A splash of news; a pants pattern

This blog has been... rather boring, recently.

I had caught a flu that left me not wanting to do anything, except sleep, and stuck in my school flat. It's better now: on Saturday, I hopped to my hometown to cast my vote in the first ever direct Presidential election in the history of this country.
The candidate I voted for did not win. Actually, no one has won yet, but the candidate I voted for is not among the two who have to be decided between now.
That's life. At least one of the two who are left was my other option - I seriously decided at the last moment.
The first ever direct Czech Presidential election was, of course, surrounded by some controversy, but it's not the sort of controversy you got to observe with the US elections. It was rather the controversy of a hastily prepared Presidential election. Oh, and this.
That's life, too. No, scratch that: that's the USA and the Czech Republic for you. At least we do not have to wait for the actual results so long!
And it proves that pre-election polls and predictions are not always right. (Schwarzenberg also has, as far as I'm able to determine, quite a Facebook following - which I guess is mostly independent of his own campaign.) Looking at who writes about it in English (not so many news sites, mostly non-Americans...), and what they write about, is interesting. It gives you a fairly good idea of what sort of bias a media has...

(... which reminds me, why is the university library's Politics section full of books on Jefferson, Kennedy, Reagan, Eisenhower, but not a single one about Truman? Lots and lots of Masaryk, too, but if any school ever had a right to be overindulgent in Masaryk - compared to others,
I mean -, this is it.)

Enough of that!

One of the things other than sleeping I did was copying the pattern of my best fitting pair of pants.
My best-fitting pair of pants is a mysterious pair I found in my wardrobe. (I think it used to be my sister's, but I don't recall it ever having gotten much wear.) It's not my best style (I'm all into boot cut, or this; I think it balances out my short legs and wide hips, though that's up for debate), but they fit me better than any of the others I own. It's a pair of pants I can sit down in on a cellar floor without having to worry about exposing my back. And they're theright length for my short legs, without having to be shortened. So, of course, they were the best candidate for copying for pattern.

Have you wondered about the Jean-ius class on Craftsy, or even taken it? My reaction to that was mostly "I don't want to pay so much for something I can figure out on my own, especially seeing as I do not have a perfect pair of jeans." Turns out that I was right, as far as the pattern-taking is concerned, and did figure it out on my own, more or less. Of course, I have yet to make a muslin of that pattern, and other things have preference - I only made the pattern because I had those pants with me.

What's really interesting about the pattern, though, is the fact that the back piece is much wider in the crotch than the front. It makes sense, too. See what I mean?

I'm obviously not finishing any of the challenges in the Historical Sew Fortnightly, yet. I definitely do want to finally finish my Regency stays for the Under It All challenge, though. At least. I'd be happy if I could finish something for the UFO challenge, too, but I think exams make that rather less likely... Maybe if I finish the stays earlier, they'll count as an UFO, and I'll quickly whip up a medieval-style bra for the underwear challenge? :D But with my track record, I do not think that is very likely, especially seeing as I won't get back home to the Regency stays until Thursday evening, and I have other things to do...
Anyway, this challenge/sewalong is the perfect incentive to actually make some of all those historical things I keep talking about.


I also received two blog awards; but I'll leave that for another post.

Merry Christmas and happy new year!

There. A cheater quilt for Christmas - it's the Lone Starburst block (which I found and fell in love with thanks to Steph), but I've only managed to finish one quarter of it so far (well, one quarter and a bit). So I cheated by computer. But I mean what it says. Have a merry Christmas, hopefully a blessed one, and may you be happy in the new year! And thank you for visiting my little virtual corner. It's good to be able to share.

A little randomly...

My keyboard had been quite criminally dirty for some time. I always remembered to clean it when the computer was on: not a good time. Today, I finally took a rag, some earbuds and a bottle of ethanol and cleaned it thoroughly. My sister said it would be shining with whiteness. I pointed out to her it was grey. She then proceeded on to joke about it "throwing off grey sparkles".
It's not; but for a while there, I was too shy to touch it.

This photo proves there's still some dirt left on the keys; so much for the elevated feeling.

* * *

I made tinted lipbalm, with a lipstick I bought years ago for the purpose of painting on strangers. Well, fellow Grammar school students: there's a tradition in the Czech Republic of the so-called "Last Ringing" - the last day the graduation class goes to school, before the graduation exam, is pretty much a celebration. The students usually dress up as something, and bother everyone else. In short.
So, for that purpose, I bought a cheap lipstick that was not really my colour years ago. And the remnant was lingering around the house until I learned online that it could be used for making homemade tinted lip balm... I liked the idea, but I did not like the fact that the ingredients for homemade lip balm could only be bought in larger quantities than I needed for such an experiment, not exactly cheaply (for an experiment). So I bought a larger container of "Jelení lůj" lip balm instead. That's what could be called the most basic Czech lip balm: literally, it translates as "deer tallow", though it's not (at least the list of ingredients suggests it's not - I doubt there's coumarin in natural deer tallow).

I learned the hard way that pouring melted lip balm into a plastic container was a bad idea (should have realised that); so I used a glass candle holder, incidentally one that my sister has painted. So now I have tinted lip balm in a nautical-themed container. Not bad for an experiment that failed halfway.

* * *

I should be reading Language and Gender for school; instead, I'm reading Is It Fit to Be a Realist?, a collection of literature-oriented essays by Ferdinand Peroutka that father unearthed and I was drawn to by an essay on Chesterton. It's much more fun. *sigh*
(Peroutka's answer to that question: literature should always try to describe reality in some way; not necessarily in the "Realist" way, but a literature that does not tell the truth somehow, no matter how, is pointless.)
I can't help it; anything that contains the word "gender" seems to take itself too seriously. It's not that I would not agree with some of the ideas expressed; it's the way it's treated.
Peroutka is able to make fun of himself, like in an essay / piece of literary criticism in which he scolds a young poet (Nezval) for overusing metaphors and diffusing his meaning...

"It is however difficult to give advice to poets. But it is always possible to say this much, that they should, without trifling, try to come to grips with what they feel and think. A poet's aspiration should be essence, not curiosity. The books Nezval and most of his friends write these days are filled with fleeting interests of one or two years and they will be forgotten very soon. If we keep attending to the new things that have arisen and how we can emulate them, our work will only fill literary history's ditches and others will walk over us. A poet who has not lived twenty years in continuation but only in periods of two years is usually lost to posterity. Lest this seem like a mysterious sentence, I will say straightaway that it is a disputation against fashion slavery."

Peroutka was rather justified in his criticism; even though Nezval is a famous poet (I even own a book by him, and I'm not normally one to read much poetry), the book Peroutka criticises is one I have not heard of before. And Nezval was a bit of a fashion slave: he had always had leftist leanings, but after the Communists took over in 1948, he mostly became famous for writing awfully tendentious poems without much literary merit...
I find myself liking Peroutka for liking the same writers as I do; but he is also able to criticise them for shortcomings I usually find myself agreeing with after all, and writes about things I don't know much about. That's good, too.

I ♥ Thursday ~ Giveaway at Kellie Falconer

Kellie is hosting a giveaway. And has a sale going on in her Etsy shop - so if you are looking, perhaps, for hair accessories... I love those felt roses! They're just the perfect size and colour.

And her lace collar tees...

This one's my favourite.

Not to mention the beautiful photos.



In other news, I love homemade yoghurt drink. That sounds fancy; there's nothing fancy about it, just some yoghurt mixed with milk and sugar. But it's a perfect refreshment. (Yoghurt can be homemade, though. :D)

The buttons my grandfather made

My grandfather is a dental technician. Don't freak out just yet; it means he had always had easy access to resins.
That means he could make these:

Resin and ink shank buttons he made for my mom years and years ago. I don't understand the details of working with resin, but it basically sounds like something very easy (if you know how to work with resin) with very impressive results.

They were originally not attached to this bright blue jacket. The buttons that came with it looked like this:

It looked worse in real life than it does on the photo. This very bright, very blue jacket was fitted with greenish-greyish blue buttons; a very wrong colour that made it look shabby, while it is actually so bright and shiny and cool.

I pronounce my grandfather's buttons a big improvement.

(Bright and shiny and cool against a very shabby backdrop.)

I've always wanted to take one of these

These.

Yesterday, I found myself in Prague again (that's a good beginning). More importantly, I found a free Metro newspaper in the metro, with one of those elusive (so far, to me) fabric coupons for a certain fabric shop.

So I thought, if I have enough time let's go and see if I can find something that I actually need (that's the important part) and get it with a discount.

So I went, in the end; and could not find anything I needed. I wanted nice white lightweight cotton for the 1848 skirt. No luck there; I only found brown lightweight cotton, which was very nice, but not what I needed. I wanted cotton shirting, with the idea of maybe making my father a shirt for Christmas. No luck there at all.

So I thought, I don't have enough lining in my stash, let's take a look at the linings. While searching for linings (the shop was rather crowded, probably because more people have found their coupons in the Metro newspaper), I found a remnants rack with satins and the like; mostly the evil polyester stuff. I went through them, just in case. I noticed a burgundy red that could go as a lining with a fabric in my stash...

I touched it, and fell in love. I looked at the label. It was 100% silk.

Not very surprisingly, it went home with me.

Now, the question is, do I really turn it into a lining for that fabric? I'm not quite sure there's enough of the silk. And: It's not so apparent in the photo, but in real life, the colours are not quite the same. The fabric in my stash is a little bit more yellowish than the silk. And it's a mystery fabric (I got it from my friend's mother) and putting a luxurious silk lining into it feels somewhat incongruous with it; I haven't put it through the burn test yet, but my bet is it's not natural fibre.

I want to make a very classic blazer out of it; something like this:

(That's from Mrs Style Book 2006/11)

Silk lining would go well with that, admittedly.

But holding the silk fabric, I also became convinced that it had to become a gift for my mom. I had promised her a blouse... something like this, though worn sepearately:

(The same book. I suspect it's actually a pattern for a stretchy fabric, though.)

But I'm not quite sure if it's my mom's colour, either. The problem with gifts is, you can't check without telling them... I could, alternatelly, turn it into a camisole for her (she deserves a silk camisole; I already have one; it's featured among my "Remake the RTW" plans, though, and maybe I could squeeze two out of the fabric anyway), but then, isn't this fabric too beautiful to be restricted to underwear?

Oh, the troubles a lucky seamstress goes through! If I become convinced enough it's mom's colour, I'll go with the blouse. I promised, and it looks like the sort of style this fabric would shine as. Now, aren't I glad I found a shop that carries silk thread? Oh yes, I am.

Off to read about stylistics. That's a linguistic term, not a fashion one.

I ♥ Thursday ~ November 16 (15)

These songs... guitar and singing. They very much remind me of all the campfire singing from my memories. (And sad is happy for deep people, as Whovians know. ;-)