Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince is a YA novel our local library was promoting for an adult YA book club that meets monthly at the library.
While last year’s themes were Surrender and Acceptance, this year’s theme seems to be, Find Your People. I’m an adult, and I like YA lit. I picked up a copy of the book at the front desk, and snagged one of two spots left in the book club meeting for later in the month.
Then, I spent several hours I could (and maybe should) have spent sleeping before and after a night shift and binge read it. Indoors, outdoors, and way past my bedtime.
I’ve been adding a bunch of boxy pieces to my handmade wardrobe lately, all while not wanting to look pregnant and being a little ambivalent about the style. I saw the Luna Jacket bobbing around in the Instagram sewing community during Me Made May, but it took a while for me to decide to give it a try because of that familiar, boxy silhouette.
One of the things that won me over is that the shape reminds me of an 18th century European bedgown. It felt like a natural stop on my foray into historical costuming.
It’s been a while since I featured a children’s book, and this is one I haven’t even read to my kids yet. I was immediately drawn to the cover illustration of Music for Mister Moon, by Philip C. Stead, illustrated by Erin E. Stead (I’m a sucker for a husband and wife team).
When I first started pursuing costuming in earnest, I could barely find any events for costumers in my area, at least, not if you didn’t want to be a re-enactor.
I gradually started discovering events, like this one in Troy, NY, for steampunk folks.
But I always seemed to find out about the events days after they happened, and I knew I’d never be ready in time for the couple of other costume/masquerade-type of events I discovered locally ahead of time.
Then, I found not one but TWO Victorian strolls near our house scheduled within a week of each other in December.
The week after sewing camp, as I was slowly finishing up the Forager vest I started there, I saw a movie set in the early 1900’s in Hawaii.
For the first 20 minutes, it featured this little guy:
He’s so cute I want to squeeze him but I’m sure even if I wasn’t a stranger, he’s old enough that he wouldn’t let me.
Do you see his clothes? They are tattered, yes, but they also look like they are handmade. So beautiful. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. The many Japanese migrants in Hawaii during the movie’s setting wore these beautiful blue and white clothes. They tended to wear layers and multiple blue and white patterns at once, and it was stunning.
I determined to hack the Forager Vest into the vest above.
