When "Costume Attention Deficit Disorder" Strikes...

I just did a fitting of the cycling costume with my updated bodice and I love it like CRAZY!  Please ignore my previous statement about not caring if it gets done or not.  It's definitely getting done now!  It's insanely silly looking, but it's by far my favorite thing that I've made this year.  

FINALLY!  Something to be excited about!  :D

OUr school district is HUGE on "character education", so they just sent out this character strengths quiz that we are all going to take in our classes, and the teachers were supposed to take it first and share it with our students. I thought it was amusing, so I decided to share the link with you guys too: https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/account/register

They rank you on 24 character traits, and I thought my top and bottom ones were quite appropriate for me.

( If you care to see them... )

Thanks for all the nice comments on my picture that I posted last night... and for not judging me for being a selfie-addict. I was a bit worried that it would come across as vain, but it made me feel a lot better than you guys "got it" and didn't think it was weird.

I feel a TON better today. More calm and centered, I guess. I even got brave enough to call the real estate lady that a friend recommended to me. I was so scared that my heart was pounding and I was shaking when I called her (I reeeeeaaallly hate cold-calling people), but I pushed on through and we had a good conversation. I have some homework to get me started, and then she is going to come over and see my house in a week or two to tell me what I need to fix and what is okay as-is. I'm nervous as hell, but it feels good to finally get the ball rolling.

We have lots of rain and a cold front moving in today, and that feels wonderful too. I'm so ready for summer to be over. All of these days in the 90's have made it feel like we were stuck in summer purgatory forever.

I feel like today is the start of something different, and that is a good thing.

It's been a really rough week. Lots of crying and postponed grief hitting me in waves again. Counseling seems to be doing E good, but it stirs up lots of emotions for me, and I'm not handling it well. I've been going into "shut down" mode a lot this past month where I just can't get myself to do anything other than survive. :P Oh well. This too will pass.

I took a few days off from the phone transfer business, but I finally downloaded that program that archives your phone, and I saved all the voicemails to itunes and our text message exchanges to pdf files, plus I found some random photos and notes and voice memos that I didn't see at first but were good to save. I'm going to try again to get the phones officially transferred tonight. I feel like this whole thing has been beating me up emotionally for the past 2 weeks, so I'm ready for it to just be over so I can move on.

On a slightly less mopey note, I also did one more adulty task this week - I got our tv/internet/phone service switched over to my name, and I canceled all of our movie channels that E and I never watch. That will save me $50 a month. Woohoo! And I think I'll save $25 a month from canceling Mike's phone, and I got a $30 a month raise this year, so that's an extra $100 or so in my pocket each month, which should help. August and September were brutal with all of the back to school expenses, and we ate out too much and I spent too much on school clothes for me and E, so I'm very grateful for every bit of extra money that I can get. Maybe I can stash some of that away every month and start saving for some more costuming trips. :)

E was sick at school yesterday with a fever, so I took him to a clinic after work. He has strep. Poor kid. Unfortunately, the timing was horrible since we already had 35 teachers who were going to be out on Friday, and 8 positions were still unfilled because there aren't enough subs, so there was no way on earth I could take the day off to stay home with him. The best I could do is bring him to work with me and try to keep him in my office all day, which would be pretty sucky. But luckily, my mom came to the rescue and drove up from Tyler late last night to watch him today. Thank goodness she could bail me out with this one. *sigh* Have I mentioned yet how much I hate being a single mother?

To make matters worse, E's been getting nosebleeds all week, and this morning right as I was leaving, he got an EPIC nose bleed that took forever to stop. It was like you had turned on a water faucet, but with blood. It was pretty scary. We had mentioned the nosebleeds to the doc and she said that they were probably triggered by allergies, but jeez. I wish there was something more that they could do for him.

She also mentioned that he has a pretty strong heart murmur, which is common and benign in children his age, but we need to keep an eye on it. Great. So after losing my dad and my husband to heart attacks in the last year, I now get this little gem of panic-inducing news.

:(

My project today was to put all of my vintage patterns in new boxes in chronological order. I am SOOOOOOOO not an organized person, but doing this gave me an obscene amount of satisfaction. There's just something magical about seeing the fashions evolve beneath my fingers as I flip through them. I really need to get some late 10's and 20's patterns too though just to round things out. That period seems to be so hard to find. I wonder why? Just not "special" enough?

Quilt Country in Lewisville is getting rid of their pre-1930's reproduction fabrics, and they are all on sale for $4 a yard. Most of them are already gone, but I thought I'd post pics of the few that had dress-lengths remaining to see if any of you local folks were interested.


I almost bought this one - it would be lovely for 18th c! But it has a beige/light tan background instead of white (it looks a little lighter on my monitor than it did IRL), and I decided that it was just too close to the color of my skin. There was just a smidge over 4 yards - maybe 4 1/4? I think that would be plenty for a caraco or petticoat or maybe even a round gown if you were careful.


This one is still tempting me, but I ran out of $$$ today. I think it would be great for any Victorian style, and there was tons of it.


This one looks a little more modern to me, but it is apparently a repro too. I think it would make a cute summery late-bustle dress. Tons of this fabric too. It's more purple than pink in real life - my camera didn't like photographing this one.

There were maybe 5 or 6 other victorian prints with just 2-4 yards left. And quite a few nice feedsack and 50's floral prints with plenty left. Here's the stuff that I got:


There's just 3 yards of each of these. The blue will be used for either an apron or an 1890's blouse. The middle will be a regency dress (if I really can squeeze one out of just 3 yards!), and the houndstooth will probably be a 1960's dress.


The crazy paisley with green roses is screaming funky 50's sundress to me, and the sheer white with leaves is actually vintage. I got that one from an antique shop, and it's going to be a 40's or 50's blouse.

Now I just need to get to sewing! ;)

Hey local ladies! I just posted a big suffragette picnic post on the Yahoo group, but feel free to chat here if it is easier. I was hoping to find out 1. if you are coming, 2. if you are bringing chairs/decorations/games/etc. and 3. if you are bringing food to share.

I am SOOOOOOOOOOO freakin' excited about this event! It's all I can think about right now. The suffrage movement is eating my brains.

So the suffragette event is back on! We have moved the venue to Chestnut Square, and we'll set up a little suffragette booth at their farmers market, and then have a private picnic at noon when the market ends. I am SO excited to be back on track with this again, and I hope everybody is still able to come. (but I'm REALLY sorry that it is farther away for you, Christy!)

I had the idea of bringing paint and extra ribbon so that people could paint their own "votes for women" ribbons to wear. It would be a fun way to occupy our time, and I think even some of the random market folks might want to get in on the fun. I figured that I would just buy some cheap floral ribbon and make a stencil that people could use for painting.

But anyway, when I was looking for examples of banners, I stumbled across a FABULOUS suffragette site that I hadn't seen before.
It has an overview of the suffrage movement in America and an image gallery of various suffragette stuff that was really helpful. Jay was wondering what colors were used for the banners back then, and the answer seems to be mainly yellow or gold, but purple and white were used extensively as well, and purple/white/green was also used occasionally (those were from the British movement). I also think I'm going to paint a copy of one of those posters and it would be cool to have a banner with a slogan on it too. And I was going to print up some fliers with one of the propaganda illustrations from this site and a quote from one of the speeches. Can you tell that I'm excited about this? ;)

Okay, but then after the market is over, we can relax and have fun doing other various Edwardian activities. I thought about bringing cards or dominoes so we could play some games. If anybody else has any ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Are any of you local folks thinking about coming to the suffragette event on May 29th? I have 5 people who are coming right now, but I'd love to get some more. Even if you can't commit for the whole time, you can come and go if necessary. Bring your menfolk and kids too - all are welcome! I have costumes that I can lend out if you don't have one - even a maternity outift, jaelie! How about you, ashnimehal? It's free and you already have that gorgeous black and white dress that would be perfect for this. Or how about you, princess_lesa? I seem to remember you having a beautiful Edwardian outfit too. And we all know that the suffragette movement was really all about the HATS, so I'm looking at you, bookwench! How about you, nuranar? I know it's not your period, but I know we could scratch up something for you to wear. I'll go through my whole f-list and try to convince each of you one-by-one if necessary! LOL!

I know several of you work on Saturdays and it's the last weekend of Scarby, which will tie others up, but if you are free and at all interested in coming, I would SO LOVE to have you join us!!!