I made a wearable muslin of the Seamwork Jo recently, and as soon as my eight-year-old son saw the almost-finished product, he asked for one.
I often hesitate to say yes to these requests. It’s intimidating to take an adult-sized pattern and try to make it fit a kid. Secondly, with seven kids there is a good chance several others are going to want one, too, in the name of justice. And I just can’t, most of the time, fit and make even three or four items to so many tastes and sizes.
Sometimes, one person makes a request and I do it before I can think better of it.
Back in February, our family left for Tobago.
I brought my DSLR camera with me. The autofocus had become a little unreliable, but not bad enough for me to do anything about it.
The first day of our vacation, it stopped working completely. I was able to take a couple of photos, and then it refused to do anything further.
I was listening to the Freakonomics podcast recently and was introduced to the idea of a happiness bell curve.
According to the research, we hit the peak of our unhappiness (or the trough of our happiness) in our late 40’s. Which means if I’m not already in it, I’m cruising towards the pit of despair.
Each day, it seems like we are rewriting another segment of history by adding the silenced chapters – particularly from BIPOC and women. We’re experiencing an opportunity to flesh history out so that the stars aren’t just white guys. The beauty of it is, the stars were never just white guys.
Take Elizebeth Friedman, born in 1892. She became one of the pioneer code breakers at a time when the CIA and the FBI were just coming in to being.
Next up with my historical costuming adventure, a European bedgown, or Manteau de Lit. They are fantastically versatile, and much easier to make than the more fitted jackets from the 18th century, which required suiting up in all my underpinnings for fittings.
