's always printed on the schedule - in previous springs we've worn sixties clothes to go with the theme of the music, but I can't imagine he's going to ask people to dress 1930s-1940s because nobody but me would be prepared for that. Still, I want to do it! Technically some of the music goes later, but it's mostly '40s, so I want to do that instead of my usual '50s.

On the one hand, I'm thinking of making a skirt based on this dress and then one of these blouses - not sure which one, but probably D as those high necklines just look like they'd be so unflattering on me. I have these patterns and I've even made that dress (so I know that the skirt yoke is a pain in the ass).

On the other, I'm looking at actually paying for an e-copy of a Haslam book - this 1940s one has a bunch of separates. Edit: And I just found a handful of antique '40s patterns I was given, one of which has a perfect plain A-line skirt. I'd need to make the waist ... a bit bigger, though.

Still not quite brave enough to try 1930s! My hair is more 1940s anyway.