mandie_rw | Entries tagged with emerald green ballgown

I got the darts fitted on the dinner bodice on....Monday I think it was? And it's too big in the boob still. (Mock my boob size at your peril. I get very very tired of the comments. The only other person who gets an opinion on my boobs is fine with them.) Grumble. Honestly it's probably fixable between adding sleeves, moving the bars over a little, and possibly adding some batting to the upper bust...but I got annoyed enough at it that I decided to spend a few days sulking and watching TV American Horror Story, (because it's spoopy season and why not?) instead of sewing. Which I will probably regret the week before Gettysburg, but oh well!

Today I managed to motivate myself into about an hour's worth of sewing, so I sewed up the darts in the dinner bodice, realized I still have to make YET MORE piping to be able to finish the bottom of the bodice and the sleeves, and...put it down and toddled away. I'm still annoyed at you, dinner bodice.

So I sewed together the ballgown bodice pieces instead. Much more satisfactory.

Yesterday I was on grandmom babysitting duty, so I got a little bit of hand-sewing done. (Not as much as I could have, because I discovered a fun little book on the bookshelf, "Your Marriage: A Guide to Happiness", copyright 1940...which, if you know anything about historical euphemisms, you will instantly know is a book about S-E-X. And I find the history of human sexuality almost as interesting as the history of costume and textiles, so I had to flip through it, and borrow it! It's actually much more frank than you might think 1940 would be.) I got the base sewn together for a new, plaid silk dog collar for the Imaginary (aka a stock collar), and started hemming strips of the same silk for ribbons for my own ballgown. The theme for the Friday night ball is Celtic, so plaid is my nod to it. Nothing crazy, just shoulder ribbons and maybe ribbons for my hair, and aforementioned dog collar. I could make him a plaid vest...but he's getting as much mileage out of that embroidered satin vest as is humanly possible! Yes, his outfit is circa 1840 rather than 1860. No, I do not care.

Current Mood: lazy
Crossposts: https://mandie-rw.livejournal.com/653051.html

When we last left our heroine...

I didn't sew as much as I really ought to have done this weekend, but I did sew something! A bit! Friday I finished sewing the chartreuse bodice together (the effort at seam piping being no more tragic than usual), and cleverly thought to cut out the pieces for the ballgown bodice, so
I could bring them to the Indian King Tavern on Saturday and baste the lining and silk pieces together. I'm just using the pattern from the satin ballgown bodice, no mockup or anything...if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Not exactly 18th century, but it was the most easily transportable thing that I actually need sewn...and nobody would have known the difference if I hadn't told them!

So Saturday I spent the afternoon at the IKT, luring people in to see the presentation on something-or-other slash open house. Attempting to, anyway. (Also hiding from the new volunteer who would literally not stop talking longer than it took to draw breath. Very nice elderly gentleman, very interested in and knowledgeable about 18thc history, very, VERY loquacious. Lordy.) I obviously still haven't finished my new stays, so I wore the only thing I can without stays: the fugly bedgown. Also forgot my straw hat and got a wee bit toasty in the direct sun! Still, fabulous fall weather, I got all my bodice pieces basted, and I did get to chat with one visitor who wanted to know all about what I was wearing. WELL LET ME TELL YOU. (Started out with the underwear question. The underwear question is a great lead-in. Everybody wants to know about underwear.)

And as an aside - I do still have a perfectly functional, if very old, pair of 1780s stays...but the waist is higher and the bust is wider and somehow the shoulder fit is a little different? So I can't comfortably wear my 1770s dresses over those stays, not if I want to look nice and neat, so it was bedgown or bust. Look, I'm vain, I want to look put together, not rumply and ill-fitting in costume, thank you!

Today was the total opposite of yesterday in terms of weather - gloomy and rainy and chilly, so I took a very long time, puttering around and trying to gear myself up to sew, drinking All of The Tea, and chatting with the girls online. I also actually made myself clean up my 18thc bits from yesterday and put them away in their proper homes. Sewing room still looks like a crime scene, but....baby steps. Managed to finish the neckline of the chartreuse bodice (more horrible piping) and sew on all the (stupid) hooks and bars for the closures.

Which means I have to fit the darts tomorrow. Ew. Unless I do a really awesome avoidance tactic and start sewing the ballgown bodice instead. But my black organza came in yesterday, so I have everything I need for this dinner bodice, and the idea of actually finishing something is pretty alluring. I loathe fitting darts though, so...we'll see! I'll sew something tomorrow though!

Current Mood: sleepy
Crossposts: https://mandie-rw.livejournal.com/652595.html

Although I wasn't reliant on cold medicine for survival today, so yay. (I maintain my usual good immune system comes from a lifetime of nail-biting. My nurse friend backs me up on this.)

Still slightly too stupid to do fittings (maybe tomorrow?) so dragged the bag of Unfinished Horrible Chartreuse Dress back out of the UFO bin. I started it for last Gettysburg and didn't get very far - basic day bodice with sleeves sewn on the wrong way (note to self: fix those), and skirt panels sewn together. I still have a good couple yards of fabric left, so I figured I'd make a dinner bodice to go with it as well, because hey, why not? I in fact need a dinner bodice more than a new day bodice right now!

(I know the girls won't throw me out if I don't get a dinner dress done for Saturday night, but I'd like one! Plus...this is one of the things I could sew today that required low brainpower, so.)

All I actually got around to was making a hem facing (from some very attractively sun-faded pink cotton) and stitch it on about 2/3 of the way around the hem, but that's progress, right? And I can probably get the rest of that sewn on tomorrow if I don't let chatting with frendz online distract me!

OH I also got my chunk of antique lace in the mail, and it looks perfectly nice laid over my emerald silk, yay. And it is also VERY stinky. Just old-lady-house miasma, but damn. I'm going to have to let it air out for a while (and keep kitten claws AWAY FROM IT) before I want to work with it. Phew. Stanky.

Current Mood: optimistic
Crossposts: https://mandie-rw.livejournal.com/651598.html

*snif snuf snuffle sneezy* Not the worst cold I've ever had, but still bad enough to be drippy-nosed and definitely more wool-gathering in the brain than usual!

At least it waited to show up til after I was done with school! I handed my classes over to a very nice young guy, fresh out of his teaching program and totally ready to tackle 120+ scatterbrained 8th graders. Bless.

I'm going to dive into the wonderful world of temping soon, but between being sick and Just Needing A Damn Rest, I'm taking a couple of days off before taking their assessments of my Mad Skillz and trying to set up interviews and such.

The Imaginary Boyfriend is now a bit more imaginary than before - his college buddy got him a job in technical writing, with a real salary and all, and he started yesterday. Main problem here is that said job is in Washington DC...and I don't particularly want to move to DC. Not to mention I have no job prospects there either, and he isn't going to make enough to support two people! So, we're going long distance for now. I'm not madly excited about that, but we're hoping once he gets some experience he can get hired somewhere back up here. We'll see. We're pretty sure we want to spend, if not the proverbial "rest of our lives" together, at least the foreseeable future! So we want to make it work. He's still on the hook for attending the Gettysburg ball though! ;)

And, have I jumped right back into sewing? Well...I do have that cold that's making me pretty stupid, so I'm not doing any mental heavy lifting right now. Yesterday I just toodled around, read some short stories, napped on the sofa, and poked a couple of sewing-lite things.

Got a couple more inches of the binding sewn to the green linen stays, which means the top binding is done, apart from the underarm binding - I want to put in a wider piece there, like you see occasionally. Seems practical. After I get that sewn on I can cut the tabs and do one last try-on before I bind them. There's nothing upcoming that I desperately need stays for, so this will happen when it happens.
Finished an 1860s head doiley. It was one of the projects I brought with me to school when I was daily subbing in the spring; I made (most of) two 1860s head doilies, but decided to keep the one with ear flappies, so this one languished. It's just cheap poly lace sewn together into a square and trimmed up, but in indoor light it's fairly convincing. ;) Plus who doesn't like a head doiley? Not enough head doilies out there! I pawned this one off on blackcat452 and I think it'll look smashing on her.
Thought very hard about the emerald ballgown. I did some very late-night ebaying on Sunday night (always dangerous), and am now the proud owner of an actually-affordable 38"x155" piece of antique black lace. If it's not 1860s, it's about to be! This of course provided it's in decent enough shape to be worn when it shows up, probably Friday. I'm also not certain it'll be shown to its best advantage on this fairly-dark shade of green. But I'm reserving judgement til the lace shows up and I can see what it looks like on top of the silk. I'm still within the return period for Renaissance Fabrics, and really I'd just exchange it for a different silk if I had to. I really love this green though, so here's hoping I don't have to!
Tried on my trousers and boots for rational dress so I could actually mark and sew the hems, which I did. And cut out the mockup pieces for the bodice before I 100% ran out of steam for the night. Plz admire mockup fabric. (It was less than 80 cents a yard don't judge me!) Actually fitting a mockup will probably have to wait til I'm feeling better.

Current Mood: sick
Crossposts: https://mandie-rw.livejournal.com/651375.html

In Which Our Heroine Changes Her Mind Yet Again.

Ooops. I was just looking through my usual silk taffeta sources yesterday, making sure there wasn't anything totally mind-blowing before I committed to buying the lilac taffeta, and I came across this, and well I think I'm making an emerald green ballgown now instead. Well, I definitely am, since I ordered six yards of it tonight. Not quite sure yet how I'll trim it, but it will definitely not be self-fabric since that taffeta cost $5 more/yard than I planned to spend. :P

Robin threw her hat into the ring for black velvet, which I like the idea of but am not sure I want to commit to heavy things on a ballgown skirt again? Green and black is so expected, too. It's nice, which is why it's common, but...hmmmm. I'll wait til it gets here and then stare at it for a while while browsing Pinterest.

Current Mood: cheerful
Crossposts: https://mandie-rw.livejournal.com/650521.html

Not quite enough motivation to actually sew anything, just enough to think about sewing things! We may squeeze in another turn-of-the-century outing before the end of summer, and I may see if I can figure out what I was doing with this polka-dot shirtwaist that I started last year for a Span-Am War even that we ended up bailing on...but that's hardly worth mentioning. ;) 1860s is where it's at now!

- Horrible chartreuse dress: I finally dug out what I'd gotten done before last Gettysburg (not much; also I need to take out the sleeves because I somehow managed to sew the back/elbow sleeve seam at the top of the armsyce, and that...does not work), and discovered that I indeed have plenty of leftover fabric to make a dinner bodice if need be. Actually it's probably enough to make a dinner bodice and a ballgown bodice, if I were sensible. But...nah. (P'rhaps, if we end up doing two balls instead of a ball and dinner. But I think dinner is more likely to end up happening. Either way I'll finish the skirt before either bodice, and we'll probably have decided by then.)

- Ballgown! I poked around Pinterest for a few hours over the last couple days, and I think I've settled on a combination of these two dresses. Skirt from the left (possibly sans bow bellpulls because I don't like them), bodice from the right.

The skirt trim...may look familiar, cough cough ahem. Well, if it ain't broke and all that. I'll do the main part of the dress in the purple taffeta I mentioned, and the contrast in a very dark brown taffeta I've had in the stash since fabric dot com had sales on silk taffeta (a very, very long time). It's definitely on the plain side for 1860s but...I'm less of a fluffy person even in fluffy eras!

I did have some lingering thoughts of flounces, because flounces are so much fun on ballgowns. Well, I do have some lingering thoughts of flounces, actually. It's less sensible because flounces eat fabric and I'm trying to not spend TOO much money on this dress...but flounces! They're fun!

So I haven't bought the fabric yet, as plain vs flounces will mean 5 yards vs ...more than 5 yards...but I'm going to mull it over and buy it within the next few days. Only 14 weeks left to sew!