The Pourpoint Commission: Buttoning Down

ONE! ONE BUTTONED SLEEVE! HA, HA, HA!

It's been a long holiday season, with the concomitant distractions, coming-down-sick, family visits, suddenly holding three offices[1] and so on; but I kept plugging away at the work, and although I'm not as far along as I hoped to be, I'm within the baseline schedule.

First off, it developed that the local post office just lost my quilting thread entirely, so I had to reorder them completely (snarl).  This arrived quickly and safely, at least, so I got back to work on the sleeves right after Christmas Day and finished them up...while coming to the slow realization that I was going to be woefully short of buttons.  Not just the cloth ones, either; I extrapolated the measurements and calculated I was going to need about another half-dozen metal-core ones as well.  Which meant I also needed to order another packet of metal blanks from the other vendor.  kiiiiilll meeeeee

However I had plenty to do while waiting for that shipment, so I placed the order and got cracking on another ~30 cloth buttons....where by "got cracking" I realized I had not recorded what dimensions I used for the fabric pieces that make up the buttons, so I had to cut a finished button of each kind open and measure it.   For the record, the metal-core flat buttons are 1-1/4" rounds of fabric with a gather stitch in a 1" diameter circle; and the cloth ones are 2" squares with a gather stitch in a 1-1/4" diameter circle.  This results in as close to a 5/8" button as you can get under these fabric conditions, which do not lead to anything remotely resembling consistency.  (When I do finally get to making my fancy overdress, I'm curious to see if that brocade behaves as chaotically as this one does.)

When I got all the existing buttons sewn on, I realized I didn't actually need any additional metal button blanks at all; I had just enough (at least, once I re-made the one I had to cut apart for analysis).  *facepalm*  Still, I figure I can make a couple extra and give them to my patron in case he loses any.

Current state of play on all fronts--

• Pourpoint itself: all that needs doing is about 25 more buttonholes, and undoing & fixing two spots at the top of the shoulder where the fashion fabric has pulled out of the seam.  Buuuut I also have to write my paper and figure out how to arrange my display... Likelihood of on-time completion: 100%
• Silk dress: The body seams are done & gores in; the sleeves are constructed (one more long seam remaining); but I have to sew in the sleeves and then do all the fiddly bits--center front facing, neck facing, and all the G-D eyelets, which usually takes me just as long as the actual construction.  Likelihood of on-time completion: 80%. Likelihood I'll be able to wear it: 45%, because...
• Sideless surcoat remake: haven't even looked at that shit.  In theory, as noted before, it wouldn't be more than a day's work, but that assumes I have everything I need.  So, likelihood of on-time completion: 45%.
• New veils: whaaaat, you say?  Where'd that come from?  Well, I've been displeased with my head styling for some time, and this displeasure has steadily raised to the point where I can no longer abide. So I spent some time when I couldn't sew thinking this question through, and I have a long-term complicated plan involving fake braids and one of them fancy frounced veils; but as a Phase One implementation I was going to follow the excellent Katafalk blog's how-to for getting The Look when you have short hair.  To do this, I need two pieces of nice linen hemmed up: one for the wimple, and one for the veil.  And I am thinking maybe I ought to prioritize this work over the new dress, because my wool dresses are good quality and all, and I would rather look complete to a shade (if bourgeois) than dressed in silk & velvet with hair like a haystack or wearing nothing but a cotton (!!) headrail.  But I am very slow with rolled hems and I haven't even looked at my linen stash to see if I have anything fine enough in stock.  Likelihood of on-time completion: 70%, if I prioritize it over the dressmaking.

[1] yeah so I'm now Webminister for the Kingdom Ministry of Arts & Sciences, and Seneschal of our local canton, and deputy Webminister for same.  I'm not sure how that all happened at once.  Or why "all at once" happened to be "right now".  Frickin' comedy writers.