elanya

I was being all good, reading about the Armada. I selected the shorter of two books to start with. I have to get two assignments out of it - one for Sea Power, and one for Maritime History. The first is just another 500 word review. The second is a comparitive review, with the other Armada book, and about ten pages (if I recall correctly). This means that I can't really skim it. It seems like it won't be too difficult to get through. Or at least, it shouldn't be.

However, I was looking at one of the figures included, which is of two Spanish musketeers. The text was talking about Spanish attitudes to dress, and honour and so on. Basically, they believed that if men got to dress up all fancy, they would feel more proud and fight better. Needless to say, they had no uniforms, and their elite were really ostentatiously arrayed. This got me thinking about clothes, and how I could use some more... and then how I could *make* some more, and now I am trying to read and my brain is telling me I shoudl set up my sewing machine and churn something out *right now*! As if I don't have enough work already. Geez. I want a pair of velvet knickers. Is that so wrong? And I have some material to attempt my initial corset with.... I think I'll try an underbust to start, out of some older material. Hrm.

On the plus side, I think I know how I will make my fire-skirt for dance now. It seems to blatantly obvious, and I can't believe I didn't think of it before. The plan for the moment is to make a sort of top-skirt to cover my butt, and then to have streamers of different colours and lenghts coming off it in different layers. I think this could work! I have all kinds of material, but I'll need something fairly strong for the base. It should fly quite nicely too, since all the streamers will be silk. Maybe I'll pick up some bits of chiffon as well. I don't know what I will do for a top, though, because 'covering a bra' is not so great an option when *cheap* ones run about 60-80$. Hmmm... Choli? I want to make some more of them anyway, they'll be great here in summer. Bah! Well, this is a project I have been considering for so long that it definitely merits some attention. Just, ah, maybe not *today*, brain.

I am hoping that by writing this down I can purge it out of my head and get back to reading :) Lets see if it has worked...