I really don't feel like I made that much this year. I'm not sure if that's because I just started sewing for the first time in two months, or if it's actually true, though. So here's what I made:

1830s plaid silk dress and yellow bonnet, made for wearing in Oliver, plus the Victorian Festival and Costume College

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Saturday of Costume College, I wore my 1830s plaid silk dress (with the bonnet that was so big that I had to carry it on the plane), because I was wearing it for Jennifer Rosbrugh's Dressing the Plus Size Silhouette Class. I thought I remembered taking something earlier in the day than that, but maybe all I did was socialize, because I can't find ( Read more... )

I managed to finish everything, and wore it all this last weekend at the Victorian Festival. I wore my old plaid 1890s on Friday evening (no pictures of that, because I've worn it so many times), wore the 1830s during the day on Saturday, brought out last year's turquoise gala gown on Saturday night, and wore my new burgundy/mauve stripey bustle on ( Read more... )

Okay, at this point, the stripey bustle is happening for this weekend. I got pretty much everything I wanted to done on the bodice yesterday. It has sleeves, buttonholes, and the collar is finished. It still needs binding on the hem, buttons, and preferably, trim on the sleeve ends (especially since I machine-hemmed those, since my plan was for ( Read more... )

For the bonnet, I wound up going with the light yellow silk that I used for Titanic and am almost definitely using for my CoCo gala gown. So that is really going to be my color of the year this year at CoCo! The bonnet is coming along, though somehow between the paper pattern and the buckram, the crown seemed to lose at least an inch of ( Read more... )

I still haven't figured out what kind of collar (if any) I want for the 1830s dress. I may run out of time and not make one at all. But I did start on the bonnet. I mocked it up with paper on Tuesday, kind of loosely basing it on the shape of my Regency tall bonnet, except with a slightly shorter crown and an absolutely ginormous brim. Naturally, I ( Read more... )

I decided to go with the silk organza for the cap, and I made up most of it yesterday afternoon. I took the basic shape of the 1780s cap from the American Duchess book, and compared it with a couple cap shapes in the Workwoman's Guide from 1838. None of them were big enough, so I enlarged it until it was 22" tall, and I think 21" across. In ( Read more... )

I finished my plaid 1830s dress yesterday! Here's some pics, and I should hopefully have pics of it on me on Monday, when we start dress rehearsals.


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I did a bunch of work on the 1830s dress this weekend, though not nearly as much as I was hoping to accomplish. In fact, I spent all day Saturday trying to get the bertha to work. I need to remember to try the bias strip method the next time I make a bertha, instead of just pleating bias fabric and attempting to get it to be perfect, because that ( Read more... )

I re-pleated the second sleeve yesterday, and am halfway done adding the velvet bands. Today, I need to pleat the lining for the second sleeve, finish stitching down the velvet, and set the sleeves.

I'm facing a conundrum, though - I'm wearing this first in Oliver as Widow Corney. Although I'm not dancing in this dress, I am dancing in the ensemble ( Read more... )