#new post elsewhere

[vincentbriggs]

I had no good place to store my necklaces so I made a necklace holder.

I found this nifty long octagonal frame at the thrift store sometime last year, and having acquired a hand saw and a big piece of 7mm plywood at two recent estate sales I was able to trace the very ugly inner part of the frame and cut a replacement. I glued a piece of black cotton velveteen to it (the same fabric I used for my beading tray, also from the thrift store) and left it overnight to dry.

I worked out the spacing of the hooks by arranging skewers on it - I didn't want any chains overlapping with lower hooks. I marked it on a sheet of paper and evened it out to make it symmetrical, drilled pilot holes, and screwed all the hooks in. I had to borrow my father's drill because I still don't have one, and I really should get one.

I would like to eventually strip and stain the frame a darker brown, but it's -11 and snowy out so that'll have to wait till Spring. Thankfully the plywood is held on by little spring steel arm thingies attached to the back of the frame, so it's very easy to take out.

Being hung up with picture wire isn't ideal, as the whole thing wobbles a bit when touched, but it's not in any danger of falling down. If necessary I could put several necklaces on one hook, but at present the hooks slightly outnumber the necklaces. (Most of the necklaces are also from the thrift store, except for a couple of inherited ones.)

Edit: I have made a blog post about the process!

[vincentbriggs]

I made a little blogspot post on The Pile, my strategy for tackling The Pile, and my progress so far. It's been a year and almost 8 months since I officially decided to make reducing The Pile a priority, and in that time I've gotten it from 25 unfinished sewing projects down to 8, and I've also gotten a lot better at finishing the new projects I start.

[vincentbriggs]

Realized I should probably post a separate photoset of the red brocade 1750's-ish waistcoat. Blog post on the construction here.

[vincentbriggs]

I finished my 2023 sewing in review blog post a few days ago and forgot to post a link on the social medias, oops.

[vincentbriggs]

18th-Century Menswear in Our Flag Means Death, Part 1

Frock Flicks note: This is a guest post by Vincent Briggs, a part-time alterations tailor and part-time dinosaur cartoonist who is very fond

I wrote a guest post for Frock Flicks on the menswear in Our Flag Means Death, a show that I like a normal amount and have watched a normal number of times. It got much longer than I intended, so this is part 1, and I'll post a link to part 2 when it goes up.

I'm a bit nervous knowing that some of the people who worked on the costumes might see it, so I really really hope I've done an ok job of being fair and accounting for the huge time and budget restraints they had to work with!

"Breast pockets don’t appear until the 19th century, and I don’t think wearing decorative pocket squares in them was a thing until the early 20th century, but will I complain about it? No. This is a well motivated contrivance that I am in favour of."

[vincentbriggs]

I made a wearable mockup for a certain pirate dressing gown, and drew up a diagram of all the dimensions of the pattern pieces I decided upon, which are in my blog post about it. (As well as some links to places that carry the bird printed velvet that the original robe is made of. I'm getting the purple version for mine.) It came out pretty close, I just needed to change the length of the neck binding a bit.

The fabric for this one is a burgundy rayon that @howshouldibegin gave me some years ago, and the tassels are made the easy way - by rolling up and sewing short pieces of fringe. Conveniently, the burgundy fringe was also already in my stash, and matched the fabric very well. The inside edges are all serged, but the actual robe will be fully lined.

[vincentbriggs]

2022 in Review

 Oh heck, we're nearing the end of January already and I still haven't done a year in review post! And I have now had this blog for a full d

Late, as usual, but I finished my sewing year in review post!

[vincentbriggs]

Finished the blog post on my most recent early 18th century shirt. Some portraits show this style of shirt fastening with a wide colourful ribbon, and in some it's a narrow black one, so I tried both.