Restarting The Engines

I've not done a thing in the sewing realm since my last confession.  Partially this has been due to a whirlwind of social activity; and partially because the stress is ramping up pretty seriously at work and on the nights I am home, all I have been up for is flopping and staring at the One-Eyed LCD God[1].  And I'm about to leave for a work conference, so the ball is not going to get moved any closer to the line for another week.

On the bright side, I got to see Hamilton.   

And also, inspired by one of those social outings (a trip to the Knit Night at Club Cumming), I have at least managed to start a knitting project that had been stalled for [redacted out of embarrassment] because I had broken the needle I required for it.  Serendipitously, there is a friendly neighborhood knitting store right around the corner from the club, and they hooked me up...a two-minute job I could have done at any time in the past [redacted]...but anyways, a nice small comfortable project is off and running, which is a thing I find can sometimes help me limber up my sewing mojo.  

To be fair, I have started some back-brain processing about my dashing consort's 14th-century kit.  I daresay I can knock out the shirt and cap with minimal drama, and that should give me a leg up to start worrying about the hard bits.  I would have said that about the braies, too, but a bit of desultory looking-around suggests that there are more options and directions than I quite realized.  There's what most people do, which is in essence loose linen boxers with a drawstring waist.  But that's not as who should say accurate.  Plus, accuracy is a moving target, depending on when you are in the 14th century, and whether you're doing the new-fangled tight-fitted fashions, and so on. (Here's a nice survey article of the situation.)    Since this is supposed to be field wear, I guess we should err on the side of working-man styles--? but the sort of faffing involved is something that many modern people find vexing (ask anyone who's worn a great kilt to Pennsic).   

I was inspired in my morning blog-reading[2] by a post where the author makes watercolor sketches of her planned outfits--not fashion-sketch style, but each piece individually next to each other.  To me, this is a brilliant way to think through an outfit as a whole, and how it will work together, and I'd like to try it.  Watercolors per se are probably a terrible idea for me, but I have a lot of colored pencils.  I am not sure my sketching ability is up to snuff, but let us find out.   

[1] I also had a bad dream where I was running around an event or fighter practice or something with a pourpoint in my hands that I was frantically trying to fit to someone, or anyone, and it kept getting more ragged and more flat and less-padded and embarrassing to acknowledge as my work, and and and.  Fuck you very much, brain.

[2] this is what my generation does instead of reading the paper in bed, y'all