When I first started planning the 1883 Victorian walking dress, I came across a photo of Victorian ladies in mourning. Apparently, photographing people displaying their grief was common; they wanted a way to memorialize that part of their lives. I was fascinated by the photo. I started researching mourning etiquette, wanting to learn more.   The Victorians took mourning very seriously; at first, that seems very morbid. But, it serves a very important point. It gives people the time and the right to grieve; to process and to mourn and to wallow.

1890 Victorian Bathing Suit When I first started looking for Victorian dress patterns, I stumbled across a pattern for an 1890 Victorian bathing suit. I instantly fell in love, and I bookmarked it  under "future projects".  I kept revisiting the site, there was just something about that outfit that I found irresistible. But, I had no where to wear an outfit like this, and it required quite a bit of fabric, so I hesitated.  I think I lasted about a month before I bought the pattern.

I love finishing projects. The sweet feeling of success. The Victorian is especially sweet, because it's a fairly involved project with a lot of pieces, and very fitted tailoring, so it was a little challenging, and a little nerve wracking, and a lot of fun. First, because the pattern requires very accurate measuring and sizing, as opposed to modern patterns, I took my measurements while corseted, then traced the appropriate pattern pieces, and adjusted them to my measurements. Then, I made a mockup out of muslin to test the fit.

... of the accident. It still saddens me, I miss my old life. But enough time has gone by that some of it seems to belong to another person, another lifetime. Even reading the second anniversary post feels odd, like it is now buried under layers of survival and acceptance and moving on. I saw my old house on Halloween, I parked across the street from it, as I do every Halloween. This year, I noticed the new owner changed the garage door, and instead of being really sad, I thought, the door looks so much better than the old one.

I love Halloween, it's one of my most favorite holidays ever. Every year, my friends get together at my ex-neighbor's house, and we have a fun party.  We've been doing themes for the last few years; last year, we did Arabian Nights, which was super fun.  This year, the theme is Wild West.  And I have been sewing like crazy for months now!! In addition to my Halloween costume, I've been busy working on many projects: