On a roll with the web site updates!

I figured I would just "get started" with setting up page templates for the events I need to add. . . But then I ended up going ahead and adding the event pics themselves!

Newly added:

- Pictures from the Regency Picnic 2012
- Pictures from the Library Stroll & Tea (Okay, those weren't newly added, but I seem to have uploaded the images right after the event, just never linked to them from the album page!)

Still to add:

- Pictures from Dress U 2012
- Pictures from Costume Con 2011

Belated Spring Cleaning. . .

Just doing a little housekeeping on the web site today. . .

- Updated the Dolls section to include the three newest additions.
- Added a "Patterns" section, which now links to the free 1910s bra pattern. Moved the Corded Petticoat tutorial over there too, because that seemed to make sense.
- Consolidated the "News" and "More" sections into one "Info" section which now has all the biographical and link info in one place.

Still to do in the near future. . .

- Massive update to the Events page. (How did I get to be almost an entire year behind on posting pictures from events?!?!?)
- Finally begin to upload some of the pictures I took of my antique clothing collection.

Changes for Felicity

It's been way too long that this project has sat, unfinished! Twenty-one years is a LONG time to long for one particular dress! ;) I'm presently on a little bit of a "summer vacation," and am dreaming of wearing this dress in Williamsburg this fall (I hope!) and so, I've picked back up where I left off. Which is, with an almost perfectly patterned bodice/sleeves/stomacher, and a partially made petticoat.

My goal here is still to find a happy medium between faithfully recreating the doll's dress, but also achieving some historical accuracy. One of the reasons I stalled on this project for a long time was because the doll's dress has the bodice back pieces and skirt back cut separately, yet every extant example of a dress from this era with a stomacher that I could find had the bodice and skirt cut in one, and then pleated down. I wasn't sure if I wanted to lean more towards the doll dress, or historical accuracy with this detail. In the end, I've decided to go with the separate bodice back and skirt pieces. I hope I'll some day find at least one surviving example supporting this, but even if not, I feel it is plausible that someone who was sewing a dress at home would like the stomacher-front that had been in fashion, and mix it up with the new fashion for cutting the bodice and skirt separately. And in the story, this dress is indeed homemade, partly by Felicity's mother, and then finished by Elizabeth's mother. That the dress was made by two different seamstresses helps my case for the possibility of the two styles being blended even more. Yes, I am a dork. ;)

So far today, I have cut everything out, and shortly will begin sewing it. . .

And now with a hat!

Today I attended a stroll and tea which required a hat as part of the dress code, so of course I started mine last night. ;) This is just a cheap party store straw hat, which got soaked and shaped and left over night to dry - which it didn't! So this morning, I spent time going over it with my hair dryer, which got it mostly dry. Then I took a long strip of fabric and fashioned it into something bow-ish. It's not perfect, but hey, it worked! And, being ever so slightly damp meant I was able to shape it a bit more once I had it on. Here it is in the picture below, worn too far off to the side, because during the course of the stroll, I discovered this hat is definitely a two-hat-pin hat!

1840s Ensemble Finished!

Bodice #1 done! I managed to get sleeves that I really like, and actually, there are so few things I would end up changing about the bodice that I might not need to make a bodice #2 after all! And, skirt done as well. I did the bodice mostly by machine (except some hand finishing), but the skirt is entirely by hand. That is a LOT of cartridge pleating by hand! But, I just love the way it turned out. I can now live out the Jane Eyre fantasies I've had since I was little and first read Jane Eyre! ;)

 



"You play A LITTLE, I see; like any other English school-girl; perhaps rather better than some, but not well."



Pining for Mr. Rochester on the moors! ;)

1910s Ensemble Finished!

I managed to finish the Armistice blouse (well, minus closures, as I have yet to find buttons I like well enough, and may just use hooks and eyes instead), as well as whip up a skirt from Butterick #4092, in time to wear at Dress U last weekend!

 

1840s Dress!

The sleeves of this dress have been an all-out fiasco, and I'm not entirely sure this is exactly the bodice I wanted. . . But in the interest of getting it done in time for Dress U - and because I have enough fabric to make a whole second bodice if I don't like this one - I'm plunging forward!