The Updated and Ever-Growing List

April

Red dress

Wrapper

Sarah's dress

May

Sarah's dress

Sheer

Regency stays

June

Regency dress

Regency Chemise

Regency bodiced petti

Regency bonnet

July

Regency spencer

Bathing costume

Mom's dirndl

August

Paletot and muff

Georgian stays

Georgian Chemise

Regency seaside dress

September

Winter hood

Georgian Paniers

Georgian Petti

Second Regency bonnet

October

Marie Antoinette gown

Other bodices for ball gown skirt

Regency beach slippers

November

Ball gown

Regency reticule/chemisette and half robe

1900's bathing costume

December

Regency evening gown

Asymmetrical bodice

January

Regency redingcote/pelisse and muff

Caraco Espagnol

February

Regency day dress #2 and day cap

CW bonnet

March

Regency whatever you choose!

Regency Costume Challenge!

This might be a little large to undertake, but here goes... I'm entering the Regency Costume Challenge!

First off, I hope to sew this 1814 Seaside Morning Dress for the 1813 Clothing Competition (cross your fingers so that they'll let me do it!  It's a year off.)

I'm also going to enter the Wardrobe Challenge, which challenges participants to sew one Regency garment every month or every other month.  Cross your fingers, again, and hope that they will count the projects I will be doing in June as part of my work for the rest of the time.  Here are the projects I have lined up right now...

Stays, of course...

A white summer dress...

 A chemise...

And a bodiced petticoat...

A spencer...

And a bonnet...

And that's just by the middle of July!

Also, I'm making another bonnet and beach slippers to go with the seaside dress.  I'm especially excited for the seaside dress because that will be another thing I can wear to the beach this winter, along with this:

And this:

And this:

So many projects, so little time!  I must get started!

Busy Week!

On Thursday, I practiced my Senior Project presentation on Civil War clothing in front of an amalgamation of AP English students (I am one of them) and Human Growth and Development students (I am not one of them).  I think it went very well except I went over time by like three minutes at least (obviously because I could talk about CW clothing forever and ever).  I think the students were pleasantly surprised with my presentation, not realizing how interesting this rarely-touched part of history is.  It was fun!  Now I just have to cut out some parts of my presentation so I can focus more on the clothing.  I mean, I did make two dresses for this project, they kind of warrant more than 3 overtime minutes of hyper speed speech.

Then, on Saturday, the Ladies Living History Society and the Western Female Seminary Living History Society all took a lovely trip down to the Cincinnati Museum Center for their Civil War Days.  It was great because 1. It is air conditioned 2. Lots of people were able to make it and 3. The museum provided lunch for all of the volunteers.  We also got to play a hilarious game of Questions and Answers with some Union gentlemen, which was very fun!  I was able to wear my red dress, but unfortunately, that may be the last time I wear that dress until fall because it is, in fact, wool.  It's so pretty, though!!!  Sigh.

So... about not buying any more fabric... I might possibly have bought two more dress lengths...  Don't yell at me!!  They were only $3.40 per yard and they're 100% wool and 60" inches wide... I couldn't help it.  Anyway, I got 6 yards each of these fabrics:

For this Caraco Espagnol from Peterson's, 1862:

One word--tassels!

For an asymmetrical bodice. My pseudo-inspiration image:

I say pseudo because it is just proof for myself that there were asymmetrical bodice dresses made out of plaid fabric.  I am probably going to do trim differently than this lovely lady.

Anyway, that is all!  Have a lovely day, everyone!

Red Dress: Complete!

Here are the pictures of the raspberry wool dress that I made!  I love it and I hope you like it, too!

Regency Wedding Dress

So, every senior is required to take a Christian Lifestyles class at my school that culminates in a project where we plan our own weddings.  It's strange, but fun.  Anyway, I found a pretty dress from David's Bridal and settled for that, but then I thought... nah.  I'll make mine!  The wedding itself isn't going to be Regency, but the Regency silhouette is classic enough that it can really be applied to any occasion (example: my prom dress had a very Regency-like empire waist).  The original dress that I found was so gorgeous that I simply had to share it with you.

The most gorgeous thing that you've ever seen in your entire life, right?  It is exquisite.  I don't even know where to begin.

Since the picture lacks a full-length view, I decided to extrapolate a little for that.  I looked through some fashion plates and decided to do this kind of skirt treatment:

I love the look of a shorter overlay fabric and an underlayer with a train.  It's adorable, no?  The fabrics I'm going to use are this amazing silk organdy:

And this gold silk taffeta:

Now I'm really tempted to make this dress!  I'll save it for my wedding, though.  That's all!

The List

Yes, here it is:  the sewing list for the next 6 months.  It encompasses all of my upcoming projects and when I hope to finish them.  It's pretty intense, yes, but I know that I will be able to get it all done.  The months on the schedule are simply when I want to have them done, so I may do certain projects scheduled for October in August, August in June, and so on.  And now, here it is...

April

Red dress

Wrapper

Sarah's dress

May

Sarah's dress

Sheer

June

Regency dress

Regency underthings

Chemise

Stays

Bodiced petti

Regency spencer?

July

Bathing costume

Mom's dirndl

August

Paletot

Ball gown

September

Winter hood

Georgian underthings

Corset (PINK!!!!)

Chemise

Paniers

Petti

October

Marie Antoinette gown

Other bodices for ball gown skirt

Always Talked About but Never Before Seen

I talk about a lot of stuff, but apparently never show pictures!  I have been talking about my red dress for ages and none of you have seen it!  So, here are some pictures of my stash (and new additions) so y'all can put images to names.

Here is the raspberry wool I talk about so often. This is the wool I used for my dress (now in the final stages of construction) and shall use for my sacque.  Both the dress and the sacque will be trimmed with this velvet ribbon, the sacque with the thicker and the dress with the thinner.

Here is the wrapper and the mitochondria fabric, as I like to call it.  The little round things totally look like mitochondria!  The wrapper is still in want of sleeves, a drawstring and a hem.  After that, it will be complete!

My lovely friend Kelly sold me wrist warmers and garters that she personally knitted and I am in love with them!  The wrist warmers will be worn to the filming of The Light of Freedom (along with the garters, but those will not be visible).

I picked up 1 yard of white cotton twill at JoAnn's yesterday with my Regency stays in mind:

Here is the beautiful, beautiful robin's egg blue silk.  I just got another 4 yards on top of my 7.5 so I can make a second (and third?) bodice.

 I will be making this ballgown from it:

Along with this dress:

I want to make an exact reproduction of the second one, but then I have to find out a way to have detachable bows for the skirt.  Would it be worth it to baste them on every time I want to wear the second bodice?  I'll figure something out.

Here is Sarah's wash dress fabric, a very pretty blue, white and black plaid.  It looks primarily black in this picture but it's actually primarily blue.

And now, the most beautiful book ever,  "Fashion: The Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute".  It spans the 18th century to the 20th century.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

 Georgian:

 Regency:

1860's:

That's all, folks!  Till next time!