I’ve made a lot of lingerie over the years, but my bra preferences have changed over the course of the pandemic (like a lot of women) to favour soft bras over underwired styles, and I’m still trying out different patterns to find ones I like. So I was very interested to learn that New Craft House had not only bought up the un-used fabric and haberdashery from a lingerie brand that sadly went out of business, but bought their patterns, too! When the collection was finally ready to buy (two bra patterns, three panty patterns, and four kits), I literally set a timer and hit buy within the first minute (if you’re ready this right after I’ve posted, the kits are only temporarily sold out while they catch up on the avalanche of orders).
A fuchsia mesh lingerie set
IWTV tribute crew shirt
It should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been following me on social media for the past few months that one of my first makes of the new year should somehow involve the “Interview with the Vampire” tv show (aka “the show so good I think it altered my brain chemistry”). I also spoke more about it in my end of year roundup if you want more explanation of just how good this show is, and how to watch it (short version: AMC or Amazon in most territories).
Anyway, in the official Behind the Scenes documentary, Sam Reid (the actor who plays Lestat) wears a slate blue teeshirt with a coffin drawing on the front, which I really liked, so I did a bit of investigating. Sam’s a massive Anne Rice nerd (to an encyclopedic degree!) but it turned out that this was the “crew shirt” for the show – a promo item made and distributed to cast and crew only. Usually these are pretty tacky affairs with just the show logo on a tee or trucker cap, but I really liked the subtlety of this one – it looks like it does have the show name on the sleeve and a bit of text on the back that can’t be read (my guess is maybe “Memory is a Monster”?), but mostly, I was into the coffin drawing. I did some cursory searches on eBay but with NDAs these days, I didn’t really expect to find anyone selling theirs. So if I wanted one, I’d have to make one myself!
Happy 2023! (Year in Review)
For the past 15(!) years I’ve posted my year in review on 1 January, but not this year. I lost my sewjo around the end of September so I didn’t really have much to blog about. I waited for it to reappear (as I learned a long time ago there’s no point in trying to force it) and prepped a few projects, tidied a bit, planned a bit, and then fell into a massive “Interview with the Vampire” fandom hole (more on that later), and generally was happier in October and November than I’ve been in a long time (completely unrelated to the sewing) but that’s not the reason this post is late.
This post is late because, despite my best efforts (cycling to/from, FFP3 masking indoors with my CO2 monitor and otherwise staying outdoors) I caught a virus of some sort at the office christmas party which left me practically bed-bound with post viral fatigue for 4+ full weeks (no, not Covid, not flu, not RSV, not anything they swabbed for at haematology, but thankfully not EBV either). Like, 21+ hours a day in bed, and if I sat up for more than 15min to eat or drink, I’d have to lie flat for another hour. So sitting up to type was impossible, and I wrote this in pieces on my phone when I could, not being able to put it all together until I started improving a little bit in the past few days.
So apologies that it’s late, and for the blog silence for the past few months, but hey, 2023 can only get better from this dismal start, right?? Without further ado, let’s have a look back at 2022…