joannev
I own Costumes n Things fancy dress hire in Penrith NSW.
I make my own costumes and various costuming events that range in genre. I have attended three JAFA's and have enjoyed making my own clothing of that period.
My intention is to make a new chemise, stays, evening dress and pellise.
July 13th 2012: Evening Dress.
Next week on Saturday 21st, I will be hosting a Regency style Dinner party with my husband and 8 friends who attended JAFA 2012 (you will be able to read about that in a later blog).
The dinner has brought forward the making of a new evening dress, which I will be wearing to dinner and JAFA 2013.
My dress has been inspired by dress worn by Miss Bingley in BBC's Pride n Prejudice ...(did anyone else notice that she favours the colour orange?)
A friend of mine gave me a Sari, which works perfectly.
I am using the Sense and Sensibility pattern "The elegant Lady's closet" - the drawstring dress, with a few minor adjustments.
First change ... I wont be using a drawstring. I want my skirt to be flat across the front, which means I will have to slightly gather my bodice under the bust to fit the new width of the front skirt panel. To get the width, I measured side seam to side seam over my stays to get the correct width plus seam allowance.
Second change.... Because I have opted for no drawstring, I have cut my bodice back with added seam allowance instead of on the fold and I will now have an opening. Which means I will also have to have a small split in the skirt. I did this to make getting the dress on over my shoulders easier.
Third change.... I was going to make the dress entirely out of my orange sari. However, on closer examination, I found marks which can not be washed out and part of the material has faded. This meant that I had to cut two pieces for the front but I didn't want to have a seam in the front adn the length had to be shortened. So faced with this set back, I now decided to make an underskirt. Fabric is cream cotton with small embroidered dots.
The orange fabric will be used for the bodice and over skirt and the front over skirt will now have an opening.
On Miss Bingley's dress the neckline has gathered lace as decoration, I havent found anything suitable to copy this (I only looked around Penrith..not too fussed really) and am thinking to decorate the neck with a narrow ruffle of self fabric. I think I might make a wider ruffle to go around the hem of the underskirt...maybe...we shall see.
I am not sure if I will do the train, it depends on how much material I can salvage.
July 8th, 2012
At then end of June I managed to almost finish my short stays. I had sewn on the bias trim, and it just did not sit right, so I had to unpick in places and redo. All finished now.
I used the Sense and Sensibility short stays pattern. I have used this before, but this time i made a couple of adjustments for comfort and uplift. I found that the stays seemed to flatten instead. (and one does require a shelf on such remarkable occasions such as a ball).
First, I lowered the neckline so that the stays just cover my nipple area. I find that this pattern sits too high.
I also noticed in my last stays that I made and have worn under a ball dress, that the gussets didn't seem to do what they're suppose to do and that is support and lift my bust. After a chat with friend Wendy about support options and also looking at an article on long stays on similar topic, I decided to use just one gusset centred directly in the centre of each breast. I am usually a B cup, so I used a C cup gusset. I still used boning for the vertical channels, but this time i added three cord boning channels under each gusset.
Nearly forgot ... I also moved the shoulder straps in slightly and took off 1 cm on the outside so that it actually now feels like they wont fall off my shoulders and not going to cut off circulation to my arms.
Last week I made a shirt for my husband and yesterday finished a cravat.
I used a commercial patten which is more Victorian, I changed collar to accomodate the cravat.
May 27th, 2012
For the challenge, I plan to make one piece per two months, although I did make two items in May.
I have materal to make a pelisse, and I need to make a new set of stays, and Evening dress for JAFA 13.
Early in May I made this Regency ball dress and Over robe for my friend to wear to the recent Heritage Ball in Parramatta.
I used a commercial pattern and the material of the dress is pale lemon shuntung. I decorated the sleeves with burgandy ribbon strips with matching bows. The dress also has 3 rows of burgandy ribbon along the bottom. This was a very easy pattern to follow.
