Dispatch no. 66 - Updates Podcast

Wishing you a happy and wonderful Christmas Season. With regards to YouTube, I access it through my phone app. My subscriptions still show as a tab on the bottom of my screen. Interestingly, I got my YouTube year in review yesterday. To preface, I’m not crazy, I’m just very much a fan of yours and the work you do. So thank you for everything you do. Your channel is my #1 most watched channel and apparently I watched 1127 of your videos from January to November in 2025. I do have you on as a podcast in the background sometimes. I have not started drafting or making my own clothing yet. I am on a weight loss journey. I have gone from a size 22 to a size 14/16 and I’m waiting on top surgery. I have so much pretty fabric I want to make some glorious things with. One is a shiny plaid black and green suit jack wet and pants. I’m still hoping you do the drafting dangerous series for pants. I very much have to figure out my rise and seat and preferably without pinning things to my crotch. Thanks again for sharing your skills and creativity with us.

I love the ceiling and light fixture! Want to share with you a video in which another Victorian home renovator makes a painted floor covering - it is so cool, and I would love to see what you might do with this technique! His homemade Christmas tree turns out quite well, also - the floor covering is in the last 15 minutes of the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLIdPRrgvR8

Everything you post is gold. No worries about timelines. 🩷

Bernadette Banner did a video a few years ago on historical laundering methods that I believe covered yellowing

I can see three lines (on YT) on the upper left corner of the screen, to the left of the YT logo; I click on that and it brings up detail, and a list of my subscriptions. Vinegar and baking soda cancel each other out. I soak my lines in a 'green' bleach - something that contains sodium carbonate, and NOT chlorine bleach. No idea how to make a paragraph on the replies - sorry. Men will always have the upper hand, especially since they have persuaded the majority of the world that they make better women than actual women do. Truly a 4 +4 = 5 world.

White vinegar, baking soda & Dawn dish liquid for your linens.

Not only were they 12x12 peel & stick tiles, they were UGLY peel & stick tiles!!! Ick! I'm so happy you're satisfied with it now. Let's hear it for Mom & Dad...YEAH!!💥💥💥🌈🌈🎉🎉🎉

I enjoyed hearing you talk about Mary Shelley and Frankenstein. On archive.org, there are the journals of Mary Shelley. One page includes an entry from their travels throughout Europe in the 1810's and of her sister, Jane, who "was not able to sleep all night for the rats who as she said put their cold paws on her face..." Such hardships and filth, oh my. It's interesting how her mother was a feminist writer, and how Mary knew some very famous writers in Shelley and Byron. Imagine the dinner talk of these people...oh to be a fly on the wall! Back in 2018, for the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein, the Univ. of Toronto had a series of events, including a screening of Ex Machina, which you mentioned. Thanks for sharing and I'm happy to hear that your floors are fresh and clean. Cookies, for sure, actually, my Mom just sent me a lemon loaf!💛

With YouTube on browser, if you click the "subscription" heading on the side bar it takes you to the subscription page 💜

I use white vinegar and baking soda for removing the yellowing on cotton and linen fibres - usually I will let it soak a couple of hours and it works like a charm! For stubborn stains, you can try spot treating with a paste made of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide before washing. You can also try finding some remover with oxalix acid in it. And as others have suggested, sun dry if possible! UV is the best stain and smell remover there is 😁

Congrats on the new floor! I haven't seen frankenstein but I've very much enjoyed the photos. I was especially fascinated to see that they marbled velvet! Which looks much more achievable than custom jacquard, though still a fairly large project.

To see more of the costume details, there is a behind the scenes book out: https://a.co/d/e1TUOnI It's pricy but Rachel Maksy used it for her creature cosplay this past Friday.

I saw Frankenstein in the theaters only because you brought it to my attention in the last podcast, so thanks for that! I def watched being like “oh Bianca is going to love this malachite jewel tones” lol. The next night we watched Poor Things which was eerily similar. Turns out it’s a feminist adaptation of Frankenstein so check that out if you haven’t. Also epic costumes

Huh, very weird that they moved the subscription tab. I hadn't noticed because my subscription page is the first option that pops up when I type a Y into my browser bar, but several times recently I have noticed that youtube doesn't put all the videos in the subscription page??! 3 times I've had one not show up there (AND not given me a notification) but it has shown up in the suggestions of another video, which is awfully annoying. What if someone I follow made a cool video and I've missed it?? A while ago I also had a commenter say they hadn't gotten notifications for two of my videos, nor seen them in their subscription feed, which is most distressing.

I tend to lump Frankenstein into the mad/self-absorbed scientist genre of books. Not very nuanced of me, but I read it for class in high school and that for sure colored my impression of it. It’s been a few decades since then, perhaps I should try reading it again.

Barbara Sculati on Instagram regularly restores old wedding gowns and vintage clothing and her videos show the whole process: sometimes with retro wash, then sodium percarbonate, and other things, plus the wash temperatures snd rinses involved. I like watching the yellowing disappearing. She also removes rust stains from buttons, repairs old lace, etc. A wealth of information on caring for and restoring vintage items.

Sodium percabonate (sometimes called green bleach) might be good for the table cloth as it's a little less aggressive than some commercial whitening products

I love the correlation of concepts between the Everybody Scream album (which I am still obsessed with) and Frankenstein. I learned about Mary Shelley's life story pretty recently and hadn't thought about that connection. Very interesting!

For me, Frankenstein is about the dangers of Othering... In declaring a kind of person 'less-than' we invite our own destruction. As a white, cis lady I remember finishing the book and asking myself who I have turned away, who might have been desperate for a single warm gesture. The film sort of went there, or at least highlighted the fact that people choose violence because they know violence. But when we had a close up of someone screaming "you're the monster!!" at VF like it's a scorching take I actually laughed out loud... Gorgeous film though. Can't wait to see the floor!!!

I alo was going to recommend sun for yellowing (plus lemon juice) but winter/snow .....

Last thing, I hope you can find a LED christmas tree with warm (or warmish). In my opinion, those new fangled LED lights are so blindingly bright blue that it makes Christmas decor look like it's been pulled over by 100 cop cars. I trust in your ability to always find nice LED lights. Please drop the link if/when you do 👀

Oxiclean (or the store brand equivalent) and/or hydrogen peroxide are the best things to treat yellowing. Spray on the hydrogen peroxide and let dry overnight. Keep it away from sunlight when doing this (sunlight breaks down hydrogen peroxide that's why it comes in opaque brown bottle). Machine wash with oxiclean and a high quality detergent. Start with a cold, delicate cycle to be cautious. If the yellowing is still there, soak the tablecloth in the bathtub in hot water and, like, a cup of oxiclean overnight. Repeat the machine wash step. Generally a hydrogen peroxide pretreatment is good enough for some minor yellowing. Use that technique for pillows and duvets too! (and waterstained roman shades if you're me)

Hooray for new floors! 🎉🎉🎉

I still have a subscription tab on my desktop and mobile YT homepage, so it's not an universal change. Hopefully they put the button back!

Sadly Mary Shelly’s (then Godwin) first baby was born premature and died a few weeks later. It was devastating to her. I believe she’d already had her second child when she wrote Frankenstein, though he later died as well.

If you are worried about the condition of the linen, soaking it in a diluted vinegar solution could help + putting in the sun and letting solar heat warm up the water. Other than that -- blue-ing is typically the go to solution that helps whites look "white"

My Elizabethan costuming group swears by Oxyclean for yellowed fabric ...or wash & then dry on grass in the sun (harder to do if it's snowing!)