2024 YEAR END ROUND-UP

I’m not sure what happened to this last year. Oh yeah, there was that knee replacement surgery in May that pretty much wiped out half the year for me, followed up by a few surprise illnesses. Most of my sewing was done prior to May so there wouldn’t be much needed later, like in July for Costume College. I do know a major part of the beginning of 2024 was consumed being Dean of Costume College and getting that up and running. It became almost a full-time job for me this time. So I had to decide what I could finish up in the way of costumes and what I could actually make from scratch.

My first “event” of the year wasn’t until May, the fashion show in Port Townsend, WA. I finished up two dresses for that, my 1860s rust wrapper and my 1888 Blue Plaid bustle that I copied from an antique pattern using an 1873 Truly Victorian pattern. (Note to self- don’t wear that bustle-hoop skirt under it next time).

 

One of my other dresses I had finished was my 1887 Autumn Plaid bustle dress. I added some red braided trims and buttons to it & called it done. I had planned on wearing it in Port Townsend for my street dress but in the end my suitcase was overloaded with my other two dresses and the hoops for them. So it still hasn’t had an outing. Maybe in the new year?

Another dress I was able to finish up was my 1870s version of the Disney’s Haunted Mansion Maid’s dress to wear to Costume College in July. It just needed its lace trims and buttons added to it. I was able to wear it again for Halloween, which I had originally planned on wearing it the previous year.

 

So the only “new” costume I made this year was my 1810 Regency “Bridgerton” dress I made for the Gala at Costume College. My theme for the Gala was obviously from Bridgerton, and I titled it Lady Watered-Down’s Ball because we couldn’t use the actual name because of copyright infringement. I wanted to make something floral but still could be used again as historical. Instead of making it a floral lined dress, I made an underdress separate and the overdress of the floral netting so the all-white dress could be worn again by itself. I loved the pattern I used from Nehelenia Patterns and have plans to make more from it.

In the next couple months after Costume College I got to experience having pneumonia again but fortunately not ending up in the hospital this time, and a month later came down with “positional vertigo”, which I’d never heard of and scared the crap out of me. I found out it’s a very common experience and was floored to discover that at least 13 of my friends had also experienced it. It took me just over a week for that to go away with using head adjustment exercises. (Look it up, it may save your sanity). Needless to say my energy level was zilch for quite a while.

In November, my group of Historical Dressers did our annual historical fashion show at Lantern Crest Retirement Community, and I just pulled out one of my older favorite 1860s olive green dresses to wear. Our theme was Historical Characters & Authors from Books, and I dressed as Marmee from Little Women. I’d forgotten how short-waisted my bodice was and remembered the three 1860s dresses I’d made a couple of years ago to replace it. But none of them were hemmed and I never found buttons for them. So now they’re on my list to finish. I did find some buttons recently for at least one of them. (You’d think that would be enough to light a fire under me but so far nothing. I think I need an event to wear it to before that will happen.)

 

Just in the last two weeks after having no enthusiasm to sew for months, I decided to make a reproduction kerchief for my friend to wear with her 1770s dress as a Xmas present. This sparked my enthusiasm to do more hand-sewing, and I pulled out all the patterns and tracings of antique kerchiefs, fichus, and pelerines I have and came up with one that would work for her. I had sold quite a few of my older ones on a Facebook group in November on Black Friday but have been wanting to try some other styles. The ones I had all seemed to be a bit small for our modern bodies, so I’ve been altering a couple to make them wider and longer. I still think these two new ones could be enlarged a bit more, but I have another one I’m working on now that I like even more. I just need to find some more lace that is appropriate for them. BTW, this blue bodice is the 1860s dress I just got buttons for so I can finish it.

My plans for the New Year begin in 2 weeks when I'll be joining the CGW at their New Year's Tea. I'm still trying to decide what to wear for that depending on the weather. It could be hot, warm or cold. There's no telling what the weather is doing anymore. Then on February 15 I'm doing a presentation for the San Diego Mayflower Society, similar to what I’ve done for the Daughters of the American Revolution, a PowerPoint presentation and a 3-person fashion show for them. I probably need to start on that real soon. Also on February 22 there is the Riverside Dickens fashion show. I haven’t decided what I’ll be wearing for that either. And of course I’ll start planning the Port Townsend fashion show in May and what to wear there. There's a good chance it will be the Autumn Plaid bustle. I’ve been looking more and more at what I already have in my closet, and if they fit. But that hasn’t stopped me from buying a few new fabrics (an 1810 cotton print and a sari-like sapphire blue that I fell in love with but haven’t quite decided what it will be yet.)

Once again, I end the year with at least 6 dresses waiting to be finished. They’re close and as long as the Frenzied Squirrel doesn’t decide to cut out yet another dress, I may get some of them done. Wish me luck, and Happy New Year!

2024 FASHION SHOW AT LANTERN CREST SENIOR LIVING

I recently invited my ladies from “The Historical Dressers” to put on our annual fashion show at the Lantern Crest Senior Living community. It was our 4^th year there, and the residents really seemed to enjoy it. We do it for free just so we can show off our hard work on our costumes, and we know how much joy it brings to our audience there.

Each year I try to come up with a theme that we can match our different era costumes to. This year we did “Historical Authors & Characters from Books”. I had each model pick a book/author, or character from the book to wear a dress that would have been worn in the time period of the book or when the author would have been alive. I sent a photo of our group from last year’s show that we took in my backyard (minus a couple people) to the Activities Coordinator and she used it for their flyer.

For each model’s description, I added a short synopsis of the book/character or a bio of the author, to begin the narratives with. This was to acquaint our audience with the story or person. Then I wrote the descriptions of what they were wearing. We did a time period starting in 1815 and ending in 1945. Normally I have about 12 models but only had 10 this time.

This was the introduction I wrote for our narrator to read at the show:                     “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Nancy, and I’ll be your narrator today for our fashion show, HISTORICAL AUTHORS AND CHARACTERS FROM BOOKS. It was written by one of our models, Valarie.

Books are said to carry us away to other worlds and times, to open our imaginations, and learn about history and its people. It can be a doorway away from your life, and open other doors that you might not have imagined possible.

In the books we’ve each chosen to match our dress to, many authors wrote stories of what life was like during that time. In a way, they documented how people lived, and dressed, and what their characters and morals were like.  So, by reading their books, you can put yourself in their shoes and live a life unlike your own. Or you can learn from them, and in that way, better your own life.

Our models each have chosen their favorite author or character from a book that they’ve dressed in the time period that the books were set. We hope that this might inspire you to find one of these books and read it. So please welcome our models as we open those books for you. “ 

These are the group photos of us on stage. We unfortunately had to deal with purple spotlights that discolored some of our dresses.

                                             Our lineup on stage. 

Terri as Emma from the book of “Emma” by Jane Austen (1815).

 Me as Marmee from “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott (1868).

Cindy as Bathsheba from “Far From the Maddening Crowd” by Thomas Hardy (1874)

 Kathleen as Laura from “The Buccaneers” by Edith Wharton (1870s)

Shannon as Ma from “Little House on the Prairie” by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1870s)             

  Maya as Laura from “Little House on the Prairie” by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1870s)

Nancy (our narrator) as poet Christina Rossetti (1890s)

     June as author Edith Wharton “Age of Innocence” (1914)

Kathleen as author Karen Blixen “Out of Africa” (1919)

 Jody as Miss Marple by Agatha Christie “The Murder in the Vicarage” (1945)

We of course also described our “gentleman” Russell’s outfit since he is always there to help us up from our chairs.

And I did a little bit of our narration too.

Our show ended with:

“I’d like to point out to you that most of these ladies made their own outfits, and each of them are wearing the appropriate corsets, bustles, petticoats and other underpinnings according to their time period, which helps give the correct silhouette for them.

This concludes our show for you today. If you’d like to stay a bit, we’re going to join you in the audience and walk around so you can get a closer look at our dresses and be able to ask questions about them. “

We’ve only been doing this once a year in November but one of the audience asked why we didn’t do it more often. I might consider that since events have been pretty far apart lately. But I need to come up with some more theme ideas that non-costumers can relate to.

1911 BLUE NARROW PANEL DRESS Pt 1 & Pt 2

Over a year ago, in May 2023, I started the bodice for a 1911 dress using a very lightweight blue cotton voile fabric with embroidered appliques running along both sides of the selvedge. Part 1 of this post was written then. 

PART 1

For the bodice I started with the Truly Victorian 1911 bodice, TVE 45, that I cut out at Shelley Peters' workshop. With the fabric embroidered on both sides of the selvedge, I had to cut parts of that to make the trim on the sleeves, and then sewed rows of it onto the center piece to make it look like a blouse. I added one row to the back piece for a nice visual. I was going to take the side seams in because it’s just too wide on me. I guess I overestimated my own hip size.

One of my ideas is to make the skirt with the embroidery going down one side of it (I ended up not having enough fabric to do that), and also a white lace guimpe to wear under the blouse. And I'm thinking of adding white cuffs to finish off the sleeves.

I tried it on this morning, and the shoulders were falling off my shoulders. So overnight my brain had come up with a solution: make the center panel narrower. Then I'll pin it on me to get a better fit. I can't remember what I did with the first one I made years ago. I just need to take out the stitching there, and probably then don't have to take in the sides of the blouse.

(I swear my dress form has football shoulders.) 

Next day: I've been making way too much work trying to make this 1911 bodice fit me better. At first I thought I'd just take in the sides. But as mentioned yesterday, I thought maybe just making the centerpiece narrower might work better. Except after ripping those out and pinning them on like that, the shoulders were falling even more off me. ??

Back to the drawing board this morning, and after looking at versions my friends, Mara, Sandra, and of course the creator, Heather, made, I think part of my problem is the centerpiece was too low on me. Mine was just above the bustline, and theirs are up closer to their necks. I’m short-waisted & short-shouldered, so that might be part of my problem. But I swear the previous one I made DID fit me.

So I'll be putting the centerpieces back on their original size but a bit higher, and just take in the sides as planned. These were versions of the pattern that my friends made with it. 

6-10-23  Today I basted the center panels back in full size and raised both front and back up 2”. The shoulders are still falling off me. And I’m back to the bottom being too wide which I’ll need to pin on me to take that out. Intuitively, I feel like I should make the panels narrower, at least at the top because it does flare out there.  These two photos show my first and my second fitting after narrowing the center which pulled the shoulders up higher. 

And if you're wondering why I didn't make a muslin before sewing it, I actually did with the first one years ago. I never actually wore it, just put it on to make sure it fit. I don't remember the shoulder issue though and I don't have it anymore to try it again. I even double-checked my measurements, and I used the pattern one size smaller than it indicated to use.

I did a search for this pattern to see if I could find other photos of it made up, or other people having made it. One of the blogs I follow quite a lot, "Its All Frosting", wrote about the exact same issue in her post and the solution she came up with, which was widening her panels.         ??? This is driving me CA-RAZY!

I think I’m going to go with half her idea and do the panel less angled. 

https://itsallfrosting.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/1915-picnic-dress-part-ii-bodice/                                 From her post: “I endeavored to fix things first by altering the shape of the front and back panels to be wider and less angled. I like the angled look in general, but here it was not only causing the above-mentioned fit issues, but also reducing the amount of visible space available for my lace bodice insert, which I’d intended to show off. Making the panels wider gave me more space, and making the sides straighter kept the neckline stable. I also raised both panels up several inches– the front for modesty’s sake and the back to keep the neckline where it belonged.  The photos below show the difference in the neckline shape– I’d already widened the front panel and raised it up in the left photo, but the low back still let the sides fall towards the shoulder and you can see how the bust is pulling oddly (it’s more obvious when worn– think how much worse it would be with a lower neckline!). The photo on the right shows the fixed version.” 

To give myself a break from all this angst, I started saving inspirational photos of different ways to trim the bodice. There were so many ideas that I decided to make multiple versions and specifically an all-white dress with lots of lace. 

So far these are the three fabrics I’ll be making mine with.

Look at how many ideas I found! I noticed a lot of the dresses use buttons as trim on the front, so I plan on doing the same.

I even came across this photo showing a very fancy version that could be made using this pattern. I need to keep this in mind next time I want to make something dressy for the 1912 Titanic era. 

I want to have a belt on mine so I collected some photo ideas of a belt I could make for it, which I plan to do from the dress fabric.        

 Now here I am in February 2024 and the bodice was finally finished but I had to set it aside for finishing some projects for the Port Townsend Victorian Festival fashion show in April.             See Part 2- The Skirt.

PART 2- The Skirt

In May 2024 I had my knee replacement surgery and lost two months of sewing where I couldn’t even get to my sewing room. When I was able to get there my original plan in July was to get my skirt at least started because how hard can a skirt be to sew? I wanted to wear the entire outfit to an afternoon tea on July 27, the week after Costume College.  But I didn’t get finished with everything I needed to get done for the convention on July 18, so my next idea was to make it in the four days after I got home. But exhaustion and reality got the better of me and I came up with an alternative outfit to wear to the tea.  I pulled out a black polka dotted skirt and a white blouse I’d made and added an antique Edwardian lace jacket to it, so my stress level dropped.

I had already tried making the matching narrow panel skirt that Truly Victorian has for the blouse, but I didn’t like how it looked on me. TV E30 was a bit too narrow, and the high waist wasn’t working with my short waist.

I started looking for an A-line skirt pattern so that I could get this looser look.

 

The two patterns I had, Laughing Moon 104 and Butterick 6610, both 1910-era dresses, looked like they might work. But my Laughing Moon pattern wasn’t big enough, so I went with the Butterick. And of course the photo is deceiving because the model doesn’t have hips. And I do. *More on that in the construction portion.

 

I also want to make a guimpe, or lace under-blouse for this, using Wearing History’s 1910 guimpe pattern. I’m not sure when I would get around doing that but then I heard from some friends on the east coast about a stretchy lace blouse they were all buying on Amazon, and even though its stretch, it was also fitting the larger ladies. I was told to get the largest size possible, 3X, because this is an Asian version, and they always run small. And even better, it was only $26. I think it’s well made and looks nice under my blouse. It may look a little yellowish in the photo but it’s over a yellowish dress form. It’s definitely a white-white. I’m hoping it won’t be too hot when I want to wear this but if it is, I’ll just go without.  

Amazon lacy blouse

 

 

Now onto the battle with my skirt. I was also inspired by the front panels that “It’s All About Frosting” had added to her skirt. I drafted my own pattern for that, which was just long rectangles and a sharp angle on two of them. When I pinned the front panel of my skirt to my dress from and pinned those on to see what it looked like I was very happy with them. Except when I laid the fabric out flat to make sure the front panels were straight, I suddenly had a problem. I was going to sew the sides of those panels into the side seams of the skirt. But because it was an A-line skirt, it angled out and the side panels went all catty-wampus. Because of the width of my hips, the flare starting at my hips made the bottom really wide.

 

 

I couldn’t figure out how her peach dress had its panels sewn on because there wasn’t a photo showing the back or sides. Then I started reading more on her blog, and found it was actually an overskirt that was round in the back and brought forward, when I thought they were just separate panels. So it’s not attached to the skirt.

 

https://itsallfrosting.wordpress.com/2018/05/29/1915-picnic-dress-part-iii-skirt/

I don’t have any more fabric that I can do the same with. So my alternative is to cut the skirt narrower so I can get the panels into the side seams. I’ll probably pull that Laughing Moon pattern back out and use it for the line of the skirt.  OR I may just follow her example, and let the panels hang loose which means they’ll be flapping in the wind.

And now my dress has a new “must need by” date. I’m going to wear it in a fashion show in October at the Fred Harvey Historical Museum in Perris, CA as part of an afternoon tea fundraiser. The next photos will be of when I wear it.