Allison Thurman

plague diaries: new normals(?)

Even though the county’s been opening up, I’m still cagey about going anywhere. Evidence suggests that much of the mandated disinfection may only be so much “hygiene theater“*-the real problem is disinfecting the air.

But given the importance of oral hygiene I decided to keep a months-delayed dental appointment last week, and here’s why.

Yes, there are a lot of open mouths and water droplets and all other manner of nasty virus-spreading activity that goes on in dental offices. Even so, I’d have to take my mask off for a good chunk of time. But my dentist (IMHO, one of the best in the state) spent the months they were shut preparing for reopening.

photo of wooden patient intake area with plexiglass window atop — Plexiglass barriers for the administrative staff, when they’re there at all. I gather they’re limiting hours because my hygenist handled my checkout.

empty magazine rack — No more magazines, which aren’t necessary as no one waits in the waiting room anymore

But in addition to disinfecting every conceivable surface multiple ways multiple times a day and the requisite PPE (masks AND visors) you’d expect, they had these:

HEPA filter

HEPA filters in every room, with additional UV light in exam rooms. And they fogged between patients with hypochlorous acid, a proven virus killer that dissipates into salt water.

Air treatment was the deciding factor between neglecting my teeth and taking my mask off.

Pending a vaccine, I think air treatment like this is going to become mandatory for any semblance of safe return to normal life and movement, at least in the near future.

At the same time, I recognize that it would be time-consuming and expensive to retrofit every public building for this, so I don’t expect HEPA filters etc. to happen outside of medical settings.

At some point we’re all going to have to do risk assessment for us and ours because we can’t stay locked down forever (even if we do have a national lockdown to get this thing under control, a move I support).

Given how potentially nasty covid infections can get, though, I’m not sure how much I’m willing to risk.

What do you think?

*Which I still engage in because I’m an idiot who can’t keep their hands off their face. Besides, I like to control what I can.

Fortuny 2.0: the beads

The beaded trim on Fortuny’s Delphos gowns isn’t just decorative.

Silk (or, at least, the silk I used) gets very springy when pleated and stands away from the body. This works against the iconic slim silhouette. The seams need weight to hug the body, and the beads provide the weight.

I used plastic beads on my ages-ago polyester Fortuny but they weren’t hefty enough to do the job. They really need to be glass or clay, and I was determined to use the Murano glass beads Fortuny traditionally used.

Easier said than done.

Almost every original Delphos shows a pale, matte, square bead with subdued stripes, and every modern bead sold as “murano glass” was either the wrong shape, too glossy, or had too much contrast. If they make ’em like they used to, I couldn’t find them. Disappointing. But I found a reasonable alternative.

African gooseberry beads (link is to the ones I ordered, but Google nets a variety of vendors and color combinations) provide an adequate substitute. They’re matte glass and the orange and brown stripes were about as subtle as I could find.

Edge of blue pleated fabric with orange and white striped beads placed at 1" intervals

As near as I can tell from examining Fortuny originals, the beads are strung on a cord that is couched to the seam with beads secured at regular intervals. Couching sewing machine feet notwithstanding I am again doing these by hand to avoid crushing these hard to find beads. I’m using a ruler to ensure that they’re evenly spaced.

Of course, as soon as I start this I discover Threads magazine documented a similar technique back in 2014 that eliminates the cord, but I’m continuing with Fortuny’s tried and true.

Fortuny 2.0: the shoulder

I sewed the 4 panels together. This was time-consuming but simple as it was all selvage to selvage, so no hand finishing was needed on top of that. But then I needed to shape this tube into something resembling a dress.

I opted to go the simple route: opening all 4 seams about 10″ at the top gave me a v neck, v back, and armholes, easily adjusted later if they cut too deep or not deep enough. The original Fortunys from the 1910s-40s seldom had a v neck but I didn’t want to mess with the (likely?) difficulty of shaping a scoop neck in already-pleated fabric! However, the v-neck is consistent with the “reimagined” dress* they made for Lady Mary in the Downton Abbey movie**.

So, I needed to shape 2 raw edges into 2 tapered shoulders, how to do that? I turned under the raw edges and then sewed a running stitch on either side of the seam to pull into tight gathers. Once gathered, I sewed the pleats to a strip of twill tape as I not only needed some kind of reinforcement for the delicate fabric but something stronger than only thread to keep the gathers in place in slippery silk.

close up of tightly pleated material sewn to a strip of cotton tape — Yes, the stitching is ugly, but the tape was wider than the seam allowance so I improvised.

I think it turned out rather well.

tightly gathered pleats

Next up: turning under the edges of the neckline and armholes and reinforcing these if needed.

*My heart leaps at the thought that the Fortuny company might start making the Delphos/Peplos again! But this article is from 2017 and I’m not seeing any movement in that direction.

**I haven’t seen the movie.

the root of the problem

So, I’m editing again.

Or rather, still editing, just limping along a little faster than I have over the past few months. I manage to hammer out a chapter or two a week and if I can get out of my own way I can probably (probably!) finish this fourth draft by fall.

About that getting out of my own way thing.

I could pretend it’s just lack of energy that’s been holding me up, but at least part of it is fear. If I finish the draft, then I’ll have no excuse but to start querying again and I fear wasting the one pitch I get to every agent on my list with a manuscript that is less than perfect.

Nebula from Guardians of the Galaxy spitting out some food - it's not ripe — How I imagine agents reacting to my manuscript.

In short, it’s not being told “no” that I fear. It’s running out of opportunities to ask for a “yes”. As long as I don’t query I can luxuriate in possibility. And yes, typing it out makes it sound just as nail-bitey and tail-chasey as it is.

So I’m going to keep propping up the novel’s saggy middle so I get it back out in the world.

Fortuny 2.0: the assembly

I’m sewing it together by hand. There’s no way to do this by machine, if for no other reason that the pleating makes it almost impossible to line up the edges correctly.

uneven edge of pleated fabric pinned together — Ultimately I gave up on pins and just held the pieces together by hand about an inch at a time. If I ever do this again I’m not going to pleat the seam allowances.

two spools of blue thread, one clearly labeled Sulky mercerized 100% cotton — Cotton thread because 1) Mariano Fortuny didn’t have polyester in the 1920s and 2) to create a deliberate point of weakness. If the dress ever tears it will be along the seam first because cotton is weaker than silk.

The edges are finished so no complicated raw edges to turn under. I sewed it with running stitch with a 1/4″-3/8″ seam. I could only use 12-18″ length of thread at a time because it wanted to twist up on itself at any longer than that.

And yeah, I’m sewing all 4 pieces long edge to long edge into a big tube. I’ll figure out armholes, shoulder seams, and neckline after I get the large pieces together.

Fortuny 2.0: the cutting

I could cut the tension with a pair of scissors but held off because you did can’t undo a cut.

Last week I lost a good bit of length in the pleating process, shrinking my 8 yards to around 6 1/2. After a week of letting the fabric “relax” it stretched(?) back out to a final length of 7 yards, 11 inches.
blue pleated fabric draped over a dress form

So Sunday I spent about 2 hours draping it on my dress form (calibrated to my height and dimensions) to see if I had enough for 4 lengths. In the end, I had just enough. I maybe could have done it with a bit less than 7 yards but I want the dress to be long enough to flute out over my feet the way you see in some displays.

Each length is roughly 1 yard, 29 inches. I can only estimate because the pleating gives the fabric a “springy” quality that also makes it difficult to mark and cut it perfectly straight across. Good thing I have a little extra length to work with!

Next week: the assembly (or the start of it).

Fortuny 2.0: the unwinding

After twisting it up for pleating at the beginning of what ended up being a very eventful time for me, I am finally getting back to the Fortuny-style pleated gown (check the Fortuny tag for other posts). Last summer’s project becomes this summer’s project, and hopefully this leg of it won’t take as long as the last.

First I had to unwind this fabric that had been locked in a tube sock for 6 months. It took about a month to dry completely, and I was a little afraid it might have gone moldy in the process. No such bad luck:

long coil of twisted blue fabric draped over a table, over a dress mold, and continuing on

It took about 2 hours to pull all the thread out and off of it.

ziploc bag of lots of tangled thread — Ziploced for disposal, as I have 3 cats that MUST NOT get hold of any thread. Photo, like all the others, my own.

Gathering every ~3″ or so did result in very tight pleats but as with my polyester version, the gathering places are pretty obvious, creating horizontal lines that aren’t evident in Fortuny’s originals. I’m hoping these might become less obvious after the fabric is unwound for a while:
vertically pleated silk with very obvious horizontal "stripes" where it was gathered

Also due to broken threads or gathering placed too far apart I wound up with the odd unpleated “blob”, which I’m accepting as just one of those imperfections of the handmaking process:

unpleated "blob" in middle of pleated fabric

My original 45″ wide fabric pleated down to 7″ wide, and shortened by about a yard and a half(!)

My research suggests that Fortuny made his gown of 4-5 widths of already-pleated fabric, sewn selvedge to selvedge by hand. Given that I am not 21″ around, it had better stretch some! I hope it gains a little length as well as at 5’6″ I don’t think I can get more than 3 widths fabric out of 6 1/2 yards.

To these ends I’m letting the fabric relax for a week or so, first horizontally and then vertically. I don’t really have room for either so I’m having to improvise.

pleated fabric stretched across 2 rooms — This solution didn’t work out as my cats couldn’t leave it alone.

TL;DR: the fabric lost a lot of width and a good chunk of length in the pleating process, suggesting that should I do this again I start with 10 yards! It’s very finely pleated, though somewhat unevenly. It needs to relax some before I can cut it.

short sentences

Black people are not the enemy. They are protesting because asking nicely doesn’t seem to work.

Most of the protestors are quite peaceful. Some are violent but given the confusion and outright disinformation it’s difficult to winnow out who’s responsible for what.

Some of those bad actors are undoubtedly cops. No, not all cops. Just enough of them. It doesn’t take many. [too many links to cite – who do you think started all this?]

A pandemic isn’t a great time to be protesting. But arguably police brutality and white supremacy are also public health threats so protesting still makes sense. If you’re protesting, reduce your chances of infection. If you’re not, you can still help the protestors’ efforts.

For what it’s worth, I stand with the protestors.

disorganized thoughts on disorganized things

What if the years 1919 and 1968 had a baby?

Oh.

— Laura Bucci (@BucciSays) May 30, 2020

As I type this on the Monday morning after the riots, I find myself at a loss for words.

Which is a tragedy for a writer. After all, I moved this blog away from (temporarily, I hope) being mostly about writing and weird history into current events and politics simply because ignoring the pandemic is not only living in fairyland but as a history buff I feel obliged to leave a record.

But my posts on the coronavirus include my opinions but precious little about what I feel. Recitations of facts and dates: so many coronavirus cases by this day, a list of things opening up in phase I, etc.

Except that last one (my county started phase I today as of 6 am) seems so insignificant in the face of all the rioting.

Understand: after the umpteenth example of police brutality against black people protesting is called for and completely understandable. I’m even finding it hard to fault violent protests – when you shove people into a corner for generations you can’t really expect much better. Trashing a police station must feel really good if you’ve spent a lifetime fearing the police.

But then I read that a lot of the looting was likely due to outside actors – likely privileged white kids or outright white supremacists taking advantage of the chaos. And cops attacking not only protestors but quiet neighborhoods and journalists just trying to do their jobs. It’s not clear who’s doing what, or why.

No, I’m not going to link to any of this; you have the same Google-fu I do and I’m running on 5 hours sleep. That, and there’s just so damn much of it that I haven’t had the chance to figure out what’s news, what’s crap, what’s speculation, and what’s outright propaganda.

Short version: I’m numb. I have no observations that others haven’t made far more cogently than I could, I have no deep-rooted feelings of rage or fear or anything else because I’ve tripped over all that into just staring into space.

Are we going to have another civil war? I don’t know. I’ve never lived through a pre-war situation before. Never lived through a pandemic either. Nothing I’ve experienced has prepared me for all this, so as far as I’m concerned all bets are off.

What will I do? I’ll go back to posting silly memes and black humor because I have to find something to laugh at to keep going. If I’m really smart I’ll take a break from social media. But I doubt I’ll be that smart.

I’ll make donations to food banks and Black Lives Matter and keep making my masks because I need to feel effective in some way (wait a minute, there’s a feeling! Or is it just an artifact of my general anxiety?)

I’ll binge watch something fun and familiar to make sure I stay at numb and don’t trip over into paralyzed because work and laundry and breakfast still have to happen no matter what.

Writing? Pfft. I’ll try. It’s hard to care or see the point, let alone summon the depth of feeling to write compelling fiction.

But I can’t stop any of this. I can’t fix it. I’m stuck in react mode.

We’re barely at the halfpoint of 2020 and it’s a shitshow.

What will you do?

plague diaries: a new normal (?)

I’m finally succumbing to getting a standing desk.

Not my idea. I’ve been (un)comfortably perched at one end of the dining room table and it was just fine, thank you because this is temporary. Yes, even 2(!) months this it took my husband pointing out that this state of affairs is unlikely to change soon, and when things do finally start opening up I’m still likely to do a lot of teleworking. Why not commit to it?

Things are going to stay shut down for a while. Maryland is taking its first cautious steps into Phase I but Montgomery county is too crowded and has too many infections so we’re retaining stay at home.

My guess is that it will last for at least another month, and even if we do start to open up I suspect we’ll end up with a rise in infections that will send us retreating back inside again.

I have to accept that working from home is a new normal. Not my first choice – I’m one of those strange creatures who prefer going to the office to maintain a sharp divide between home and work – but continuing to make do at the cost of my comfort and health (because a standing desk will provide some much-needed exercise as well) is just stupid.

Note I say “a” new normal. I suspect we’re going to go through several over the next year as we test the waters of the outside world and try to keep things going as best we can.