mary's website news

  • July 2007
    Well... Can't believe it's the middle of the year already. Boy, time does fly when you're not looking.
    • Posted some more pictures of costumes that I have made myself.
    • Made some minor updates to Costuming links pages.
    • Changed my dance videos format to Flash (to resolve compatability issues between Microsoft products and the rest of the world) and I am slowly adding some more videos
  • March 2007
    • FINALLY!! The new redesign has been launched. I'm still working out some of the kinks, and I'm still not 100% happy with it. But... I finally decided that 95% was good enough to go live. LOL Please send me email if you have any problems with any of the pages, and try to include info about what browser & OS you use. And of course, general comments, "atta girls" and criticism is also welcome.
      Now I can finally get around to doing all the updates that have been piling up...
  • October 2006
    • Wow, it's been a long time since I did any updates! Gah! I've been working on a site redesign, but can't decide on anything I like (close but no cigar...). I've recently been contacted by distant relatives who stumbled on to my family tree.
    • Costuming links have been added and/or updated. More photo albums need to be added, but I don't know when I'll have the time - it's Nutcracker season again! Boy, time does fly!
  • March 2006:
    • Beginning a reorganization of the costume links & supply pages, and reviewing pages for broken links. Next, I will begin adding a whole slew of new links that have been piling up.
    • Two new photo albums are up:
  • February 2006: It's been a while since I've done any content updates -- just been really busy! Still recuperating from Nutcracker, including making a new Clara costume in 2 weeks, because one of the girls playing Clara was sooooo tiny, she didn't fit in any of the other costumes. Did some other general maintenance on other Nut costumes, which kept me busy for most of November and December.
  • September 2005: Some minor updates:
    • New photo album of my daughter, Hannah, in honor of her becoming a Senior.
    • Slowly but surely adding new links to the costuming section.
    • Planning on reorganizing the costuming links pages.
    • Working on two other sites, Sebastopol Ballet School and a site for a friend's new music teaching business.
  • June 2005:
    • My father died unexpectedly in April and I have created a tribute page to him.
    • My daughter is spending 8 weeks this summer at Joffrey Ballet School in New York City. She worked really hard this year and attended many auditions in January and February, so we are very proud of her accomplishments (see notes below about her scholarship competition). Preparations for the trip have taken up a lot of my spare time lately...
    • New video page added with clip of Hannah dancing a piece from "Paquita"
    • New page for Dance Costume & Supply Links
    • A bit more website tweaking, so that the site is now almost completely table free! Yay! I love CSS design.
  • March 2005:
    • Just finished making my first tutu! Phew! (Not the actual net part, but the bodice and plate/overlay.) It was fun, considering I had no idea what I was doing and didn't have a pattern. I made the costume for my daughter's participation in a scholarship competition. She won 2nd place in the Senior division and she won a special "Musicality" award! We're all very proud of her!
    • New - Stephan Bergdahl's article "Finding Time to Sew"
    • Updated the 2005 Nor Cal Renaissance Faire schedule.
  • February 2005: I've been a busy girl the last few weeks. Besides taking another class at SRJC, I've been making some more additions/updates to the site. Also, working on my first attempt at making a tutu. I've been working on the bodice pattern, then I will make a plate to go over the tutu base that I bought my daughter for Xmas. I'm dying to go to the seminars that are being put on by Tutu.com this summer in LA, but time and money don't allow for it.... <sigh>
    • New page with a petticoat pattern.
    • Updated and reorganized the "How To" page.
    • Some more visual tweaks, coding tweaks, etc, to the site design.
    • In the process of adding more new bookmarks to the costuming pages.
  • January 2005: Happy New Year all! Hope 2005 is better than 2004 (and 2004 was pretty good to me!).
    Haven't added any new content to the site for the past several months, because I've been caught up in the tidal wave known as "The Nutcracker." This year my daughter got the part of Clara and she was fabulous (if I must say so myself). And besides sewing up stuff for Nutcracker, I was also helping her to sew a costume for an English project on "The Scarlet Letter." Oh yes, and trying to finish my class at SRJC at the same time. Whew!!
  • Oct. 2004:
  • Sept. 2004: Okay, another visual redesign (I just did one in June). I decided I didn't like the old banner, so made the new one, again with a picture I took in Hawaii. Not any content updates worth mentioning, since I crashed my pc a few weeks ago — and I hadn't done a backup for a couple months, so I lost a lot of stuff. I know, I know.. as a programmer I should know better. But it had gotten to the point where I couldn't backup to cd anymore. In fact, I had ordered a DVD-RW drive, which arrived 2 days after I crashed my hard drive. <sigh>
  • June 2004: New look for the website — not a big change, but I think it looks a bit cleaner. (I'm still in the process of changing all my pages and creating new banners, so you may come across some pages with the old scheme.)
    • I changed the color scheme a bit and the new banner background is from a picture I took in Maui. I haven't been on vacation in three years, so I guess this is my own little twisted way of reliving that trip.
    • I also created a new page for Pre-Made Costume Vendors. I separated it out from the rest of the Costume Supply Vendors.
    • Last, but definitely not least, I went through all the links on the two pages above and also the Costuming Links Page, updated changed URLs, added new links and weeded out the ones that have disappeared from the face of the web (or at least, I couldn't find any trace of them anymore).
  • February 2004: Added more links to the Costuming How-Tos page. Added a new page of Costume Supplies links. Cleaned up the main Bookmarks page.
  • December 2003: Added a "Spirit of Xmas Past" page and added new photos to Dickens Faire Album.
  • 10/11/03: Finished converting my website from FrontPage to Dreamweaver — YAY!! Also, redesigned my site, created a site map, and did some minor updates.
  • 09/03: Moved my website from a free Geocities to my own domain name. Got tired of not being able to FTP my updates, and dealing with Geocities other idiosyncrasies. Had to restart all of my page counters, though.
  • 08/15/03:  Added a page of pix from Heart of the Forest Faire in Novato, Calif, which my daughter and I worked at.
  • 06/18/03:  Added a page of Costuming "How To" links.
  • 02/07/03:  Added a page for Victorian costuming.
  • 07/10/02:  Added a Punks page and a Moldy Oldies photo album.  Also did some updates to the Costuming page.
  • 06/15/02:  Hmmmm.... been quite a while since I last did an update.  So, where to start...
    • Most recently, we went to the Valhalla Faire in Lake Tahoe at the beginning of this month.  Unfortunately, my husband wasn't able to come, because he started a new job (see below), so it was just me and my daughter.  We had a wonderful time anyway and can't wait to go again next year.   
    • Didn't get my new costume done in time for Valhalla — didn't even get it started!  Talk about procrastination!!  I did take an online costuming class from The Costume Classroom, which was on Elizabethan Underwear.  I made all the undergarments (corset, smock, farthingale and bumroll) for my daughter's new upper-class Elizabethan costume.  See the pix here.
    • My husband decided at the beginning of the year that he was tired of working as a computer consultant and he wanted to be a chef instead.  So... he's now going back to school, taking the Culinary Arts courses at the local college, working as a chef at a local restaurant and he's started his own catering business with some of his classmates.
    • My daughter just graduated from Middle School and will be starting High School in the fall.  Geez, I can't possibly be old enough to have a daughter in High School!!!
    • Mr. Percy has become quite the hunter.  We keep having to buy him new collars with bells on them, which he has become adept at losing. 
    • We have a new member of the "family," Juliet Bunny.  See pix of her on the Pets page.
  • 1/18/02:  HAPPY NEW YEAR!  
    • Well, I survived the holidays (barely) and I'm finally getting back to all my projects.  My New Year's resolution is to finish what I start. :-)  I'm notorious for leaving projects almost, but not quite, finished.  
    • Speaking of which, I completed my first Victorian costume (at least to the point that I could wear it) and wore it to the Dickens Faire in S.F.  I'm already planning additions to it....  Sorry, no pictures of me in it yet.
    • And I'm gearing up for new "middle class" Elizabethan costumes for myself and my husband.  Valhalla Fair is just around the corner...
  • 10/21/01:  
  • 10/1/01:  
  • 9/27/01:  
    • More renn faire pix posted.  
    • Still sewing like a mad woman, right now it's bloomers for the boothies  :-)   I'll post pix of those when I get them done.
  • 9/19/01:  
    • Great news!  Our de facto leader of SWILS entered our 1999 SWIL Zinfandel in the Harvest Fair — and it won a Gold Medal!!  Yeah for us!
  • 9/11/01:  
    • I've been working every weekend at RPFN and sewing like a madwoman during the week.  Made a costume for my friend, two new costumes for my daughter (she outgrew her others), a new shirt and pants for my husband (he outgrew his pants ;-P  ), and a new costume for myself, because my other new costume is waaay too hot to wear in Vacaville.  As soon as I take some pix with the digital camera, I'll post them on the Ren Faire pix page.
  • 9/5/01:  
    • New Percy pictures posted.
  • 8/4/01:  
  • 6/13/01:  
  • 5/11/01:  
    • Putting the NorCal page back together (what a pain this has been).  Remember these 3 words:  BACKUP YOUR COMPUTER!!
  • 5/4/01:
    • My computer crashed and I lost part of my website.  I hope to get it back together soon.  
    • In the meantime, please check out the pages that are still in one piece (Photo Album, Renn Faire, Costuming, etc).  Thanks!