To all who mourn in Israel, He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the LORD has planted for his own glory. Isaiah 61:3
Yeah! I got to wear my Lizzie Bennet wedding dress Friday day. Oh my heavens was in comfortable! I think that Regency is my new favorite era! I didn't feel mooshed into a corset because my stays were not tied very tight! Huzzah!! It was also very fun doing my hair all curly like around my face. I felt that it really softened the lines between my face and hair. Anther fun aspect of this era...no tight buns or itchy wig! Hahahahaha!!!
I took a lot of pictures of other costumers Friday day. There are waaaay to many to post here so I would like to share my Facebook Friday Day album with you!
Josie was so good in putting up with my posing for pictures! I had studied fashion plates and paintings from the Regency era and tried my best to look like the ladies of then!
Fun curly hair!
My puffy backside...we'll just pretend there was a little bum pad back there. ;-)
Huzzah for fun pom-poms on flat, comfy shoes!
Wedgie picture! Hahahaha! Too funny...
Oh what fun! I am now a part of the Regency Ladies Wedgie Society...thank you Jennifer from Festive Attyre!! Too fun!
Several fashion plates showed one lady from the front and one from the back. What a great way to show both sides of the dress!
I love this picture! Looks like a Jane Austen scene to me!
Aaaaah...accessories. How I love you!! In my humble opinion, I believe that accessories are the cream of the "Era Costumer's" wardrobe. They are the finishing touch that can totally make an antique inspired costume look utterly fabulous! So it was with great excitiement that I learned that the theme for this year's Costume College would be "Finishing Touches: The Art and Craft of Accessories". Can you say "Huzzah"? Oh I did...over and over. Along with "Yahoo"...and "Hot Dog"...and "I'm soooo heppy!!!"...and "Oh my giddy Aunt!" Ahem....As you can tell I adore accessories.
My Lizzy Bennet wedding ensemble was looking a little low on the accessory side, so I came up with the idea that she would have hidden in the carriage taking her and her newly married Mr. Darcy to their honeymoon destination, a sweet little wedding reticule that she had made after the epic walk of awesome-ness. You know the scene. Mr. Darcy looking ever so dashing in his beautiful clothing, hair curling around his temple just so, top hat, long coat...speaking so eloquently the words that Elizabeth (and admit it...all of us watching, perched on the edge of the couch...) longed to hear, but didn't know if she ever would. Le sigh....
“You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.”
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! Oh, how I remember watching this scene with my fabulous friend Kay at her house in Robie Creek at about 4:45 in the morning! My tummy tickled and my smile about cracked my face. What a wonderful romance! Sweet, frustrating, sweet, irritating, sweet...AWESOME!!! That Ms. Austen knew what she was about.
I perused Pinterest for some Regency Era reticules and found some wonderful examples...here, here, here, and here. All of them employed wonderfully fun tassels, embroidery, and all but one used piping. I fell in love and knew that I had to make one for this outfit. I was trying to talk myself into drafting a pattern for one when I remembered that the La Mode Bagatelle pattern kit included a fabulously shaped reticule pattern! Glory be! I was saved from the frustration of getting the dimensions just right. The pattern set also included some iron on transfers for embroidery patterns...another huzzah!
The embroidery pattern I chose for my reticule. I think this resembles sheaves of wheat! Extra Huzzah as I adore wheat!!!
I used an embroidery hoop that belonged to my Great-Grandma Cornelia Walters...It is so fun when I use items that the ladies of my family used. I feel very close to them when I do so.
First couple of stitches. I hadn't embroidered anything serious since I was in grade school, so I was a bit apprehensive about this project.
But in the end, I think all turned out ok! I used a back stitch, satin stitch, daisy stitch and a French knot stitch. It was actually a nice relaxing project.
For embelishments, I purchased a length of upholstry gimp that included 9 tassels...about 18" worth of gimp. I cut the tassels of the gimp and sewed 4 sets of 2 together and left one single. The inspiraton for this is was taken from the reticules linked above.
Completed reticule! What a fun project and one that did not require a fitting!!! Huzzah!!!!
I purchased some Mia Sweetness shoes via eBay and decided that I needed to decorate them. I was going to wait and see if I could find any petersham in ivory in the LA garment district when I visit there after Coco, but decided that I would use the silk I used for the reticule instead. I looked to American Duchess and how she decorated her Pemberely Shoes and set to work. Again I failed to take photographs at certain steps of the decorating, so I shall endeavor to describe by word what I did!
I started by taking a piece of silk 2" x 16". Using a 1/4" seam allowance, I sewed the long edges together and after pressing the seam open, turned it inside out. I would use this to make the bows for the fun little embellishment. As you can see in the pic, there are 4 sections that I gathered and knotted off. This makes it easy to create the bow. I didn't have enough fabric to make the 6 loop bow in one strip, so another strip was used for the other two strips.
A 4 loop bow...two loops were added just after this picture...
And here is where I forget to take pictures. After I made the 6 loop bow, I cut the loop ends off to make 12 strips. Using a pin, I unravelled the ends of all 12 pieces. I cut a strip of bias cut fabric 4.25 x 10". I then made small pleats lenghtwise...just eyeballed the pleating. Using a gathering stitch, I sewed in the middle lengthwise and gathered it up to fit the "knot" of the bow strips.
For the whispy parts of the center of the embellishment, I took a piece of silk and unravelled a bunch of it...
Zig-zag the end so it wouldn't unravel any more and sew a gathering stitch. I then gathered it up tight into a little puff ball.
Here is the finished produce for the embellishment. Cute huh?
I also forgot to take pics of the pleated pieces that are under the embellishments....grrrrrr....but they were quite easy. I used strips of bias cut silk and made some double fold bias tape, unfolded it once so there was the nice fold in the middle and pleated the pieces. A stitch lengthwise up the middle of the pleating and those strips were done!
Next I glued all the silk to the leather shoes!
Completed embellishments on shoe...
Oh yes...I made double fold bias tape for the tops of the shoes and the side and back seams.
Fun decorated Regency shoes!! Huzza!!!
And with that, I believe I am done with Miss Eliza Bennet! I am seriously happy about that fact!!!
Way back in April, I started on the Lizzy Bennet Wedding Trouseau from the 1995 P&P. Well, yesterday I finally finished the coat from the wedding dress! (Well...I would really like to find a piece of lovely lace for the veil like Lizzy's....) But anyways....Huzzah!!! I had been on my back last week with my annual back tweeking, so I didn't think I would be able to finish the coat, let alone do any sewing at all! But thank God, my back is almost 100% back to normal!! Yeeeeaaaahhhhh!!!
Anyhoo, here are some images of Lizzy in her fabulous dress as a reminder:
My coat. There are of course some changes that were made. The tab across the front is larger as it has to cover the waist band of the dress...and the buttons are ivory with a sparkly center. I tried in vain the locate buttons that were similar to the originals, but no dice. I have looked high and low for a cross like Lizzy's and finally decided to use a silver cross that I already own! The lace is left over lace from a Lizzy Wedding bonnet that I made for a client. My Mama selflessly sacrificed a length for the project. Thank you Mumsy!!
Some wonderful images of the dress at Lyme Park as taken by the Paula who writes Podheim Blog.
Emma wearing Lizzy's dress.
I'm kind of stressing about the back and how far out it bumps out. I think it is the thickness of the fabric and the amount of fabric that the coat uses. But there needed to be that much to go around the dress. So.....
I did find some examples of the back of pelisses that did stick out this much in fashion plates from this era. Then I remind myself that this is a movie recreation and not an exact replica of an extant garment, so my desire to have it era correct gets to relax! Yeah for that!!!
Patterns I used for this pelisse:
I modified Butterick 6074. The hem of the spencer was too long so it was cut up quite a bit. Then of course the neckline had to be altered to slope down towards a separated center front.
For the skirt of the pelisse, I used the skirt part of this La Mode Bagatelle pattern and slit the front piece up the center angling it from top to bottom.
The fabulous shoes that I got off of eBay. I found this awesome Regency Shoe Hack from The Bohemian Belle and decided that until I can own a pair of American Duchess Highbury shoes, these will do nicely! I will be making a fun cockade for the top of the shoes to cover the base of my tooties...
When I get back from Coco, I am going to add some petersham to the top of the shoes and the place where the side seam in extant examples is placed...but for now, I am happy to have some Regency looking shoes!!
I finally got the skirt attached to the bodice and all hemmed nicely in place! I LOVE THIS DRESS!!!! It is so pretty and sweet looking! I am having trouble locating just the right buttons for the front and tab of the pelisse, so that is causing me to stress a bit. But I know that they will appear at just the right time!
It has a 4.5" hem which is about what I have seen on extant dresses.
Jennifer from Historical Sewing helped me with knowing if it was ok to pleat the back. She found several instances where the skirt was pleated not just gathered, which I really wanted to do...the pleats were smaller and more centrally located, but I love the way the back on this looks!
I was in a panic to find just the right fabric for the pelisse as the original looked like a jaquard and as I live where I live and am limited by the stores I have here, things were looking grim. The dress fabric is a very interesting color...not white and not ivory, so matching online would have been a nightmare. I was in JoAnn's and found this fabulous fabric in the red tag section! Laaaaaa!!! Clearance how I love you! I had to get some from two different stores as not one store had enough...that's ok, I have it now and it matches the dress fabric perfectly!!!
Pretty jaquard fabric for Pelisse!
OH!!! I soooo cannot wait for this outfit to be complete so I can try it on!!!
I have a few projects for clients that I am wanting to get done and sent off so I can concentrate on my Costume College outfits, so I will be putting this away for a couple of days...Sigh...how I want to work on this! But, soon I will be back!!
Well, as usual, my aspirations for a project were waaaaay too grandiose, but that's ok. I had hoped to be done with the dress yesterday, but Thursday I decided that I needed to re-do the fasle drop front panel...it was too straight across the top and I wanted to to be scooped a smidge. So, I re-did the original panel and it was to short, so I had to make an entirely new one. Then I added the sleeves from the La Mode Bagatelle pattern and they were too long, even though I cut out the "short" sleeves. I ended up using the sleeves from the lSense and Sensibility pattern Simplicity 4055 and I love them oh so much better!
After making the adjustments, I tacked on some lovely antique lace along the neckline and moved on to the skirt. This morning I pinned the skirt to the bodice just to see what it would look like. I pleated the skirt to the waist band (that is so funny a word here as the waist band is up under my bosom and not even remotely close to my waist...) and I think I really like it! I have to do some research to see if that was done back then, then I'll try it on and see if it looks good on my person then I'll sew it on!
Emms is super tall so I can tell that my hem is going to be very deep...
Close up of the pleated panel...
Another view that gives a good example of the fabric and how the woven stripes look...and of course the lovely lace!
Pleating in the back....I really like this!
Even though this dress is typical "Regency White", I still love how very elegant it is turning out to look! Can't wait until it's done and I can try it on!!!
Well, yet again, my perfectly laid plans have taken a left at Albequerque! And that's just ok. I have put away my Ruth DeWitt Bukater boarding suit as I discovered the other day that I only have 3 months before Costume College. That's not 3 months of straight sewing time...oh no. Two months of summer falls in between now and the first weekend of August. So, after a moment, couple of hours of sheer panic, I called my friend Josie and she talked me off the ledge of costume craze. Thank you my friend! We now have our Coco wardrobe decided upon and I am feeling very happy.
Enter my first outfit to work on. Lizzy's wedding dress. From every image I have seen of this outfit it looks as though it is a one piece outfit, but I plan on making mine two pieces. A dress and a pelisse.
This image is off of Pinterest...alas, I cannot find a reference for it....I even did the reverse look up thing on Google...no dice. I need to find fabric for the coat, lace, and fun buttons like the original.
My awesome fabric is a brand new, King sized, Egyptian Cotton flat sheet that I found at a local thrift store! It is perfect and oh so soft!! I love it!! It has a super lovely weave so the stripes stand out.
I'm using the faux drop front view from La Mode Bagatelle pattern. The original image looked as though it had pleats on the front panel so I did that with mine!
I had some issues with the back/side seam as my body shape isn't conducive to this style I guess, so I did bone it so it layed flat.
I am hoping tomorrow to insert the sleeves and start on the skirt section!!
She's done! Laaaaaaaa!!! I am truly excited about this bonnet! I was waiting for the perfect piece of lace to the under brim and I found it at the first antique store Mom and I went to yesterday, The Antique World Mall in Boise...faaaaabulous mall!! I spent a while yesterday/last evening getting it all nicely placed then sewed it down and....FINITO!!!! So...here she is!
The making of the orange blossom circlet was tricky, as I didn't have a full image of the entire thing. I had three different views of the bonnet, then imagined what the missing parts would look like.
I love this picture of Lizzy! She looks so happy and radiant!!
I covered a circle of buckram with two layers of mull (flannel) and off white silk. There is also a smaller one on the inside to nicely cover everything up!
Sigh...I adore waxed orange blossoms...
I love how you can see the pretty lace through the tulle...
I apologize for the non Regency Era correct hair on Emma...I do not have a wig for her from this time period...so please use your imagination!
Fun shot of the underneath/inside of the bonnet....
How Historically Accurate Is It: I am not 100% sure! It is patterend after the wedding bonnet Elizabeth Bennet wears in the 1995 edition of Pride and Prejudice. It is in the shape of bonnets from 1814. I can't recall at this exact point in time ever seeing an extant wire framed bonnet from the Regency Era. I will have to do more research. I did use silk tulle. As for the waxed orange blossoms, while Queen Victoria made is the fashion to wear orange blossoms on her wedding day, the wearing of orange blossoms had been the fashion long before then, read here: A Wedding Tradition.
Hours To Complete: Over 20
First Worn: Not yet...plan on wearing it to Costume Collete
Next up is the wedding dress and coat which will have to be put on hold for a bit...but at least the bonnet is completed!!
