totchipanda

My bereavement leave is over so I am back at work today. I must say it is kind of nice to be back, mostly for the routine-ness of it. Absolutely nothing here has changed, which is a relief after last week's upheavals.

Truly, I know I did a lot of grieving before my gramma passed. Her health had been declining for months already, and it was those last weeks that were so hard to see her in such a deteriorated state. Lots of tears when she left, of course, but then mostly relief she was no longer suffering. I expect I will have more thoughts and more tears at her memorial service, set for October 21.

I actually DID get accepted into the pattern test, and that meant I needed to procrastinate more so I started a new teens corset! My first one was a 36 bust, 40 waist and 42 hip. I ripped the top binding off and replaced all of the boning with metal (I couldn't find the spiral bones I'm sure I saw, but there was a large collection of steel so I sorted those and used them). What the hell was I thinking, using narrow zip ties as boning? Utterly useless. Still not the right sizing for me anymore, esp if I put it up higher, so I cut out a straight size 40 (looking at this now, again what was I thinking?? I already know the 40 waist is too small) from a bottom weight white denim that I picked up especially for corsetry. But I am out of grommets atm (just ordered some today) so I can't fully judge it when I can't properly put it on. I think I will sit this one up so the upper edge, lower than the first one, will actually support my bust. Does anyone know how these are supposed to fit? Are they supposed to just cup the bust in situ or were they truly under-bust? It's hard to tell from period ads.

Yesterday I decided I'd also like to get some other pieces done, so I created a corset cover from directions in Clothing for Women, using Wearing History's Elsie blouse as the base (since it says it can be done with a commercial pattern). Calcifer gave me about 8 heart attacks using the paper as a pouncing toy, but I did manage to get it done. I then laid the pieces on my fabric, which matches the petticoat -- definitely not period-appropriate, but matching sets tickle me -- and stared at them. How much seam allowance to add? How does it get sewn up?? Nope, not today, I put it away and headed to M & J's place for some Mario before watching Dancing with the Stars. I will review the directions before I start, but tonight will likely be a cross stitching night.

Speaking of, no update on cross stitch this week. I did do a little work and I'm filling in some green stuff on the left side (I may have finished with one colour entirely???), but as you may imagine, last week was not conducive to stitching.