I’ve not had a great time finishing projects this year. I keep switching to my short and/or easy projects but when I can’t finish them, I wind up in a worse headspace than before.

If I’m struggling to cover the legs of my frog purse, I say to myself, how can I possibly work on my pearlwork? How can I possibly put the lining into my gowns? How can I possibly figure out how to break down my larger projects into smaller when I have utterly failed so much in so many ways?

The secret was to put my jewels back together for my Anne of Cleves. This set has taken me so long to paint (24 hour drying between layers, then they needed baking carefully) and to even find and afford all the parts.

But they are done. 36 in total. I can make two more, and I think I will.

It took two days to wire them, in short bursts. I think what made it truly work is that I was able to wire the flowers first, and each one was a distinct unit through both passes of the wire.

So I’m also now able to look at the rest of the jewelry today (the big daisy pieces, and the rainbow collar.

But I also have been using a few days, with more days in between to be fair, to cut skirts for my Juelich dress and Cranach dress.

And I did use my understanding of the extant garments to pattern a really nice toille for the Cranach and today I made a toille for the sleeves that I really like. The actual painting is frustratingly two shades of oranage! But I’m making it in pink because it does look spiffy in pink.

The two dresses use nearly the same pattern. I used my half circle skirt in gores to cut the front of the Juelich dress, then overlaid the “front” and “back” (they are the same shape) so I could get another 8″ at the side of each waist which then created I think anouther 16-20′ at the hem.

What’s really handy is that you can then pin the bottom layer of pattern and use the upper to fold to match the shape of the pattern that flows over the edge of fabric. And then you can either pare the excess back or extend it based on how much fabric you have left over.

I did mess that up for my first pass, so I got a little extra to cut a new skirt front for the Juelich to be as full as the Cranach (but the direction of the pleats will give it a very different look.

And so I have enough from the original skirt panels to gut the massive sleeves of the Cranach.