A New Titanic Wardrobe: Part A

Aaaaah....the best laid plans of mice and men.  You know, you have this great idea in your mind, say, the fabulous 1920s wardrobe you want to create for the year 2014.  You do hours and hours of research, watch Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 4 times all the way through, spend Christmas gift cards on fabric that you painstakingly research and adore, acquire patterns that will work just perfectly and your well oiled creative machine is chugging along at a lovely rate of speed.  Theeeeeeeen, the monkey wrench gets thrown into the gears and the whole machine blows apart and you have a total and complete Squirrel Moment...

Doug from "UP" will demonstrate....

My Squirrel Moment came about a few weeks ago when the lovely Judy from The HasBrouck House announced that in May The HH would be hosting another Titanic Event.  I went through several emotions in the blink of an eye.  Excitement and joy were the ones that lept to the forefront, then came anxiety and frustration.  I had for months been looking forward to creating a fabulous 1920s wardrobe for this year and so of course my creative mind irritatingly took over and proclaimed that "We Shall Endeavor to Create a New 1912 Wardrobe!"  Hip Hip Hooray.  

Sooooooo...back to my "to do" list I went.  I found an image of a suit in the color scheme of purple, ivory and black.  These colors I had in my stash along with some fabulous antique purple buttons, so that is the first dress that was going to be created in my wardrobe!

What I have done so far....my Mom and I found the hat in Spokane for a ridiculously low price.  It is a FABULOUS antique hat...I will take pictures of it for a later post!

Stash fabrics.  Ivory dupioni silk, antique spiderweb lace, purple faux dupioni, black velvet.  These incredible buttons were a gift from a great friend...Sherry Birch.

Close up of the buttons.  They are so incredible.  Thank you Sherry!

For the bodice, I used Truly Victorian TVE41...1903 Plain Blouse Waist.  Of course this is not the actual pattern...I took another pattern (when Simplicity, McCall's, and Butterick patterns go on sale for 99 cents, I buy the Huge patterns like civil war era dresses and use them for tracing paper....) and traced the front bodice out.  I like to keep my good patterns in one piece and trace the size that I need...

Truly Victorian TVE41 

The white muslin piece is the mock that I made.  I was actually going in a different direction so had cut out a "V" neck...where my finger is pointing...then decided to do something different.  

The teens waist line is a ways above the natural waist line, so after making and failing at several mocks, I finally got it right.  For my torso, I cut the bottom front of the bodice 5" up from the original pattern then cut the bottom hem on a curve to the bottom of the side hem and it worked perfectly!

I do hope that what I just described is clearer than mud!  For the back of the bodice I used the back of TVE 41 with no alterations.  The next step is to set the sleeves and make the skirt...which I already have done.  A wonderful costume friend Val LaBore of Time Traveling in Costume had asked how I made a teens bodice from an Edwardian one, so this post is for you Val!!!

Be blessed my friends!!!

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