In which Ginger has a very busy week, and writes an immensely long post about it

For the first time in forever my social life has been picking up and I’ve been rather busy! Last week I only had two opportunities to knit in bed and watch old TV programmes, meaning that my social life over the week was the Ginger-equivalent of staying out to 4am every morning and then having a weekend-long bender.

Most of my busy-ness involved Nat; we saw each other three days in a row, which was very reminiscent of when we were at high school together.* On Thursday we went to a Frocks on Bikes event featuring Bella talking about hi-visibility accessories, followed by a movie that featured bicycles in bits of it (Made in Dagenham - of the heart-warming British movie genre).

On Friday I watched Nat being inaugurated into a special psychology smart-people society. There were no secret handshakes but there were some speeches and traditional-weirdness and then a 21 year old girl spoke to us about Plato (during which I completely vagued out). After the ceremony Nat and I ate cheap food, drank cheap wine and then went to the Matterhorn where nothing is cheap, but where I had a very delicious cocktail of which I can remember nothing except that it had a lot of cinnamon flavoured liqueur in it and a foamy-egg whitey-decoration.

Finally, on Saturday we went wedding dress/bridesmaid shopping again, and made some serious headway! Voon has absolutely stunning bridal stuff, incidentally, and the women there were very lovely. Otherwise, shopping for bridal stuff is completely exhausting in a way that I have never experienced before. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for Nat as all I’m doing is sitting on my arse and giving my opinion and I go home completely drained of energy. The dresses all start to look much the same after a while and wedding dress fatigue becomes a serious issue. Sandwiches and coffee are needed STAT. Thank God Nat isn’t a bridezilla because I can imagine that the shopping process must be about 150 million times more fatiguing for the bridesmaids of bridezillas.

Spring has finally sprung, and I am taking the opportunity to completely overhaul my wardrobe in a massive sewing binge. Sewing is so much nicer when the sun is shining on to your little sewing space and you can actually imagine yourself wearing little frocks and tee-shirts. I started sewing last Saturday and threaded up the machine again on this Saturday just passed.

During this particular binge I have so far made three dresses, one top and a skirt. I’ve also completely made over the waistband of a second skirt. At present I’m in the process of making a third skirt and another couple of tunic-style tops. I made the pattern myself and have spent a long time perfecting it (I think I’ve made about four or five versions so far in different fabrics) and it’s almost ready to post up here! The skirts I have been making are from this pattern for vintage-style full gathered skirts. I’m also knitting a bolero jacket, and I want to make a little ballet cardigan too. Also also, I’m thinking of making another two dresses with some fabric I have lying about. (Writing this all down makes me realise how ridiculous the binge is. So ridiculous.)

Here are pictures of some of the things I have made:

Clockwise from top left: 60s style tent dress in vintage fabric and blue polka dot trim, gathered full skirt in green vintage fabric, tunic top in vintage print fabric,  gathered full skirt in black and bronze fabric

Wearing one of the tunic tops...

I’m so stoked with how much my sewing abilities have improved! I’m trying to do things to help me enjoy the process and thus, take more time on what I need to do. I had a great conversation with the lady at the fabric shop who suggested cutting everything one day, interfacing and zigzagging/overlocking (serging) edges the next day, sewing the garments together the day after that, and finishing everything on the last day - and then I read this guest post about pretending to be a machinist which suggested much the same thing. I tried to implement my new procedural ideas on the first weekend which went quite well, but I confess I was a little less successful on the second. Still, it’s all a process of learning what methods work the best for me.

Also, (you may be surprised to discover that) I’ve been reading. I read a book from the library called Vanessa and Virginia which was a poetic novel about the relationship between Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf - can you say GAG? It was wearing both a Librarian’s Choice and a Reader’s Choice sticker, but both the reader and librarian were WRONG. Wrong wrong wrong. Poor old Virginia Woolf is constantly served up to the poetical obsessives of this world. Let the unhappy woman rest!

At present I’m deep in the heart of the eighteenth century, reading a biography of an actor-turned-kept-woman-turned-duchess called Lavinia Fenton called Mistress Peachum's Pleasure. The writing is fabulous, there are some wonderfully witty turns of phrase, and the writer is concerned as much with the cultural history of the time as they are with the biographical figure who is used as a departure point for the discussions. The author, Lisa Hilton, has also written a biography of Louis XIVth’s mistress Athénaïs:, and I am so keen to get my hands on it because I predict that it will fuflils my trifecta of indulgent biographical reading: mistresses, French court intrigue and a fabulous writer.

I wish that I could say that I’m beavering away at my assignments too, but I AM NOT. So bad! Every time I go to do some coding I find myself sewing something or working on my own pet project (that I am not getting marked on), rather than making changes to my assignments (which will help me get me my diploma). I have forsworn sewing until I am finished with the assignment changes, which is very hard given the two potential dresses that taunt me with their not-madeness.

Also, given that coding for hours tends to neutralise my desire to blog, as well as affects the possibilities of having anything to blog about, I suspect life will be very quiet around here. Just letting you know.

*However, we didn’t ring each other when we got home to talk about what happened in the fifteen minutes since we saw each other last and how annoying our parents/siblings are; and also my dad didn’t come into my room and make a “wind it up” action at me to indicate that he wanted me off the phone.*

*God, that action annoyed me SO.MUCH. In fact, just thinking about it then made me start to feel all flight-or-fight (heart racing, sweaty palms).