Hi all,
It's been a little while since I was able to update the blog- I blame it on grad school. And life. But, I have found a few stray minutes here and there to complete a few new projects!
So for those of you who remember last year's Regency gown, I hated it. I started with cheap fabric and ended up with a cheap looking awful dress. It was horrific. I spent so many hours working on Matt's War of 1812 British Officer's Coat that I just sorta threw mine together. It was too short, clung to me with static, and was just an embarrassment.
So, this year's Regency Ball in March 3rd required a new gown. There was NO way I was going to be seen in public again like that!!!
I decided to use the same pattern again this year since it worked ok last year and I spent all that time altering it to fit well! The base pattern was a Sense and Sensibility Pattern, and I wouldn't recommend those to anyone who hasn't sewn a few gowns before. They aren't necessarily the most straight forward patterns, or so I have found.
A few months ago I found a beautiful heavier weight white gauze embroidered with white and purplish gray flowers that I thought would be perfect for a new gown. I paired that with a deep lavender heavy weight satin that I found at Joann's Fabrics of all places; usually I avoid that place like the plaque since they tend to have cheap plasticky fabrics. This one is good, though. I then paired those with a pewter lace that matches the branches for the flowers on the gauze perfectly!!
The gown has a bit of pleating in the back at the waist so it is a bit fuller in the back than it is in the front. I shortened the overdress because that was a look that was very popular at the time, and also because I was about a yard short on the fabric (I had to guess the yardage when I bought it and it was SUPER expensive!!!). I will likely wear a petticoat under the gown even though they tended not to do that, mostly because I am used to massive hoops or bustles when I dance and I am worried that I will get tangled up in the dress like I did last time! With the cheap fabric of the old gown and the desert dry conditions of Colorado, I felt like I was stuck to my gown the whole afternoon! This fabric is a LOT heavier, so it should be less of a problem, but I'm not taking any chances.
Since it is March in Colorado, I purchased a Spencer jacket last year to hopefully keep me warm. I had forgotten that it was lavender when I purchased the fabric for the new gown, but it goes perfectly with it! I purchased this from Bonnie Blue Arts on Etsy: the construction is good, and her prices are more than reasonable.
Here's a closeup of the neat lace that I picked up. It was a bit of a pain to hand sew on, but it came out very well.
My other project was to create some new hoops that are smaller and earlier in the 1860s than my massive elliptical hoops of 1867. I used Truly Victorian pattern "1858 Round Cage Crinoline," which I was very happy with. The worst part of creating hoops, and the main reason I would never want to do this for a living, was plotting and sewing all the straight seams on the bag on the bottom of the hoops. It is a necessary evil though- the whole purpose of the bag is so that you don't step through the cage by accident and trip yourself severely! They honestly took me maybe 8 hours to complete and were straight forward. I don't currently have any costumes to go over these quite yet, but this is the base work for some new ideas that I have coming up. And, as you can see in the background, the birds got to help me which made them very happy.
I think that as far as upcoming projects are concerned, the list keeps getting longer and longer. Matt and I attend Durango Heritage Days every year down in Durango, Colorado. One of the fun parts about this weekend is that people stay in costume nearly constantly- a few even attend breakfast in dressing gowns and smoking jackets! I plan on making Matt a neat Victorian era smoking jacket (not for actual smoking, of course!), and myself a night gown and dressing gown to go over it. I picked up a neat Simplicity pattern called Vintage Closet: Turn of the Century to 1925 (5188) for my nightgown. I picked up Ageless Patterns "1868 Smoking Jacket and Cap" for the jacket, and I'm sure that will require a good deal of alteration but should work ok. I have found a bunch of extant examples of gowns and jackets so I will have lots of inspiration in that project!
