A Holey Grail

Hello and welcome! 

    This is going to be a little bit off-topic. In the post titled Sew I'd Like to Know Where You Got the Notions, I was wrangling the growing mass of craft supplies from spreading like a malignant tumor. Here are some updates on how I am getting my crap together. 

    Because I am the Little Mermaid of hoarding crafting supplies, something had to be done to reign it in before the beginning of the fall semester. (Which is in a matter of hours. RIP me.) According to my class schedule, I don't have time for a nervous breakdown triggered by my environment. 

    As the drag queen and national treasure Latrice Royale once said on RuPaul's Best Friend Race, "The Five G's. Good God girl get a grip!" 

The Costume Bible

    This idea is from Foundations Revealed. Broadway costume companies and individual costumers have large binders for each show they work on that are full of fabric swatches, where they sourced the materials, and the prices of everything. When more costumes need to be created for new cast members or for other productions of the same show, the costume bible is a guide for recreating an identical item. While my job has nothing to do with the theatrical realm or making sure the cast of Cats has the appropriate hues of spandex, the costume bible can be modified to fit my needs. And that's exactly what I did this summer. 

    I found a three-ring binder that my kid brother used in high school and gutted it. On Peptobismol colored cardstock paper, I printed out heading pages for each category I wanted. So far the main subcategories are fabrics, materials, notions, patterns, and future project ideas.

    The first section is about what's actually in my stash. Mainly, fabric. I got the template idea from someone else on Foundations Revealed as well. Each page has three sections for fabric swatches and includes the details of what the fiber content is, how much I paid for it, where it was purchased, and how much of the stuff I have. The last line is for storage location. No more deep sea diving or buying more of something I already own. 

    The fabric squares were sewn to paper with some basic tacking stitches by yours truly. I put them all in plastic sheet protectors back to back so when you turn the pages, there are neither needle holes nor thread to be seen. Initially, I wanted to sort the fabric by color which is why there's blank spaces in between the red and yellow fabrics at the beginning. And several days later, I found three different scraps of fleece in my closet and I'm sensing that maintaining a rainbow gradient in the costume bible is going to be unrealistic.

    Moving on. Next is interfacing and materials. It's a broad category that will eventually include the patterns, buttons, trims, embellishments, notions, and zippers in the stash. But time is a sneaky wench and I'm about to become the school version of myself. And she already has no time. 

    Then I started on the notions. There was something about tediously wrapping samples of cording in a loop and chopping up synthetic whalebone then stitching each one onto paper that made me think, "Wow. I really don't love this." But the result is pretty sweet. 

    Other sections are reserved for referrence images and primary sources on the historical sewing projects for the Ghost of Rachel's Future. 

    This is already the greatest gift I can give to my future self aside from investing wisely in the stock market or having bountiful savings. A trip to a fabric store just got significantly less likely to induce a panic attack. 

A Holey Grail

My parents graciously trusted me with a drill and drywall anchor screws and I may have to do some paint touch-ups before leaving for graduate school. But this finally happened and I did it (mostly) by myself. 

Yes, there are three emotional support Freddie Mercurys. The Live Aid and God Save the Queen versions (on the desk) are new additions. There's also a whiskey glass full of animal-shaped erasers.

I should have made an I Spy book with the pictures of this pegboard. I found a squishy candy corn friend while cleaning and now he guards the corset boning.

No more cluttered desk drawers. This is perfect.

I got a larger whiteboard to track assignments and big due dates for this upcoming semester. With all the URCO stuff I have planned on top of working and taking classes, organizaton will make or break me. And I intend to thrive.

Thank you for joining me on this slight deviation from the regular corset-related posts! I am almost done with the first mock-up and I can't wait to show you my progress.

-Rachel