Steps 1-360; or, How I Spent The Last Five Years

"you bitches been sewin' or what?"

In spite of the witticisms in my previous post, I actually have some record of what I've been making the last several years--Beth and I started a Google spreadsheet awhile ago to track projects; both what we had in the queue, and what we had finished.  The problem is, I tend to forget to update it during crunch time, so sometimes things go undocumented (primarily small bits, like royal favors or embroidery pieces I've done for people's peerages--everything in here is full clothes).   Still, I can say that I've made At Least 23 Things since I got back into harness in 2010:

• For me: 
• five 14th-century fitted gowns (the kind of dresses in the photo above), one of which was entirely sewn by hand
• one pair of sleeves for a 1450s Italian gown ("gamurra") I'd made years ago
• one 1540s Florentine silk gown
• one pair of hand-sewn woolen hose
• a linen "St Birgitta" cap, lacking the funky embroidery, feh
• two or three chemises, one of which was entirely sewn by hand
• For others:
• one 14th-century dress for a Queen of the East Kingdom, which I have no idea if she ever wore it or what; I never even got an acknowledgement of receipt.  (Though I do not know whether that's an issue with Her Then-Majesty, or with the person coordinating the project.)
• several linen shirts
• a chemise
• one pair of perioid pants (there may actually have been two; I forget)
• three tunics
• And this year's sudden plunge into the Elizabethan era...
• one doublet
• one jerkin
• three pairs Venetians (a kind of knee-length pants)

Plus I learned how to make fingerloop braids and lucet cords and cloth buttons, and embroidered enough stuff to achieve Journeyman ranking in the ancient and honorable guild of the Keepers of Athena's Thimble.  

When I lay it out like that, it seems a pretty respectable oeuvre, particularly when done contemporaneously with taking on a new and much more difficult job, two apartment moves, and two intense relationships (one of which culminated in a new living situation).  But I am still continually combating a feeling that I'm not doing enough, I'm not learning fast enough, my work isn't good enough to show/be proud of, und so weiter.  There's an important question here, of exactly whose expectations am I trying to live up to?  Still, when you're showing a hand-sewn dress at an arts display and people keep asking you "oh, did you weave that fabric?", one is inevitably left with the feeling that to answer "not only no, but hell no" is considered a bit on the slack side.