(no subject)

Ordered three yards of bubblegum pink linen to line the upcoming waistcoat project. Part of me wants to have the waistcoat finished by next weekend so I can hit Scarborough Faire in a comfy outfit. Liz made a waistcoat last year using the same pattern (I'm actually borrowing her pattern for mine), and I think it'd be cute to go wearing the same pattern done in different ways. The other part of me knows that I absolutely cannot finish anything that quickly, especially as my stays still aren't done. I might be able to finish it before the end of Faire and wear it before the season is over. Might.

Saturday was a chore day. M was out most of the day, so I made myself a very mediocre carbonara for lunch. Not sure what went wrong, but it was definitely not my best.

Sunday I made a pot of chicken tikka masala, which turned out amazing, finished up the last of the dishes in the kitchen, and then finally had a bit of sewing time. Which I used to work on the opera dress. I did not go to the opera with the others. I just couldn't find the enthusiasm to go.

The opera dress now has all the floof swirls basted on, they just need to be wrangled so they aren't so wild. This was the last flat photo I took of the skirt, before everything was stitched down.

I'm not too concerned with all the swirls being the same, because they aren't all the same on the original, either. My swirls do seem to come up a bit higher than the original, but I can live with that.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to focus on Elizabethan stuff until this dress is finished and out of way. I want to get it done so it doesn't end up as another languishing UFO in the ever-growing pile of stuff under the sewing desk. At least now that I'm not crunching to get it done for an event, I can actually do things right instead of cutting corners to get it wearable in time for something. That means I can line it and put in a proper hem facing, and I'll actually have time to do some beading on the bodice. 

I'm going to try and keep chipping away at this over the next few weeks. I'd like to have it done by the end of April.

Eclipse!

I got to see the eclipse! I wore my starry dress for the occasion. People were gathered on every street corner and rooftop in view, and there was a real sense of communal excitement. The clouds were spotty enough that we could actually see the eclipse well. Totality was fantastic, we had a beautiful corona, and as the sun started to reappear it cast rainbows on the clouds around it. It was pretty magical. I'm so glad the clouds were cooperative today!