TBT: Sewing with Pets

I have pets. Specifically dogs. More specifically, my bag of bones (a.k.a. Skinny, Skeletor, Pretty Girl, Crazy Whippet) that I typically refer to on the web as Daisy the Dog.

Last post she made it into my write up because she found her way into the office/sewing space. Normally I don't let her in to help minimize pet hair in the projects, but every so often she sneaks in.

While digging through my multitude of cell phone pictures recently, I found this fun gem.

Yes, that's a dog tail peeking from under the skirt.

When I lived in my apartment, I didn't have much room for a sewing area, much less a lot of room period. I was working on my calico bluebud dress and needed to put it on so I could make some self-adjustments. Daisy refused to move from the room (the largest since I had to accommodate an 1850s crinoline). No amount of coaxing could get her to move, so I adapted instead and stepped over her, crinoline and all.

Surprisingly, she did not move. I stood there for probably 10 minutes taking measurements and marking things, and still she did nothing. The incident would probably have been unmemorable, except I had her tail sticking out from under the dress and crinoline the entire time.

Hope you at least get a good laugh from this one! Happy sewing with your pets!

Sewing Space Improvements

So while I have been diligently working on a couple sewing projects and my cross stitch, I went on a week long hiatus of not really doing a whole lot. My sewing space sits in the same room as the office, and because it doesn't get a whole lot of use (outside of my sewing), it also has the propensity for being a huge dumping ground of things that myself and the beau (Kerry) would really not deal with at the immediate moment.

In the spirit of spring cleaning though, we go into the room to clean, purge, and just go through things. Part of the the mess includes a lot of stuff that I never got around to going through when I moved over a year and a half ago. While going through everything, I found this gem of a photo from when I was probably in the 10th or 11th grade (2004-2005). So here's a Throwback Thursday on Friday.

It's from a Girl Scout workshop that had something to do with local heritage or history (I don't remember, there's too much dust on that portion of the brain). But as you can see, I had a very early introduction to corsets. I have a vague recollection of being laced into it and going, "Cool! So this is what these things feel like!"

TBT: My First Victorian Dress

I have been wanting to do a Throwback Thursday for a while, but my days off and free time don't always line up exactly with Thursday. So we'll go for posting this one on Friday since I have a quick moment before getting started on today's to-do list.

This flashback goes way back to the beginning when everything first started. So here it is, the very first Victorian dress that I made:

Kent Heritage Day Festival - July 2010

While we all have to start somewhere, I look at this and simultaneously shudder in horror but also snort in laughter. This was supposed to be a mid-1890s day dress. I had only done some minor research on how dresses of this period looked, knew nothing about cotton vs. poly blend vs. poly fabrics, had no proper undergarments, and had not touched a sewing machine for about five years before starting this dress. At least I made a wise selection where my patterns were concerned!