Agent Carter

Has anyone been watching Marvel's new Agent Carter show? It stars Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter from the Captain America movies. Set in the second half of the 1940s, the premise is that Peggy is post-Cap' and post-War and learning how to deal with that. It's not great TV, but I find it entertaining and enjoyable. It reminds me of the Canadian show Bomb Girls, retro and slightly cheezy. The sets are nice (cool Deco styling) and the costuming is alright. There was even a scene with Peggy's hair in a pincurl set when she's heading to bed.

What I really like about it is that it shows Peggy as her own person, not just as Captain America's love interest. After his death, Peggy doesn't sit around pining after her lost man. Even though she mourns him, she is moving on with her life trying to find meaningful work in a world that is forcing women out of the workplace or into marginalized roles as men return from the war. Peggy is no longer in the position of authority she had during the war; instead she has been pushed into the role of secretary at the agency that will eventually become SHIELD. One of Peggy's friends also remarks at one point that a bunch of women at her workplace have been fired to make room for the men. But they don't sit around whining, even though they acknowledge these problems. They're all spunky and fun and out doing stuff. Good times!

We're probably all familiar with Atwell from her other historical work (The Duchess, Brideshead Revisted, Any Human Heart) and she's always good. The supporting cast is also a good time. There are weird bad guys, a plucky waitress friend (pictured below), and other people from the Marvel canon like Howard Stark and actual, human Jarvis. Fun stuff!

So, if you can ignore the cheezy way the show is trying to tell the audience "HEY LOOK HOW OLD-TIMEY AND RETRO WE ARE" with the soft, smudgy visual effect a la Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and the heavy-handed story-telling, then you might enjoy this show too.

Pictures from this People article.

Corset cut out

I was good today and got my corset cut out, coutil and satin, minus binding and boning casings. The amount of the satin that is going to be left after I've cut everything out will probably fit into a thimble. I'll have to take a picture. There's hardly anything!

I want to do a really good job with this corset, so tomorrow plan on basting together the coutil and satin along the seamlines of each piece, which are marked in pencil on the coutil. That will give me a guide for when I sew the seams together and it will prevent the various pieces from moving around. Also, since some of the pieces have 1/4" seam allowances and some 1/2", it'll prevent me from messing up those too. (The 1/2" ones are going to be felled. The 1/4" ones get covered by boning or are under the felling.)

Once I get the busk in and the seams sewn, I'm going to measure it for the boning and then order that. I still need to cut the facings for the CF and CB. So much to do! And I want to finish it this month. Yikes!