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!

1875 Autumn Plaid Bustle Dress

Well, I did it! I’ve now made everything that was on my historical sewing list for 2017 – and I still have a couple months to cram in a few more makes, ha! This dress was the last on the list and was made for my recent Big Bustle Birthday Bash. And last week I was able to do a dedicated photoshoot of it courtesy of Taylor of Dames a la Mode.

My BIG BUSTLE BIRTHDAY!!!!

My birthday is right at the end of September and this year was a milestone/slightly depressing one (though I’m really not that fussed about it, thankfully). My actual birthday was a little over-shadowed by the wedding of very good friends in Toronto (my husband was best man and I made the wedding dress – yes, there will be a post about that in the near future *winky face*). So, I decided to throw myself a big birthday party down here in DC a couple of weeks later; and to make it even bigger and better I made it a Big Bustle Birthday Bash! The main idea was Victorian bustle dresses but I also allowed late 18th century ones so as not to be *too* restrictive.

The party was set in 2 locations. First, we had a picnic together at the National Arboretum; then cake and champagne/cocktails at my house on Capitol Hill.

It was a pretty big undertaking but it was such a blast! I highly recommend costumed birthday parties if you can get the people together for it!

So now, without further ado, I’m just going to post a whole pile of pictures of the day!

Note: Photos with the watermark “In the Long Run Designs” in the lower right-hand corner were taken by Gloria of In the Long Run Designs

Springtime on Capitol Hill – Not Sewing

Upfront disclosure: this post has nothing to do with sewing! It’s all flowers and flowering trees in my neighbourhood. Really the main reason I made this post is so my mom can show my Gramma my photos (Hi Mom! Hi Grandmama!). I was going to just post them to Facebook, but there was so many and the files are all over 1M and I didn’t feel like going to the trouble of compressing them, yadda, yadda, yadda, so here they all are.

If a boatload of flower photos don’t do it for you I won’t be the least offended if you skip this post (and I won’t even know, either, lol).

For anyone who would like to know, here’s the little backstory for these. This is my first Spring living in DC, on Capitol Hill, specifically. A few weekends ago we enjoyed some truly glorious weather and noticed a) there are a lot of flowering trees around here; b) they were pretty much at their peak; and c) they were gorgeous! So I decided to take myself for a little walk armed with my tablet to see how it did with taking photos. It did pretty well, I think!

And it was fortunate I took these when I did since by the following weekend the blooms on the trees were pretty well all done, and now they’re all just green (except for the Japanese maples, and not that I’m complaining about the green!)

So, without further ado, my heavily floral-biased view of Spring on Capitol Hill, 2016!