Sunday, October 7, 2012

It *Has* Gotten Dusty in Here...

Good lord, nearly a year since my last post.  And what on earth have I been up to in that time?

Well, not a whole lot, to be honest.  I don't think I've sewn a thing since I set down that bodice from last November (it had some strap issues and I just sort of put it down in frustration and then never took it back up).  I didn't even make the Steampunk costume I'd finally had an excuse for over the summer.  I put my loom with its barely-started brocade in a place where I see it every day, but it doesn't motivate me to start working on it again...

This sort of blah feeling about my projects transferred to my SCA attendance.  I didn't leave the SCA for any particular reason, it just sort of happened.  Drew and I went to about three events  total over the last year, mostly due to costs of the big events like Uprising and some Real Life that seemed to keep getting in the way.  I think I might have also gotten a bit depressed.  I've also found an alternate hobby to keep me engaged that has nothing whatsoever to do with history or sewing (weird, huh?) and that's been a bit of a time/money suck as well.

In the meantime, though, I've moved, to a much nicer, though smaller apartment, which made me do a serious clean-out of a great many fabric and crafting bits that were just taking up space and re-assess just what I want to keep and focus on.  At the moment, it's all of my "good" fabrics (linens, silks, wools, etc) and several things that I'm halfway finished with anyway (a tudor dress that's begging for completion, a mock-up for a St. Birgitta cap, and quite a few other things).  That got rid of a *lot* of stuff.

I still sort of follow the local SCA goings-on on Facebook and I see all the great things that my friends are doing and accomplishing, and I start to want to be a part of it again, going to events where I can hang out with such amazingly talented people and engage in the mutual showing-off.  Slowly I've started coming back to our local fighter practice and found the group, as always, to be very warm and welcoming of a wayward soul like me, so I've been trying to come more often and get back in the swing of things.  I want to really try to go to Uprising next year, and possibly (POSSIBLY) try to save up for the 2016 50-year anniversary event, which means I have about 3 years to get my act together.  :D

I want to make things again, but for some reason I'm still finding it difficult to get back into the swing of things.  I want to finish my Margot de Valois dress, because damn it the sleeves look *great* and it's just like me to just quit halfway through.  I want to submit a full complement of awesome things to Kingdom A&S, things that I've done the legwork and research for, that now I just need to *do*.  I'm still finding it hard.  I've misplaced my motivation, it seems, and I'm trying to find where exactly I put it.

I hope to start writing again, and to actually have projects that I can report on.  I want to talk about how I actually finished my handsewn 15th century kirtle, though I've since torn out a few seams in the sleeves that need some work (they are a bit overly tight at the moment so I'm trying to figure out what to do about them).  I want to find my camera (!) and finish documenting that properly.

I also found Pinterest!  Feel free to look me up here.  It's pretty sparse at the moment, but I hope to have more there as time goes on.

So that's where I am now!  Not incredibly interesting, I suppose, but hopefully there's some hope for the future.