I don't suffer from insanity,

So, the Steampunk tea is coming up and I'm thinking I'm just going to wear what I wore last year to the May Frontier Fort Days. That way I don't have to really think about things. I will probably add an overskirt, as that would take almost no time at all. Matt can wear his British uniform or his Gunslinger/Pinkerton outfit. Vee can wear her 1860s dress. Then all I have to do is throw something together for Morgan. Sweet. To be honest, aside from being relieved that I basically have something for everyone, I am really looking forward to the event. It will be tons of fun.

What I'm really spending time thinking about is the Edwardian Picnic. I need to keep it simple because I'm going to be working on stuff for three people. Not sure if Matt will want to go, but if he does, then I'll come up with something. Luckily, men's fashion is pretty predictable.

So, plans.

I need to come up with a dress for Vee. Once I settle on what I'm going to do, it won't take much time, but I need to find a pattern first. If anyone has any suggestions for a pattern I can do, I would be really grateful. Maybe I'll search de Gracieuse, and enlist some help in enlarging a pattern? That's kind of scary. Fabric wise, I'll probably make hers out of one of the white fabrics below.

I'm going to make a jumpsuit/jumper for Morgan from a pattern that jenthompson is loaning me (THANK YOU!!!). Probably out of the white/blue stripey stuff below if there's enough.

For myself, I am going to cheat and wear Victorian underthings so I can concentrate on the outfit itself. I am either going to buy the Laughing Moon 1909-1913 Dress, or use the Butterick 1914 blouse and skirt patterns here:






These fabrics are ones that I have in my stash. Since the picnic is in like May, it'll be fairly safe to assume that it will be warm, maybe even hot. Here are some samples of the fabrics I'm thinking about.


I have a TON of this fabric (I used this fabric for my white bustle dress):


I also have a lot of this fabric (I used this fabric for mine and Vee's white regency):


I have six yards of this fabric, which I haven't used in anything yet:



The advantage of the Butterick patterns is that I already have them. That feeds my frugal side and I wouldn't need to wait to get started. The disadvantage is that I have no idea what to do with them. Maybe the skirt with the buttons in the white/blue stripey stuff and a blouse (I like the simple one in the top left) in one of the whites? Or a skirt with overskirt like the two on the right out of all white, with a matching white blouse? Or blouse and skirt out of all stripey stuff? I don't know. I think if I could visualize something, it would be really easy to go from there. As it is, I'm so inexpert in this era that I'm a little at a loss.

That's why the Laughing Moon pattern is so alluring. I could just use the day dress pattern and do the whole thing in the white/blue stripey stuff with a white undershirt. SO straight forward. Downside, of course, is that I have to buy the pattern and then wait for it to get here. The waiting, realistically, isn't that bad, since I tend to procrastinate anyway. I just have to wait for my allowance to cycle, heh.

So anyway, any advice or feedback would be appreciated!











Edit: Here's Vee's other Edwardian dress. If worse comes to worse, I'll just make this one again, and just size it up. And add more buttons, heh. This was from roughly two years ago.

Thanks for suggesting Tissot, nuranar and jenthompson!!

Here are the ones that most caught my eye. They're all pretty much the same dress, I think. I'd definitely go powder blue accents rather than yellow. I look better in blue. ^_~ Also, I am going to to ruffles instead of pleats because I do NOT want to iron pleats every time I wear that dress. :P It'll look ok with ruffles I think. I hope.

They look natural form? Or maybe a buslte pad? I kind of did want to do a bustle.... Will have to ponder that. Natural form involves less work since I haven't yet made myself a bustle, heh.

I've been so busy! Let's see. What has been going on? Well, my week nights are much as before: Monday/Tues/Wed evenings walk the hound, chores and either WoW, reading or watching a movie. Thursdays are still game nights, and the Serenity game is going well. I've been updating the Wiki, so all my notes are up. Whee! Fridays are more chores, etc. Matt is doing a lot of end of year stuff for the church so he's pretty swamped.

Thanksgiving was awesome. I went over to Mom's on Wed night to help with food prep as has become my normal tradition. We spent the evening visiting and working. Then Thursday had us at my older brother Rob's for the Thanksgiving festivities. I wore toe socks and flip-flops because I knew how much they bothered my brother-in-law (hehe). For some reason he has this thing against toe socks, so I was delighted to exploit that weakness. >:) See, I can be evil! Even though Matt tells me that's not evil, it's just mischievous.

Anyway, We all lazed around and visited and ate wonderful food. Some of Rob's wife's family came, too, which I hope also becomes a tradition, as I love having them there.

On Dec 2nd and 3rd Matt and I went up to the Lake to visit with tempest_sky and Tim. We spent a lot of time visiting, plus our usual golf cart ride (which I still so thoroughly enjoy!!). Tempest Sky is looking so adorable these days, as her pregnancy is really visible now. I so much enjoyed the time we spent there!

Then last week, I spent the weeknights as described above. Saturday morning, I got off my procrastinating shelf and pulled out my 1878 skirt and bodice to do some minor alterations - like finish the hem on the skirt and shift the fasteners around on the bodice. I still need to do some fitting stuff with the bodice, but I'll totally need help for that as I don't have a fitter's form (or whatever they're called). I'm realizing in the course of my sewing that I have SUCH a high waist.

Anyway, I still need to add trim to the skirt and bodice, and I was leaning towards pleats. One of my fellow costumers gave me a pleating tool that looks remarkably like a ruler with some useful bends in it. I think that will help a lot. I'm thinking of adding pleats to the bottom of the skirt and the ends of the bodice sleeves, plus maybe at the bottom of the bodice.

Next up is my pink regency day dress, and apron. I think also this year the costuming guild is working on rococo stuff, so that should be fun, too! We're also going to have a class on steam-punk outfits, which is going to be really fascinating.

Saturday afternoon, we headed over to a friend's house for a pre-Candlelight get-together. It was lovely, of course. I love hanging out with other costumers, as it gets me all excited about sewing again. And boy-howdy do I need the inspiration. I procrastinate to no end, or choose other hobbies (WoW/reading/movies) instead of sewing. Anyway, the party was fun with yummy treats and lots of costuming talk, and then we adjourned to Dallas Heritage Village for their annual holiday Candlelight event.

Candlelight was so much fun, too! We wandered around as a guild, and shortly after we arrived there, my sister annawick and mom saintvickery and the Lex, too, of course, saw us and wandered around with us. Annie and Mom were dressed up, too, so they blended well with the rest of us crazies. ^_^ Err... Eccentrics! We're not crazy, we're eccentric. Anyway, Annie's dress looked particularly good and made me definitely want to make an actual bustle, she looked so sharp!

The Heritage Village was absolutely lovely. It was a little warm at first (I think it got to 80 F / 26.6 C that day!), but cooled off after the sun went down to a very nice comfortable for Victorian clothes 60 F / 15.5 C. I still love touring those homes - some are very ornate and elaborate, and others simple and charming. Plus the candle-lit (go figure) roads really enhanced the atmosphere. This year there were a lot more people dressed up, too. I think some of the guild's members passed out guild cards, which was awesome. We drew quite a bit of attention as everyone looked really awesome. Hooray for dressing up!

Things at the new job are going well. I had my one month review, and the boss had a lot of positive things to say. So, if things continue as they are, I guess I'll get to stay. ^_~ I'm hesitant because there's this six month probation thing that the University does, which since they fired the person before me makes me less confident than I would be otherwise. Luckily, the work itself is not difficult and my co-workers are all pretty awesome. So aside from missing my friends at the Shop (Mir and Kev especially!), over all things are well.

I'm finally adjusting to the early schedule, too, although I do find myself getting drowsy at 10 PM, which seems so terribly early. Bleh. I do miss my late evenings and late mornings! Oh and no traffic. I do miss having no traffic. I do like the extra two hours with the husband, though, since we are able to carpool. Anyway, if things work out here, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Matt and I looked for a house in Richardson or Carrollton in a few years.

Yesterday I put up some minor Christmas decorations - a wreath on the door and some lights, garland and a nativity set in the living room. No tree though. I think it's buried somewhere in our garage. Plus it takes us like three months to take the thing down (one year we took it down in JUNE), so I don't think we'll do a tree this year. Our living room still looks Christmasy, though, with the lights and the nativity scene.

Ok. Lunch is almost over, and I'm still unsure as to the policies on internet use for my office. My desk is in the front office (very public) and I'm in the student lounge, so I'll sign off for now.

Until later!

The original petticoat took about two and a half hours to complete, using some directions given by Fannie & Vera, who are Civil War reinactors. It was amazingly simple the first time around, although I did make some changes to their directions. Rather than using a drawstring or elastic, I pleated the petticoat waist and added a waist band.

From Costumes, In Progress

( From a hoop petticoat to a natural form petticoat.... )

It's not on their site yet, but I started getting antsy about it so I called. It's on December 8 and 9 this year (I didn't ask the time. Whoops) and will be $10 per adult. For my non-costuming friends, it's still a lovely experience. For my DFWCG friends, I'll bring it up at our October meeting, too, just for good measure. ^_^

So, here it is, well in advance:

WHAT: Candlelight
WHEN: Sat Dec 8, 2007 & Sun Dec 9, 2007 (Time TBA, but it's afternoon/evening. I'm thinking probably Saturday)
WHERE: Dallas Heritage Village
WHY: Because it will be fun!

EDIT!!: PS: Whoops! I won't be at the October DFWCG meeting - Matt just reminded me that we will be in Cleburn at the big shooting match. So, I'll email the yahoo group!

I want:

My Top Hat! (and Annie's derby)

My Shoes


and totally NOT Victorian, but especially cool:

Star Wars Shoes!!

So, my favorite people whom I am trying to recruit into some sort of extracarricular activity! I have some new thoughts. First, planning stages are early on for Civil War re-enactment (no real $$ invested yet), and second, some are lukewarm about Civil War, specifically.

So, with that in mind, I've looked around a little and run across the Single Action Shooting Society (aka SASS), which looked like a possibility....

What are some other options? What are our requirements? What do we want?

spar30 mentioned something about Mountain Men. I haven't researched that yet, but that could also be potentially interesting.

Some of the things I'm looking for:

I want to make historical clothes and wear them as often as possible. :P
I'd like it to be potentially family friendly.
Camping out would be nice, too.

Just brainstorming!