I know I pretty much dropped off the map for a while. I have basically had bronchitis since October, and it took 3 courses of antibiotics to clear. The most recent one was one of the ones they give you if you've been exposed to airborne anthrax. By this point, there shouldn't be any bacteria able to survive in the same ROOM with me!
As a result, I've been totally lacking in sewing momentum. I cut out a couple of things over the holidays - a Folkwear Bolivian Milkmaid's jacket in black wool as well as some kirtle bodices out of The Tudor Tailor I got for giftmas. All the bits have been marinating nicely in a basket on my sewing table for months now.
But I started back up today. I was given a bowed psaltery, and I decided to cover the plain black cordura case in tapestry scraps so as to blend better at faires. I hand-stitched the bits onto the existing case, and added a couple of simple outer pockets for my whistles and bodhran tipper. My fingers are quite sore but I'm pleased with the results.
I'm also working with a friend who is going to be trying out for Stan Lee's 'reality' show "Who Wants To Be A Superhero?". He is filming his process, interviewing fans, costumers, propbuilders, writers, etc on what makes a good superhero. We shot some good footage, and I'll be working on his coat - it's a white hooded robe lined in black with red piping accents. We're doing it on the cheep so I'm using some black woolblend I was gifted with when a friend cleaned out her stash, and the white will be whatever I find on sale.
I've also been reading, and today finished an interesting book called _A Perfect Fit_ but Jenna Weissman Joselit. It's mostly about the early-to-mid 20th Century and how clothing was seen as a way to "fit in" - when "proper" clothing was "moral". But the thing I found most interesting was how little some things have changed. There was a quote from 1896 about some commercial paper patterns with instructions so complicated that "none but students of higher mathematics could possibly master them". Also mentioned was a 1918 critic of ready-made clothing who said that it "ignored the varied proportions of the human body in favor of a mannequin's doll-like dimensions and threatened to lower the nation's self-respect in the process", and several articles from 1926 about how askew retail clothing sizes were. *Giggle*