Laptop Is Working. Weather is Warm. Life is accelerating.

This morning I was having a very strange dream about my sister not having made a back-up copy of her eldest daughter, when I was suddenly awoken by a tickle on my arm. I thought it was one of the cats bugging me, so I brushed at the tickly spot and realized it had now transfered to my hand. Opening my eyes I yelped when I saw a spider almost the size of my thumbnail climbing up my wrist. I brushed it off and reached for a tissue with which to squish it, but the damn thing scrambled under my pillow. When I lifted said pillow, the mysterious spider had vanished. Grrr.

Needless to say my arachnophobia kept me from falling back to sleep.

So now I'm awake and updating my blog! After having made Mr. C a capuccino and feeding the cats of course.

Lots-ish has been going on. I've been accepted into school, which means I have about a month and a half to work out how I'm going to move, where exaclty I'm going to move (obviously I know which town, but not which house on which street in said town), and how I'm going to get the money to go. I need to get my student loan papers printed and signed and sent off express post ASAP. I need to get in top gear for research to see if I qualify for the provincial SDEB funding program. I need to so many things I think I might have an aneurysm. But I'm pretty determined to leap these hurdles. I'm waiting on the school to process my deposit so I can start choosing classes. I feel like I might not be able to get everything I need if it takes any longer for class selection. I'm worried all the courses I want to take are going to be full. But all the worry and stress of it aside I'm pretty pleased that I got in, and like I said, I will make this work.

I will admit - there's been some bitter sweet to this whole thing. Hearing from my mom that she isn't in support of me going to take this course was a real let down, although I honestly expected as much. As much as she is great at encouraging words for the most part, she's not always the most active in supporting me in the things I try. And the six week time frame I`ve been left with to figure things out as a result of the postal strike delaying me getting any correspondance at all until they were mandated back to work is making my ulcer throb with agony. And there`s been a kind of general lack of physical help from anyone to make this easier on me, but hey. I`m used to flying solo when I come up with a plan. And this time I`m determined to stick with it, funding allowing of course.

On the flip side, knowing I`m going to be leaving kind of has changed my attitude in the last few days. I feel a little like I have limited time to see all the people I hardly go out and see, and it's made me very aware that my anti-social tendencies kind of get in the way of my good friendships. Not to mention how I seriously have a tendancey to take friendships for granted, making me think I need to try a little harder at being a good friend. Although I'm not the kind of person to think just because we haven't talked in 5 years we aren't friends anymore. Actually, for me it's much the opposite. If you were once my friend, you will always be my friend, even if we haven't talked in five years, you can call me any time and we can pick up right where we left off. So going for lunch with a couple of the old highschool crew was a lot of fun for me yesterday. Felt like nothing had really changed, though so much really has, and in some ways it made me feel old. Old, because of all my friends who have families and babies running around, and all the stuff people have done since those days of youthful insanity. We were a motly crew back in the day, which is really what made us awesome, and its very good to know that at least that hasn't changed a bit.

In one week one of the bars downtown is having a 50's pin-up themed burlesque night. A few friends and I decided to make some pretty dresses for it. Using the night as an excuse, really. At least for the two of us not involved in the show at all. I decided to make some evening wear out of a retro 1952 wrap dress pattern, and so did Miss. S, although she decided to go with a more traditional daytime look of cotton gingham as opposed to my mixed pattern paisley and plaid teal and green satin. Then we decided, before actually making the dress and seeing how it fit, to make some crinolines to wear under them. Unfortunately, after having made the crinoline first, I realised it will not work with my dress. It makes me look lumpy and weird. I think I'm going to just not wear the crinoline, rather than try and alter the dress to work with the crinoline I made, or to take the crinoline apart. Now I have a grass green crinoline with a black waist band and no skirts or dresses that it looks good with. I might have to take the extra teal satin fabric and make a circle skirt to wear over it on another occasion.

I forgot to take pictures of my work in progress. The dress is nearing completion, I just have to hem and bind it and then alter it where I want the neckline a bit different, and I may have to adjust how the arms sit, because the straps might be a little wide. I'm torn between going for a v-neck look and sinching the straps in with a bit of the bias tape, or going for a scoop neck or even a low boat neck similar to the paterns original neckline. Miss. S is going to do hers with a low princess neckline, and we're going to attempt to add some cap sleeves, which I fully approve of. I also love how we worked out getting the crinoline to work with her dress! Because she did the dress with the front panel in gingham and the outer shell in black, she can actually wear the crinoline on top of the front panel (my pattern is just too loud to do the same. And my crinoline doesn't match the main colour in the pattern, where her crinoline matches the red in the gingham), so the skirt wraps around it showing some of the gingham and crinoline in a super cute and I think ridiculously fashionable way. She's already picked out the shoes and vintange gloves to go with hers. Super cute and I'm almost more excited for her version of the dress than mine at this point. Almost. I friggin' love my satin monster. <3

My other friend, who shares a name with Miss S, so instead we will call her.... Miss SF for her first and last initial... is going to be a part in the production. She wanted a teal blue "Alice" kind of dress. So I used my so-called "amazing talent" to speed-draft up a fitted 4 panel corset bust with a gathered skirt daytime dress with cute little cap sleeves. We slapped together the bust piece before they left on Saturday when we last worked on them, and they are coming over again today to work on the dresses some more. Hopefully we will be able to get them all finished, especially seeing as I'm likely to go ahead and finish mine after I'm done posting this while I watch some Mad Men. Anyway, we have some fitting left to do for Miss. SF's dress, and we did the fitting on Miss S's the day before yesterday when she popped by for about two hours to work on it. I do have concerns about the gathered skirt on the dress I helped Miss. SF with. She also made a crinoline and now I'm thinking it would have been smarter to have done her skirt as a circle skirt as well, to get the right drape. But we already cut the fabric! If the skirt decides it wants to turn itself into a bell skirt I may just cheat and add some triangular inserts to give the bottom of the skirt some more flare. I'm very excited to see how this dress turns out too, with its cute little eyelet lace details and my first attempt at a detachable front panel apron.

And finally, Miss F, who is also in the show. Unfortunately we didn't get around to her dress much yet, although she started by hand sewing a black crinoline for under hers. She wants a red-silk Canadian Mountie dress. I have some ideas how this should look, despite the fact we didn't even really look at her inspiration and ideas yet together. I'm thinking it shouldn't be too dificult to draft up something that will look spectacular, rather than trying to find a pattern to finagle into working. I kind of have it in my head that it should look like an elongated version of just the mountie jacket, with buttons all down the front and the bottom part of the dress as a circle skirt, with the buttons left open at the top and bottom to expose some of the crinoline and some cleavage. I would totally wear that, and might seriously consider making a version for me if the pattern is workable. Maybe in a different colour than red silk. Would be lovely in some blue and white pin stripe cotton blend... oooh or maybe something to match the grass green crinoline I made...

As you can probably tell, having people to sew with is making me even more excited about sewing again. I love to do it, I love working with beautiful patterns and fabrics and designing beautiful silhouettes. I think I'm going to go make me some coffee or maybe some tea, and get to work on my research NOW so I have more time to sew this afternoon!