Not just of access to online resources but my own. I’m working on making them available on my website. However in this protracted process of trying to reconcile my digital archives of my life and research I’ve had multiple drives destroy my work. At this point I can’t tell which they are but I suspect it’s the ssd with firmware issues and the exfat formatted external ssd. The two drives I’m working from currently are in theory error free except I’m also finding images that have clearly been repaired as the lower half of them are either black or that rainbow effect I’m used to from Ye Olde Days of the net. You can tell the files are read top left to bottom right, like a scanner. This includes the scans of my 1/10 scale patterns I’ve taken of my own costumes.

Naturally will over 1M files this is adding to the burden and stress of not knowing what files to trust as I’d have to open every single one of them. I’ve managed to be able to read some PDFs that were corrupted and that’s been via a free app. So I’m not deleting my files that are so corrupted they can’t be opened yet I’m just keeping them aside. Consider how file names can be the reason apps won’t open them, especially those just missing a . before the extension or have file size on the end of the extension.

So I’m hoping that these broken files only have a tiny error like that at the start of the file so I can eventually properly repair them.

But yes.

Burying the lede here I am indeed do all this so I can get my own work better served on my own site with bigger images of my in progress and finished work as well as patterns.

I’ve just taken photos of my 16thC bodice support layers as they fit fairly easily on my cutting mat so I can easily trace them in either photoshop or Inkscape.

But yes I’m also working my way through my patterns developed from photographs of extant items- it’s a bit like my Waterfall pattern diagrams in taking into account distortion. Luckily my work with the tailoring and dressmaking books makes that possible. Consider my cheat guide for Victorian skirts- I took that directly from dressmaking books. Bodices have a really similar cheat- there are some hard measurements and there are some that are taken from the person. We don’t really do that. On the whole we use fabric very differently and we apply drafting systems that simply weren’t used for the same pieces.

And that’s true for each era I focus on. I think we’re used to the idea of cutting being one direction of evolution. So we judge differences from that as some kind of deviation rather than innovation. We certainly do when it comes to the rise of dressmaking. We forget that not only were the early dressmakers excluded from tailoring archives they weren’t allowed to make the same garments. This means not being able to reverse engineer what tailors did.

And tailors would harass and even destroy the entire workshops of dressmakers even in the 18thC when full protections had been in place for a long time. So I think we forget how backed into a corner they were in terms of patterning. In terms of construction.

We dismiss the stitching as not being high quality yet I’ve seen the stitching of many 16th-17thC garments made by tailors and they are the mix you’d expect when apprentices do a fair bit of the non destructive work. Dressmakers also hired apprentices and so they leave their mark too.

Anyway.

I’ve been wanting to write about this time except all this tech fail and destruction has been taking up a lot of my time. Not to mention I’m still recovering from my Achilles Tendinopathy. And yes, still grieving losing Carlo. I’m finding myself avoiding sitting on the sofa where he was and staying out of my room.