A Dedicated Follower of Fashion

I was off work today, and since the weather was so perfect (in my not-so-humble opinion), I went for a wander in the woods instead of staying in and devoting my whole day to sewing. Or laundry. Or cleaning. Yes, we do have woods in South Jersey! A very small wood. Apparently full of screaming children today (right, it's the weekend), but still lovely. The trees haven't quite started to turn yet, but I saw turtles, evidence of a beaver, about a thousand squirrels, and scared the hell out of a deer.

(My mother and sister went down the shore for the weekend, but 1/ I had a Party to go to, and 2/ I obviously much prefer greenery to salt and sand!)

Oh, right, the Party. Robin's Birthday Party. Most of the pictures I took were of people's backs (WAY exciting), but it was a beautiful day, a wonderful and well-attended party, and a most excellent location - Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.

(I got lost trying to find the party once I got to the cemetery, of course, and got rescued by the caretaker. "Are ye lookin' for the thirtieth birthday party?" HOW DID YOU KNOW.)


Aren't we pretty? I wore my old dress, and this is the very last time, because I exploded a button trying to put it on because I am apparently too fat for it now wtf. It's still wearable, but not really comfortable. So whenever we have another warm-weather Victorian event, I need to make that natural form dress!
( Picnic-in-the-graveyard pictures )
And I did get some sewing done today after all the tromping through the woods - the collar's all sewn on to the spencer, and as such I deemed it ready for photo documentation.
( It's a spencer. )

I think I've already told you all everything that's wrong with this dress, and I don't feel like doing it again, so I'll just shut up and post the pictures...
( Read more... )
Of course, now that it is completely done, I don't think I can make it to Belvidere on Saturday, because no one wants to switch shifts at work with me. *pout* It's my own fault, of course, I should have requested off; but for some reason I thought it was later in the month than it is. Sigh. We'll see.

Yeeeah...self-control, what's that?

I know, I said I was going to use this perfectly acceptable fabric that I already had for the 1870s walking dress- it was even striped! I lied. It's not my fault though...I saw this fabric when I went to Wal-mart to get the canvas last week and didn't buy it, because I had no use for it. Then a couple of days ago, I realized that it wanted to be my 1870s walking dress, and my brain would not let me go to sleep that night (mental costuming is awful that way!) until I promised I would go buy it as soon as possible. Went and bought it today:


I bought all that was on the bolt - 10 3/4 yards, which kind of sounds like a lot, but it's not really, when you factor in all the trimming froof I'm planning to put on it! The fabric was labeled a cotton/poly blend (oh, the horror!), but I decided I don't care - the Lust for the Stripes overrode my aversion to polyester. Plus when I got it home and did a burn test, it burned like cotton - I almost singed my fingers because I was expecting it to melt and put out the flame itself, like straight poly does, but, whoosh! Nope. So I figure the poly content's pretty low, and I'm going to ignore it anyway. *lalalala can't hear you*

This of course means that I'm changing the design of the dress all around - I mean, not that I probably wouldn't have done that anyway...but it's definitely happening now. The previous plan was for the dress to be fairly simple, because I don't have a huge amount of that fabric, plus it was telling me it wanted to be a simpler dress. Why yes, my fabric talks to me. Doesn't yours? Actually I think this red and white stuff might be yelling obnoxiously... But now that's all out the window, of course - hence the 10+ yards of fabric. Now I get to go play in the insprational images folder again. 

Why yes, I'm going to be That Obnoxious Person when I wear this, aren't I? Blindingly stripedy. Bwahaha. That is, if I don't blind myself sewing the thing first...

Sewing Progress: Sewed together one sleeve for the pet en l'air, and sewed it in. Extremely exciting.

I actually spent more of the afternoon CADD-ing again...the 1870s of course. I was struck with the possibly genius idea that, instead of using the striped silk and having to buy more fabric for pretty much the whole gown (much as I would really love to use that silk), I could use the black and white striped fabric I already have. It's not silk, it's only cotton, sadly, but it is striped, and black and white is always awesome. I was going to save it for a Duchess-style 1780s outfit, but really, I already have a lot of fabric for 18thc things, and I think this would work very nicely for 1870s too. Plus that would mean I have to spend a whole lot less money - I was looking at wool, and nice wool is pretty expensive since it seems to be out of season for it at Fabric.com (which is where I got my green wool for my medieval dress, and I love that wool; and it was really cheap too, 100% wool and was something like $6/yd)...plus, why is 85% of solid color wool apparently either black, grey, or some icky shade of taupe? So boring.

So anyway, using the striped cotton will preclude any Great and Unsatisfying Wool Hunt of 2009, which is good. And then I will spend less money, which I think might have been the plan for sewing this year, but which costume lust has pretty much thrown out the window.

I'll still have to buy a busk and boning, though - money money money! Anybody have any recommendations who to get it from...or who not to order from?