I’ve had two queries about my Anne of Cleves research in the last few days so I’ve been trying to update some of my pages that draw together visual information that individually are relatively low quality but brought together suggests they are at the very least attempts to depict dress specific to the region.

If you have visited my research site in the last few days you’ll find some pages are changing a bit. I’m trying to cite inline and post, and that includes any edits made after initial publication.

My PC is currently inoperable. There seems to be a corrupt update but otherwise the drive is good. So I’ll attempt to reassemble it.

Meanwhile I am making use of my new flipbook, I can access files in my back up drives via an enclosure so yes, I am able to access files. It’s just a little different to what I am used to.

I’ve also taken up tidying as a bit of distraction therapy.

I’m also finding myself retreating from kindness and support. It’s a difficult time for many of us who are reduced to a number and are aware of it. So I’m going to take a breath, take a pause, and find a way to express gratitude.

I’ve been slowly working on my two Poysdorf shirts, I did cut down a regular shirt for that, so my gussets are too deep but it does work. I’ve taken out as much as possible from the back so it sits flat against my back to leave the gathers entirely where it is most needed in Kleve-Juelich-Berg and Koeln. That is my adaptation for a much warmer and humid climate that I live in. I am not comfortable with a lot of fabric gathered and creating pockets of warm air around my torso, so I very much need this!

I’ve spent a bit of time this year trying some rehab of my hands. It’s too expensive to get physio unfortunately but I do still have some resources from my carpal tunnel release surgery.

This is what I did do: Therapeutic Exercise Program for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (pdf.)

So I’m doing these again on top of a few simple RA stretches which have not changed or advanced but are vital: Slide show: Hand exercises for people with arthritis (series of gifs showing how to do each exercise.)

The “finger walk” is especially useful due to the drift of fingers.

My PC seems to have finally stopped working, so I’m tippy tappy typing on a smaller keyboard but my thumbs are curled under so it’s time to find a different posture and get some heat on my hands.

“Over complicating costuming since forever ago?” Yeah. That’s not hyperbole. I am currently stalled on updating my waterfall pleat guide because I wound up trying to find any, every, image of a specific iteration. One of the Dutch Second Managers, aka Wishing gown. It’s really an amazing example as it takes everything that I know from extant gowns and uses it.

But in doing so I’ve sorted my folders and so far it does look like my principle works. My basic pattern works really well as it is for US style Second Manager’s versions, and my guide itself works really well full stop if the text is followed.

So what I’m trying to do is make it easier to get to that point.

Something that I can’t really do is help predict exactly how much fabric physics and trim work. I can give alerts to what to expect but that goes way back to Alcega, so that’s something I’m trying to include. Folding heavy fabric affects measurements.

Spoon theory is very useful, but only if you understand the concept of a spoon/energy deficit.

Much like taking out a monetary loan, it can impact your security for years to come.

And I have genuinely, reached my limit of being able to borrow even a day ahead.

In the past I have been able to make calculations based on experience to invest in a few days then recovering for weeks or months after.

But I can’t do that, and haven’t been able to for some time.

Honestly?

I think because fibromyalgia does not have the same deep history that Rheumatoid Arthritis has. Pain with an unknown source or therapy drains all your resources that could be divided between known therapy and what you need to do. This guesswork take so much time and energy. And bad advice (as most advice now appears to be) not only doesn’t help in the moment, but now looks like it can cause damage that is irreversible.

My hope is that now that there is finally a good body of evidence for it to be inflammatory and immune driven that we can start to use fairly simple, cheap, very well known therapies.

I suspected fibro was inflammatory and immune driven when I could use high heat on my spine like I do for RA flares.

It is a real relief to have a cheap, reusable kind of therapy (hot water bottle.) It is however temporary. So I need a good 20 mins of direct heat two or three times a day.

I have to carefully tread safety vs therapeutic levels as I need high enough heat to numb tissue to the muscle/joint.

But it is something.

But today I have overlocked the seam allowances of a Victorian style bodice. That is 12 pieces. It is A Lot but the structure allows for really nifty illusion, then extreme fitting in seams that are less obvious.

And all of this is inspired by trying to make my Waterfall Pleat guide more useful. I would up grabbing inspiration images of styles I’m not personally a fan of, but really do help understand how these things work.

It’s now time to rest and apply that high heat to my lower spine. It’s shifted from upper back to lower spine and I’m not sure why. Whatever it is, I will do better by resting now.

Very excited to say I think I have managed to start a real honest to goodness guide to waterfall pleats. My very old guide has been pinned and repinned and I no longer have track of who is using what from what platform. Even my updated guide needs rewriting in light of some recent file sorting.

I really want to make some kind of plug in measurement app as I think it really is that easy, but so far I’ve made some ready to print line guides that I’ll be testing with my pen and touchscreen.

It does look like each costume house for each production of Phantom of the Opera has a single template that is then altered. This is great, it means a single pattern will work for three or more costumes within that production.

I am though very sore and very tired, it doesn’t detract from my excitement, but it does mean I need to rebuild my tolerance for a while.

My entire Modular Frock system needs integrating as a lot of it even works for vintage clothing.

Okay.

Rest, recovery, then back to it.

I have a horrible tendency to do this too quickly, then later on really need what I lost. This is usually a response to external forces, which you know, is how life works; we are not in this alone. Recently I used tidying as a form of distraction but I have managed to “sort” some very vital fabrics….. somewhere.

These are irreplaceable and I really have looked through my entire studio and bedroom and I cannot find them. I think I attempted to separate the linen from cotton. But I keep switching my organisation from putting an entire project in one space- including uncut fabrics, to putting only already cut fabric and trim.

Frankly neither works well with what I have, so that’s also part of the problem. In fact I just found a huge length of HetnBond making my recent purchase now a negative in my budget. To be honest though it’s probably what I need in total if I want to make all the guarding I need to do much easier. I have 2m of black cotton velveteen to make into bias cut strips for my Juelich gown and for my two skirts that really do need to be properly finished.

Even though I desperately need the fabric for three projects (supporting bodices for my Cranach, Juelich, and Anne of Cleves gowns) and I am still saving for similar support layers for Elsa and my Bubble gown (power net for understrucrue, illusion tulle for both necklines) I have managed to let go of it. Mostly. If I find it, great, if not I have enough set aside to be able to make two.

And I have so much orange left over I can definitely use that along with the guarding for a lot of stability.

All of this though is part of what I am trying to teach about 16thC construction as I do things very differently from modern teaching.

I have never found modern systems and clothing work for me (including 19thC when you really find proportional systems kick up) and it was Fashion Incubator who helped me realise why. And while they deal with modern systems and manufacturing they really helped me recognise why pre 19thC patterning works so well for me, but also in general.

But that is so much history that I’ve mostly been sharing sources than my own methods so that when I can write up my method everyone can look at my sources to understand why.

I’ve also recently made a deep dive into my school records and I was pretty shocked.

Aside from one short lived teen rebellion my records are consistent in one aspect: my comprehension outpaced my ability to communicate. And I never did find it easy to speak up. There is more but it’s pretty clear that school did not really know how to teach me, and I tried so hard to fit in but never did.

It’s a lot to process. But especially how some teachers treated that as an attitude problem. Even when they wrote how much of an effort I was making they still treated reticence to *speak* as an attitude problem.

I am very lucky to still have a reasonable record of my work and commentary. It does raise a number of questions now though. And certainly gives me a better insight into what my peers were going through- even while recognising why I didn’t identify with them at the time- I did have sympathy, developed empathy and compassion, but only now have some understanding.

Education ideally gives us tools to learn, but it also need to be honest. Had I known exactly how much of a barrier that shyness was specifically? We might have been able to afford a tutor. But my shyness was complicated by social matters and so that would have had to be a tutor who understood and respected that.

One of the problems with rolling delays is it is so hard to catch up! That includes simply importing and copying files from my phone. Then I need to back them up and finally can start editing and deleting. I’ve not been able to do much each day either. It’s 10am and I’m both in pain and tired just from having a shower and catching up. I need to be kinder on myself for this, while also figuring out when I can “push” things. But yesterday I managed to break through some really heavy emotional blocks that have contributed to this cycle.

After losing my constant kitty companion, who would stay with me in my little studio it got harder to go out there because it just didn’t feel the same.

Then when it was broken into, the space just no longer felt like it was mine.

In winter (like now) this is especially true as I need to air out all spaces for them to be healthy and not confrontational to all senses located in my head. Luckily I have a little fan heater that automatically turns off after a very short time so I can just take the chill off and that helps a lot. It’s a small enough space that this winds up economical and not burdening the electrical network.

I tried all sorts of ways to make myself go out there, including replacing my netbook which stutters and is slow and often bypasses Mint to try and reload windows. Yesterday I committed half an hour to painting some metal pieces a brighter gold and even that? So many things went wrong!

Our driveway has turned slippery so I got to the door a little down thinking about figuring out maintenance, then my laptop would not start up. So I went back indoors, started up no problem. Took it back out, and again it wouldn’t start up. So forced reboot, and the fans went like the blazing, it did eventually start up, I checked in task manager and I think it was trying to connect to the internet *before* letting me in based on what was using most resources. So I am going to have to change some settings because that should not prevent me from logging in.

So that was tense and frustrating, and after several years of this cycle it was going to be easier to give up. But! I stuck it out, and managed to paint most of the jewellery findings I need to finish my sets of belts and necklaces etc.

The big round piece is perhaps the most successful. While painting the bees (originally silver because for some reason gold bees became scarce when I needed them) one fell and I thought “oh no, it’s on the my brunchcoat” but I couldn’t find it and so decided maybe it would turn up under the desk. but no!

It turned up stuck to my sock this morning. I can’t believe how long it had managed to stay there.

These pieces still need a few more hours to dry before I can bake them to cure them.

This is not the intended use of the pebeo vitrea 160 glossy medium but it does work to bind metallic pigments. Side note, it looks like that is no longer made, and instead you need to use the porcelaine 150 glossy medium if your local store doesn’t have any older stock. Darn, yes the store I got mine from no longer stocks it.

Anyway. They are now indoors, I am having a flare of fibro from yesterday so am about to shift posture and lie down with a hot water bottle applied in rotation on the radiating pain spots. And ask for help getting some emulgel on my back.

Last year I got my Elsa finale gown started, but it’s been a trial both sourcing specific fabrics I need let alone in the lengths needed. But luckily I have the base fabric and the sheer fabric for the super soft floating sleeves. And I finally decided on how to create the sparkling decorations- I have iridescent transparent vinyl I was testing for the sequins for the Ice gown. It will be washable and I have worked out the pattern to get working in inkscape to make the files for cutting it all. I think the smaller diamonds are 2.5cm long and 1cm wide, and I will not make them individually but in strips so I can zig zag stitch over the vinyl, not through it, and so the stitches wind up some waht decorative. If that doesn’t work then yes, hand stitching around those same point and hand knotting.

But the strips will be much lighter than the jewels I bought so the cape and skirt sections will float.

I have some opaque irridescent fabric backed vinyl too for the bodice and yes, over those I will sew glass rhinestones.

As for the sheer fabris I will need to buy iDye poly to gradient dye it all. The sleeves are easy as they are one layer and the shape is flat. The skirt is proving to be a bit more difficult.

The animation stretches that fabric in ways that are not replicable. So I need to decide how much flare to build in.

My test skirt pattern is pretty good and is mostly straight with an extension at the back. But I was thinking I might want to use the grain of the sequins to direct where to put darts and seams.

Today I took my bodice pattern and traced it to baking paper (I then scanned both to keep a record in case I lose or have to dispose of excess patterns) then to heavy paper to cut the points and hip shape, to scan that, and then finally I will be able to use inkscape or ruler and french curves to make them all even. And to work out where to put shaping seams in the final version as again, the animation does not match reality and I need to put seams in somewhere.

I used authentic Victorian skirt cutting for the Ice gown and it works so well. The straight front edge of each gore hangs vertically which makes the diagonal of the back edge flow into whatever folds you want. And as you top and tail the pieces you save a heck of a lot of fabric. The basic principles works from regency all the way to the 1900s. Teens too.

This is why I love historic patterns- they offer solutions we don’t have in our modern patterning kit. It’s frustrating though as we really have 100 years of modern patterning to separate us, so there is no living memory of these techniques. So a lot of modern historic patterns use modern systems too.

The Elsa finale gown is not built like that, it’s full modern. I get pageant and ice dance costume vibes, so I’m using a lot of modern fabrics and using that stretch.

I’ve been trying to tidy my life a bit by transferring fabric and card patterns to paper, but frankly some patterns need to be card. Like all those multi seamed bodysuit patterns, and the armour. I gave up half way through what are apparently my “full” sets of patterns that are not. Fem Shep is in three places (Turian bits, armour, bodysuit.)

So I decided to try and actually pattern today, my Cranach dress:

Again, it’s those multi-seams that is making life difficult.

In this case, the evidence of extant garments and patterns all use the same sleeve head which is a shallow sideways S. There are no all in one cuts with the body. And yet.. those do look like piped seams that follow up to the neck.

This is also why I have been redoing all my patterns. I put too much work into geometry of sleeves when they are all annoyingly based on the same basic set of patterns.

There is a totally fantastic long gown with puffed sleeves in the Swabach tailor’s manual. The piecing does support cutting panes separately at least which is enough. If this painting is based on a real garment Cranach could have used then I think I know how it would actually look vs idealisation.

The popped collar is also very annoying. It’s high enough that it collapses in simple layers. And I can’t get it the neckline to sit quite that far into my shoulder. So I am taking a break and looking into my stash for canvas and hair cloth and twill tape to figure out what I want to do.

I also am working on how to talk about historical fit and scale. Because it really is counter intuitive- and is part of why this dress in particular is annoying. There is a heck of a lot that connects 16thC tailor’s manuals to 19thC dress making. To the point I’m working on teaching some 19thC cut and fit (like the difference between American and “French” systems- hint they are totally different but not if we use modern interpretations.)

And I do really want to review and link more books in my database.