green_martha

About the icon, after being insulted four or five times over the past three days in lieu of a reasonable discussion, this is the only appropriate answer I have. *shrugs*

First, having BOTH candidates for the second row of presidential elections try to appeal to the xenophobic, reactionary far right by saying "oh yes, actually we think along the same lines" is more than a little disturbing. What the frack ? I know the Leader Minimo and his pals totally ARE on the same page as the far right on a lot of topics*, but I thought better of the socialists. Or at least, of some of them.

*Just for the record, he's been re-actualizing things we haven't heard for the last 70 years and making constant references to our dear old Pétain - since years, but in full force since Sunday. Classy.

Then, I've been barfed onto three times today, I had to keep the kids quiet for two hours because we had an appointment with an ophthalmologist and the only time we could get one was during nap time, so we survived without nap in a very not kid-friendly zone. Add one hour in the car (where only the younger one slept, for, like, fifteen minutes). I'm one tired maman. But I won't let that put me down, because I have awesome friends, because the kids didn't explode in flight despite the lack of nap, and because I was really good today and finally took pictures of the maternity corset ! Which implies I almost have a working photography setting !!!!
I have the pictures, they're on my site, but have yet to be made accessible, and that involves working with galleries and editing, and I've already made one dumb mistake tonight, so I figure it's a Bad Idea(tm) to try that now. You'll have to wait a little longer !
This is something else entirely - wedding dress sample ! I've found a way to make it work, it's going to be awesome ! I have other lengths of sparkly embroidered net in different colors and patterns, I'm not sure I'll have the willpower to avoid turning one into an early teens evening gown.

I have issues seeing what I type, but the feeling of being outside, hearing the birds chirp, having the little one playing around, the cats exploring... is totally worth it.
I haven't forgotten about the cooking blog, I just wanted to have it not look like complete crap before poting the link ;) Here it is : La Cuisine de Green Martha. I'm posting mostly simple, everyday stuff, and trying to make it accessible to everyone.
Okay, I'm programming one more post and going back to sewing. Naughty girl following too many different projects at the same time...

Lady Darkstone has named 2011 "the year of crap". Because small annoyances of no life-threatening nature tend to crop up with alarming regularity. Explaining how, for example, my website is now on its fourth version since January (and a lot emptier) - my Mom had a hard time grasping that no, there wasn't one particular reason like repeated failure of one single item behind this. Just lot of small crap.
So right now, tonight, I discovered that my website is once again broken (it happens regularly when you have a geek coding around on it. Except said geek hasn't been coding around on it lately. So : NOT normal). And then the scanner did "rbtbrtbrtbrbtbrtbrtbrt" and refused to scan more than one fifth of a page. Not normal either. I kinda suspect it didn't like me flopping it over onto old books rather than the opposite.
Well, the books aren't replacable, the scanner is. The website, though its precise current status remains unknown, is fixable - in the broader meaning of the word : I can make it again if necessary. So there's a pile of small crap again but dammit, I'm not going to let it get me down. Of course both things annoy me to no end and keep me awake. I used that awake time to get most of the work done on colouring the birth announcement card. Now I need to let the picture rest until I have some daylight to adjust some things but really, I'm quite happy with how it turned out, and getting it to a "mostly done" state has lifted a huge weight from my shoulders.

I have a lot of other things to post about, like some late teens/early 1920s costuming plans, or the 18th century extant gowns, but I'd want to post pictures and right now, I can't. besides, I'm starting to finally get tired enought o go to sleep, and my feet are complaining that I've sat on my chair for too long. Just a short note : if any of you happen to be near Lyon between now and September, there's a great costume exbhition there.

I'ù tired, I have stuffed nose and a bad headache again, and I obviously shouldn't have stayed up that long... What can I say, I'm a bad girl, once I've brought up the motivation to get working on something, I don't want to stop until I've reached a milestone. So I ripped the lining panels for the quilted petticoat and transfered the design on one of them. I also noticed I'm not that good about keeping patterns and I'll need to take the pattern directly from the pierrot because the fabric bits I kept as "pattern" aren't any good - except for the sleeves, which need to be lenghtened anyway. And now I have a deadline for this outfit, which is NOT how it was planned - ach well, I'll work on it, but I know I have a back-up if needed, I don't want to rush and make some stupid mistake like on the bustle dress.
So today ? Totally productive ! I had yet another pregnancy follow-up appointement, finished plotting the quilting pattern (it's a bit hmmm... personal I guess. Me likes it. No, it's not really documentable), transfered one half of said pattern's repeats onto fabric, AND I scanned a hell of a lot of old pictures. There's now an 1912 album on my FlickR as well. I'm planning to finish the issue I'm currently scanning (January 21st), then moving on to the 1895 and 1896 books that came in today, for a change.


Oh, and I did some baby-steps progress on the website. I'm freaking amazing today. Too bad it's already tomorrow... :)

Oopsie, I guess I forgot to go to bed !
It's been an awesome day so far, really. Even the appointment at the hospital ran smoothly, and other than that I dug out my LARP projects, worked on them some and got all excited again, I had a blast at the printmaking workshop doing some very lovecraftian stuff, and I started rebuilding my website with a new, better architecture and updated content*. And was so excited over this I just didn't look at the clock. Oy ! Good thing the kid is at the sitter's tomorrow afternoon, I might have to take a nap...

There's so much work left to do on all fronts (including the right justeaucorps front), but I'm EXCITED !

Other good points ?
- I bought a load of fabric yesterday. It was a bit of a splurge but I wanted some prettiness for myself and my serger. And besides, I needed the batting for the quilted project.
- I won an 1875 Mode Illustrée book for under 40 €
- the scanner is working again
- some really adorable girls sent me all the pictures they had copied from my website before the crash, bless them ! (and lucky me for not forbidding to right-click-and-save)
- the HG has another scheduled meeting for the possible-job-of-his-dreams. I'm not expecting this to be a fast process but his chances are high, I'm really, really hoping he gets what he wants and deserves.
- we got free offset paper and offset steel today
- food was yummyyyyyyy !
- I'm hoooooome !

*I'm not sure the pictures database will indeed be searchable. Due to the computer crash we lost all the work done last week on Drupal and I switched over to the mor euser-friendly Joomla because it's what Lady Darkstone uses, what her husband knows how to maintain and the HG doesn't have much time to help me on this one. We'll see how the search feature works on this one !

Yeah ! I've added pages to the website with the latest work...
Pillowflower - the dress is not really done, and I don't have more pictures than that, but at least there's a page. Until I get back to the dress to finish the beading.
Finished Goth Kitty - it's been sent and delivered. And I redid some pictures.
Avant-Garde Gown - new page with good pictures from lady_darkstone's hen party.
*thud* I hate html editing.

Edit : I also added a line to the events page linking to lady_darkstone's hen-tea-party in the park. any thanks to argyronete for the many wonderful pics !

I forgot to thank all of you for your answers to the poll. I don't promise I'll be able to add much knitting and crochet stuff soon, but I'll do my best. I must poke the HG for some OCR software that would make uploading the looooooong instructions quicker. There are tons of instructions for corchetted lace in the 1898 book... heileen we REALLY need to find one afternoon so that I show you some knitting tricks and you show me some crochetting ones, because I'm dying to try those out (and the crochetted Cthulhu from the last Anticraft issue as well).

I have uploaded the page for the Petit Echo de la Mode, April 15th, 1923, minus the crochetted baby shirt.

This week I also tried a recipe from one of my Mode Illustrée books, a baked fish, and even though I did not follow it exactly due to the lack of eggs, both the HG and I agreed it was a very yummy one, and one we should do more often. I'm not sure I'll ever try the weird noodle tart (or should I say noodle pizza ?) I've found. *shudders*
The fish, right out of the oven, under the bread crumbs and herbs crust :

Sadly, it didn't look that good anymore once served. I guess next time I won't take an entire fish and will use filets instead.

( The recipe, for those interested )

And to make this post even more like a list of unrelated notes, I'll conclude saying I was a moron and did not buy enough lacing cord for the Kitty. And the one I have that's the right size is positively unpretty, which annoys me. Thus, it's likely that I won't finish the Kitty's underwear tonight but will instead move on to the 20's bra. Or to my brother's justeaucorps. He'll be there next week and eeep ! I still haven't worked ont he toile ! I'm a bad baaaaad sister !

Now my back is insulting me because I spent two hours trimming the plants, cleaning the balcony and taking out two trash bags. And that's only one half of it. Huh. Anyway...

I'm taking a break form gardening (or should I say balconying ?) and came back to uploading pictures and making new pages. And I'm wondering how I should put the needlework, crochet and knitting pieces on my site

[Poll #1155043]

I've been daydreaming about some way to search the fashion illustrations and needleworks patterns I have and will put online, but I don't think I'm up to the challenge of coding that just yet, and the HG already has a lot of more pressing stuff on his plate.

I have new pretties to show you all !

Don't you love the little girl's outfit in the last one ?

Now it's back to handsewing binding (and seeing the end of it) and scanning.

La Mode from the 18th of January 1914 is up on my website !

These magazines are seriously addictive, and so is putting them up.

On the actual sewing side, over the last two days I have :
- cut out and started sewing together the "bodice" (may it be called that way ?) from the Pillow Flower. I had to recut the V-shaped plastron (I had originally intended to have a bright flower in the middle but in the end it looked better with a black V in the front and only some leaves on the sides of it), otherwise no major mishap.
- traced out and guess-worked the alterations for the 1913 jacket, and spent 15 minutes wondering what one pattern piece was. The numbers on the pattern being somewhat odd I first mistook it for a weird belt thingie. Then for a pocket. It's a sleeve cuff actually. *feels dumb* Much easier to understand when you have access to the instructions and the picture of the finished garment.
- unpicked the sleeves from Provence's mock-up and took apart the underbodice, in preparation of mock-up #2. Because I find I can't move my arms around enough and there were some weird wrinkles at the sides that I want to make sure are eliminated.
- eBay-ed a 1923 issue from Le Petit Echo de la Mode, been outbid on a 1876 bound volume from La Mode Illustrée, and kept an eye on some other stuff in the like that I'll bid on tomorrow before leaving for work.

So I feel kind of okay with what I have accomplished so far. I'm in a mood to keep on sewing for some time and work on Provence mock-up #2, except I know it's a bad idea. Tomorrow is a workday, and it's already late. So to bed I must go.