Gwendolyn, what HAVE you been doing?! Plus a bonus costume tragedy

So this past year has been one of constant change and constant travel and I'm only just now starting to be able to sit back, take stock, and settle into myself a bit.

It's now been... oh... over three years since I've done any sewing or costuming for myself, which kind of pushed this blog into a semi-death. Getting my masters while dealing with severe depression REALLY didn't help, and after that I was expending all my energy on freelancing. In fact, until this past month, (in which I found a stable job within theatre and actually signed a year-long lease on an apartment) I'd been essentially living out of suitcases going from job to job since last November. Not conducive to maintaining any sort of hobby.

However, I'm now recently back in the States (my almost 70-year-old dad had a very serious health scare which made me super anxious about being so far away from family) living in the greater Chicago area, am some-what stable, and am actually finding myself picking up sewing again in my spare time! I think it helps that I'm now working as a Draper, and have found that doing patterning/fitting all day results in far far FAR less burnout than sewing all day did. I've always far enjoyed the research/patterning/fitting side of costuming over actually cutting and stitching a garment, so getting Draper jobs this past year has been a very welcome change.

And now that I'm in a better physical and mental space to pick up personal costuming again, I have loads of plans and am starting to form a line-up of projects.

 I desperately need to sew EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW though as I have several events I want to go to and I have nothing to wear. Literally. I literally have nothing anymore due to a tragic mould incident when my stuff was all in storage and international transit. Everything from my MFA degree was hopelessly ruined, as was the vast majority of my personal costumes.

I now have left to my name:
a hoopskirt
two 18th century petticoats which are too small in the waist anyway because I'm now 30 years old and my body went 'haha screw you!' and went up two-three sizes in the past year
my old cotton print 1860s dress which I no longer fit into
my two steampunk outfits from 2012 which I no longer fit into either
my 1912 dress which (surprise surprise) is also definitely too small

That is it. That is all I have. Basically, I have an 1860s crinoline which I can use, so

As you can see, I'm gonna need to make a lot if I want to go anywhere to do anything.

The first projects in this new chapter of my life are already underway, and I will be blogging about them next... expect some early 16th century German fun, a small sparkly 'princess', and an even smaller and totally adorable Viking. That's right, I'm going to take my little niece and nephew to their very first ren faire early this fall! Fabrics are ordered and sewing has commenced... should be super fun :)

Changing Tides and Going Places

The first thing I did after finishing my masters degree this spring was to drink nearly an entire bottle of prosecco, sleep for about twenty hours, and then dye my hair pastel pink.

Immediately after my final hand-in my mother came to visit for a couple weeks, and I got to show her everything I'd done/made over the past year and a half, plus take her all around Edinburgh indulging in touristy things. We were going to go to the Isle of Skye for a bit, but took an impromptu trip to Madrid (Spain!!! Ahhh!) instead after finding super cheap flights.

If you imagined the majority of our holiday pictures were posed or serene, like this one, you'd be wrong.

We mostly took a lot of terrible selfies, and it was glorious.

Nothing has slowed down at any point though, as I went back to Outlander in June... starting a couple days before my mother left. I've been working there since then as a junior costume maker, working on some really lovely things that I so wish I could show you! I can't wait for you guys to see Season 2!!

So what comes next?

Now that's the tricky question... one which I don't yet have an answer to. I have lots of ideas. Lots of goals, lots of wishes; and very little strength to tackle them. My lease ends soonish at the end of August, and I don't yet know where I'll go or what exactly I'll be doing. Whatever it may become, my life needs to involve a good wifi connection, since I have SO MUCH lined up to blog about! So. Much.

Thank goodness I can blog from my bed, too, as I think I need a bit of a breather before throwing myself into the rest of my life.