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Evening goal of killing the pile of dishes was accomplished. Leftover roast was had for dinner, which I shared with the baby, who lost her tiny mind. She is a meat and potatoes girl, confirmed. Apparently we've unintentionally been doing what's called "baby-led weaning", where instead of giving her the mushy baby food, we just give her tiny pieces of whatever we're eating. We have some jars of baby food in the pantry, but she hasn't been very enthusiastic about them. Beef roasts and mashed potatoes, it is.

Was plagued with weird anxiety dreams all night long. Baby then woke me up at 5:30. -_- I'm very glad that M is making dinner tonight, because I'm going to be useless by the time I get home.

Got to poking around yesterday, and found the perfect solution for the tunic bodice, Black Snail's 0119 sleeveless spencer. It's exactly what I envisioned for the tunic, and it actually comes in my size! Hooray! I bought it pretty much immediately. I've heard good things about Black Snail, but I've never used any of their patterns, so we'll see how well it fits. Will mock up the pattern when I have a free evening. If this works, it will save me a lot of work altering the LM pattern. 

If the pattern works, and if I have suitable fabric in the storage unit, I might actually be able to make this entire tunic in a weekend. Outrageous. 

Should I try and pull off a quick set of long stays? I already have the pattern, and I'll need them eventually....

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Read over the instructions for LM's regency long stays. Got overwhelmed. Looked for easier alternative. Didn't want to buy new pattern. Didn't want to draft something. Ate lunch, felt better. Went back to LM. Reread instructions. Ignored insane cording layout. Pattern is actually only a half-dozen pieces. Much less intimidating. 

So, maybe stays soon? Ugh. Maybe.

My brain has definitely switched over to Regency Mode, and I need it to not do that because I need to keep making steady progress on the ruffle monster. I'm going to try and get back into the habit of working on it every night. Tonight I will attempt to sew together the strips for the black base part of the next tier. It is one French seam, so completely doable. Tomorrow, I'll sew together and hem the next ruffle. Three French seams and two hems. I should be able to pull that off. This weekend, the goal is to sew one ruffle onto the next tier. I think these are completely achievable goals.

Next big goal is to get Tier 2 finished and attached by the end of the month. I know I said I wanted to finish the entire dress by then, but that's just unrealistic. I realized that I finished the first tier in three weeks only because I had two very long weekends of nearly uninterrupted sewing time, and I don't get a long weekend again until September, and it's my birthday weekend. So, new and more achievable goal is Tier 2 by end of July, finish entire dress by end of August.

The Regency event is on September 12th, so I'll set Dickens sewing aside at the beginning of Sept. and focus on getting the regency stuff done for that. Then it's back to Dickens, probably up until the minute I leave for the festival. Because that's how I roll.