Progress!

I am in looove with my fabric. And I think I finally have the sleeves on...more under the cut (if I can figure out how to do a cut)

Fashion always comes back around

I was reading Dress in Eighteenth-Century Europe by Aileen Ribeiro and A Lady of Fashion: Barbara Johnson’s Album of Styles and Fabrics today and realized that the Brunswick was the 18th century version of the modern day hoodie. Lol. Okay, so maybe it was quite a bit dressier but I don't think I've seen a single painting or sketch where the hood is actually UP on the Brunswick...ladies sort of went around in these previously-meant-for-traveling ensembles no matter what the occasion, just like I go out to the store or to a movie in a hoodie that was meant for athletic wear, and never put the hood up.

Would anyone seriously wear this gorgeous frilly hooded thing outside? I don't think so.

My sleeves aren't looking right on the pink gown. They almost have a puffed sleeve effect going on at the top near the shoulder, which I HATE, but if I decrease the fabric up there, it's almost too tight to get my arm through, and I do not have fat arms in the least. I'm really puzzled. After looking at some paintings and sketches though, I think the sleeve as it stands with the little pleats more toward the gown's back is probably acceptable, even if I would like a smoother silhouette. Boo. Fabric never behaves the way I want it to.

Puzzlement solved

I figured out how to get rid of the bodice rippling...it really was just the fact that I had cut the pieces too long in the waist...they needed to come up higher on the hips. I am so thrilled with the way the lining has turned out, and the way the pattern is matching up! Tonight I should have the sleeves attached and can start on the skirt soon. This fabric is heavy...I'm starting to think possibly too heavy to polonaise, which is sad because I would have loved to do so, but I think I might go ahead and make it nice and full in back like this:

                         (Robe a l'anglaise, ca 1770, picture from the Met museum)

Incidentally, the fabric of the dress in the picture is not far off from my fabric, with that dusty-rose color and the smallish bouquets. It's very pretty...can't wait to get everything all sewn up. I know I should post some progress pictures but I am kind of embarrassed by my raggedy edges and the disarray of my house. When I trim the dress I'd like to keep it fairly simple and just trim around the neck and sleeves like my favorite dress from The Duchess.

The lure of new fabric

I have been busy not posting because I have been busy shopping and sewing! I have a most delightful dusty pink...some-kind-of-fabric (ok, it's probably synthetic, but it's not shiny, stretchy, or quilting-cotton) with woven tan stripes and delicate bouquets of green, lavender and pink. Eight yards of it, from the Hancock Fabrics upholstery and home fabrics remnant tables. It's somewhat heavy, and the pattern on it truly is woven in because it's quite ugly on the wrong side with all the threads, but I have a hunch that it's not a wholly natural fiber.

Since last posting, I completed a very nice maize-yellow petticoat to go with my dark blue jacket, and polonaised my striped gown which looks so much better (the more I mess with it, the more pleased I am) and now I'm thinking of giving it a false compere stomacher but can you do that on a gown with robings? I need to look at more paintings and extant gowns to make sure I'm not trying to stretch between too many decades.

Back to the pink fabric: I decided on a quarter back gown from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion, and actually I found it very easy to draft on myself, so the day after I got the fabric I already had all my bodice pieces cut out of the muslin lining and fashion fabric. I'm determined to sew everything by hand, and so far so good! I will try to put up some pictures of the fabric itself later. But if anyone reads this...is there a major trick I'm missing to get your bodice to not wrinkle around the waist? I'm an average sized girl (size 8-10), but even with my stays on and laced as evenly as possible, I have an obvious hourglass figure where the fabric is tight at my bust and right below my waist but wrinkles up with loose fabric around the waist, which is not at all an 18th century silhouette! I have an extreeeemely short torso despite being 5'9". I'm going to try to take it in at the side seams but I've had little luck doing that in the past. Do I just need to be cutting the lower edge of my bodice up higher above the hips so the skirt part truly starts at my natural waist no matter how short-waisted I am? Very confused...any help would be appreciated!

O, to be well-shod!

American Duchess recently went through a vast amount of trouble to create a beautiful 18th century dyable silk shoe for ladies (and gents!) wanting a more stylish and customizable option than basic black. I jumped at the chance and ordered the Georgianas and I am extremely pleased with the look and comfortable fit (though I haven't gotten around to dyeing them yet). Now she has come out with an even more durable leather version, also dyable, and even posted a tutorial on her blog on how to dye them. I already got my pre-order in and am desirous of spreading the news! Hurry, because the pre-order period only goes through the 10th and I got the impression that it is by no means certain that she will do another run! See below for more info!

The Devonshires are a leather 18th century shoe based on museum examples from the 1760s through 1780s.  They're made of top-grade dyable leather, with a beautiful, smooth Italian leather sole for dancing, and are hard-wearing, water- and mud-proof, for even the toughest of outdoor re-enactments.

Pre-Order the Devonshires through August 10, and get the special $100 price.  We're only making 200 of these shoes, so don't miss the chance to own one of only a couple hundred pair on the planet!  Visit www.american-duchess.com to order.

Finally...a few pictures

Rendezvous was great fun this year albeit extremely (as in record-breakingly) hot.

My tent is teeny tiny but I wasn't about to pay a ton for a larger tent I didn't need; nobody even spends time in them during the day because they are SO HOT. Even in the shade, it's much cooler to be outside under the canvas fly than it is inside the tent. I was sewing a shirt here at the dining table but I kept getting interrupted so it still isn't finished.

There's my little hand-made housewife after the pattern in Tidings from the 18th Century. I actually lost it later that day while watching a slander trial but it turned up in the lost and found.

Next year I want to make a jacket like these girls'...they were so cute. I liked their shorter skirts but didn't have time to hem mine up that high.

This was me on Saturday...the jacket, which you can't see very well, is after a Janet Arnold jacket which I did all myself just by looking at the pattern in the book, so I am quite proud of it as my first non-paper-pattern outerwear. My 18th century lining skills are awful though. I need to practice. And I should have put my shawl around my neck the proper way because I got rather sunburnt despite the hat. Live and learn!

Captain Jack Sparrow is an acquaintance whose costume and mannerisms are so fantastic that he has been hired to put in an appearance at the St. Louis pirate festival in September! It was hard to get a picture with him because of all the kids swarming around. 

I sewed the clothes on the gentleman on the right; it was pretty gratifying that he got called up on stage during the "fashion show" later as a good representative of a local farmer. Even if I didn't have time to give him buttons down the knee of his breeches.

Here I am on Sunday, cooking a peach cobbler in the dutch oven...with my skirts dragging because that poor gown really needs panniers or to be polonaised. Next year, next year. It was just way too hot to wear more than one petticoat anyway, sigh. This dress is a truly nasty Simplicity pattern that I have modified the best I could. When I bought it last year around May, I knew nothing about 18th century clothing. I sewed it, wore it proudly to the Rendezvous, and came home feeling embarrassed...not because anyone said anything or looked at me strangely, but I could just tell that it wasn't quite right. Particularly the back, which wasn't a quarter-back, or that pleated-down-anglaise back....it was just wrong. So I re-worked it over and over during the past year (I didn't want to waste all that effort and fabric!) and now it doesn't look too bad, I think, but it would be better with the right supports around the sides. I needed an Ugly Puffer like American Duchess has. The more I work on the gown the more accurate it gets, so maybe when I wear it again next June it'll look even better!

The back...not TOO bad, right? Other than the length. I was a lot happier with the gown this year also because of the stays. I am in love with my stays! I even wore them to sleep in, which I know they didn't do back then, but I am having a lot of back problems and they seemed to really help keep me stable in my sleep because I woke up a lot less stiff than usual!

  

Gratuitous hat-and-teapot shot. I had been dying to get that teapot since I saw it at a previous event, and the same folks showed up here so I absolutely had to get it! It matches my teacups almost perfectly...I should have put one in the shot. And my hat, which the ladies in the milliner's tent all liked, so I must have done ok with it! I bought a new blank one to decorate for whatever outfit I choose to sew next. I would really love to do a matching caraco and skirt but my problem is that I just don't have enough pieces of the same fabric in my cabinets, so it might be more separates for me next.

Exhausted!

I have done a LOT of costume wearing recently! I went dressed up as a piratey sort of female to the new Pirates of the Caribbean premiere at a St. Louis theatre one weekend, then over to the StL Renfaire the next, and just got back late last night from camping at the Rendezvous at Fort de Chartres. The fort was a fantastic time, as usual, but the heat was in the 90s almost all the time with the exception of hitting a reported 105 on Saturday. I was so proud that I wore stockings, shift, petticoats, corset, jacket, cap and hat and didn't pass out or get dehydrated! And actually some of the "tourists" with less clothing on seemed even more miserably warm than I was. I had another proud moment when we popped over to the brief "18th century fashion show"...even though we weren't participating, my manclothes on my gentleman-friend got called up onto the "runway" because they were missing a local farmer and he looked accurate enough that the caller was able to use him to show off the breeches, shirt and waistcoat as a typical example. It made me feel good to know I did something right even though I loathed making them....pretty girl things are much more fun.  Photos to follow, after I have done a lot of sleeping and laying around!