totchipanda

Another sleepless night where I woke up after I should have left for work already *yawwwwn*. Calcifer did the thing where she darted out in front of me as I tried to leave the room and then stopped dead and hesitated, making me almost step on her. Kitten, move your adorable fuzzy little BUTT RIGHT NOW.

Friday was a total write off, but I did cut out and stitch a mock-up of the short stays. I cut an XL body and XXL gussets. Just holding it up on me, the back was overlapping, so the next day I stitched the seams another 1/4" in to approximate an L. Even put grommets in! That was much better, but the backs still touched and it was a little loose, over all.

Saturday I woke up and I felt like I needed to do some running around. Namely to pick up my brain meds, as I was nearly out of one and totally out of the other. Then I went to the thrift store bc it was literally 2 blocks away, where I found the case of a 1950s Singer buttonholer, which had a few of the dies and the plate cover, but not the attachment itself. Someone had opened a bag of thread and stuffed the bag and a few spools inside. It was the green case so not the one I need (I think; I've seen that the pink one has the slant shank attachment. I already have 2 1940s straight shank attachments), and I left it behind. Then I went to the grocery that was nearby rather than the one I normally go to, partly because I wanted to price-compare. A lot of the things I wanted were only slightly more expensive than the other store, sometimes by a matter of cents. It was fine, and suited my needs and energy levels. DONE.

At home, I forget how it happened but I found some strips of coutil that I'd cut for the Victorian corset I made in 2021 and I wondered where the remainder of the fabric was. There wasn't enough for a full corset or stay, but there would be PLENTY for a short stay! So I moved some boxes, which got the corner where I wanted to put one of the sewing machines open, moved that, found the fabric, reorganized the boxes, went and cut the short stay. I took a bit off my L pieces to approximate an M and cut XL gussets. Then I went and TOOK MY TIME (gasp who am i!) to SERGE THE RAW EDGES (GASP) and stitched away.

It is... OK size wise. I can lace it pretty snugly and still have a gap. I only have that one perfectly sized spiral steel and no short-enough straights, nor any sturdy enough plastic bones. I found one singular cable tie that is considered heavy duty without being the REALLY heavy duty type, but only enough for a couple of the seam channels. I did put the heavy heavy duty one in the front as the busk type, but I had bent over to get a dress out of the bin and that little bit immediately got pinched as my tummy moved. That was not a mood and makes me think a long stay will be more ideal in terms of getting the *perfect* silhouette. I need to add the boning before I can bind it, and it was rather late in the evening by then, so I put it down for the time being.

Also had pulled out aforementioned Victorian corset and changed many of the not-heavy-duty cable ties for straight steels and tried it on. I was sitting down, which helped to immediately adjust the bottom edge. The pattern was Truly Victorian and has a straight bottom, which would work OK if it was much shorter than it is but on me it is much too long. I pinned the adjusted edge in place and stuffed the bust improver in the front, which filled out the bust area and made me giggle. I love ridiculous underwear. Will need to use shorter steels in those channels now too, but that is a project for future me.

Yesterday I got up SO LATE after waking up far too early, and decided to bake! I made orange cranberry bread (but I took it out too soon, so the structural integrity is lacking) and bread. The orange loaf is delicious, the bread did not turn out well and I'm not sure if it's because I had too little batter in too large a pan, or if my yeast didn't activate. It is very old by now, so I will get new yeast and try again. The resulting loaf was short and dense, but tasty and edible. That all took 2 hours, so by the time I was done, I was DONE. I pulled out some really thick cotton canvas to make a mock up of the long stay, but decided (with Calcifer's help) that I should wait until I could print off the M pattern.

I am trying to think of my winter slow-down in an intentional way, so I decided that I was very productive already (two baking projects AND a pan of dishes AND scooped the cat box) and I would now rest. I put on a show and knitted until dinner time. After dinner I took a shower and laid around in bed, where I was awake until 3am and then slept through my 6am alarm and was late for work, whoops.

Tonight I hope to cut another mockup. I'm curious to see how the M body will work with the gussets (which I will cut open but not place yet). Get my show on again and knit some more. Cross stitch. A nice cozy end of December evening <3

I've mentioned before that I'm still low-key into Shadow and Bone fandom. Really it's more Six of Crows at this point, I still haven't ready the trilogy. Mostly I follow a single ship tag on tumblr/Ao3, and randomly found an 18+ discord server to join (where I am the oldest person by several years, and possibly one of the only Canadians). One of the fic authors I've been following joined as well, where she's been talking about the things she's been writing for this ship. I enjoy it a lot bc she's chosen 1890s as the "target" range for historical-fantasy clothing for the main male character, who canonically wears wool suits like an upstanding gentleman (he is anything but).

We struck a deal the other day, where I was challenged to make a full three-piece suit in exchange for a smut fic. She thinks this deal is very unbalanced, I think it's a decent trade-off lol. I offered to do it on one of the really old machines, but the only one that works reliably is James (I think - Louisa doesn't have an original bobbin case and I'm still too scared to try Eleanor's dodgy electricals), and she said I "didn't need to go full Bernadette Banner" lol.

So I am currently in the process of making up a suit. I've been wanting to try my hand at tailoring and menswear for awhile now, and I will get smut out of it. I did warn her that I am also trying to do the Whole 30 challenge, and so I won't have a strictly black suit, but I do have suit-appropriate fabrics in my stash. The only hard element I need to include is a detachable collar. I am tailoring this for myself.

So first things first, underwear. Also in keeping with the Whole 30, I made a mock-up out of the last bits of canvas fabric from IKEA (not enough left to make another corset/stay with, now), and then cut out the "real" deal from the peach coutil I bought at Costume College in 2017 (USE THE GOOD FABRIC). Right now it is largely assembled, aside from the CF panel with spoon-busk installed. I hammered 28 grommets yesterday, and now need to decide how to handle the boning channels. I made it up with the seams pressed to the outside, so do I cover them over and insert double bones along them? Flat-fell them and put channels where they seem most appropriate? Might need to peruse some museum examples today.

Next up will be undies. I want a new pair of combos, I think. Also thinking about a corset cover bc A: my corset is peach. B: it should help blur the lines of my figure (if I was living in the era and trying to get people to take me seriously, it would help if they didn't automatically dismiss me bc boobs)

Then it will be fun tailoring times! I found some late-90s drafting and tailoring manuals on archive.org. I've considered getting Laughing Moon's pants pattern (what happened to their ladies' fit?!) but drafting my own will help accommodate my booty from the start. I do have their frock coat and vest pattern, though it is not the same type of frock coat from the show. Thanks, set photo for showing that, bc the show is so DARK and it's BLACK so the lines are hard to see. Not to mention, boobs and booty. I did find some references to a ladies jacket of a similar type, so I will be looking into that as well.

I have a large-ish amount of black pin-stripe lightweight wool that will be the main fabric of the suit. I thought to do a plain coat, of which I have likely just enough of my riding habit fabric to make, but perhaps I will stick to the pinstripe? For one thing, the colours are just different enough to be very noticeable. I also have some of the grey blend left from the riding habit that could be made into a weskit, and that will probably be made up first for some practice.

Honestly I'm really excited for this project. I've been considering tailoring and menswear for myself for awhile now, and this was just the perfect excuse at the right time to do it. I'm going to need to conquer welted pockets after my last disastrous attempt 10 years ago. Yessssss.