Flannel Dress #1 finished

Oh my GAWD, this dress is finally finished. When I had the supposedly smart idea to get some nice quality flannel to make a couple of dresses out of for Cedar Creek which is always a very cold reenactment, somebody should have grabbed me by the ears and told me to try to anticipate how difficult it was going to be to make a period dress in a thick fabric. Now, mind you, I have another one that has a bodice and one sleeve finished already and the 2nd sleeve is ready to go on. The issue is the skirt and putting it all together. The skirt on this dress is 5 yards of fabric, so double and triple pleats had to be taken to pull it all together. Yikes. Talk about thick! Now, it's going to be warm, that's for sure. And yes, I know now that they didn't have cotton flannel in the 1860's, they would have made the dress from wool or wool and cotton, but I couldn't find any that would be suitable so here I am. I'm already dreading finishing the other flannel dress, but I'm going to so that I have 2 warm dresses to wear. The rest of the stash of flannel is going to become pj's and nightgowns. I'm looking forward to going back to thinner and workable cottons again. :)

I've been hermiting again

But for a good reason. I've had a run of days on broken only by days that I've had things planned, appointments, classes, events, and such. This past weekend I took a class at the Genteel Arts Academy on Victorian period sleeves. That's right, Saturday and Sunday for 9 hours each, our class examined CDV's and photographs of period dresses with the emphasis on making the sleeves imaginative (within period correct bounds) and beautiful. We studied, worked on our own creations, listened, bonded with one another, and were helped in all of our questions by the very gifted teacher, Carolann Schmitt. We were supposed to bring a bodice that had already been made in order to make sleeves for the dress. I made the sleeves for this dress as well as sleeves and a bodice for another over the weekend.

I really learned a lot and enjoyed the class. Now I can make my dresses different than everyone elses' that uses the same types of patterns. This dress was partially a class project on the sleeves, and I'm working on a blue dress also with different than the pattern sleeves. There are always a few projects awaiting my attention in the sewing room, there are actually 3 dresses and a wrapper started right now that I hope to complete in the upcoming weeks.

I took a walk in OKC

I'm here on a layover in Oklahoma City today. I haven't been here since they took the Federal building down, I had layovers out by the airport that year. We're downtown now, and I walked down to the Oklahoma City National Memorial. So soon on the heels of the 5th anniversary of 9/11, it was a very somber visit. The buildings around where the Federal building once stood still show the damage from the blast, and there are actually still a couple of areas where they've preserved some walls from the original building.
The memorial is very beautiful, there is a museum and beautiful grounds that are very peaceful. Especially somber is the field with chairs, each marked with the name of a person that was lost that day. Some of the chairs are small, to represent the children that were in the day care that day and were killed. I overheard another visitor say to one of her group "isn't it horrible that terrorists think it's a good thing to kill innocent people that are just going to work". It so struck me that she was so very right, but also right about the flight crews on 9/11, the passengers, the workers in the buildings, the responders (police, firemen) and basically everyone that perished. What a different ideology the "bad guys" must have to go after people that were completely innocent. The people that were killed in each of these acts were not the ones that determined policy, that sent arms to the "other" side, or that did whatever it was that enraged the terrorists. These people were innocent bystanders, simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sigh.

Mailing address for Jonathan

Here's his address in Basic training for those of you that want to send a hello:
PFC (you know the last name, I don't want to make it public), Jonathan
3rd Plt, Shadow dwellers
F Company, 1st BN, 13th Infantry
Ft. Jackson, SC 29207

Of course, it never ceases to amaze me at the childish behavior that I have had to endure with "the other house". It's no surprise that the address sheet sent by my son was was dated 8/31/06. It was only mailed to me (snail mail in the age of phones and email) by my ex on 9/11...mailed rather than my getting a phone call or an email immediately with my son's address. Hmmm, what is that, about 11 or 12 days? I have to believe in Karma, because that kind of selfish behavior deserves a cosmic return.