Keeping it real
Originally published at Historical Personality Disorder. Please leave any comments there.
I have been practicing the art of historical costuming for over half of my life at this point, and I hate to brag, but I have far more hits than misses these days. However, I wanted to share with you my latest eff-up just to show you that you can be an ICG Master Costumer, a costuming Laurel, and have a degree in clothing and textile design and still screw it up and waste $$$ in the process.
The cord is covering up the fact that I completely botched the stem of the laurel wreath.
What you’re looking at is what was supposed to be my awesome concept for a SCA laurel regalia robe and which, instead, wasted a couple of yards of nice black wool/cashmere flannel. I’m annoyed with myself for trying to pull this off in the first place, AFTER the body of the robe had been assembled (because of the bulk of the fabric, I should have done this when the pieces were separate to improve my chances of success in maneuvering the fabric under the needle. Also, I should have replaced my burnt out sewing machine light bulb before attempting to stitch black thread on black fabric. Let me be your cautionary tale, folks). And then I botched the stitching on the stem, and then, when attempting to cut away the wool fabric from the botched stitching on the stem to reveal the gold silk underlayer, I accidentally cut through the silk.
I tossed and turned until 4-freaking-AM this morning in irritation over the complete fail of the project, until I caved in and ordered more black flannel to replace the screwed up back piece. This time I’m not going to attempt any reverse-applique or even embroidery or regular applique. I’m just going to make a nice, comfy, warm robe and slap a laurel pin on the breast if I really need anyone to know my rank. Or just wear the lovely robe Juana made for me for my elevation with a beautiful laurel wreath right on the back. Why, oh why did I bother with this project in the first place? ARGH!