I'm alive, just swamped. Somehow I got it into my mind to make my boyfriend an 18th c outfit in a little over a week. Somehow he got it into his mind that instead of a nice plain wool suit, he wanted a highly decorated ensemble. He has even decided to go whole hog and rush ship a pair of Fugawees fire the outfit ( Read more... )

I decided to be stupid and stay up way too late to work on the wig. I haven't tried it on yet (and I seriously don't know how I'm going to get this monstrosity to stay on my head), but assuming it fits, all it needs now is powdering and copious amounts of hairspray.

Here's a pic:

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Sooo... I thought the court gown project was done. But then I actually put it on yesterday, and found out it wasn't. However, it is now. I wound up taking in the center back of the bodice towards the bottom (up to 3" in at the bottom) because it was totally duck-tailing. I also added hooks to make the bodice stay down with the skirt, and I moved ( Read more... )

I finished the engageantes yesterday, meaning the court gown is fully done. I would like to decorate a new pair of shoes for it, and I need to make a wig, but I count those as separate projects.

Here's a pic of the engageantes:

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I finished the underskirt today, which means the court gown is done. Or at least, it is if you count the engageantes as a whole separate project. Which apparently I am. I'm a little over halfway done with the last three engageante layers. They should be done tomorrow morning ( Read more... )

I sewed literally all day today, from about 7:30am to about 10pm (with a 1 hr break and 2 hr nap thrown in there). But I got a lot done. I cut and sewed up all the trimmings for the petticoat and the remaining ones for the overskirt, pinned them all into place to see how they would look, and sewed the remaining trimmings on the overskirt. I also ( Read more... )

This morning, I finished two more layers for the engageantes, meaning I'm halfway through with them! For the rest of the day, though, I worked on trimming. I trimmed the edges of my sleeves, which means that all the bodice needs are for the bows and engageantes to be tacked on. I also added a lot of trimming to the overskirt. I attached the same ( Read more... )

I was bad, and went garage-saling on my way home today. I didn't buy too much, but I did get a vintage fur coat, and an antique painted silk art piece, both pictured below:

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So making embroidered engageantes is way harder than I thought. I'm doing a three-tiered ruffle for them. I managed to make one tier today, over the course of at least 2-3 hours. I did it with decorative stitches on my machine. It's very pretty, but I might have to put off finishing them until after I've finished everything else for this court ( Read more... )

I fixed the sleevil. Or at least mostly. I went with the whole - some pouf is normal, but all the wrinkling is weird. So I changed the shape of the sleeve cap in the back of the underarm, and I rotated part of the sleeve by changing the darts a little. I think it's better now, though I haven't tried it back on with the stays yet. I also bound and ( Read more... )