aerinea_faerie

So, I've been bad at updating about sewing projects lately. I recently finished a few things, mostly due to Oktoberfest and Halloween.

( Pictures ahead! )

I'm listening to the YouTubes of the things in my dad's random 10 from his blog.  He got 9/10 YouTube linkups today, which means it was more of the mainstream-ish music he listens to.  I will say that live performances by real Punk bands are awesome, and he got both The Clash and The Undertones on this list.

I'm finally reading Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, so I'll be able to talk about that soon.

I've come to the conclusion that I can't go anywhere where there is both a dance group and participating dancing without the dance group trying to recruit me.  We went to Schroeder's again, this time with Evie being babysat elsewhere, and apparently there's now an attempt to recruit me into a Bavarian dance club starting.

I'm starting some new doll clothes projects, this time focusing on Eva.  She's the most difficult one to sew for because she has such an unusual body.

I have a Ren Faire this weekend, so anyone who wants to see me dance can try to make it Northward to Folsom and see it.

I'll probably just pull out some older outfits for Halloween Gaskells this year.  I don't really have the inspiration for anything particularly cool.

I think that's all for now.

What I need is one or two hours a day to myself. Just that little bit of time, preferably during daylight.

I need that time. Time to work on sewing projects like outfits for myself and my husband, or to make clothes for dolls. Or read. Just read a book. I miss books.

It is very difficult to do this when you're doing the stay-at-home-mom thing. Yes, when she was smaller she'd take naps during the day and I would get stuff done then. Now she's very demanding of my attention and doing things like reading, sewing, writing, or anything else gets pushed aside. She should be taking naps still, but doesn't.

We're trying to re-implement naps so I get my time, and I should start calling around about day cares so I can get some time back.

*sigh*

Just last weekend my husband and I went to a Michael's craft store to get a dowel so I could put a clothes rack into a Felicity's Clothes Press for hanging the rapidly growing collection of doll clothes I have up. While we were there we looked at the Halloween stuff they had up, and a little at the small, mostly unfinished crafts, Christmas section they had up. Chris said, "These things are nice, but isn't it a little early for Christmas stuff?"

I replied, "We're in a crafts store. It takes a lot longer to make something for a holiday than to just buy something. I want to get the fabric and trims for making our stockings no later than mid October." I feel strongly that craft stores and fabric stores can get away with selling seasonal items much earlier than other shops.

It's an interesting thing to realize. Fabric shops put out patterns for Halloween costumes in July and Christmas home decoration patterns in August or September, and that's okay. My mother once bought a tree skirt and Christmas ornament kit from one of these stores where everything had to be hand embroidered and beaded before finishing. Not having something like that available until after Thanksgiving could easily mean that it won't be ready until the following year's Christmas, even if you wait until the 4th Sunday of Advent to put up your tree.

On the other hand, I find the Spirit Stores opening up at the beginning of September to be both cool and sad, as well as most retailers pushing the Halloween stuff to put up Christmas decorations before the end of October to be disgraceful. What is the point? Michael's and JoAnn have the excuse that the things you buy (should) require effort on the part of the purchaser before use. (I also hope that if any doll companies plan on having Halloween dolls that they are put up for purchase soon so that they are more likely to arrive in time for the holiday.)

I don't like being oversaturated with holiday imagery well before the actual holiday, no matter how much I adore Halloween (I have some Halloween stuff I use all year, but that has more to do with Goth than anything else) or Christmas. I do hope that the recession helps retailers to push back their release dates for certain seasonal goods, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this year may be the worst as they try to squeeze every last drop out of consumers.

It is really, really easy to develop an America-centric worldview, even when you are involved in hobbies like mine. Granted, mucking around on websites where the language choices are Korean, Japanese, and Engrish helps, but I wasn't looking at dolls when I was reminded that America isn't the center of the universe. I was looking at patterns.

I was looking at modern dress patterns on the various big-name pattern websites, trying to find something that I might actually want to use. I wasn't going through the companies in any kind of order, and I had decided to look at Burda. In the back of my mind, I am sure that I was thinking, "I've had such bad luck looking at American companies, let's look at the big European one for a bit," but it wasn't quite registering.

So, I'm looking at dress patterns. Ordinary, modern dress patterns. Suddenly, I'm seeing something I didn't expect. Two patterns for making a Dirndl. I find myself thinking, did I get into costumes by mistake? I don't remember there being dirndls in the costumes here before. I only remember seeing them on Folkwear, not any of the major sites. Hell, the closes thing I've seen to one of these on the major sites has been in the Halloween section for making sexy shepherdess costumes.

That's when I remember that Burda is a German pattern company, and some women, mostly in the tourist industry, still wear the dirndl. I felt stupid and told myself that it made perfect sense that a German pattern company would have more than one pattern for a traditional German outfit, and might even think of it as a normal thing to wear, as opposed to a costume.

Interestingly, it looks kinda comfortable. I might have to get one to play with.