Sewing Goals for 2014

Happy New Year!

I thought I would put down my sewing goals for 2014, then at the end of the year, we'll see how many I finished.

• First on my list: finish my blue medieval dress! All that needs to be done is to hem it, since I was able to sew the trim on last week when the power was out. Any tips for hemming a dress with a train?

• Start and finish my blue wool 1900's swimsuit.

• Start and finish my 1860's work dress...

• ...and make an apron for it!

• Make more petticoats! One can never have too many petticoats. I have three right now - two cotton I wear over my hoops and one flannel that I've only worn in wintertime. My goal is to make at least two more before reenacting season starts in May.

• Make another chemise and another pair of split drawers. Because it's just silly to have more dresses than you have undergarments. :)

• Make a corded petticoat for myself and starch it for ultimate stiffness! Also, I'm working on starching my current petticoats, but it requires a trip to the store to buy more corn starch.

1903

• I also have several yards of the fabric on the right. I was thinking of making a turn-of-the-century skirt out of it like the blue one in the picture on the left, but I may end up making a simple pleated skirt. I haven't had any luck finding a pattern so far and I don't think I'm talented enough to drape a pattern yet.

• I also want to make a ruffled petticoat. Right now I wear two plain petticoats over my hoops, but I think it would look better if I added a ruffled one too. Now just to get enough white fabric... 

• Speaking of big skirts,  number nine on my list is to remake a crinoline that I received for free. It's a size 4, which is most definitely not my size. I think I can mess around with it to make it work, however. Add a yoke perhaps, or lower the waistband. Which brings me to number ten:

• A poodle skirt! What can I say? I've loved poodle skirts for a long time. Though if I make myself a poodle skirt, I think I'm going to have to have a pair of saddleback shoes to wear with it...

I think that's everything. I'm sure that I'll add more things to the list as the year goes on. So many time periods, so little time... My list leaves me at a total of thirteen projects. One sewing project a month sounds more than do-able!

My Upcoming Projects (And Ones Already Started)

As promised, here is the post with pictures of my fabric.

This was the fabric I originally wanted to make an 1860's day dress out of after seeing it at the fabric store. Unfortunately, it is an out of print fabric, so after searching to the ends of the earth (and then some!) for more fabric than the 4 and 3/4 yards the fabric store had, I gave up. Mom and myself went back up to the fabric store and she ended up using some of what they had to make a work apron for herself. 

I decided to make a work dress for myself out of this fabric:

The picture is pretty close to what it actually looks like. It's kind of an army green, with burnt-orange and black leaves. We tried and tried to find an orange cotton that looked at least somewhat historically-correct for an apron, but ended up going with a black and green print instead. (Yes, it is black, not navy blue)

Don't mind the weird, blue ruler. I was trying (and failed) to get the picture the correct shade. The green of this print matches the green of the previous. 

And then my slat bonnet fabric:

This fabric is a little bit darker in real life. More of a dusty blue-grey. I have already sewn up my slat bonnet and love it! I used the free pattern from the Sewing Compendium's website. The only thing I would change about the pattern is that they said the yardage for a bonnet was 3/4 of a yard. I was able to squeeze out my bonnet with only one piecing, but you are left with only a few square inches of fabric. I had to make my interior ties out of twill tape. I would recommend buying an extra 1/8 of a yard, just to give yourself a little to work with. The pattern was very easy to put together, however, with easy step-by-step instructions and lots of pictures. 

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I found some blue wool for my 1900's swimsuit. I don't have a picture of it to show you, but it's in the middle of a navy blue and a royal blue. I'm still debating if I can wash it in hot water or not... Having felted wool in the past, I know the results when you mix wool with a little bit of soap and a lot of agitation. I would like to be able to go into hot tubs with it, but that may not be an option.

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Right now, I am working on a completely different time period than I usually do. This Halloween, I was going to make myself an entirely new dress, but then I decided being a suffragette was a lot less work, so I went with that. You may remember this teaser I posted a while back: 

Here is a picture of the entire project while I was working on it:

 And my finished costume:

Anyhow, to get back on subject, I am currently sewing a Medieval dress for myself out of Butterick 4827. From my scant week or so of research, I have concluded that it is not very historically correct. Ah well... It will only be a Halloween costume anyways. :) (No, I'm not going to tell who I'm going to be next year!) I picked out some lovely crushed velvet that was on sale. It's so soft. Velvet dresses are so much fun to wear! 

So far, I have the main part of the dress sewn together. It only took me three days, which I think is the fastest I've ever sewn a dress! I just need to attach the sleeves and hem it. I have run across one small dilemma in the process, however. As you may know, velvet can be heavy. When you make a princess-seamed dress out of a stretch velvet, the weight of the skirt pulls the neckline down a good inch or so. *sigh* If I had known that in advance, I would have cut it higher, but as it is, I wouldn't feel comfortable wearing it. Hmm...

I've been looking into different options of fixing it without making it obvious that I've pieced it. I think that I'm going to add a crescent-moon shaped piece of fabric to raise the neckline, then put trim on the old neckline and the new neckline to hid the piecing. We'll see how it turns out. 

I also took in the sleeves a full two inches most of the way up, to make them more form-fitted and period-correct. 

That's about all that's new with me. I miss going to reenactments on the weekends. Oh yes! I almost forgot. Here are my two newest acquisitions:

Sorry for the funny angle. The flash kept wanting to bounce back.

I'm guessing this tintype is late 1880's to early 1890's. You can click on it to make it bigger. I wish I knew who they were. There are no markings on the back aside from a few barely readable numbers scratched into the metal. (16965) He looks like an Olaf to me. Any guesses on what her name might have been?

I like how they were outside for their picture. You can see the folding chair he was sitting on, and the light at the base of the backdrop where it doesn't quite meet the grass. I love his tie and suit and her dress. I thought it looked like she had a scalloped edge on her dress with a ruffle behind it?

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I think this one is my favorite of the two. I wonder who she was? A soldier's sweetheart or wife? A widower's only daughter who moved out of state? Did she have siblings or was she an only child? How old did she live to be? Did she ever marry? What was her favorite season and her favorite dress? Did she have any pets? What was her name? Did she have a nickname? What was her personality like? 

Who was she?

The glass needs to be cleaned (on both layers!), but I'm afraid of damaging it. More research required... Once again, you can click on the picture to make it bigger. The case front was separated when I bought it, but it's the original front. The latch on it still works. 

This one screams "1860's!" to me. I especially like the pattern on her dress. It's a small stripe with some sort of two-color floral or leaf design over top. I would have liked to see the colors. I originally thought the trim was a pleated ribbon trim, but it looks like the middle on it is a thinner, non-pleated strip. I also like the ribbon at her neck (with contrasting ribbons at the end?), her off-center belt, and her asymmetrical hair ribbon. 

I hope you are well, dear reader and enjoying the start of winter. The ground is still bare here. I wish we would get some snow to lighten up the dreary days, though I suppose it will come soon enough!

Fall is Upon Us - An Update

The leaves are more orange than green, the apples are ripe, the geese are forming their "V"s and flying south for the winter - fall must be here!

Lately I've been sewing like crazy. Between finishing my straw bonnet form (and trimming it) and making a wool winter hood and a flannel petticoat for colder reenactments, I've kept busy. I recently started volunteering at Historical Charlton Park as well, which has been a lot of fun. (You can read my post about the reenactment here.) I love the old buildings there, and being in them in period dress is just amazing.

My family also had the opportunity to pick apples at a friend's house, then press them for cider. We never really counted how many bushels we picked, because we picked into all sorts of different sized boxes and baskets, but we ended up with 49 gallons of cider. The gentleman at the farm where they pressed estimated that we had apples that gave three gallons from a bushel. It was a fun experience and we are already talking about doing again next year!

That's about all I can think of to write, so I'll just show you the pictures of my bonnet and hood. :)

Here's the back. The tip comes down into a cute little scalloped point, but it was caught in my shawl for this picture and I didn't notice it before I took it off. There is a bow at the back of my neck as well.

And the side

The scalloped edge. I freehanded the scallops, so some of them are a little less than round...

I really like this picture, except where my bonnet is bowing out in back... It never did that at home! 

It looks like I have a bustle on in this picture... I blame my three petticoats!

Not too shabby for my first bonnet, if I do say so myself. I'm still not 100% sure I like the tulle in the front... We'll see if I change it or not. The pattern for the hood came from an 1862 Peterson's, while the bonnet pattern came from the Dressmaker's Shop. The trim is my own creation, with inspiration from a few different originals. I have one more reenactment planned for this fall, then I will be (sadly) off until next May at Greenfield Village. May seems so far away...

In other news, I am at a stand still with my sewing now that I've completed my bonnet and hood. I do have some royal blue velvet to make a medieval dress with (my original Halloween costume idea), but cutting out my pattern and the fabric is my least favorite part of sewing a dress. Ugh. One of these days I'll get around to it. I also picked up another pattern at the fabric store recently that I will most likely start first. Take a look:

Here is the original that I fell in love with. I plan to make mine as close as possible to it as I can. The pattern is roughly 1890's while the original was circa 1900. I will shorten the skirt on mine because I like the look of the bloomers peeking out.

The pattern calls for cotton, but I am going to go period-correct and make mine from wool. I found some lovely tropical-weight (I think - the bolt didn't say) navy blue wool at the store that jumped out at me. Now just to find white wool for the ties, back, and edges and some narrow navy blue something-or-other for the trim. Any suggestions on what I could use?

Hope your fall is going well. Thanks for reading!