Cover yer drawers, woman.

Progress! The skirt is finished, and so is the overskirt, though it's only pinned in these pictures.

This is going to be awesome, if I do say so myself.


There are some technical issues that I've run into - I intended for this to be a walking or afternoon gown, circa roughtly 1886 - but the train is too long, I couldn't manage to make an appropriate hat, and a severe updo is really out of the question when you are dealing with wigs, so it's going to be a bit of a mishmash - train from 1875-ish, the rest of the outfit more 1886-ish, the hat 1890-ish, and the hair a Gibson girl 'do, which looks lovely and charming on Helly, but wasn't popular until the turn of the century.

Oh well. I doubt that most people will be as anal (or as esoterically educated) as I've become about late Victorian fashion in the couple of weeks, so it should be fine. It's the general look that I was going for, and perhaps a mixture spanning three decades is the best way to get a general "Victorian" look.

So far the underwear has been my favorite part. I have only the blouse and jacket left to finish. Pictures soon!

They never put skirts on table legs, that's just a story

I decided I needed a sewing challenge, so I'm making a Victorian walking gown for Helly. Combinations, corset, and all. I've got the underwear done and now I'm working on the actual gown itself. The overskirt is kind of kicking my ass. All the bustling and trying to keep everything at hip level so that the jacket will fit correctly is - well, it's interesting. I'm enjoying it, though. Sewing is fun, even when its frustrating.

Most of the frustration tonight is that I've run out of the braid I was using as trim, and can't do anything until I can get to the fabric store tomorrow. ARG.

Progress picture:

PostSecret

This guy comes up with an idea for an art installation - he leaves about 4000 blank postcards all over the place, with an invitation for the person to write a secret on it and post it back to him. Out of the few hundred he got back, an internet and publishing juggernaut has emerged. Thousands of people have sent him their deepest, darkest, most joyful, or just plain made-up secrets.

I just finished reading two of the collections. All of them, sad, funny, happy, weird - all have the same feel to them, the same weak flickering in the darkness of anonymity. I wonder how many of these people were just hoping to get a place on his blog or in one of his books, and how many of them just needed a confessor. There are a dozen knock offs of Frank Warren's vision, but they seems to have left the original undiluted - people are still sending their pain and triumphs (mostly pain) along to Frank for him to show the world.

I don't know. Is it really telling your secret if you tell it so that no one ever knows that it's yours? So many angsting teenagers, so much self-hatred, so many unhappy wives...reading through one of the books is quite the existential wallop. The main thing that comes through is the impression of all of us as tiny, struggling, creatures, all singing along to the same howl, none of us hearing one another.

I understand the impulse, I really do. When I was really down I would go into my bedroom when no one was home and scream into the pillow. The internet makes an even better venting space - the proliferation of LJ and Myspace can tell you that much. I suppose what makes PostSecret special is that you are absolutely guaranteed at least one audience member - Frank reads everything people send, even if it doesn't make it onto the blog or into a book. I can't imagine what it is like for him to read them all, to sift through and try to make a choice about which is published and which is not. All those howling songs, each unique, each exactly the same...

I sent him one, once.

The first of July is for beer.

Canada Day is never the huge deal that Independence Day is. I think it has something to do with the fact that Americans tossed the Brits out on their asses, and we just waited patiently for them to get tired of the whole "colonial" business and leave on their own. Hurrah, wave your flag, for on this day, in 1868, we, uh, said thanks to the Queen for signing the Statue of Westminster. Hmm. Not very blood-stirring, that. Let's go have a hotdog and mingle politely with our fellow Canadians. Yes, lets.

I do love my country. In the way that one loves one's parents, which is to say with fondness and exasperation and sometimes you just want to be left alone, is that alright? I don't need to prove it all the time. I have a life of my own! The concept of Canada is nebulous to Canadians. We know that we are a nation, but if you put a gun to the average citizen's head and shouted at them to list ten "Canadian" attributes, they'd be stuck at around no. 5, the ability to pronounce "toque."

Perhaps that is the defining Canadian attribute. Our non-nationalism. The only thing we really seem to get fired up about is making sure that people know we AREN'T AMERICAN. Despite the way that we casually co-opt any and all of their entertainment and culture that we like, and casually linger under the enormous umbrella of their military might. I'm sure that part of the reason we have the longest undefended border in the world is that neither nation wants to fuck with the economics. It would be like attacking one's Siamese twin. We Canadians like to pretend that we are more friendly, less aggressive, not so much with the arrogant rah-rah, multi-culturalism instead of melting pot, yadda yadda. We invented the UN Peacekeepers. We haven't been the aggressors in any war, ever! I wonder what we would be like without our older, tougher sibling down South, ready to sneer and wave their big, aggressive stick around in defense of the North American Dream that both countries live.

And yet. I'm still glad that I'm Canadian and not American. My government is smaller, less intrusive, charmingly amateur in its infighting and secret plots. My country is huge, and the population 1/10 that of the States. Religion and the state are firmly, inarguably seperate. Our international legacy is largely benign - Peacekeepers, Vimy Ridge, our lenient policies on political asylum (although we could still be doing more, we are demonstrably ahead of the curve) and so on. As a cultural identity goes, you can do a lot worse than "friendly neighbor."

So happy Canada Day, fellow hosers. Let's have a beer, eh? Play some Tragically Hip, those guys rock. I'll see you over by the hot dog stand.