Nothing to see here...

1.  Lumpy passed his NST (Non-Stress Test - where they test how many contractions I have in 20 minutes (ie none), and whether his heart rate goes up 15 beats per second over his baseline heartrate for 15 seconds when he has a big round of movements) and BPP (Biophysical Profile - an ultrasound exam where they look at my amniotic fluid levels, whether he is breathing it well, and if he is moving all of his pieces parts appropriately) with flying colors, but I'm going in for a set of them once a week from now on, which is a drag, even if I DO get to see his cute little face more often.  :)  The Drs took a look at my sugars, and said that I'm doing just fine, and do NOT need to add morning insulin, which is nice.  We'll see if it is the RIGHT call in a few weeks when they measure him again!

2.  I had a DUH moment about the sleeves right before this heatwave hit (like with an internal furnace growing, I really want it to be 90+ degrees out too... sigh) - I can just cut the sleeves shorter, not from the wrist, but from the shoulder.  I made the sleeves as if they started from the point of my shoulder, so with the drop shoulder effect of the wide front and back, they go too long, and the elbow bend falls at the wrong place anyway.  This will get the wrist and elbow back where they belong, get the armpit gusset down to a much more reasonable 6", require no odd tucks, and also require me to remove a whopping *1* unfinished seam, and two darts.  Me likey, and will start when my brain stops melting.  (although, I must say that the darts were working pretty darned well as an alternative)

3.  Toddlers in nothing but shorts and ponytails are really cute.  How they have the energy to run around in this heat and humidity, I do NOT understand, but since they've been playing catch and flop (ie jump on the futon, and land on their butts) together for the last hour, I'm really enjoying that they are twins today.

4.  Mental note:  Do NOT have babies due at the end of July.  Everyone goes on vacation, including all of the doulas.  The one that two of the folks I called contacted to see if she could help us isn't sure if she can get backup, so if she can't make it, she still gets her deposit, and we get no labor help.  Grr...

5. For anyone looking to get a nice present for any parent (not just moms) with a brain, with kids up to about age 12, get them a subscription to Wondertime - $10 for ten issues of well-written, thought provoking, *intelligent* pieces, with no particular agenda other than 'kids and parenting are pretty neat, if you let yourself get past all the hype and marketing'.  Staggeringly, this magazine is put out by Disney, and I would have thought that would be sort of like an oil sheik buying everyone hybrids, but it is BY FAR the best magazine about children, parenting and families that I have ever come across, Hands Down.

1.  Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback on my shoulders from heck.  I can't see how tapering the dress from hips to shoulder would make the sleeves fit, and I while I DO plan to make my armpit gussets smaller in future (6", not 8") I can't imagine that a woman in period would have taken apart all of that handsewing at this point, so I'm going to put two pin tucks in each shoulder, coming down about four inches each on back and front; this will give room for my nursing bustline, get my shoulder seam back up where it should be, AND not take tons more sewing to make work.  If that isn't a period sounding solution, I don't know what is...

2.  Started on 10 units of insulin last night; my fasting sugar was 98 this AM.  My post prandials today have been 106, 108, and 105.  They plan to put me on morning insulin as of Monday, when I can give them a few days worth of postprandials.  Hugh's prediction that fake sugars would make me feel like crap keeps coming true - now my afternoon sanity break of 1 carb worth of sugar free Edy's ice cream is making me feel wierd, but I had it today without other protein balancing.  At least I've had it this week to get me over the psychological hump, but I WILL need a new 'treat' of some variety to keep me from climbing the walls - I guess I am just going to have to go for really small portions of real chocolatey stuff instead (which would be just fine by me if I could then wash it down with MILK, darn it!)

3.  The ceiling won't be done until Wednesday, as the rain has kept the mud from drying. I want to get moved in there next weekend, so we can get working on the kitchen, and get settled already!  Especially since now O is making noises about wanting to try and get the bedroom carpet redone before Lumpy arrives too.  Yeah, right. 

Work on my hand-sewn Anglo-Saxon shift had pretty much ground to a halt week before last, when I realized that I had not cut enough gores.  I attributed it to baby brain, and cut another tube to seam together, finished the seam and cut it open (into a front gore and a side gore sewn of two pieces) when I - lo and behold - found the OTHER tube I sewed together over a month ago.  Sigh.  Of course I can salvage the fabric, but I'm also trying to figure out how to salvage the six or so hours I put into the seam by not wasting that either!  

Anyway, I made the gores really long, to accomodate my pregnant belly, but now I'm not sure that I really need them quite THAT long.  I think that most Scadians design garb for their non-pregnant bodies, not making allowances for eventually child-bearing bodies, so we often have to make maternity garb, where in period I HAVE to presume that they took such growth into account in the first place, since that is just too much blessed sewing to have to do en masse just for a few months wear.  

I also carry REALLY high, and am already really big, with three months to go, thus the really long gores, so I get lots of extra room in my abdomen.  Anyway, I was wondering how high up folks usually set their front, back and side gores?  I have what my Mom calls 'Italian hips'; ie they are like shelves, and perfect for carrying laundry baskets on, so I know I need to start the side gores at least a couple of inches higher than my hip to disguise this and create a nice line, but where to set the back gore, and trying to guess about the front gore, especially as I want to use this dress for nursing too (inverse relationship between how high I put that gore and how low I can have the keyhole for nursing access), is just boggling my hormone-addled brain.

I'm also more than a touch confused.  I was just looking for pictures that might show gore height and came upon this site : http://www.forest.gen.nz/Medieval/articles/Tunics/TUNICS.HTML   This is basically the pattern I am using, but I am sewing my pairs of side gores together on the straight instead of on the bias.  Am I evil?  Wrong?  I have always both hated that dragging on both sides look, and have been taught to *always* sew bias to straight, never to another bias edge, so it doesn't stretch all to heck.  Any thoughts on this?

Anyway, my 'needing' to sew that extra set of gores, and my futzing with the gores I AM using, along with life in general, means that it is unlikely that I'm actually going to finish this sucker for Panteria, but I NEED it for Panteria (my other shifts fit, but only JUST, and this child of mine just keeps on growing), so I have decided to cheat mercilessly.  I'm going to handsew the seams, but NOT FINISH THEM NOW.  I don't want the linen to fray, and I sort of want to field test the gore heights anyway, so I am going to handsew the rest of the gore seams seams, then cover the uncut seam allowance in double fold bias tape for the event, sewn down by machine.  That way I can wear it, test it, and cut bias tape out and finish seams at my leisure, and generally take a big load off my shoulders, all for the very small price of a little bit of lumpiness in my gore seams.  The hems, neck and arms will all be finished properly, and even if I end up cutting part of the hem off, it will be worth it to give myself this added flexibility in both time and design. 

I had lousy rotten nightmares most of the night, so as I lay awake trying to distract myself, I thought "hm.... if I were judging the dress I am currently making, what would I want to see in the documentation?  What would be critical, and what would take it up a notch?"

In the Critical pile: 
* the pattern - simple 6-gore with bias underarm gores, but must scour Crowfoot, etc for extant examples
* the materials - I am using commercial linen cloth (straight tabby weave) and a plied linen thread, but I can document both as materials per se, and the colors as well (I went with dark brown - a walnut dye maybe? and the slightly warming grey of retted linen, which is different from the color of 'natural' linen, which makes me wonder how the heck they process the 'natural' stuff)
* the seam treatments -  explain why I used each seam treatment where I did; flat felled, applied binding, and open seaming (down the front, for reversible closure per nursing needs)  I'm not sure about each of these in context with extant examples of this type of gown, but I know each were used in the same period/geographic area, so this should just take more digging.

In the Oomph pile:
* dye up some linen the same color (which would stink it only walnut gets that dark, since I'm allergic to it!  Maybe I could buy a sample from someone?)
* get a sample of retted linen to show why I chose the thread color I did
* investigate further whether this fabric would have been more likely woven on a floor loom or a WWL.  The fabric I used was wide, but I used pieces no more than 25" wide, so it could easily accommodate the arguments that fabric was only woven that width for X,Y, Z reasons.  I've ignored the natural selvedge on this fabric, so it could have been cut from either width fabric, but showing how natural selvedges from each weaving width could have been used in this garment (with extant examples maybe?) would be pretty spiffy
* point out the mistake I made in the flat-felled seam in the shoulder, and explain my solution to it.  (Period examples?)
* do an appendix on the pros/cons of each seam treatment used, and why my mistake needed fixing, including actual samples of each stitch and seam treatment used right in the document.  
* explore appropriate adornment, maybe some simple embroidery or something?  Hm.... the subtle decoration of the contrast where the ovecast stitches show through may be enough...

What else would you want to see in my docs?  Is there anything in my oomph pile that you would consider critical? 

Well, I got the Spring issue of Peaks' Progress (newsletter for the Northern Region) put together today, and it came out pretty decently, if I may say so myself.  If you want to check it out, please go to MountainFreehold.org, and follow the links!

Also, my handsewing proceeds, if somewhat circuitously; I cut the wrong seam allowance for my flat-felled seam this morning, and freaked.  My darling husband gave me hair strokies (the ultimate in Albreda soothing), and that gave me the space to figure out how to fix it.  I figure that folks in period probably did it backward too, and I could either go with the rough-on-the-skin-and-easy-to-snag side on my skin (ie do it backward), or I could sew a new piece of fabric back on to the bit I cut off, and then cut the other side correctly, and just have an extra two layers of fabric in the folded over bit.  I went with the latter option, and while a bit thicker than the other side, unless you REALLY scrutinize it, you can hardly even see the seam line!  Wahoo!  I feel even better about this project than I did before I screwed up, since now I know I can come back from a serious goof.  Yipee!

BTW - I have decided to do an applied binding on the center back seam to keep the gore seams symmetrical, and to do flat-felled on the shoulders (which the goofed one was) because I didn't want thick seams from applied bindings (oh well!) and just sewing them open made them pull funny, since I did backstitch for my structual seam to give it some extra resiliancy.  The center front seam won't be being pulled by gravity in the same way, so I am willing to take a little gapping there for the flexibility of opening it up for nursing periods, plus the seam will be done up not by backstitch, but by overcast ANYWAY, so hopefully it will be doubly moot.  (Yes, I could construct it with backstitch, but I am going to create it as if I have already sewn it up from a nursing period from the start - somewhat odd, sure, but why set it up in a way that it will never look again?  I'd rather know NOW if this is going to work, then make all of my new garb in an untested model.)