Sewing for Royalty

Saturday was the Investiture ceremony for the newest Prince and Princess of Cynagua (the area of the Society for Creative Anachronisms that encompasses interior Northern California and most of Nevada). My new friend Sylvie became our princess and last month she asked me to make her coat for her stepping-up!!! Wha?! A new laurel and now royalty asked ME to sew something for her!!! I'm shocked and tickled pink. This was the first time I've sewn for royalty that have actually enlisted my services. Last year's summer investiture featured the stepping down prince and princess in garb sewn by me, but I was helping with the task as people had had sudden cases of life and I was available to tap in and help out. But this. . . this was the first time the royalty asked me to do something and I'm very very honored.


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Here's Sylvie's write up on her own blog of the whole ensemble. She looked so great! Research Dumping Grounds - Kentish Step Up

Quiet sewing in the midst of chaos

I've gotten to spend some time sewing for Sylvie's step-up coat. I went to her house last Tuesday and got the main body of the coat lining and one sleeve sewn together. She's concerned that I won't have enough time finish it because of the move and all the packing. Well, our paperwork is still stalled out and the escrow stretches onward. Hubster has taken the majority of our things movable to storage or the garage of the new house. I went to weekly dance practice in San Jose on Wednesday evening. It's a long drive and I took the coat pieces to work on in my laurel's basement if there was a chance. The chance did present itself. She had writing to do for one of her blogs. The fiance hadn't been feeling well and so stayed home but was working from the dining table. I holed up in the basement sweat shop and sewed for three uninterrupted hours in silence (only because I had forgotten my charger for my phone and couldn't stream music). It was very pleasant regardless of the headache I started to develop from an allergy/cold I felt coming on. I don't often get a chance to sew so completely left alone. And when I do usually hide away in my sewing room, I'm often made to feel guilty like I'm abandoning my family when I really am quite available to help out. But I managed to finish the rest of the lining and sew the coat together. I even got two hours into the work before I needed a seam ripper (which is A) nearly unheard of and B) something I had to scrounge for because I apparently packed all of mine and not a single one made it into my bag of stuff*).

I am very grateful I got the chance to sew last week and very sad that my sewing room is mostly packed. I have for decades now used sewing as my escape from responsibility. With the house buying process going so utterly sideways, there are many things I should be doing, but all I really want to do sew.

* - I did have to go buy a seam ripper yesterday morning in a fit of frustration with a sewing mistake, frustration with children already crabby at 10 am, and an odyssey of traffic in town and F-ed up Walmart-ness that would try a saint's patience. But I conquered an oddity of sewing/lining garments that I'll post on later. Just know that I should have gotten a cookie for the damned getting a seam ripper sojourn I went on yesterday.