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Keeping Track of Discworld

In June I scooped up a big pile of Discworld books at a used bookstore. They were near the register, I was in line, and I had just enough room in my arms for all of them. I knew that Discworld was broken into series, but I didn't quite know what I'd done until I got home...

I purchased: The Colour of Magic, Courcery, Mort, Wyrd Sisters, I Shall Wear Midnight, and Pyramids. I already owned Thief of Time and Guards! Guards!

I have one or two books per series.

Here's what I need, and the books "in order" for each series... I think. Books in bold font are books that I now have. Books in italics are books that have been ordered but have not yet arrived.

I HAVE THEM ALL! 

 

Rincewind
1. The Colour of Magic (1)
2. The Light Fantastic (2)
3. Sourcery (5)
4. Faust Eric (9)
5. Interesting Times (17)
6. The Last Continent (22)
7. The Last Hero (27)

The Watch
1. Guards! Guards! (8)
2. Men at Arms (15)
3. Feet of Clay (19)
4. Jingo (21)
5. The Fifth Elephant (24)
6. Night Watch (29)
7. Thud! (34)
8. Snuff (39)

Death
1. Mort (4)
2. Reaper Man (11)
3. Soul Music (16) (potentially lost, search ID MRC 25 2199 2819| update: ordered again)
4. Hogfather (20)
5. Thief of Time (26)

Witches
1. Equal Rites (3)
2. Wyrd Sisters (6)
3. Witches Abroad (12)
4. Lords and Ladies (14)
5. Maskerade (18)
6. Carpe Jugulum (23)

Tiffany Aching
1. The Wee Free Men (30)
2. A Hat Full of Sky (32)
3. Wintersmith (35)
4. I Shall Wear Midnight (38)
5. The Shepherd's Crown (41)

Moist von Lipwig
1. Going Postal (33)
2. Making Money (36)
3. Raising Steam (40)

Standalone
1. Pyramids (7)
2. Moving Pictures (10)
3. Small Gods (13)
4. The Truth (25)
5. Monstrous Regiment (31)
6. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (28)
7. Unseen Academicals (37)

Presenting On Costumes??

 

1.      Introduction

a.      Who am I?

b.     What do I do?

2.      The Beginning Begins

a.      The First Costume I Made – Blue Fairy

b.     The First Garment I Sewed – The Jacket

c.      Where I Became Hooked – Mistaken for Cast

3.      Inspiration

a.      The Honeycomb Fairy – Inspiration Strikes

                                                              i.      How Inspiration can come from the most innocuous places – a note left on a desk, a roll of chicken wire…

b.     Summer Vikings – Historically Inspired & Learning Something New

                                                              i.      How did this actually work? Will it work in this situation?

                                                            ii.      How to decide what to change from “accurate” to “practical”

                                                          iii.      Learning to dye and the worlds it opened

4.      Design

a.      Layers to a Costume – Telling a Story

                                                              i.      First Visual Layer – Something that will be noticed from a distance (Honeycomb Wings)

                                                            ii.      Second Visual Layer – Something noticeable at conversation distance (Bees all over)

                                                          iii.      Third Visual Layer – Something to find when inspecting (honeycomb stitching on the stays)

b.     The Strawberry Fairy – Designing for Someone Else

                                                              i.      Pictures of pink & gold fairy

                                                            ii.      Pictures of Barbarian

                                                          iii.      Picture of K&R

c.      The Tartan Dresses – Using Someone Else’s Ideas

                                                              i.      Sewing patterns & their suitability

d.     The Patchwork Plague Doctor and the Pirate – Drawing on my Sewing Roots & Costume Iteration

                                                              i.      The OG Plague Doctor (coat & pants version, display Mask)

                                                            ii.      The OG Pirate (Corset [choices between historical accuracy and aesthetic – stays vs. Victorian corset], shirt, shared pants)

                                                          iii.      Changes to Both

1.      Plague Doctor – “quilted” forepart, convert whole thing to a dress, remove the coat

2.      Pirate – Add the coat without sleeves, balance it out with a hat, add accessories that tell a story (navigational equipment)

5.      Sourcing Materials

a.      Patterns

                                                              i.      Historical records (Vikings)

                                                            ii.      Self-drafted (Honeycomb stays, skirts, chemise)

                                                          iii.      Etsy (Baroness Bodice for Tartan Dresses)

                                                          iv.      Commercial Patterns (Pirate coat)

b.     Fabrics

                                                              i.      Online (Etsy, deadstock retailers, specialty sellers [linen, Spoonflower])

                                                            ii.      In Person (Big Box Stores, quilt shops, deadstock retailers)

c.      Trims

                                                              i.      Online

                                                            ii.      In Person

                                                          iii.      Self-made (display woven trim on loom?)

6.      Lessons Learned

a.      Seam Finishes Matter

b.     Bigger Isn’t Always Better

c.      Natural Fibers Are (almost) Always Better

d.     The Three Foot Rule

e.      Always Be Learning!

                                                              i.      Skills I’ve picked up for costuming include: band weaving, resin pouring, fabric dyeing & a multitude of techniques, chainmaille, beading, pattern drafting, flower arranging, millinery, etc.

Props: Husband in Viking, Sister in Strawberry, me in Plague, Honeycomb on mannequin, other costumes on hangers (?), loom, hats.

Sand in the sandbox:

Do you ever see someone wearing an outfit and you thing 'wow, why are they like that?' Well, I can tell you why I'm like this. When I was eight years old my parents took me to my very first renaissance festival. We went every year after that, and eventually I told them that I wanted to save my birthday and Christmas money to get my own costume. That's when Mom said the words that changed my life: why don't we just make one?

I grew up sewing and that thought had never occurred to me! Around the time of that first festival, Mom started plugging me in to her quilting projects. 'Sew this straight line, snip these pieces apart, press just like that,' so I wasn't exactly new to a sewing machine... But quilting and sewing clothing are not the same. We'll get to that later. For this first costume we went to the Goodwill on Boulevard in Tulsa and bought the biggest, poofiest prom dress we could find in my size. Then we removed about 80% of the skirt and I got my dad to help me make my first pair of wings. They were enormous and banged into everything I went near. They didn't stay lined up properly. They hurt to wear. And I loved them. I had made a costume and I was on top of the world.

And I was hooked.

I didn't make anything from the ground up for a few years, instead just pulling this dress or another prom dress with a corseted bodice out and wearing that, but I was wearing my own costumes. Eventually I thought I wanted something that I could wear out in the real world and I picked out a jacket pattern at Wal-Mart. Mom helped me pick out the fabric. My lovely quilters, did you know that 'seam allowance' is NOT universal? I had exclusively sewn with a quarter-inch allowance to that point and I fought with a sleeve for three hours before Mom called in help. There were tears. There was yelling. I was ready to quit. But a member of the Scrap Happy guild down in Okmulgee came over and just -doot!- scooted the project over a little bit under that presser foot and everything suddenly worked.

I wore the jacket maybe twice? My sister has it now. But I did it. I made a wearable piece of clothing.

From there I moved in to costume pieces and started with a bodice. It laced together in three pieces in the front, and I used watch bands and buckles for the center front. I made wings out of panty hose and coat hangers, and I used a thrifted skirt that was already a thousand different kinds of fabric in one. That was the year I went from 'hooked' to 'ok, so this is my personality now.' Two of the girls on the cast at the festival mistook me for a fellow cast-member. I was doing it all right! I looked like I belonged there!

And then I got married and things slowed down for a while while I live in OKC with my husband. When we moved back to Tulsa, and consequently closer to the renaissance festival, I started wanting something new but the ideas just weren't flowing. I got a job working in the same building as my dad, and I know that sounds out of left field but this is how fast inspiration can strike. I'd gone to the store for a snack and brought him back some but he wasn't at his desk so I left a note. It just said 'The honeycomb fairy visited you...' and by the time I got back to my desk I had a plan fully fleshed out. [this is where the costume on the mannequin gets pointed at]. Just all this dripping gold and any sort of golden hexagon I could find. We were at my parents' house one day when I saw some chicken wire laying next to their trash can and my brain just went 'WINGS!' Candy and trash, that's all it takes.

Now, the Honeycomb Fairy was easy. There are historical elements in there but it's largely fantasy so I could break as many rules as I wanted, but what about historical inspiration?

The year after my husband and I bought our house I got a season pass to the Muskogee festival and started going every weekend. In order to spend any time with me Hubby needed to go, too, and he wanted something he could wear. Now, he's from southwest Colorado and still hasn't adjusted to the heat out here, so finding something was tricky. We landed on Vikings. This was going to be my first historically-inspired costume so I started doing research. Vikings wore a lot of wool and a lot of layers and that wasn't going to work so we would need to adapt. I swapped wool for linen, which made the garments much more breathable and cool. We decided to go with light colors to reflect the heat instead of absorb it, too. The way these pieces were cut from the fabric may have been how it was originally done - all blocks and triangles, as these are very close to zero-waste patterns - and the shapes are accurate to some archaeological finds, but I put a modern spin on the project. We changed out fabrics to suit our needs, and I sewed with a machine. What you are seeing on Hubby and hanging over here to my side are the second iteration of these costumes, and if you look inside the dress you will see French seams and French felling, as well as evidence of some serging. These are more modern alterations that I made in the name of durability. For lightfastness and ease of care, the dyes I used for all of it are chemical and not natural, as well.

Testing Fabric

 Bleach

- Protein fibers (wool, silk) dissolve completely in bleach, foam after a few seconds.

Burn

- Wool - Flame resistant, burnt hair odor, crunchy dark powder ash with soft edge
- Silk - Flame resistant (will catch but will self-extinguish), burnt hair odor, dark powder ash

- Cotton - Burning paper smell, burn fast and bright with after glow, soft grey ash
- Linen - Burning paper smell, burn fast and bright (catches slow) with after glow, soft grey ash

- Polyester, Nylon, Spandex, Acrylic - Melt before catching, if it does catch will burn quickly, strong chemical odor, no ash but leaves a hard plastic crust, may pucker fabric

- Rayon - Catches quickly, after glow, paper plus chemical smell, soft grey ash
- Acetate - May resemble polyester in symptoms but with a vinegar smell

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtJ5ukWundY, https://www.patreon.com/posts/123845098?pr=true

Reading Challenge

 I think I want to read 12 biographies this year. Here are the ones I am feeling:

*January - J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter
February - Tall, Dark, and Gruesome by Christopher Lee
March - The Baroness of New Orleans by Christina Vella
April - Goddess and the Girl Next Door: Julie d'Aubigny and Her World by Olga Peters Hasty
May - Black Bart Roberts: The Greatest Pirate of Them All by Terry Breverton
June - Ada Lovelace: The Making of a Computer Scientist by Christopher Hollings, Ursula Martin, and Adrian Rice
July - My Remarkable Journey: A Memoir by Katherine Johnson
August -  Grace Hopper: Admiral of the Cyber Sea by Kathleen Broome Williams
September - Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges
October - Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan by Shrabani Basu
November - Lady Death: The memoirs of Stalin's Sniper by Lyudmila Pavlichenko
December - Madame Curie: A Biography by Eve Curie

I also want to read 12 banned books, mostly Classics:

*To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (across US, racism and profanity)
*The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (Oklahoma, negative Dust Bowl depiction)
*Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (Tulsa specifically, promotion of rebellion, sexual themes, profanity)
*1984 by George Orwell (across US, pro-communism)
*Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Across US, anti-authoritarian)
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (Edmond, profanity, sexual themes, anti-war themes)
*Lord of the Flies by William Golding (Oklahoma, profanity, violence)
*The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Edmond, profanity, sexual references, poverty and addiction)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Oklahoma, sexual violence, profanity, LGBTQ+ themes)
*Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (Oklahoma, racial slurs, profanity, violence)
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Moore, Police brutality, profanity, criticism of Law Enforcement)

And 12 books about my tribe:
See the other post.

* Books on my shelf. All others will need finding.

Native Books to Find

A Sacred Path: The Way of the Muscogee Creeks - Jean and Joyce Chaudhuri Already Owned

Creek Indian Medicine Ways: The Enduring Power of Mvskoke Religion - David Lewis Jr. & Ann T. Jordan Ordered 7/14/25

Spiral to the Stars: Mvskoke Tools of Futurity - Laura Harjo Ordered 3/18/25

Chief William McIntosh: Mvskoke Creek Warrior: 1777-1825 - Billie Jane McIntosh

Old Tallahassee Ceremonial Ground of the Creek Nation: Nene Mvskoke - Fus Fixico

The Bear is My Father: Indigenous Wisdom of a Muscogee Creek Caretaker of Sacred Ways - Reginah Waterspirit & Bear Heart Ordered 2/25/25

The Wind is My Mother: The Life and Teachings of a Native American Shaman - Bear Heart with Molly Larkin Ordered 2/25/25

Creek Religion & Medicine - John R. Swanton

Chinnubbie and the Owl: Muscogee (Creek) Stories, Orations, and Oral Traditions - Alexander Posey Ordered 6/27/25

The History & Material Culture of the Muscogee Creek in Alabama and Georgia - Lloyd E. Schroder Ordered 2/25/25

Lighting the Way: The Dawe Commission and the Creek Nation - James R. Scales & Danney Goble

The World of the Southern Indians - Laurella Owens & Virginia Pounds Brown Ordered 5/22/25

Southern Indian Myths and Legends - Laurella Owens & Virginia Pounds Brown Ordered 7/14/25

The Southeastern Indians - Charles Hudson Ordered 1/22/25

Muscogee (Creek) Nation History - Jon Sterba

The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670-1763 - Steven C. Hahn

A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733-1816 - Claudio Saunt Ordered 6/30/25

Creek Country: The Creek Indians and Their World, 1796-1816 - Robbie Ethridge

Rivers of Sand: Creek Indian Emigration, Relocation, and Ethnic Cleansing in the American South - Chrostopher D. Haveman

Creek Indian History: A Historical Narrative of the Genealogy, Traditions and Downfall of the Ispocoga or Creek Indian Tribe of Indians - George Stiggins

A Promise Kept: The Muscogee (Creek) Nation and McGirt v. Oklahoma - Robert J Miller

The Fus Fixico Letters: A Creek Humorist in Early Oklahoma - Alexander Posey Ordered 6/30/25

Lost Creeks: Collected Journals - Alexander Posey

Drawing by Stealth: John Trumbull and the Creek Indians - Virigina Pounds Brown and Linda McNair Cohen Ordered 5/22/25

Wynema: A Child of the Forest - S. Alice Callahan Ordered 7/14/25

To Make a Corset

 You will need:

1. A pattern - this can be self-drafted (recommended) or commercial.
       >Self-drafted patterns are made to your measurements. They will still need some adjustment, but less than a commercial pattern. They take 1-2 hours to draft. Materials needed for self-drafting: rulers (centimeters work best for the math involved), large paper, pencils, calculator.
        >Commercial patterns, such as those from big-brands like Simplicity and McCall, as well as patterns from independent patternmakers are ready-made with "sample" measurements that represent an average. There is not as much work on the front-end to design the pattern, but there may be more on the back-end to get it to fit your body. Example: I must always add length to the waist of commercial patterns.

2. Sturdy scrap fabric, 2-4 yards - this will be used to make the mock-up(s) of your pattern to allow you to see where adjustments need to be made.

3. Coutil or sturdy canvas, 2-4 yards - Coutil is the traditional interlining for corsets. A sturdy canvas with as little stretch as possible is an acceptable substitute. This will be used in the mock-ups as well as the final product.

4. Fashion fabric, 1-2 yards - this will be the outside of your finished product. Non-stretch and sturdy fabrics highly recommended. Cotton will keep it breathable, polyester or silk will make it a little warmer.

(Aside: I keep saying "sturdy" and I mean it as "something akin to quilting cotton, maybe a little thicker like some upholstery fabric.")

5. Lining fabric, 1-2 yards, optional - Corsets will always have 2 layers of fabric, but you have an option for a third layer to cover the coutil/canvas if you wish. This should counter your fashion fabric in weight - if you have chosen an upholstery fabric for your fashion layer, maybe pick a cotton for the liner. Overall we don't want it to be too thick.

6. Bones, variable amount - You will need some flat steel bones for the center front and center back of the corset, as well as either spring steel, synthetic whalebone, or zip ties. These three options are flexible enough to deal with curves over busts and at sides, and durable enough not to buckle and dig in to the body.
        >Spring steel is the only one of these that I have worked with and I have had great success with it. It does make washing the item difficult for fear of rust, and tipping them can be tricky.
        >I have spoken with very few people that have used synthetic whalebone as it is expensive. There are many people online that will use a Dremel tool to file down the edges and forego the use of tips.
        >Heavy-duty zip ties are very popular for corsetmakers both starting out and professional. I have never used them as I am afraid they will buckle, and there is nothing as bad as a buckled bone in a corset for garment discomfort. Have I seen evidence of this happening? No. I am just irrational.

7. Bone tips, variable amount to equal 2 times the number of bones - Bone tips prevent the bones from cutting through your fabric and poking out to make you a bloody mess (yes, personal experience, still not sure how my corset wasn't stained). There are several options here:
        >Metal tips - these are little caps that get bent to the ends of the bones. They have a tendency to slide off, however, so I usually pair these with the Plasti Dip method. I find that they also take 2 pairs of pliers and a lot of hand pain for those of us with repetitive stress injuries.
        >Plasti Dip - I'm not sure I would trust this on its own with flat steel bones, but it is great for sealing metal tips on and the rubberization is great for keeping the bones from slipping around inside their casings/channels. It does take a long time to fully cure, which adds time to the length of the project.
        >Heat-shrink tubing - fast and easy and painless. If I could reliably find heat-shrink tubing in the appropriate sizes this would be my go-to for 99% of boned projects.

8. Bone casings, conditionally optional - These will be sewn inside the corset and will house the bones. It can be ribbon, bias tape, or purpose-made corset bone casing. I have only used bias tape and have never had a problem. The casing should be slightly wider than the bones to keep them stationary. If you will be lining the corset, you have the option to skip casings and sew channels directly into the corset for the bones to occupy.

9. A busk, length variable, optional - Busks come in a variety of form factors depending on the era of corset you are making, from a single piece of wood, bone, or metal, to a split-front affair that will allow you to fully open your corset from the front. You can skip this piece by having a row of lacing in the front, or by having a solid-front corset that you wiggle over your head (in this case you would just add more flat steel bones to keep the structure). The length is equal to the center front length of the corset and will be taken from the final pattern after alterations.

10. Grommets, size 00, variable amount - These are the little metal bits that the lacing passes through to cinch the corset in. You will need a lot. I specify size 00 because I have that size die for my grommet press and it takes about 2 hours off the whole process to use that. This size is also about 3/8" in diameter, which means you can put more of them in to help distribute the pull of the laces more evenly.

11. Binding, optional but recommended - This is will cover the top and bottom edges of the corset and help to hold your bones in place. It can be the same as your fashion fabric or something to complement or contrast it. Alternatively, the corset can be sewn without binding but I find that it looks less polished that way.

12. Lacing, variable amount - It is longer than you think. Longer. Little more. There you go. The more reduction you want in your corset the fewer options you have for this. I have used thin paracord (works great, easy to find, a little bulky, obviously non-period), macramé cord (hate it, need to replace, way too bulky), and purpose-made corset lacing (of course this is my favorite, not expensive, limited colors but highly dyeable).

I buy most of my supplies at https://corsetmaking.com/.

Estimated Time 5-10 hours:

Pattern drafting ~1 hour
Mock-up and adjustments ~1-3 hours depending on how many adjustments are needed
Cutting & tipping bones ~1-2 hours depending on tipping method, much longer if using Plasti Dip
Sewing corset, setting bones and grommets, and binding ~2-4 hours

About the Process:

Once you get your pattern right you can use it over and over to make that style of corset as many times as you like. You can make notes on it regarding boning lengths, etc, to speed up the process as well. As long as you pay attention to your fabric grain and use a good interlining (the coutil or canvas) you shouldn't have any trouble with the finished product and the process gets a lot faster.

My experiences wearing a corset:

Real questions I have received while in costume.

**Can you breathe in that? Yes. Easily. I dance in the late-May heat in it, outside, with all the other garb on. I am less winded than a lot of other people on the field by the end. If you can't breathe in your corset you need to loosen it up.

**Can you move in that? Yes. Easily. I dance in the... you get it. I'm a little more limited in my gold Tudor stays because I've got a solid piece of 14" long walnut extending from bust to past my waist in the center front of that one. I don't have this problem in my green plague stays because instead of a busk I just put more bones and I've got more give. My Victorian corsets? Anything you can do I can do better.

**Isn't that hot? Sometimes. My plague stays are thick, polyester upholstery. They are toasty and good for Halloween. My pirate corset? 100% cotton, unlined, cooler than some tank tops I've worn. I have had a corset contribute to heat-exhaustion, but that was just because once that process gets started if you're snugged up tight in ANYTHING it's a problem.

**That's got to be so uncomfortable! Why? Why must it be uncomfortable? The only uncomfortable corsets I've worn are ones that don't fit me correctly. One is from a commercial pattern that I didn't alter enough, and the other is from a pattern I drafted myself but got wrong. Waist reduction within reason isn't even noticeable, and the structure of the thing actually feels good once you get used to it (about 2 hours my first time, down to about 2 minutes now).

WEARING. A. CORSET. SHOULD. NOT. CAUSE. PAIN. DISNEY.

**Haha! I bet you don't have to eat a lot while you're wearing that! What??? Just... what??? I eat the same amount in a corset as I do in my work clothes or pajamas... What?!

**What's that gap in the back? Is your corset too small? Nope! They are designed to have a gap in the back. It's what allows them to adapt to your body as it changes through the month.

**Why is your arm bleeding? And what's that white thing sticking out of your dress? That's an untipped corset bone that has cut through the binding and my arm, apparently. I'll be right back. Seriously, I really don't know how nothing got stained. Tip. Your. Bones.

**How do you get in and out of that? Depends on the corset. Gold or plague stays? I should be paid for that comedy. Lots of wiggling and cursing. Pirate corset? With glee, because the latch-busk I got is freaking awesome. I do tighten all of them around my body myself, and no it's not as easy as those $20 Amazon "corsets" in the TikTok videos, but it's not super difficult either.

IF. YOU. ARE. CLINGING. TO. A. POST. WHILE. SOMEONE. USES. THEIR. FOOT. TO. "HELP". CINCH. YOU. IN. YOU. ARE. DOING. IT. WRONG. NETFLIX.

</shade>

**How do you go to the bathroom in that? Same way you do. It's just a really tight shirt.

Some tips while wearing a corset:

**Always, ALWAYS wear something between your skin and the corset. Tank top, t-shirt, full-blown chemise. This protects your corset from the oils of your skin, reducing the need for washing and therefore hard wear on the corset. It also protects your skin from the corset. Bone channels can press in a little bit, and coutil isn't exactly silky soft.

**Do pay attention to what you eat, actually. If you know something causes an urgent need to visit the restroom, probably avoid it until you have a better idea for what you can get away with. I know I brushed it off above but sometimes laces do need loosened and/or layers need adjusted to make the bathroom logistics work. Skirts are your friend here.

**Don't be afraid to adjust the laces during the wearing period. Human bodies change shape throughout the day, and what fit in the morning might not fit in the afternoon. Nothing says you have to keep them laced at the same tightness all day long.

**Unless you designed it specifically to wear a bra under, don't wear a bra under the corset. Especially if it has underwires. You are in for PAIN otherwise.

**When drafting the pattern, thinking about if you want to sit a lot in the corset. Most of mine don't handle it well because I make mine a little long. I can't drive more than a few blocks in them period. If you will be sitting a lot, make sure to test that in the mock-up and adjustments phase.