1780s Chemise Gown

So, I really seem to be a lot about the 4th quarter of the 18th century these days – and there’s more to come!

Back in the spring I crossed another style off the wishlist: a 1780s Chemise gown (aka Chemise a la Reine, Robe en Chemise, etc):

Scenes from the 2018 Jane Austen Festival, Locust Grove, KY

I didn’t take a lot of photos of the Kentucky Jane Austen Festival (wish I had got some of the pugilists!) but I did get a few and thought I’d share.

Mackenzie of Fig Leaf Patterns and I both worked on patterning for the DAR Agreeable Tyrant Exhibition catalogue. So here we are together , each in our own versions of the sleeveless spencer that I patterned from the original garment and Mackenzie digitized for printing. I just love the colour she made hers from!

Jane Austen Festival 2018, aka: 2 New Gowns, 1 New Hat and 1 New Parasol Shade (+ an antique quizzing glass!)

It’s been a busy-ish past couple of months for me since I decided to try out the Louisville, Kentucky Jane Austen Festival this year in addition to attending – and teaching at – Costume College, both in July. And, of course, there was much sewing and preparation to be done for both!

But now it’s time to start catching up on ye olde blog.

Let’s start with the Jane Austen Festival. Because everyone I knew who’d gone before warned me repeatedly about the heat and humidity I realized that most of the regency-era clothes I already had risked being too hot to wear because of their medium-weight linen bodice linings (yeah, it’s that hot!).

Thus new gowns had to be made – and they had to be made as cool as possible! This meant trying out something new and a little scary for me: unlined regency gowns in very lightweight fabrics! I was pretty nervous approaching these as I feared they wouldn’t stand up to actual wearing but I ended up being very pleasantly – and gratefully! – surprised at their durability.

I also decided to make 1 new hat that I would wear with my 3 outfits for the weekend.

And lastly, I made a new shade for an adorable antique parasol I managed to score online just in time for the festival!

The festival started with a twilight shopping event on Friday evening. Since it was later in the day and less disgustingly hot I opted to re-wear my DAR reproduction gown + sleeveless spencer ensemble (most or all of these photos were taken by Angela Burnley of Burnley & Trowbridge with her magic iPhone camera!):

Sesquicentennial Ensemble: Skirt Foundations Trials and Tribulations

Quick re-cap of this project:

This year is Canada’s Sesquicentennial – aka: 150th birthday. I went to Ottawa for Canada Day this year (or Dominion Day for those who go old school) which was on July 1st when some friends and I celebrated in 1867 style. If you’re just tuning in you can see the finished outfit in this post.

The silhouette and style I went with is more 1867-ish than straight on 1867 because, to me, the whole 1840s through 1860s is such a snooze fest fashion-wise. I just do not like 1860s fashion; so I pushed mine more into 1868/beginning of the bustle-era. What’s the point of making something that I’m just not interested in, right?

I’m doing a whole post on just the skirt supports because, lemme tell you, this was a whole journey in itself!

For reference, this was my primary inspiration for the dress overall:

Raspberry Mint Sorbet Bustle Dress Part the Third: The Hat – Both the Making and In Action!

This is the third and final post on the construction of my Raspberry Mint Sorbet bustle dress completed back in May

If you’re just joining now, here’s the first post, about the skirts, and here’s the second, about the bodice.

I started thinking about the hat while I was finishing sewing the dress. In looking at mid-1880s fashion plates I quickly knew I wanted to do one of those small-but-tall crowned hats from the period. They just look so pert and jaunty – and have such ridiculously fun trimming!

Some examples:

the upper and lower left-hand ones here

Celebrating Canada 150 in 1867 Fashion(s)

I’m posting about this project in a backwards manner, showing you the finished ensemble being worn before the construction post(s) – and before I’ve finished with the Raspberry Mint Sorbet. But I wanted to get this up as close after the July 1 weekend as possible, and so you get the good stuff first!

So, as you may have guessed from the title of this post this year Canada celebrated its 150th “birthday,” maybe not such a big deal as a centennial or bicentennial, etc but still significant for us as quite a young country; plus, I wasn’t around for the centennial and will have to live to nearly 90 to see the bicentennial, so I’ll take it!

For the occasion a few friends around Ottawa and I decided to make historical dresses inspired by the year of Canada’s confederation, 1867, and get up to some shenanigans around the capitol over the holiday weekend. We initially intended to have picnics throughout the weekend but the weather ended up being just about as un-co-operative as could be and rained heavily, thundered and lighteninged most of the time. So we had to make some hasty re-arrangements and I’m quite pleased with what we managed to throw together last minute. I also actually quite like that we ended up doing something different each of the 3 days.

For the Friday we found a teahouse to accommodate the 4 of us who could make it (Me, Sarah, Liz, Catherine):

Raspberry Mint Sorbet Bustle Dress Part the Second, aka Adventures in Bodice-ing

If you’re just joining, this is the second in a small series of posts about my most recently completed project, which I dubbed the Raspberry Mint Sorbet bustle dress, for probably pretty obvious reasons.

Here’s where we left off (because I haven’t shown this image enough already, lol) – which is where I left off last summer (post covering the skirts here).

My initial inspiration for the bodice was this fashion plate that I also liked for showing a similar colour combination to my own, which still feels a little too, I don’t know, for HA.

Raspberry Mint Sorbet Bustle Dress – The Skirts

If you saw my post about this year’s historical sewing plans then you may remember my mentioning this UFO that I started on a whim last summer. I got as far as having the skirt mostly finished before it was time to start fall sewing, at which point I was all about fall colours (which I love SO MUCH) and this make instead of summery ice cream-like colours.

Fortunately, it did not have to languish in the UFO pile for terribly long. In the winter I received an invitation to a Victorian picnic in May. I ended up not being able to go as I was attending a conference in England over the same weekend. However, as luck would have it I received an invitation from another friend for a Victorian picnic in June so I didn’t lose my incentive for finishing this ensemble! Hooray for UFO-busting!

I’ve decided to do a post for each component of this ensemble (skirts, bodice, hat, everything together and “in action”) to keep it manageable.

Here’s where I had got to last summer:

2016 Summer Frock Parade – Yes, there’s one more

This is the final summer dress I made this year. It’s also quite possibly the most comfortable, making me wish it had been the first. But at least it was done in time to help get me through the horrors of August heat/humidity. It was also a favourite during my recent trip to Italy in September.

It’s made using the same bodice pattern as the Flamingo dress, just altering it back to be sleeveless (as per one of the options with the original Burda WOF pattern). For reference, the pattern is number 112 from the November 2007 issue of the Burda magazine when it was still Burda World of Fashion, so unfortunately earlier than they started archiving them on the website.

Oh but look, I did just find an image of the line drawing from the Russian site on Pinterest:

The skirt is just 3 panels of the 54-60″ wide fabric gathered/pleated up using the ruffler foot on my Singer Featherweight.

It’s made from a really lovely cotton voile I’d had in the stash for a few years. I love the swirly, impressionistic print of it and the combination of light and dark olive greens with hints of aqua/turquoise.

It also happens to be THE perfect fabric for DC summers – so lightweight and cool, and with just a hint of crispness to it that keeps the surface smooth and cool. I have some more of this fabric in an abstract watercolour-ish print in shades of mauve that I was hoping to make up this year, but it will now have to wait until next spring. Next summer it is quite possible that I will live entirely in these two dresses (unless I can get my hands on more cotton voile of this type).

2016 Summer Frock Parade – Vintage Bedsheet Dress

This is a second dress inspired by this vintage early 60s (?) one with the button tab shoulders: