Bright looks from Uniqlo (image source here) to divert us on a gruesome wet gray day in San Francisco. Glad enough to stay inside, endeavoring to stitch perfect mouse-sized handmade buttonholes down the back of Mabel Watson Payne's tiny red Christmas dress. Wild fashion improvisation like the above looks like fun – but today's task is all the other way. Meticulousness must be the mantra. Admittedly, this is a little bit obsessive, but no more so than the labor that routinely goes on in the ateliers at Chanel, and there it is dedicated only to anonymous rich ladies – rather than the Prodigious Infant to whom my personal labors of the day are devoted.
As buttonhole documentation I'm afraid this photo is barely adequate. Mainly because there is no daylight to speak of coming through the windows today, while the alternative of the camera-flash washes out the detail. The buttons are not sewed on yet. They are just sitting there for demonstration purposes.