To travel or not to travel.

 

Considering my track record of travelling I seem to have done a 360.. Back when I didn't have much of a home to come back to I loved to travel but now I have the worst of separation anxieties. I guess one does really take the good with the bad at all times.

Can't wait to be back.

Arsenic green dreams.

It was a while ago I realised that making dresses that only fit if I wear corsets just will not be worn all that much..and I don't actually need to with this one either.. but here I sit. Tightly bound into my corset and feeling fabulous! It's just so much prettier with the corset (and by that I mean historically accurate looking). There's something very disturbingly patriarchal about how I feel a rush of power and excitement over not being able to take deep breaths or drink a whole smoothie. That panic-like dizziness for the first 5 minutes before one gets used to it.. It's the extreme of withstanding pain for someone else's pleasure and even if I'm alone I still feel it. 

To be fair, we all do it all the time don't we..

But back to the dress!

I finished it! I must say I'm getting pretty impressed with my own speed sewing and determination. I am going to make the top-part that I actually meant to make as well but that will have to be after Halloween. So far so good though, I really didn't imagine my experiment ball dress top would turn out this well. Considering I got to borrow some vampire bite tattoos from my child I might just wear this for Halloween and say I'm Mina Murray form Dracula. 

Sans corset!

It's Halloween after all.

But yes, I am very happy with my new dress, totally ready to party. Because it's some kind of synthetic (yes I know..) it's much lighter than my cotton dresses and the boning worked out really well! I can see why people put them in. It smooths it all out and makes it look very structured even if its a thin fabric. I also tried another historically accurate thing: fastenings with hooks. I'm actually quite a fan of that when it works. It usually doesnt and ends up lumpy but I think the bones helped with that too, held them in place a bit. 

I'm not sure how often I will actually use the top but the skirt really is my favourite so far. That will go with everything.

Now, time to break out of my steel prison and finish that smoothie.

 

In preparation for the cultural exchange fair at school

Once, when I was a little girl, I walked on the road between my cousins house and grandmothers house and there in the forest next to the road I saw the wolves with their glimmering eyes. I had heard of how they roam the woods in dusk and how I should not let them see I was scared. So I walked calmly down the road while they watched me and I felt as if I had escaped death.  

Half way there

A few days ago I almost finished this test version of a 1870's-80's ball gown. I'm sure you see where my patience ran out. I tend not to be great at handling setbacks so when the front ended up uneven (as it often does.. *sigh*) I decided to leave it until I felt like dealing with it...so far I haven't. 

BUT! actually the important part is the skirt! and the skirt turned out just fine. It's my favourite so far of all of my skirts because it's so very historically accurate looking and that just makes me happy.  I've never made a lining at the hem before but I highly recommend it! it's very easy and makes it look a lot better. Also, no real Victorian skirt would have been without it, or so I hear.. 

After this I'm making the two top parts, the jacket and the apron over-skirt out of dark grey wool. I'm planing to make them look as historically accurate as well. It's almost starting to feel like I've made enough of these outfits now to seem like my practice makes perfect. 

Almost..

It's going to be a very 1880's look in the end (my favourite!) but while I figure some things out I wanted to try a thing I have also never tried before: boning my bodice. That's a very common thing to read about in the context of historical accuracy but I suppose I've never really made anything where it would have been necessary so I never have. So since I had some fabric left over I thought I would try.. and aside for my common mistake of an uneven front I think it went pretty well!

I also like that now I'll have two tops for my skirt, one for walking around in and one for dancing. Also very historically accurate! 

It's not quite done..but so far I like it. It needs some fixing and bustling and buttons before I decide if I want to keep it.

As a contrast to my earlier dress this is much more in my comfort zone. I like the dark, rich colours..the drama..the passion. After all I am a city girl. I feel more at home on dark streets than in the field.

This will be more Bel Amie than Tess of the dUrbervilles, more Dracula and Anna Karenina.. Yes, I do like my film inspirations. Makes a good contrast to fashion plates.

À bientôt.

As always.

Victorian little bits

Dried my tears after last post (yes, there were tears, a lot of tears, deal with it) and now it's onwards and upwards with some hats and stuff! There isn't really that much to say about it other then that I made some hats.. One red velvet bonnet, which I forced both my child and sister to wear before I came to the conclusion that I must have accidentally made a child bonnet ..or both me and my sister suffer from large headedness... either way. But I'm still pretty happy with it! I started it the same day as we went to Dickens World in Chatham (finally!!) so I felt inspired.. 

The other one I made that day too and is supposed to go with my latest Victorian dress and a jacket for the next Dickensian Christmas hopefully. It's really just Lus old upcycled summer hat but hopefully it will look like it fits in. I like that it's a bit torn, that's kind of the look I'm going for. I also really do like making hats because it's so easy, it's just stuff glued onto other stuff really. The only bit of sewing is inside and the back of the bonnet, that I did hand sew to make sure it fit.

This on the other hand requires much more sewing! I've started my next Victorian dress. It's going to be emerald green and dark grey. I found the green fabric in my next door charity shop and though.. "that looks like arsenic green!" so yeah, that's how I knew. We'll see how it goes...

 Because passion was never a weakness.

Ljusa kvällar om våren.

I was 4 years old when I first felt it. The unease. The longing for something unknown far away..

I sometimes wonder how much I have in common with my ancestors who emigrated in the 1800's.. It seems people don't really change that much on a personal level from century to century and even if the practical things are very different I can very well imagine they might have felt a lot like me. We mustn't forget that our generation is the first in living memory to have a darker future than the generation before.

When I first came to England it was a one way trip I didn't know if I would ever return from. Sometimes when I lie in the grass looking up at the trees I'm amazed at how soft it all looks and I think...that to my son this will be normal. That's a very divided feeling.

From the mid 1860's on there was a mass emigration of Scandinavians out of what was then poor developing countries because of lack of jobs, bad harvests and harsh winters that lead to mass starvation. My own grandmothers father left for America just like many others.. apparently there are about 8 million descendants of Scandinavians in America only and, to put that into perspective, that's about the whole population of one of the countries in Scandinavia. I find this really fascinating not only because I live with the legacy of that but because I made the same choice and it saturates my family and my whole being..

In the end the conclusion is always the same now or a 100 years ago: 

Våra barn ska aldrig känna längtans vånda och ve.
Inga klara syner från mitt förgånga ska doms se
De ska aldrig fråga sig om det knoppas eller blommar
I landet långt bort, och länge sen
Inte höra ljud av skratt i symmningen
Som ekon i från barndomsåren
Ljusa kvällar om våren

I still remember how that cracked road felt under my feet

 And it is more than worth it. 


For as an emigrant you get the best of both worlds. Life really is better. You get to live on and feel free with all the knowledge and experience it gives you while building something completely new.. And those memories of the cracked road under your feet will forever be perfect in your mind. Nothing can ever take my rose-tinted memories away with the flawed reality. 
I get to keep the beauty and forget the darkness.. So that is what I will share if my son ever asks if the place that once was my home is still there. Because in my mind the apples still hang on the trees..just waiting..

Jag är äntligen fri.

29.

This week when my sons friend asked me how old I am and his mother pulled him away and told him not to be rude I waited a moment..then I leaned down to him and whispered '29'. Even if I feel old and worn in many ways by now 29 isn't all that old, but it is old enough to be proud of!

When I thought about it it hit me..child sized me always thought that 30 was the year people were considered old and properly grown up and..my life is exactly as I imagined it..when I sat by the road side in the Swedish countryside..trough all the hardships and abandonments and uprootings...while meeting all these people that has made my life worth living. Seeing the beauty in the bad and experiencing the freedom of a new world.

During all the disbelief.

Sometimes I can not believe I made it.

 

Next year I will have lived twice as long as doctors once predicted..and man, has it been a cool ride so far!