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Despite all my personal drama leading up to it, I had a nice time at the Pumpkin Tea on Saturday. It's amazing what good friends, lively conversation, fun food and a new frock will do for a girl. :> Pictures can be found here: My picturesLoren's picturesIsabella's pictures
I'm still not quite sure how it happened but my new linen dress turned out wonderfully. I'm in shock about it really.
It was a close thing though. Dispite being up until 2am the night before, I woke up Saturday morning without sleeves. By the time I got to them Friday night it was way too late to be cutting fabric and/or sewing sleeves. So I got everything else I could do done and went bed. I finished the last stitch at 12:15 (the tea started at 1pm). Thanks to my parents, who are made of win and awesome, helping with fittings (Mom) and sandwich making (Dad) I got to the tea right on time and not nearly as stressed as I should have been. :> My family is the best!
As much as I loved my dress, I was possibly more excited about my underpinnings. After years of cheating with modern slips, Victorian petticoats, etc - I was wearing proper Regency under things! A Regency shift, a high-waisted linen petticoat and of course my new stays. *sigh* I really should be less lazy about underpinnings, I love the feeling of wearing the proper ones so.
Speaking of my stays - I'm super pleased with my new pair! They were really comfy and the way they shape my bust is SO much nicer than the original pair. They were even more comfortable to drive in than my old ones - yay! I had another party after the tea, a non-costume event this time, but since my friends didn't care what I was wearing and my outfit was so comfy I didn't bother to change until I got home late that evening! *sigh* I love Regency. Tags: m.a.c., tea, z:archive:19th:regency:petticoat, z:archive:19th:regency:printed.linen, z:archive:19th:regency:stays09
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Thanks to all for your support over the regency dress debacle. You are the best! *hugs*
On Monday, after my rant and subsequent meltdown, I had a bit of a brain wave. Last Feb I started a Lizzie inspired sort of fan-front dress. I did a few toiles but couldn't get it to work the way I wanted so I abandoned the project and moved on to other things. Monday's brain wave was to figure out not only a better base pattern to start from but also how to better achieve the sort of slight fan front gathers I wanted.
So I pulled out my bodiced petticoat, made from the lining pattern from the S&S Elegant Lady pattern. I laced up in my newly completed stays and tried it on, noting the changes that would need to be made to create my Lizzie dress.
I love my petticoat but because of the neckline I can only wear it with one of my Regency frocks. That's not cool! It's been my intention since CosCol last year to trim down the neckline and straps so I can use it with my entire Regency wardrobe. Thanks to the tweaks I made in my stays it really doesn't fit anymore however (those new gussets make my bust a bit fuller) so I decided to just take the bodice off and instead add straps (like on koshka_the_cat's petticoat).
I traced a pattern off the old bodice, cut up a toile and tried it on. Pretty good. My ideas for the shaping of the fan front worked much better than the ones earlier this year. A couple of tweaks, a new master pattern tracing and I had a new day dress to work with. The pics above show the original bodice and the finial master pattern I came up with on top of it so you can see the difference.
I decided that rather than cutting a new bodice for the disaster pink dress I would start completely from scratch - a new fabric for a new dress. I chose to use a fabulous printed linen that I found in the LA garment district a couple of years ago. I've been hoarding it but now was time to use it. I will work on the pink dress when I have time to fiddle with it (and the matching Spencer) and make the outfit I REALLY want it to be. My week has been insane so I didn't have a chance to work on my frock until yesterday. S came over and we sewed for most of the day. My dress was moving along swimmingly until I got to the sleeves. I had neglected to toile the sleeves on Monday, having been lulled into a false sense of security but the ease of fitting the sleeves on the disaster pink dress. I thought, "No big, I'll just whip up a sleeve toile once the dress is made, tweak the little bit that needs to be tweaked and carry on". Um no. I forgot that sleeves play dirty! Jerks.
So as it stands I have the basic dress nearly finished, only hooks and eyes and a hem left. I think I know the changes that need to be to the sleeve to make it work so hopefully another toile (or two) and I will be okay. *crosses fingers*
I do have fabric and plans picked out for a coordinating hat and Spencer but I don't know if they will get done for tomorrow. The hat maybe, the Spencer no way. Still a girl can dream! Tags: 19th:regency:hat:gold, 19th:regency:spencer, z:archive:19th:regency:printed.linen
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Our outing to the Faire was lots of fun! Despite getting up really early and everyone arriving early or on time we pulled out of the driveway about an hour later than I wanted to. Ahh... the best laid plans! We all looked good though, Especially Rachel and Mom in their newly finished frocks. By the time we made it to the faire we were greeted by a line of cars to get to the road that leads to the faire. Yay traffic. 
We ended up with a great parking spot though (a straight shot to the exit!) and made our way into the very muddy faire to meet up with bauhausfrau and her boys. They were all fabulous looking and after some chit-chat at the White Hart we grabbed something to eat and made our way to the pirate ship for the boys to play.

We left bauhausfrau and the boys to it, did some shopping and ended up on the benches in front of the chapel (one of my favorite spots!) where L and the boys joined us again for a little while. 
After they left we got down to the serious business of shopping and nibbling. Mom, Rachel and Colleen had never been to the MD Ren Faire before, Mom and Rachel having never been to a Ren Faire ever. It was fun to show them around and take them to all my favorite spots and shops. We shopped, we ate, we sat and watched the faire go by. It was Day of Wrong, which on the whole was pretty entertaining. The high Elizabethan fops were great, the Tigger dressed in crusade garb fabulous, the knights with arrows sticking out of their chests were very chivalrous and all the western wear/cowboys so adorable. I don't think I've ever seen so many spurs at a Ren Faire! *sigh* I love cowboys. 
I also really enjoyed my outfit, hobbled together and unplanned as it was. I was super comfortable all day, I got complements (particularly my mini tricorn), and I had way to much fun wearing false eyelashes and tons of dark eye makeup with it. My effigy stays were wonderfully comfy and I loved having a shorter petticoat in the mud and crowds. As much as I love historical accuracy and admire those that do it so well, I've discovered I love wearing Ren fantasy best - it's just fun! So I think for next year I'm going to take the same concept but make a more properly priratey outfit. Kind of a coquettish pirate. Thinking about it I already have the fabric in the stash and everything... I just need to keep my eye out for some pirate bling like bauhausfrau's. :P 
We decided, based on how packed the faire was getting and past experiences getting out of the parking lot that we would leave well before closing. We have reached our limit of fattening foods and checkbook stretching by 5pm anyway. It was late when we got home but not overly so. So yay to a lovely day! The rest of my pics from the day can be found here. Tags: faire, z:archive:16th:effigystays
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I'm sick, with a bug of some kind. Not too bad really, more just feeling bad enough to not feel good if you know what I mean. The almost constant headaches since I've been home have not helped the general blah feeling. So not much has gotten done on my Ren Faire outfit. I managed to get some binding work on the stays done, that is it. Since I didn't feel like doing anything else, I spent a good deal of time yesterday scanning patterns, researching online, collecting images - that sort of thing. Despite loving these little jackets for some time I didn't have a single image of one in my files - tragedy! Luckily there are several lovely people on my friend's list who have been generous with their research and dress diaries. So not too much digging was required, just link following and a few Google searches. So now I know what I am making and pretty much how to get there so it was all time well spent. Thanks to Arnold, Waugh and Tudor Tailor I have 4 patterns in the house to choose from, well 3 really as the TT is pretty much a copy of one of the Arnolds. I laid them all out this morning and decided to go with the TT, mostly because it is the only one adjusted to a modern body and I had such good fitting fu with their effigy pattern I'm hoping it will be true on the jacket as well. I like little things about all of them though so I'll do my usual multi-pattern merge. I rather like the look of the Waugh one, with its 7 gussets to the Arnold/TT's 5. Not a hard change to make to the TT though... So I've enlarged the TT pattern and printed it out. Not sure I have enough energy to cut it out tonight so I may just work on the binding some more. The binding isn't strictly necessary for the faire but I'm really enjoying stitching it. So I am. Tags: z:pending:16th:jacket
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