nuranar: Hortense Bonaparte. La reine Hortense sous une tonnelle à Aix-les-Bains (1813) by Antoine Jean Duclaux. (Default)

In the last month I've started and halted on no fewer than 4 garments (3 are shifts); and I've been collecting information on 4 more. And today I started yet another one!

At least I do things. The last two Saturdays have been action-packed: Last week I drove to Fort Richardson (1 hr each way) to spend the daylight with my parents and Bro. No. 1 and SIL and Baby at a Civil War reenactment. Baby is seriously photogenic - she sees a camera and she grins and laughs adorably. I will upload pictures, I promise! She's almost 6 months old. Then I drove back in late afternoon in time for the costume party. All polls I had held were evenly split. I wavered for a long time because I really want to wear the red wool again, but I finally went for Maid Marian because it's the most famous and shiniest. And the party was good. :)

Then yesterday was the WWII Veteran's Day reenactment in Waxahachie.  I was about 98% pleased with my outfit - I think it's the the most accurate look I've ever done. Navy blue suit (no later than the mid-1940s), me-made white blouse, felt flower corsage from suededsilk, medium-sized red screw-back earrings, 1940s navy calf shoes, blue straw tilt hat with red and gray ribbon band, navy crocheted/beaded round drawstring bag with hard bottom, and the best 1940s hairstyle I've ever achieved. I felt like a million. Dad took lots of pictures. :)

I eventually got there after noon. I had a super satisfying lamb gyro for lunch, then wandered the antique shops and repro fabric quilt shop. All I bought was a $3 omnibus of three Mr. Campion books, all of which I already have; but it was printed in the late '30s and will be great for reading at other reenactments. I was happy. :)  Then I met up with my parents and we watched the battle. I've seen quite a few, so during it I got some knitting done on a baby blanket. The wool kept knotting so Mumsie rolled the skein into a ball.  We killed some time hunting down an abandoned rail line just south of town, then had dinner, and Dad and I drove to the Music Hall in Fair Park. We saw The Lord of the Rings in Concert. It was so good! The entire score was played by the Dallas Pops orchestra, and the vocal parts were sung by the Pops chorus, a children's choir, and two soloists. The lady soloist appeared to be in Elf dress, complete with Arwen braids.  I was still in 40s, but I didn't wear the hat. ;)

Today has been a tired day, but church and choir was good this morning. This afternoon I took care of a couple emails, then started yet another costume piece: headwear for the Georgian picnic next Saturday. I'm wearing the 1790s curtain-along dress (the red print wrap front), which I first wore at Costume College. I tried a wig then, going for the modified later "hedgehog," but I'm not sure it worked. I am sure, however, that it wasn't a flattering style for my face. So I'll do something with my own hair (I suspect involving sponge rollers and possibly a fall), but I wanted something to cover up.

After spending an hour on Pinterest, mostly finding various hats which looked a bit challenging (since I lack the Millinery Gene, like whoa), I pulled out the Country Wives "Beribboned Caps" pattern.  I really liked the look of View E (lower right), which has Ribbon Bows of Awesomeness in addition to a sheer inner ruffle; but the crown/caul piece wasn't that big, so I'm using the View C crown with it (lower left). I'm also doing slightly different construction (hemming all pieces and using whipped gathers) and modifying for a back drawstring (which they leave out.) And I just saw that Merja made View E to go with her 1790 mourning gown! Yep, I definitely love the ruffles.  I'm using a fine cotton lawn for most of the cap, including the outer ruffle (starching it), and silk organza for the inner one. And I have exactly enough dark pine-green satin ribbon to make two huge ribbon rosettes with a band around the cap. Hehehe.

Now, I just need to find time to hand-sew all of this. Yikes...

Pretty!

27 June 2013 01:06 pm
nuranar: Hortense Bonaparte. La reine Hortense sous une tonnelle à Aix-les-Bains (1813) by Antoine Jean Duclaux. (Default)
I've waffled and search and almost bought, then delayed to find someone else had bought, so I decided I just had to get SOMETHING to wear on my feet with the court dress. I've pretty much decided to settle for mules, because it's easier to find a pretty pointy (and even up-tilted) toe and interesting vamp. One last-ditch search abruptly found these. The price was excellent ($10 for Buy It Now) so I got them!



They're nowhere near perfect for the period. The vamp is too low in front, the heel is too short (and thus more 1790s than 1690s), and they're obviously modern Indian (or Indian-inspired) shoes. But! The color is right, the embellishment is SO pretty and rich-looking and not terribly far from period in effect, the toe is pointy and tilting up, and I really like the pointy vamp, like in these examples. AND I don't have to do anything to them. Besides get the cobbler to replace the heel tip, that is. But no time taken away from other projects, yay!


I finally bought my party ticket for CoLoW, so I do plan to be there for the masquerade on Saturday. Jay, can I take you up on the offer to change in your room? When is a convenient time for me to arrive? I'm thinking 30 minutes before; Maid Marian doesn't take too long to get into. But on that note, when IS the masquerade?


"Hello, Dolly!" rehearsals are going really well.  The dancing is challenging enough for me (I've even gotten sore!), I even get to tap a little bit, I have a few tiny "limelight" bits, and the singing is really good. This is the first show I've been in that the chorus has worked so hard! Usually we do a lot of sitting while the main cast runs scene after scene. That'll come in a week or two, when we really start putting the pieces together. But the big chorus numbers are wonderfully complex and challenging, so there's a lot to learn and work on.


Last night we had a tiny Bible study (just me and one other girl). It was a good discussion, and prayer requests segued into my showing her the projects I still have left to do. It was so encouraging and motivating just to show it to her. She's not showed just a whole lot of interest before, but she really seemed so interested and even excited about what I was doing. Plus she had ideas and suggestions that helped me, on two different things! I was really motivated after that.

Instead of sewing for an hour for the rest of the evening, though, I sat down and finished ordering a few other things. I finally got a wig to do my 1790s style: this one, from Jamie on ebay.  I got it because I want a smaller hedgehog for the mid-1790s, instead of a really huge one. The Alonge is usually recommended, but the color choices are very limited.  I wanted to try something a bit different from my natural color, because I can always USE my natural color if I want it.  Y'all dissuaded me from going reddish, because it wasn't a fashionable color; so I went lighter.  My natural color is a mix of brown, blonde, and red (varying amounts depending on the time of year), but overall it's between a 10 and a 12. So I went with 14 (Light Golden Brown), which is overall lighter, without being BLONDE.  I'm definitely going to see what it does with the pink hair powder, too!

The other thing I ordered was two hanks of Kanekalon hair. Do you know how hard it is to find medium-colored shades of that stuff?! This is the only seller on ebay with color 12. Wow.


Also, my Robert Lands have shipped. Cream and black boots for me! Finally!  Now I'm just waiting on the American Duchess Highbury shoes to come. The delivery date keeps slipping out - I'm getting concerned. Didn't the pre-order say mid-May? Then it was June, and now it's July. I keep expecting a blog on it, but nothing has happened. I need to drop her an email and ask - I really want these for my Curtain-Along dress.


So this weekend I probably won't get a whole lot done. I'll try to work hard on Saturday morning/afternoon: wear the bodice to stretch the waist, and work on my outfit for the 4th of July (Independence Day).  Like last year, I'm in the parade that morning with the WWII group. I'm making navy linen shorts (a pleated pattern, very similar to Wearing History's Rita shorts) with a white pique playsuit top. It'll be trimmed with navy rickrack and red buttons (my friend's idea yesterday). I'm sure that outfit will also show up at Costume College by the pool!


Next week, though I need to hit it hard and get the majority of everything done. After the 4th, Friday is a regular off work day, and I'm taking a vacation day on Monday. So that's five days in a row, with no commitments (yet) except for the parade, and that will be done by 11 AM.  My goals are to finish the Gala dress and to muslin/pattern the Curtain Along dress and the parts on the secret project that I don't already have made up. It would feel so good to be done with the Gala dress!

nuranar: Hortense Bonaparte. La reine Hortense sous une tonnelle à Aix-les-Bains (1813) by Antoine Jean Duclaux. (Default)
Sunday afternoon I finished re-hemming some curtains I bought from JCPenney.  They're great curtains, blue-on-white and looking VERY much like toile, although the design is a more naturalistic leaf and vine than stylized scenes and flowers.  They're also not perfectly square, which put my Dad and Mom and I through the wringer when he was trying to put up the curtain rods. ("The level says the rod is level, but the curtains are too high!" "Now that we've lowered the rod, the curtains are just right at one end and dragging on the other! What is going on?!")

So that was finished and they're all more or less even lengths. And I had time on my hands, up in the sewing room, and thought - Aha, WWII reenactment next weekend!  At the Museum of the American G.I. in College Station.  And what do I wear?! Hmm, the weather's getting a lot warmer... low 68°, high 78°, chance of thunderstorms... yeah, that'll be fine.


To cut out a lot of tedious words, I got started on a dress I've been planning for at least a year.

S3365 Front - 1940

The picture is really small and rather grainy.  But the construction is so neat!  There are long suspender-like insets on either side of the bodice, both front and back. In the front they extend into clever pocket openings.  The variations include long or short sleeves, high neck or square neck (with front zipper), and long housecoat length.



Simplicity 3365 dates from exactly 1940. I love this year!  It's not so foofy and little-girly as some of the late 1930s, but the skirts are still nice and full before the mid-1941 skirt collapse.  This dress in particular is somewhat of a fabric-eater, since there is no waist seam.

That was an unexpected benefit for this pattern, actually.  I usually have to add flare or width to skirts to fit my not-size-16 hips, but this one should fit just right. At least it should! Thank goodness for Simplicity's 3/4" underarm seam allowances - that'll give me room if I need it after all.

Anyway, when musing over the lack of navy in my vintage wardrobe, I realized the medium/dark blue linen I'd bought for trousers would look amazing in this pattern.  With white linen insets!  I love how vintage styles play with fabric: stripes on the bias and the cross in the late 1930s, and color-blocking in the 1940s.  Probably a self-fabric (blue) belt.  And white pick stitching outlining the insets! Yum!  (I'm actually surprised the pattern didn't show a color-blocked version. It seems so obvious to me.)


Cutting went very smoothly. Another benefit of using linen is the wide width. Fabric-eater the pattern might be, but the back is in three pieces instead of two, and the extra width really helped me overlap a lot. Plus linen not being directional. And I actually cut the sleeves sideways! Gasp!  I also used up on the insets the tiny remnants of white cotton-linen I've had hanging around, instead of cutting into my good white heavy linen reserved for 18th-century linings and such.

I started construction last night, and it is So Much Fun.  I really like the construction part of sewing! Especially when it's something neat involving weird shapes that somehow still fit together perfectly, and careful pressing that makes it look awesome.  I started on the back insets, because they were easier to fit together, and didn't have the complication of a pocket.

The linen has been interesting to work with. It's probably a bottomweight, but very drapey. It ought to look great in this rather full A-line skirt. And be a little more resistant to flying up in the wind!


So it remains to be seen if this will be finished in time, but I'm reasonably confident.  Tonight is a little busy, and so is Wednesday, but I have Thursday night off (choir is on spring break), and Friday is off work.  My primary concern is getting the hem marked.  I can't do it myself, and the dress has to be finished on Friday!  I have to leave my house by 5:30 AM at the latest on Saturday morning. Eek!
nuranar: Hortense Bonaparte. La reine Hortense sous une tonnelle à Aix-les-Bains (1813) by Antoine Jean Duclaux. (Sewing Bunny)
First, the Other I know about:
Read more... )

Whew! That's a lot to do! And that's not even the costuming. Starting with DFWCG's 2012 schedule:

DFWCG 2012 )


Costume College )
So in rough order from what I need to just ideas:

1. 1860s Not Mourning dress
2. 1860s floral sheer dress
3. c. 1940 evening dress
4. 1915 Edwardian - skin out
5. Pink linen slip dress
6. Red Lensman
7. Pool party something
8. Red-flowered rayonn 1940s dress
9. 1930s fairy-print linen 

Add this on to the list from the top, and I think I'll be kept quite busy!

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nuranar: Hortense Bonaparte. La reine Hortense sous une tonnelle à Aix-les-Bains (1813) by Antoine Jean Duclaux. (Default)
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