Since Mother Eve in the Garden long ago

Okay, here's an odd thing. I concluded in my thesis based on a lot of sources that French and English fashion divided during the Napoleonic Wars, and so far I think that's probably still true. But based on only a couple of sources (no American fashion plates = harder to research specifically American fashion trends) I decided that American dress followed English during that period ... but based on the two patterns I've done since that, it looks like American dress probably followed French. Although probably by the time I exhaustively go through La Belle Assemblée again I'll discover I was wrong about English dress as well.

Basically everything I concluded in my thesis I've discovered is wrong by now, btw. And the outfit I made for it doesn't fit well, either. /o\ (Also, it has giant yellowed blotches up and down the skirt, no clue how they got there, did I mention I took Advanced Conservation I?)

I have so nothing to talk about these days because all I do is watch old SVU and save fashion plates to my hard drive. Over a thousand by now, btw. Hey, but this episode mentioned that the victim's parents live in "a small town near Saratoga"!

All I have to do is make my list of illustrations, then look at the edits for my abstract and make sure all my formatting is right. Unfortunately I think I need to rewrite most of my captions as I have no clue what formula I'm supposed to follow.

They want to interview me at the Chapman!

World debut of Eleanor tonight. If it somehow ends up on Youtube I promise to link to it.

I know I promised a proper post back on Christmas, but that never really happened, did it. I've been in full-on thesis mode, writing a (crappy) conclusion and fixing my citations because there is something wrong with me and when I write I do these horrible, abbreviated citations - sometimes with most of the information there, sometimes with the initials of the book and a page number, sometimes with "find a source for this". For example, I indicated Fashion from Fashion Plates quite sensibly with "FtFP" and did not spend half an hour working it out yesterday.

I watched Kate Beckinsale's Emma for the first time while gathering the bottoms of my dress's sleeves and realized that I find Frank and Jane extremely interesting. I want to read a good book/fic about their relationship now. Sadly I don't remember Joan Aiken's as being that good. The secret correspondence, the arguments, the way he's a dick but she loves him anyway ...

(Everyone's off doing NaNo, aren't they.)

Over the past couple of days I've been sewing hardcore on my thesis project, making lots of headway. This morning I put it all on and BAM I look fantastic. (With a little imagination, as it's not totally finished. No sleeves.) There is exactly enough fabric between the underbust and neckline drawstrings, and the pleating on the back comes to exactly the right point. Even without a petticoat, you can see the billowy pre-Regency shape. I'm pretty proud of how it's coming out, especially given that it's all without a pattern. I do plan to chart the pattern for the paper, and I probably should have done it earlier, when I could spread the pieces out, but without sewing certain parts into place I couldn't be certain that what needed to come after was right.

This is teaching me that I need to get a couple of pairs of pantyhose and some batting and bulk out my dress form, because it's not as busty as I am and that's given me a few !!! moments. Fortunately everything's worked out, but it'd be really nice to turn it into a proper double for the next time I go to drape something. Something with my cup size, at least. And waistline. Especially waistline. Height-wise, I mean.

I've had to mess with my stays - just the cups, I'd gathered them too much so they were basically flat. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible for me to use this style to achieve actual cups? Even fixing the gathering, it's forming more of a naturalish curve rather than actually filling the cups. It's like ... I need the cut-out bits to be bigger than they can physically be. How do I wear bras? I don't understand it. I don't think this is terrible, I'm fairly sure some women wore stays with gathery-soft bits that didn't quite work just like bras, based on paintings and things. (A bigger problem is the way the front edges kind of curve out due to the reed. Not sure what to do about that, except maybe de-bind them a bit and put a second reed in each channel, curving the other way.) But it would have been nice to create something that worked properly. I did make short stays one time that worked very well, but they used the Regency gussets technique that I've never actually seen in short stays. And then I spilled tea on them.

Aw man, how do I manage to always screw things up? I put together the four pieces of the left side of my stays - sewed some of the channels and none of the quilting - and somehow it's just big enough to need taking in while being close enough to my size that taking it in is going to be tricky. I think I'm going to have to sew together the right said and do the lacing eyelets in the front and back to try it on properly and then decide where to adjust them (and where to put the cups, dammit this is so difficult and there aren't enough dress diaries to read).

All of the structural sewing and finishing on my shift is done! It fits so perfectly. I know, as far as fitting-perfectly garments go, a shift is not high on the list of priorities, but it really does fit perfectly. I'm doing my initials in counted-thread cross-stitch with a diamond in between on the front and if Parks & Rec did three episodes instead of two tonight I'd be done with that as well. But as it is I have "C ♦" and I'll do the P tomorrow. Pictures forthcoming but for real this time, and I think I might start a dreadfully interesting Facebook album for the whole project since it is my qualifying paper.

Should go to the Parson's graduate symposium tomorrow as it's so close to my apt. but I don't really want to. Maybe I will work on one of my final projects instead so I feel like it was okay to skip it. I am very likely to take a trip to the garment district and see if I find any really good deals on the fabrics I plan to use in the rest of my project: more linen (lining, stays), white cotton (dress, stays), plain or striped taffeta (open robe), wool (spencer), velvet (spencer cuffs/collar). I guess I should try to figure out how much I'll need of each before I go, in case I find something.

I gave in and got regalia and am now going to graduation. /o\ All of us are, it would have looked bad if I was the only one that didn't show.

( Doctor Who )

I actually made substantial progress on my thesis project last night, I think. I need to make a pair of short stays, but the pair I'm modeling them on is across the ocean and impossible for me to view. So I took the Jill Salen pattern of a pair of brown stays from 1790 and drew it out on my graph paper. The main thing that needs messing with is the length, as the VAM stays don't make it to the waist, so when I drew out the pieces I made the bottom line where the top of the tabs started. Then I scanned in the pattern pieces, c&p'd them so I had both sides, and doubled them to being at 1/4 scale. (And then shrunk them a wee bit to fit on the printer paper.) After I printed them out I cut them out and taped them together into a tiny little adorable paper corset, just to get an idea of how the seams would lie to compare to the VAM ones. I think I will have to do a bit of shape-messing-with as well, as the result is still VERY conical, but that shouldn't be too hard. Since it's not cinching my waist or anything, I think I can check that with just a muslin mock-up, which I might do today. The only trouble I that I can't seem to find my washable marker - I hope I didn't leave it at home.

Took a Claritin. I'm just worse than yesterday, sneezing and itching all over the place.