Violet Evergarden Binge Sewing Project - 04/21

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

Most people, especially on resumes, like to lie about 'working well under stress'. Whether that's true or not, well, the employer will normally know within the first week. This is the record of a fateful week in late April and how my stress was relieved and in some cases, exacerbated, by my need to feel productive. Productivity in this case, manifests itself in cranking out a cosplay (costume-play) outfit to wear during peak flower bloom the following weekend.

To set the stage, I'd just started at a new place of employment roughly a month ago. Calling insurances, not really my forte, but, glossing over that, I have a wonderful manner of speaking; this is especially true when it comes to talking to upset patients that require more than a little sucking up to in order to more smoothly hand over their credit cards. This topic is only relevant as it is the source of my daily stress.

Dramatis personae: Myself. There are a few cameo roles by some close friends, particularly my photographer friend whom we shall henceforth refer to as: Miss PNG. So, myself with Miss PNG are the main focuses in this text. By the way, Miss PNG is a firm and devout believer in a newfangled religion started by the youth of the internet called: YOLO. The manifesto of this religion is of course: 'You Only Live Once', so you might as well do X and sleep when you're dead.

Anyone who is remotely involved at all in Nerd culture will tell you, the creation and execution of a cosplay is in fact, terribly taxing. The draping, fabric selection, cutting patterns out, serging your seams, assembling, alterations, styling the wig, and finishing the costume, all of it takes considerable time and energy. Why in God's good name, would anyone attempt to create a costume in only a week's time, on top of a stressful, new job? I'll tell you.

It comes from a sense of accomplishment, longing to feel productive in my hobbies. After about a month of being so tied up in work and not being able to be creative for myself hobby-wise, 'fed up' was barely scratching the surface of how I felt. Cooped up, strangled, imprisoned, lacking luster in life, these are just some synonyms of the tangle of emotions I felt. An hour commute in the morning followed closely by 8 or more hours of work, then another hour commute home, and if energy allows, perhaps a shower; the day is gone. I'd want to do nothing but lie in bed and sleep till morning. Rinse and repeat. Weekends were not diverse either, sleeping in only to lose most of the day made for a somber conversation continuation to the question "What did you do last weekend?" when Monday rolled around. No, there was simply little time to do anything hobby related.

This is the state of affairs the weekend prior to my hellish, but invigorating sewing week. The Saturday prior which serves as the precursor to the storm, found me assisting Miss PNG for a paid photoshoot. A client had requested for us to take photos of her at a state-owned park neither of us had ever heard of. We drove to it in anticipation; new locations meant expanding our own map of places we could potentially shoot our own projects. Upon arrival, we were in awe of how quiet the neighborhood surrounding the park or rather, 'extravagant estate' was. What more, the botanicals in the garden piqued our interest.

Mid to late April, flowers were only blooming on the trees. But upon closer inspection, one would find that several tens of species of flowering bushes and single stalk flowers were already on their way to bloom. "I'd give it a week," Miss PNG said, "before all the tulips bloom." She then glanced at me, "You haven't made a new costumes in ages, why not make something simple and we come back next weekend? You sew fast, might as well YOLO it."

Well, I took that as a challenge of course. But, as anyone who knows me will tell you, the word 'simple' is not in my repertoire. After only watching the movie 'Violet Evergarden' with Miss PNG and my husband a few weeks prior, I'd already had my heart set on making the new dress the titular Violet wears. Here-in lies the problem: time was not in my favor. With roughly four hours between arriving home after work and bedtime, I had to juggle my time and focus.

Nevertheless, I never back down from a challenge. Especially when the challenge was issued on a Saturday, and I had Sunday afternoon to fabric shop and drape a pattern. I collected scraps from my bins at home to cover the bits of brown dotted printed cotton in Violet's neck ribbon and waist belt. A sepia-toned striped cotton was luckily on hand for Violet's full skirt, sleeves, and part of her bodice. What was left was a warm cream fabric for her dress base and another brown print cotton for her bustle; luckily, a nearby fabric shop provided enough of both items in their clearance isle. Creativity was at its finest when I also found a fabric that had pre-made 'ruffles' for Violet's non-conformant dress 'spine'. The fun part was done, onto the hard work.

Pattern draping is my unsung talent; give me a body, any body, and I can make a garment that will fit perfectly on it. My mannequin is in my exact size; in a night, I draped the 8 paneled bodice and faux-half circle overskirt in muslin with some pins and sharp scissors. The underskirt, I could skip, after all, it was just a circle, I thought. More on that later. The sleeves thankfully, I'd made a pattern in the past that would suit the project so I simply altered the armscye measurement for my new bodice. I slept thinking of nothing that night.

Monday, bright and early I awoke for work. The commute seemed longer than usual, but I made it on time. Dental offices will tell you, Mondays and Fridays are the worst in terms of how many walk-in appointments occur. That day, we saw upwards of 15 patients with only 2 doctors. The math is this: a consultation is 45 minutes, and a surgery was 2 hours. On average, a doctor could comfortably see 4 total surgeries, or 9 total consultations in a day. A mix of the two is normal, but for the schedule to be so booked, means the phone did not stop ringing that day. My psyche was irreparably tired every Monday, but more so on this one.

Anyone in their right mind would have gone to bed after a day like that and not done a thing otherwise. Unless they had a deadline to hit of course, yours truly is in that very boat. After work, I drove home and begun the pattern cutting and serging process. 4 hours from 6:00 to 10:00 before I had to be in bed. Let the games begin.

Cutting patterns on carpet is no easy feat. But with some extra help from a cutting board, some British television in the background, and once again, sharp scissors, all 8 bodice pieces, collar, and 4 underskirt pieces came out of the proverbial woodwork of fabrics. Serging required my serger to be thread up in cream or white, luckily I had a roommate who also sewed so I borrowed white serging thread before completing the night with a large pile of ready-to-assemble pieces for tomorrow. The bed once again, claimed my conscience immediately upon hitting it.

Tuesday, rinse and repeat. With only one doctor in the office the stress was admittedly, less. However this doctor has a penchant for taking on surgeries close to closing time, and I wasn't at all surprised when she announced that she would start a procedure around 4:00 pm. Well, that's my night out the window, I thought ruefully to myself.

By the time I got home, it was 8:00. 2 hours until bedtime, and many, many, things to sew. Assembly was pinning all of the bodice pieces together before sewing them together. I could not have fit in any of the skirt work if I needed to be in bed by 10. By a stroke of both luck and perhaps long practiced skill, the bodice miraculously fit perfectly on my mannequin, and I pat myself on the back for not having to perform any alterations. Miss PNG chose this night to remind me that she had plans on Saturday afternoon so we'd have to shoot early in the morning. No pressure or anything. Read that line with sarcasm of course. I don't remember sleeping well that night since my fat cat decided to exchange places with my pillow halfway through it.

The next day, Wednesday, was back to two doctors in office. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tired that day after two nights of not having time to unwind, but then, at this point reader, you should already have come to understand; I didn't lie on my resume. The best pressure to achieve for me, is stress.

After work, I arrived home, showered, and cut out the overskirt in two pieces of cream and the lining in two pieces brown-checked cotton. Here's where problems began. The striped sepia fabric I had for the underskirt was in limited quantity and had chunks of it missing from previous projects. How was I to assemble a circle skirt from remnants?

The obvious but frustrating answer: panels. Possibly my least favorite way to make a skirt, it is certainly a very logical answer to my problem. Either way, beggars can't be choosers; I set off cutting out panels with stripes. Unfortunately, none of the stripes would line up on each panel. No matter, the overskirt would hide most of that, and the bustle too. Which leads me to the second problem of the night: I had not patterned a bustle on Sunday. At this point, I was frustrated. I was compromising for the skirt and needed to go back onto the drafting board, neither of which I had planned to do. Exasperated and sleep deprived, I chose to stay up an additional 2 hours to midnight in order to finish cutting and assembling the entire circle skirt, sewed the overskirt to it, and carefully did the math to create a tack on bustle. Then the void claimed me in sleep.

Thursday, only 2 days left till the Promised Day. Work for once, was relatively slow. A welcome change, but of course, I wouldn't call this 'a study in stress' if unexpected circumstances did not present themselves. Before I arrived home, my close friend Mr. H called. He was having a bad day and needed to vent and eat his feelings. He offered to buy dessert since I frequently did not eat dinner. So, amidst his complaining, I listened with the greatest sympathies, gave feedback, and still somehow, attached the skirt to the bodice, cut out and assembled the bustle with some horsehair I had in stock, and created the brown waist belt and neck ribbon. Mr. H did not leave until well after 10. Not wanting to be overly exhausted on sleeves and wig styling the next day, I added the zipper and ruffles to the back of the dress just before 1:00 am struck. At this point, my husband had gotten used to me having late nights this week and did not wait up. I crept into bed as quietly as I could and slept like a log.

Finally, it was Friday. Thank God for that. I made it to work early and by a stroke of pure luck, my coworker volunteered to stay late in the event we would have to. 5:00 came and I bolted for the door and made it home in about 50 minutes rather than an hour. My evening started slow, I hemmed the underskirt to complete the bottom of the dress. The sleeves which I dreaded doing, came together blissfully without a hitch, even with my very last minute addition of a overlay of sepia striped fabric to fill in the diamond shapes that would inevitably peek out from the blue coat I'd made a year ago. With all that done, all that was left was to restyle the wig and make sure the blue coat from last year still fit.

At 1:00 am I was still working, loud EDM music blasted on in the background, keeping me awake. I had finished re-braiding and cutting the wig. The blonde wig was always mounted on a wig head; perhaps it is my case of undiagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder, but every time prior to wearing this wig, I'd have to restyle it to perfection. This included trimming off and thinning out parts of the bangs, side-bangs, and even cutting off flyaway strands of hair coming from the large braided buns on the back of the wig. Finally I pinned in two red ribbons that were Violet's signature hair accessories. When eventually I finished, I fell asleep on the floor of my sewing room.

The Promised Day started with an 8:00 am alarm. I sat bolt upright and charged into the shower. Time was as it was all week, limited. After the shower and some skin care, I applied a generous heap of makeup to my face and don the costume which ate at my life the last week. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't apprehensive; after all the sewing I'd barely had any time to try on the full outfit. The heart pounding did not stop until I had slipped on the outfit, wig, wool stockings and boots and crossed to look into the full length mirror.

It was perfect. A full week of harrowing sewing, stress from work, almost running out of essential fabrics, was all there but well hidden. Dark circles were covered by creamy pale foundation, blue contacts hid bloodshot eyes, a meticulously braided blonde wig framed my otherwise haggard face. The dress clung to the girl in the mirror, a perfect fit, the flared bustle gave her a decidedly elegant silhouette, and the Prussian blue coat tied the entire project up in a neat bow. Suddenly, all that time agonizing and sewing until nightfall, seemed to melt away. The final product, a crystallization of time well spent, made the effort all worth it.

Suddenly Miss PNG was knocking on my door. She had even brought a helper. The three of us went to the location and took a myriad of photos that was the summation of a week of hard work among a beautiful background of tulips and greenery. And after that, I came home and vegetated in earnest. Drained, yes, but satisfied. After all, how could I not be? Plans coming to fruition is always worth celebration, and happiness as fleeting as it may be, is achieved at the cost of hard labour.

The photos I received a little while later was received with enthusiasm by my friends and was a great source of pride and happiness for myself. I'd done that. I'd worked against the clock and hit a demanding deadline. So what if during that period of time I felt more tired than ever? The point is, I did something for myself. Rather than wasting nights on my phone or watching television, I pushed myself to accomplish what to most would be too much work. The sense of accomplishment is something that is earned and only through blood, sweat, and tears.

In conclusion, happiness is not generated in the same way for everyone. Some choose to buy happiness in the form of tangible objects, some work hard to create happiness through success, some find happiness in solitude and etcetera etcetera. Creativity and doing things for myself is something that at this stage in life, is terribly difficult to make time for. And I imagine it is that way for most of of the working class; but what is important is that each and every one of us make a conscious effort to try. After all, when a life flashes before one's eyes, do we really want it to all be dull, work moments, television, and an endless sea of same? Or would we rather remember the dips and hills filled with a rich array of the most memorable moments in which we pushed ourselves, regardless of the resulting success or failure? I imagine when my life's cinematic record flashes before my eyes, it will be filled with dramatic swishes of skirts, lace, shining organza, beads, friends laughing, all shot through a dreamlike haze and bokeh filter. That is what I want to see before I close my eyes.