I don't suffer from insanity,

So, I've cut out the bodice of my bridesmaid dress. I really do love this color. My question, though, is.... Should I make Vee a dress out of the same stuff, and Morgan a skeleton suit, all for the Georgian picnic this fall? Or is that just way too matchy-matchy? /sigh They would be SO CUTE. I don't have my heart set on it, but I think I have enough fabric.

Or I could make Vee a spencer or sash and Morgan's breeches out of it, so as to break all the blue up a little...

I'm even toying with the idea of making matchy doll clothes, LOL. I'm so terrible.

This fabric has a bonus, that while it is indeed bridal satin (boo), it IS machine washable....

It's this stuff from fabric.com and was *almost* a perfect match to the bride's colors, and had her full approval.

Ok. So, since I have not yet found a fabric match that I like for my bridesmaid dress (still need to go to Fabrique, which I'm planning to do on Saturday or Sunday), I'm moving on to my next project. As Matt has started working on my armor for our June event, I thought it only fair that I begin his Sith.

So, here's where we're starting:

Simplicity pattern 4450:

front


back


Jedi palette


(1) is a mid to heavy weight cotton twill with a little bit of stretch. (2) is a dark red crinkle cotton gauze. (3) is a dark ruddy brown mystery crinkle fabric, probably polyester? (4) is a metric ton of black crinkle cotton gauze.

Sith palette


(1) is the same dark red crinkle cotton gauze. (2) is the same metric ton of black crinkle cotton gauze. (3) is a mystery mid-weight charcoal gray suiting, with some stretch. (4) is a metric ton of black cotton velveteen. (5) is a yard and a half of black vinyl.

I've also dug up two other gray mystery fabric suiting. If we end up buying anything, it'll be fabric for his outer cloak. He wants something that has some nice flow and drape. I imagine he'll be choosing some kind of cotton twill, although if I can find some nice wool, I'll pitch for that, I think.

He also plans to make himself a "breather/face mask," a la Darth Malgus from Star Wars The Old Republic:



His assignment tonight (after he gets home from teaching Irish class) is to choose the fabric for everything except the outer robe. Then I'll measure him and trace the pattern and make him cut out the fabric. LOL I hate that part, so I'm totally shoving it off on him. Luckily for me, he's rather good natured about it all.

I love de Gracieuse. I have wasted like two hours just perusing their 1912. I really, really need to figure out how to use their patterns one day. At least now I have some vague ideas of an over all "look" that I can do modifying my existing patterns.

I may still buy some other patterns later. There are a few more than I realized - Sensibility.com has a few, and so does a site called Hint of History. I still really like the Laughing Moon pattern. Any way, we'll see.... I mean, I have the January 2013 Titanic museum exhibit event, and I'll probably go another time with family, too, since the exhibit gets here in like September. So I'll need a colder weather outfit, too, that would be totally uncomfortable in April, heh.

So, all my costuming friends got to do costuming stuff in, oh, the past three months that I haven't been able to go to for various reasons. That isn't to say I haven't done anything. I haven't done much, true, but I did finish an outfit for both Vee and Morgan. Morgan's isn't anything to write home about, just a very basic 1860 saque coat from adayin1862's pattern and some pants of matching fabric with an elastic waistband. Plus he never even got to wear it and he'll be too big for it next winter. Ah, well.

However, I'm really proud of Vee's dress. I did her dress and bloomers from Elizabeth Stewart Clark's patterns. The dress is completely hand sewn, including the four growth tucks and button holes. It was fun and came together in about a week, interruptions from babies included. Her bloomers were totally machine sewn and have an elastic waist band, as does the petticoat. Heh. Although we haven't gone to any costuming events in for ever, she's worn it to church several times and many, many days at home*. Hooray for effectively timeless girl's dresses! :D

Anyway, here are some basic images of her 1860's dress and undies. I haven't done a chemise for her yet. That's for the near future. She can wear the chemise and bloomers as pajamas, I'm sure.

So here's the front top of the dress:


Back top of the dress (I used snaps at the waist since the hook/eyes kept coming loose. Vee is a very active three year old):


Close-up of the button holes:


Growth tucks:


Bloomers:


The petticoat I found in a box of stuff my mom was keeping for me from one of my relatives. I think maybe my mom's maternal grandmother? I almost felt bad about chopping it up, but I know my very frugal great-grandmother Nina would have approved the re-use of the no longer viable underclothing.

Anyway, petticoat before the make-over:


Petticoat now Vee-sized with about four inches of growth built in:


And once I finally make it to an event in costume, maybe I'll show pictures of my sweet daughter in her dress. It has quite a bit of growth built into it, and she'll probably get three years out of it. I'm sure it'll show up in pictures many, many times in the future. Heh!




*Vee has more than once asked me in the morning: "Mommy, I want to wear my wonderful, beautiful princess dress that you made for me, please!" How can I resist that request?! So she's worn it in daily wear quite often, too. Heh!

So, what is the etiquette when posting stuff on the interwebs, especially as regarding images found? For example, I have several things from De Gracieuse that I'm really digging. If I start working on a dress diary or what ever and want to show the image, do I need to show the whole, un-cut image, or can I cut out what I want, etc? For example, I have several albums on my picasa web that I've been collecting over time. I have NO idea where I got all these images from, I just have saved the ones that have caught my eye over the years. Is there a propper way to show them or can I just use them as I need? Anyway, just thought I would throw that out there, and see if anyone has any thoughts.

Also, completely off topic, I NEEEED a dress form! Ugh.

I posted this on the DFWCG facebook page, but I'm gonna ask it here, too, since there's not total crossover and I would love to hear from yall here.

I'm needing some inspiration - I'm wanting to make a frothy, white Victorian summer dress. I have tons of the perfect fabric and I have some patterns from Truly Victorian to work with as a starting point (early bustle, natural form and late bustle). Does anyone feel like sharing some images from that time period? Portraits or photos are great!

I'm doing this one the fast and dirty way since the picnic is on Saturday and I'm still trying to balance infant, toddler and hobbies. Heh. It's coming along quickly, though.

I did skip out on the drawstring neck and put a temporary elastic neck (yay, safety pins!). I know my historically accurate friends will wince at that, but I have to accomodate a nursing infant, so I want easy access. :P I'll be making an adjustment on my current regency stays for the same reason, but I'll just be taking out one of the gusset seams and adding a loop and button.

Here's a progress picture:



So, the to-do list for this week:

Finish the maroon regency (bodice basically complete)
Alter the regency stays
Fix the brown bonnet pleats and add maroon ribbons
Make Vee's dress
Make Vee's petticoat
Find some ballet slippers for Vee?
Make a reticule

Not sure where I heard this (maybe my Margo's yahoo group?), but I've been going through these articles while my boy is sleeping on my lap.

"From 1 November to 15 December 2010 we are lifting all access restrictions on three years of Costume content to make it available to you completely free of charge. You don't need to register, fill out any forms or even leave your name -- simply click here to link directly to IngentaConnect."

I thought this may be of interest to some of my costuming friends. :) I saved several articles that caught my eye. :D

Next project, a suffragette outfit for my mom and a suffragette dress for Vee! Whee! One of my DFWCG friends is lending me an outfit she made for herself while she was preggo, so I personally am set (thanks TONS, jenthompson!).

I have the *perfect* dress pattern for my little V, and it looks super easy, too. I got it way back when guen_the_cat told me about a site that had an awesome library of patterns open to the public for a limited time:



My mom's is going to be simple thrift store stuff, I think, which will be easy enough to put together. And what we can't find, I'll see what I can throw together quickly. I already have a big tan felt hat she can wear, too.

Also, does anyone have any idea what color the sashes were that these women were wearing?

Lessee, aside from the normal work stuff and week night relaxing, what has been going on?

On the costuming front, I've almost completed the pink regency. The bodice is completely hand sewn and looks great. The fit is pretty good, although the neckline I'm kind of "eh" about. I think the next regency will not be drawstring, although I do adore the wrinkled front effect - I'm so much more fond of early Regency and Directoire than late Regency. I've been working on the dress during my lunch breaks at the University. One of the hugest benefits of working with an office full of politically correct, truly considerate psychologists and counselors is that although they may look at my hobby with curiosity, they are constrained by habit and profession not to judge me on it. Heh. Ok, at least not vocally. ^_~

Plus, when one actually considers the hobby of costuming, it does have a certain degree of artistic mystique. Which is really odd to me since I've never really considered myself an artist. Probably because I don't really come up with any of it on my own - I pretty much always use a pattern. However, on a college campus, costuming is art. Whee!

After the pink regency I think it will be time for me to work on something Victorian again. Well, and finish up the silver 1878 Victorian. It still needs trim and an over-skirt. The next Victorian will be later, like 1885-ish, I think. I fell in love with my sister's bustle when I saw her in it at Candlelight in December. She looked fabulous. So I need to make a bustle, and then of course an outfit to go with it! I've still got tons of that silver, plus a darker, charcoal gray of the same material, so I'll probably go with that stuff. I love it anyway!

Another amusing thing on the work front is that as an office we're participating in the Live Healthy Dallas 100 Day Challenge. We have too many people that wanted to participate so our office has two teams. The most fun part about it are the names we came up with for the two teams: Pink Freud and Jung at Heart. Hehe. I love puns!

So, over all, the new job is going quite well. There is a certain harmony in this office that is unlike anything I ever expected (or experienced, for that matter), and I really like it. We have been having horrendous problems with the network and our main shared hard drive, so much so that it's finally been escalated to the Big Powers That Be, which says a lot since it's a government bureaucracy, heh.

I don't have as much free time as I did at the shop, but there are slow moments from time to time. The only melancholy part of course is how much I miss Miriam. Luckily I've been able to call her occasionally (and need to again soon!), so that tie hasn't been completely lost. Most of the others from the shop I can at least "see" on World of Warcraft, and I get some chatting with them there.

Matt's been really busy lately with helping re-start the Gaelic League here in Dallas. I'm pretty excited, because some of my most fun memories are of the Irish Immersion Weekends that we went to, and the cielis those evenings. So. Much. Fun. So much so that we had the Denton Celtic Dancers come to the party after we got married and teach my family how to dance. Heh. So, now we go to Irish Classes on Saturdays, or at least every other Saturday, at this charming book store near the Tipperary Inn in Dallas. Like we have so much spare time on Saturdays! But it's worth it! :D Of course, Matt volunteered to do the website, I think it's because he just loves doing them, heh.

And in that vein, the DFW Costuming Guild site is back up and has events posted. It's almost completely back to where it was, with the exception of the fact that I need to recover my own photos so that I can get them back up there.

For those of you interested, the steam punk lecture is February 9th at 2PM at the Dallas Public Library. I'll get directions up as the day draws closer. It should be a really fun lecture! I'm totally looking forward to it. ^_^

Oh, and GURPS on 4th Saturdays at my older brother Rob's house has resumed. Hooray! So I get to see at least three of my five siblings once a month again. Annie, if you want, you could totally come and hang out. We don't game the whole time! Come to our house and I'll drive if you don't want to drive the whole way.

Ok, that's pretty much it for now! It got a lot longer than I expected, as usual. ^_^