The Boyer Sisters, Part 2

[catlady]

20 minutes ago, Hummingbird said:

Oh my gosh. I love, love, love Brigid's velvet skirt. I never attempted to sew velvet. Does anyone know if it's as hard as it seems? 

my mom would say yes; she's been sewing since the early 1950's.  she made matching red velvet christmas dresses for me and my sister around 1973 and swore off using velvet after that project.  apparently it's very difficult to run through the machine without slipping.

[DaisyD]

34 minutes ago, Hummingbird said:

Oh my gosh. I love, love, love Brigid's velvet skirt. I never attempted to sew velvet. Does anyone know if it's as hard as it seems? 

The thing about velvet is that as it goes under the presser foot the pile compacts and the edges shift. I haven't tried it but a walking foot might help. 

[refugee]

50 minutes ago, catlady said:

my mom would say yes; she's been sewing since the early 1950's.  she made matching red velvet christmas dresses for me and my sister around 1973 and swore off using velvet after that project.  apparently it's very difficult to run through the machine without slipping.

The thing I remember my mom complaining about with velvet, if I'm remembering right, was that it had a nap, and so you had to be very careful to lay it out with all the pieces going the same direction when you cut it or the light would hit the different pieces differently and the article of clothing would look odd.

I don't sew much, so I'm not sure just how to describe it.

[FormerlyFundyLite]

On 12/14/2016 at 8:05 AM, catlady said:

Why does she wish she needed glasses?  Who in their right mind wants bad eyesight?  If she wants glasses as a fashion statement, she can probably find some online.

I'm not caught up at all (work has been crazy and I've been exhausted), but I wanted glasses when I was younger because I thought I looked better with them (before fashion frames were a thing). Careful what you wish for...

I do still think I look better with them--they balance out my kinda big nose and I can actually stand far enough away from the mirror to see more of my face than just my nose when I have them on.

9 hours ago, formergothardite said:

Two years ago we hired a photographer to take family pictures and for one pose she wanted us to stare into the distance. I ended up with confused looks on my face for every one of the "look into the distance" pictures. 

Senior photos. My photographer (who inexplicably changed clothes in front of us in the lobby) told me not to smile for one of the classic yearbook headshots. Resting bitch face would've been a vast improvement--it was like one of those photos where the family dressed up their deceased loved one for one last photo back in the day. I couldn't pull off those wistful gazing photos that the girls do if I had professional model coaching for a month and Annie Liebowitz behind the camera.

[hollyandivy]

9 hours ago, Hummingbird said:

Oh my gosh. I love, love, love Brigid's velvet skirt. I never attempted to sew velvet. Does anyone know if it's as hard as it seems? 

Yes, it is, it is very slippery, almost like the fabric is trying to run away from the needle.  And you have to watch which way the fibres go, otherwise the different pieces look like they have a different colour.

 

And your sewing room will look like you butchered the fabric - fuzz everywhere

 

 

 

 

[Palimpsest]

On 12/15/2016 at 8:39 AM, Gabe said:

Yet Palimpsest dismisses and delegitimizes people who disagree.

No, I chased off a person I had suspected of being a known fake from her third post and had been keeping a careful eye on since.  It was obvious in my (professional) opinion that she had never worked for CPS.  Oddly enough fakers, and especially Fundie fakers, can do an awful lot of damage.  You should probably be grateful to me for not letting her misrepresent your beliefs, @Gabe.

However, if you want to use the troll eviction as a poor excuse to run away from discussion, please go ahead.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Back to topic:

Pretty outfit on Brigid.  She looks very nice and it is a pity she is homesick.  Setting up some new Christmas traditions with Gabe should help.

I've tried sewing velvet.  It does have a pile so you have to be careful to lay the pieces out in the right direction.  I agree that it is messy and hard to feed through the machine.  It's best to hand baste everything first.  It also helps to have a good streamer, and know how to use it, for the seams.  I made a simple gathered skirt, eons ago, that was a bit like Brigid's but I wouldn't want to tackle a dress or a jacket.

[nokidsmom]

As an experienced sewer, I stay away from velvet.   Did it once and it was a pain.    Worked in a fabric store during my college years and couldn't understand why that beautiful fabric didn't get sold very much.....until I tried working with it.  

 

[nokidsmom]

1 hour ago, hollyandivy said:

And you have to watch which way the fibres go, otherwise the different pieces look like they have a different colour.

How I worked with this, along with any other fabric with a nap (or pile) was to look in one direction which was lighter and the other direction which was darker.  Marked with pins the direction that I wanted to lay the pieces towards.  Generally the bottom of the pieces were towards the marked side.   Still had to do a lot of checking and double checking before cutting.  

Did a lot of corduroy and brushed denim when I was a teenager which had to be laid out this way.  Was fine for pants and skirts which were simple but got a little complicated when I did a dress.   It turned out OK but I really had to pay attention with all the smaller pieces.

 

[Four is Enough]

Plan a LOT of money, time, space, and cleanup if you plan to sew velvet. It takes extra money to buy extra fabric so you have enough to lay all pieces out correcctly Layout takes a lot of space because of the need to lay it out in the same direction. A walking foot or a roller foot can be used. Patience is a virtue, or if you have no patience and don't care about the outcome, wine is good. Remember that the sewing machine is a power tool and operate accordingly..

 

I would agree with other posters who said make your own family, just you two, Christmas traditions, beginning now.. I moved with my husband when we married. Not as far as 3 hours, but couldn't just hop a cab and go, either. One thing we started to do was to go to museums right before Christmas, or some little boutique stores, to look around. That's an "us" thing, and we love it.

 

[catlady]

12 hours ago, FormerlyFundyLite said:

I'm not caught up at all (work has been crazy and I've been exhausted), but I wanted glasses when I was younger because I thought I looked better with them (before fashion frames were a thing). Careful what you wish for...

I do still think I look better with them--they balance out my kinda big nose and I can actually stand far enough away from the mirror to see more of my face than just my nose when I have them on.

 

I'm with you there; Charlotte is very cute, and vintage frames would probably suit her well. Point being that she should be able to find some online and have flat lenses put in if she wants them for fashion.  No one should wish that they need corrective lenses. 

[Nina]

Hello Gabe!

This is Leo, Nina´s Husband speaking.

Do you plan to attend WWII reenactment in the future? Were you taught much about WWII? Was the Resistance groups mentioned (Edelweiss, Weiße Rose, Staufenberg?)

I am very curious, do all of your sisters in Law drive? Do you feel secure while your wife drives? I feel secure while Nina drives. When she had her permission for about 2 months I even fell asleep!

[JesusPony]

Still with the "Look at these 37 pictures of me!" modesty posts.

[formergothardite]

23 minutes ago, Nina said:

When she had her permission for about 2 months I even fell asleep!

I"ve been trying to figure out what this sentence means and I got nothing. 

[church_of_dog]

12 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

I"ve been trying to figure out what this sentence means and I got nothing. 

I think he meant to say 'permit' but autocorrect changed it to 'permission'

[refugee]

44 minutes ago, Nina said:

Do you plan to attend WWII reenactment in the future? Were you taught much about WWII? Was the Resistance groups mentioned (Edelweiss, Weiße Rose, Staufenberg?)

I had not heard these names before. Do you have any suggestions for reading about them? (In English, preferably; my German is a bit rusty, but if the only sources you know are in German I could sweat my way through them.)

[laPapessaGiovanna]

46 minutes ago, refugee said:

I had not heard these names before. Do you have any suggestions for reading about them? (In English, preferably; my German is a bit rusty, but if the only sources you know are in German I could sweat my way through them.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_resistance_to_Nazism

ETA I think our members from Germanic countries could add some words @samurai_sarah @JillyO @AnnyNym and I can't remember her username but she has an owl as an avatar

[Palimpsest]

40 minutes ago, refugee said:

I had not heard these names before. Do you have any suggestions for reading about them?

What @laPapessaGiovanna said.  There is a film about White Rose (non-violent student group), Stauffenberg presumably refers to the July 20, 1944 failed plot to assassinate Hitler (mainly aristocrats and Army officers), and Edelweiss to the Edelweiss Pirates youth group  (Edelweißpiraten).

I have quite a collection of books about women's experiences in WWII if you are interested.

 

[JemimaPuddle-Duck]

6 hours ago, Four is Enough said:

Plan a LOT of money, time, space, and cleanup if you plan to sew velvet. It takes extra money to buy extra fabric so you have enough to lay all pieces out correcctly Layout takes a lot of space because of the need to lay it out in the same direction. A walking foot or a roller foot can be used. Patience is a virtue, or if you have no patience and don't care about the outcome, wine is good. Remember that the sewing machine is a power tool and operate accordingly..

 

I would agree with other posters who said make your own family, just you two, Christmas traditions, beginning now.. I moved with my husband when we married. Not as far as 3 hours, but couldn't just hop a cab and go, either. One thing we started to do was to go to museums right before Christmas, or some little boutique stores, to look around. That's an "us" thing, and we love it.

 

Museums and boutiques is a lovely tradition. I think that things considered childish are great fun for couples  --- decorating gingerbread houses, going sledding!, taking a drive to look at Christmas lights, doing an advent wreath, reading the same Christmas book every year, picking an angel from an angel tree. 

[Palimpsest]

7 hours ago, Four is Enough said:

I would agree with other posters who said make your own family, just you two, Christmas traditions, beginning now.. I moved with my husband when we married. Not as far as 3 hours, but couldn't just hop a cab and go, either. One thing we started to do was to go to museums right before Christmas, or some little boutique stores, to look around. That's an "us" thing, and we love it.

Not that this is a competition, but I moved over 3,000 miles to a different continent when I married my husband.  And that was in the days before email and we couldn't afford many phone calls so it was snail mail only.  Luckily I'd been living away from my parents for almost 8 years and that lessened the trauma a bit, but Christmas did make me homesick.  My in-laws' Christmas traditions were very different.  For them it was nuclear family only, compared to the open house, gather people with nowhere else to go, attitude that my parents had to the holiday.

We carved out Christmas Eve as "our" holiday when we invited friends for a celebration and only visited the in-laws (2 hours away) on Christmas Day.  They were really annoyed for the first few years that we didn't turn up to midnight Mass but they got used to it.  My late FIL threw fits on the few years we went over to visit my family for Christmas though.

I think it is really important to start your own Christmas traditions.  Things change, parents age, children may come along, and at some point you become the primary hosts for holiday meals and celebrations.

[BackseatMom]

Whew, I made it!

I don't know how you all can keep reading that blog - it is so boring! Its like looking at an ansty teenaged girls fake diary pages (you know, the decoy you keep for mom and dad to read) pasted between her insta selfies.

And the language... I would love to have those girls in one of my college courses. They need it.

This just reinforces to me what a cruel institution the SAHD movement is. Those poor, stunted girls and their teeny, tiny lives.

[formergothardite]

4 minutes ago, BackseatMom said:

I don't know how you all can keep reading that blog - it is so boring!

Pages of pictures to show off how pretty they are is pretty dull. At least when Raquel was going through the 5 billion pictures to off how modest she was stage, she also wrote stories that had mystical orange penis ferrets. The Boyer sisters just post picture after picture and tell you wear to get the items. Jessica's recent post about feeling bitter is about as interesting as the blog gets. 

Today's post is six pictures one being a "blooper". It isn't a blooper if you are clearly posed and that was the look you were going for. 

[Kariina]

Yeesh, that was almost intolerably saccharine. Maybe it's just my general dissillusion with their blog speaking but I think the posts are getting more insipid by the day.

It may also be a function of age. All the cooing and self-promoting fawning gets grosser as the "girls" get older.

Their latest post just reminds me of why I dislike blog culture in general. The sickly sweet language about sponsored objects is just so off putting to me.

[Gabe]

5 hours ago, Nina said:

Hello Gabe!

This is Leo, Nina´s Husband speaking.

Do you plan to attend WWII reenactment in the future? Were you taught much about WWII? Was the Resistance groups mentioned (Edelweiss, Weiße Rose, Staufenberg?)

I am very curious, do all of your sisters in Law drive? Do you feel secure while your wife drives? I feel secure while Nina drives. When she had her permission for about 2 months I even fell asleep!

Hello Leo (cool name)

I do plan on doing WW2 reenacting in the future. I have put together a nearly complete British Soldier impression. WWII was covered in our history books in depth but I have done a significant amount of additional reading on it. Yes I have read a good deal about the resistance groups. I find them more interesting and inspiring than the standard military focus of most history narratives. Last year at RWWII I portrayed a French Resistance fighter. 

I made a pledge not to answer questions about the Boyer girls when I first joined. I can say that Brigid is a very good driver.

[samurai_sarah]

8 hours ago, refugee said:

I had not heard these names before. Do you have any suggestions for reading about them? (In English, preferably; my German is a bit rusty, but if the only sources you know are in German I could sweat my way through them.)

Contrary to what many people think, there was a fair bit of resistance in Nazi Germany. The "White Rose" is the most famous group. The most famous member being Sophie Scholl. Her group distributed pamphlets and got beheaded for that.

A little known one are the "Swing Kids". They were basically teenagers, who disagreed. A little like the Edelweisspiraten, but even less organised. The Red Orchestra was another resistance group. They were mainly communists, who had formed a loose coalition.

Resistance was haphazard, as the Rosenstrasse Protest shows, where "Aryan" women protested to get their Jewish husbands out of detention. It was all badly organised, but in an environment in which children denunciated their parents, even listening to the BBC was bloody dangerous.

I hope the links give you an idea and further sources.

[DaisyD]

1 hour ago, samurai_sarah said:

A little known one are the "Swing Kids". They were basically teenagers, who disagreed. 

That movie made me cry soooo hard. I hadn't ever really thought about it being based on real people.