Happy Holidays and best wishes in the New Year!

Best wishes to all this Holiday Season!!  I feel extremely blessed to have connected with you all over the last couple of years.  I hope that we will all continue to keep in touch through our various blogs in the new year.  I am planning to post more often even if it just to check in and say hello.  In fact my historical clothing goals are:

1.  Titanic Ball Gown (March event)

2.  Art Deco evening dress (Lt. April/Early May event)

3.  An 30's outfit for a talk I am giving at the GBACG Academy in March

4.  Victorian Jacket, Skirt and vest (Dicken's faire 2012)

5.  Finish the Pierrot I started this summer

6.  Remake the Victorian corset I made that shatter in one wearing! (Don't ever forget to interline your corset especially if you are using silk - bones and silk don't like each other!)

7. A Gatsby Picnic dress (Sept event)

8.  Regency evening dress and a Redingote.

Phew!  What a list.  Will it get done?  We shall see.  I have basic wardrobes for Art Deco, Victorian, Regency and 18th Century so all the above are icing on the cake for me....yummy!

Again, my dear readers.  Thank you for your visits and comments.  Please accept my deepest wish that you and your families have a wonderful holiday -  no matter how you celebrate this time of the year.    Cheers!

Le Modiste: 1840's successfully completed!

Well, with some minor handwork the day before going to Dicken's Christmas Faire, plus the bonnet I finished the dress.  I was really happy with the results and wearing it was like a dream!  Even with my corset shattering under the stress of wearing it (I will explain later), the dress was comfortable!  As I may have said before, I like to think that I am making historical clothing so I prefer my clothes to fit, look nice but also be comfortable - in other words I prefer that I wear my dress and not my 'dress wear me'.  Here is another image in the context of the faire:

With friends @ Tavistock House:  The two gentleman are friends visiting from England and one of my dear girl friends

The bonnet came out great.  I will try to take more up-close pics for another post.  I am not really a bonnet type of girl.  However, 1840's is a bonnet period and there was no way of getting around it.  So, I set-to and got a pretty blue silk one. I used a Lyn McMasters pattern for Early Victorian bonnet.  The fabrication was blue dupioni silk for the outer part and a silvery blue green silk for the interior gathered lining (both fabrics were from other projects - I love making use of scraps!)  My hands were very unhappy with trying to sew through the buckram which was a double layer laminated together.  I ended up doing a lot of hot gluing of the frame together and the mull over it.  The fashion fabric was glued in some places and sewn in others.  I will post close-ups on the next post.

Now, to the 'shattering corset'.  So, my pretty little corset taught me a very hard lesson.  Ladies - do not make a silk corset and not interline it so that the bones are b/w the interlining and the lining.  I had cloutil and silk and that was it.  The bones began to eat through the silk.  Yes, I know, what was I thinking?  Well, I wasn't.  I really took my time with the corset, too!  But for whatever reason, I just didn't think it through.  So, I will have to make another - a bit more sturdier.  Sigh. 

I am on to Christmas gift making and decorating but I have a few historical clothing projects in the works:
Regency day dress and Pelisse.  I hope to use American Duchess' turban how-to video to provide a headpiece.
Late Renaissance/early Jacobean embroidered jacket.

More to come.  Cheers!