 Hello, it's Rebecca. Thank you for joining me today. I have a big announcement to make. I have finally decided on my next big project. There's a little bit of a backstory to this. As you know, this entire year, the year 2020, has just not gone the way any of us could have imagined, much less planned for. At the beginning of the year, I was looking ahead at pretty full schedule, nicely paced with a mixture of giving talks at conferences and study days, a couple of hands-on sewing workshops, a bit of travel, several days in collections museums, studying extant garments, two markets planning to go to, so lots of things to sew and make a wide range of things, trying to think what would interest people, what people are looking for, what they want to buy. And somewhere along in there, I thought I should try to make myself a new pair of stays because the pair that I have that up to a year or so go fit fairly well. I'm afraid menopause changes, body shape and they no longer fit. So somewhere in there along the way, I thought I need to make a new pair of stays for myself, even though I really knew that I had no time to make myself any new garments, any new gowns. So it's going to be new stays, but only really if I could find the time in amongst all of my business paying work. Well, coronavirus and the subsequent lockdowns and closures of markets and museums and sites and schools and just everything aside from the personal impact that we all have felt in having to stay home and not seeing our friends and family and events that we're looking forward to enjoying being cancelled. Aside from that, it's been the personal impact and the business impact and overall, I think the uncertainty of it has been the most frustrating and most worrying for everyone. So when this all happened in March, I was in the US the beginning of the month, so looking forward to a full schedule for the rest of the year and talking with people about making more plans to add even more. And I thought, well, at some point I'm going to make new stays. So I was booked onto the stays pattern drafting and the construction course at the School of Historical Dress at the end of March. And anticipation of that, I had friends in Plenty of Williamsburg do my measurements for stays, got home from that trip and immediately everything went into lockdown and the School of Historical Dress had to close amongst many other sites and venues and institutions and businesses and small enterprises and people like me. Everybody shut down. So I didn't quite. I went with myself and didn't know how long that was going to last. And so I thought, right, well, I won't be making stays. So in my saviour at that point was Burnley and Trowbridge announcing their Sew a Long series. So I leapt onto that and made a lot of things that, you know, quite straightforward, not complicated fitting, just nice relaxing sewing. I have not made every project that's been in the Sew a Long series. In some cases, I've skipped certain ones. And then in other projects, made two. So for example, I've just finished two bedgowns as part of the B&T Sew a Long series. And that has been wonderful. This was also a time too, with no commitments, events to plan for. I took the opportunity to get moved into my new workshop space. This is a room at the back of my husband's business. So I'm the only one that comes in here, my husband occasionally. And it's big enough that once we're able to get together with people again, I will be able to hold small sewing workshops here. But meanwhile, it's been a fantastic opportunity to go through all of my sewing supplies and all of my fabrics that were all stored in plastic crates and get everything kind of an idea of what I had and how much of what I had and sift through, you know, they kind of allocate fabrics to fabric, to projects, and think about when I get the time. And at this point, when I was doing this, it was starting to look like all the time in the world really. So yeah, so April moved into the new workshop, sewing along with Burnley and Trowbridge, and giving thought to launching YouTube channel. So I was trying to learn video filming and editing, you know, what you do with setting up and scripting videos and how you film them and then post production editing and getting it all nice and pretty and coherent for you. That's been a huge learning curve. So that's kind of how my second quarter, April, May and June have gone for 2020. A little bit of sewing, moving, filming. But somehow in there, I took my eye off the ball with some sewing and got a flare up of tendinitis. So in some ways, this gift of time couldn't have come in a better time to be struggling with strength and soreness and issues with my hands. But that's getting better. And things must move forward. So I now have a beautiful workshop that I'm looking forward to sharing with you and you're going to see a lot of filming happening here, I think. And somewhere along the way, looking ahead, I took a poll on my Facebook and Instagram pages saying, next big project, what would you like me to do? And the answer came back loud and clear to Deborah Sampson dress, which you may or may not be familiar with. This is in the historic New England collection. It was worn in, I believe, 1785 by Deborah Sampson. It was a kind of a hand me down or second hand goods dress. It was not new to her, but it was apparently altered to fit her. So this is very intriguing. So I thought, okay, great, this will be a fantastic project. But meanwhile, yeah, I think if no one steps forward and asks me to commission that to fit them, I will end up making this for myself, which comes back to the I need new stays issue. So, sorry to look like, okay, it won't just be a gown and exciting, you know, reproduction, recreation, reconstruction project, but also involve stays. Okay, lovely. And then I thought, well, to cover things off, as I'm not going to get a chance to see this gown in person at any point, I should see if I have enough information really to do it justice. So I emailed the curator thinking museums closed, I'm sure she's probably working from home, but we'll see, you know, response, no hurry. And in fact, she did reply and she said, I am working from home. I have a lot of information on this dress in my files, in my office, which I'd be happy to share with you once I get back off. Once things have reopened enough, I can go do that. And I know that this will not be top priority for her when she does return. And meanwhile, discussions on Facebook prompted someone to private message me saying, I've seen this gown in person and have noted a few things. I'm really excited about you possibly making a version of this. Shall we all put our heads together once you've got further details in the museum? I thought, yes, there is no point in rushing ahead and reinventing the wheel and making a lot of guesses that do not be wrong. If the information if people have already looked at it and can help make this make this a good project. So sad to say, yes, I did say that I would be starting this in May or by the end of May. It's on hold now. And meanwhile, more information, more I look at the fabric, I'm kind of questioning the fabric that I have in my stash, whether it's really the right thing. So I'm going to keep looking for some better fabric for that. So what to be making? That was the one that was voted for. At the beginning of the year, thinking that I was not going to be doing any sewing for myself, but knowing that if and when I did get a chance to make a new gown for myself. I knew which one I wanted to make. I didn't think it would be this year. I didn't think they'd be the time. And there's also the issue of stays. I still need to stay. But again, I really, really been wanting to make for myself. And this is very selfish. This is not something I have been thinking, I wish someone commissioned this or I hope someone I wish someone would come to me saying, please make me this gown. This is really for me. And it's this. This is in the National Museum in Munich in Germany. It is a 1760s long sack. But some of you will know as Ero Allah Franças. Excuse my poor pronunciation pronunciation. It's quite a straightforward one. I don't believe there are any significant alterations or updates to it. It seems to have been made in the 1760s to a very classic 1760s style with a compare. Some of her front classic robings, classic trimmings for that era. And I've never made a long sack before. And I think this would be a fantastic one to try to copy or to learn from and learn how to make one based on this. And I have the right fabric for it. And this is complete chance. This dress had been on my radar for a little while and but not really on my make list. And at some point, some point quite unrelated, I in on a trip on a trip in the Netherlands, I obtained two meters, this might be three meters, two meters of this fabric, which is a glazed reproduction chance fabric, not quilting copper. And it has been, I believe it's a heat pressing process they use for glazing, not something that's been painted on. But the motifs are not exactly like this gown. But the right colors and the right color proportions, the right amount of pinks, right amount of blue, for example, I felt was quite critical. So I had this fabric, but it's quite expensive fabric. And that was another reason why I didn't have any immediate plans to make this. And then a little bit of a windfall, being a US citizen, and it never occurred to me that I might even be eligible. So I hadn't applied, hadn't acquired. But as a US citizen, even though I've lived in the UK for 21 years now, I qualified for the payments being made out to all adults or all taxpayers, $1,200. And that was out of the blue, actually a check literally in the post, opened my post box and there's a brown envelope saying from the US Treasury, open it up and there is a check for $1,200. Took it round to my bank and they said, yep, fill out a form here for the currency conversion, no problem. And suddenly, yes, I spent the money on bills and all the things that you have to, you know, wasn't just going to splurge on fabric. But suffice to say, corona has paid for more fabric to make this. I call that a windfall and really, really lucky from a purely selfish point of view. But meanwhile, the question stays, hasn't gone away. I'm going to need stays. Thank God here for fashion five mentioned already. And the stays that was the subject basis for the course that I did, the School of Historical Progress last year on pattern drafting is a 1760s style and construction. It is very similar, in fact, to the stays that I need to replace anyway. So I'm already sort of leaning the these are the kind of stays that I want as my go to stays. They are fully bound. They are strapless. They are beautiful in fact. And I already have some wool satin, which is what the extant originals were made from as the fashion fabric. And having already in my class on the ARC method, these were the stays that were used. As our basis for learning that method. So even though I was not able to attend a workshop this year to solidify, consolidate my knowledge, my understanding of that pattern drafting method, I think I've got enough knowledge to at least get started. I will also need for this gown some sort of wired some sort of wired skirt support in patterns of fashion five. There are possibly three different extents that would be suitable for this time period and for this shape with the volume being in the hips. But I think for flexibility or use of the gowns just as an addition to my wardrobe, I'm going to go with the pocket hoops. Another factor in that decision is the fact that I have the right materials in the supplies list for this with lots of synthetic whale bone. I want to I want to use this learning experience to get as close to a reconstruction to really learn from this research as much as possible, not just as a nice idea. I'll do my own version, you know, do a riff of that using whatever materials. I really want to do as close a replica as I can in the circumstances without hands-on study and without exactly the original materials. But the other the large pooped petticoats involve steel or iron. And I don't have those supplies. And in this time period, I don't think it would be quick, easy or cheap to source those materials. So the pocket hoops is what we're going with. So you go back and add all this together. We have a fairly large project involving stays, pocket hoops and a long sack gown with a certain amount of whale suitable for the period trim we've got. And I have not yet determined whether that trim all involves hemming and whether that is going to be a problem in terms of my hands after the stay-making as well, which at this point I do hope to do entirely by hand. A marker, I will machine stitch the boning channels but that's who we're at. Stays, pocket hoops and a big gown. And I have just been offered a place at Oxford University starting in September. So if I'm going to do this, I need to do it now. I need to get started now and I need to finish by the middle of September. It's just scary. So my plan at this point is, as far as sharing this with you, I want to share everything, the process. You know, you be a fly on the wall here in my workshop. While I figure things out, do things, screw up, do them again, do them better. Thank God for erasers on pencils and seam rippers and all of those things. I can't promise that there won't be furrowed brows and under my breath swearing and tears and blood and all those things that go with doing things for the first time. But there you go. This is sort of three months to do all of this. So video-wise, filming-wise. I'd like to do a weekly video, but the way this is going to get started is next week I have ready for you on Monday, and this will be in the CosTube guide, is a presentation that I've prepared about the Isabella McTavish Trasure Project from last year. So that's really exciting. I'm really, really proud of that project and in putting this presentation together for you. Then I'm going to do a short video, short. Then I'm going to do a video about my workshop, setting up and how I've got it laid out and what my priorities were for what I wanted from my workspace in terms of ergonomics and fabric storage and bits and pieces. Everyone is different. I think we all enjoy seeing what solutions people have found for the things that they want out of their productive working space. So I am working on a video for that and that will be ready not this coming week, but the week after that. That's the first week of July. Goodness, July already. Then the week after that I should have a video ready that is about the stays that goes through all of the pattern drafting and making a mock-up and getting through the first fitting and finding out how successful that pattern draft is or has been and what tweaks might be necessary. But hopefully at that point ready to then go straight into construction of the stay so that then the video the following week or possibly might be a two-week gap. I might alternate a couple of other topics in there. We'll see how we get on to then have the second video about construction stays to see that through making the stays using patterns of fashion 5 and all of the layers and the construction features that you see in there and then pocket hoops. So if I can get to the middle of August with stays and pocket hoops complete, I have some thoughts to share on how to approach fitting in gowns like this, whether you're using a pattern, a commercial pattern or a gridded pattern or you cut your shapes, the period method and then fitting issues and how to deal with fitting yourself, how to be your own manager maker as I call it. So I'll have some thoughts to share on that too. The dress making itself, the gown won't take that long. The trim will probably take longer than it does to make the gown. We'll see how that goes. But that's the plan. And now that I've committed it to you, shared it with you, I am now accountable to you to stick to this plan and try to get this all done by the middle of September. If you have any comments or questions, even if it's you're crazy, please put them in the comments below. Please click like on this video. And if you're interested in following along and seeing how this goes, do click subscribe and click the notification bell that will let you know when I release a new video. So here we go. Thanks for joining me. I'll see you next time.