Old Maid

Yesterday I turned 28 and spent most of my birthday sewing and having a Jane Austen DVD marathon...just myself and my unsociable rabbit. I came to the conclusion that maybe I will be one of Those Old Ladies and I rather like the idea...a lot.

Ok I didn't spend the WHOLE day by myself like a hermit, the parents lured me over with promises of Dairy Queen ice cream cake and presents and of course I happily fell for the trap. After much ice-cream-snarfing and opening my very first coffeepot with all sorts of accompanying coffee flavors, I settled down on the couch and sewed more. GREAT day!

Mom took pictures of me dressed up because I've been promising to show her what I've been working on, and I was happy to not have to take blurry shots of my new en fourreau in the mirror like usual.

Why is it so hard to get stomachers pinned correctly? I see why people prefer closed-front gowns, big time. I am so proud of my cute little maroon pincushion, I copied it off of:

And I think it'll be quite handy! Here is a close up of it:

A full-length picture of the gown...the back is all wrinkly and ill-fitting right now though so I'll post that after I fix it.

And my own mom wanted me to pose in a most unladylike and provocative manner (really, Mother! The indignity!) to show off my shoes and stockings...she was quite charmed by them. Although who wouldn't be? Yay for American Duchess products!

Interim - teapot and pocket

So I'm making decent progress on Mr. E's striped coat (I guess it's...erm...1750's...ish? We'll pretend like Simplicity patterns actually have historical dates they're aiming at) but it's buttonholes next, which I am NOT going to do by hand, forgeeet that, not for a man-coat. If he protests, I'll tell him to do his own darn buttonholes. Then I just have pockets to put in it and it'll be done, hopefully in time for his birthday on the 7th. I'm also plugging away at a boring off-white petticoat for the HSF "Under It All" challenge, and that's coming along easily since I've made a number of them. I don't want to put up any progress pics yet, but I will stick up a couple of other things because all posts need photos!

First off is the lovely little teapot won in the giveaway from Sew18thCentury...Thank you so much, dear fellow blogger! I am quite in love with it and am enjoying how it looks on my dining room table with my pewter and china! My mother came over and I was hard-pressed to keep her from taking it home with her, she was so charmed by it as well.

 And also I realized I never did put up a picture of the matelasse pockets being worn, so just a quickie of cream and pastel goodness...the pockets are bigger than my previous ones which is great because I have manhands and also like to carry a lot of un-period-correct junk around.