Port Townsend Victorian Festival: Saturday Evening, The Ball

Day 2.5:  The Ball

For the Ball on Saturday of the Victorian Festival, Mom and I decided that we needed to attend as Royalty.  It was super fun to dress Mom up in the bling we had been collecting over the past few months.  I wore my Rogelio Egusquiza Barrena Painting dress with my Royal Family Orders, jewelry, and tiara.  Since Mom's 1896 ball gown was in dark shades of black and deep red, I thought it would be nice for her to wear the star tiara I made a few months back, and all the star jewelry I have been collecting (Hello, my name is Gina and I'm addicted to Star Jewelry).  I thought she looked exceedingly regal!

Ready to head to the ball!

We had the fun chance to find a fabulous antique, white feather fan at the local Antique Mall.  Mom bought it and let me borrow it for the evening.

Ok...can I just say that this dress is now one of my favorite dresses!  I felt totally like a princess wearing it!

It was crazy how the silk wicked up the rain that was still on the grass.  I had to run back inside our room and iron the pleats (while still wearing the dress) so that they wouldn't collect any dirt and create mud!

New Royal Family Orders.

Mom's Family Orders.  My fabulous friend Kat of Madame Modiste made a Queen Alexandra family order and sent me a cabochon and ribbon so that I could make one like hers (Thank you thank you thank you Kat!!!).  I let Mom borrow it for the evening.  Up from that is a Monogram order that resembled the Russian Lady-In-Waiting orders.  I found the brooch on Etsy and instantly fell in love with it!  We are going with the "M" standing for "Maxine", Mom's Mother's middle name.  Above that is my Daddy (the King Raymond family order).  He is wearing his Boise Fire Department Battalion Chief uniform.  Then above that is the Empress Elizabeth I of Russia order. That is the only one that we had in common.  

  

I am so irritated at the pictures that I took of Mom.  ALL of them were super overexposed.  I have a feeling that it had something to do with the over cloudiness of the late afternoon and Mom's dark dress.  I had to seriously manipulate the images to get a semblance of what her dress looked like.  She looked more that fabulous in her Royal Attire!

Mom borrowed my black feather fan for the evening.  Hahahahaha!!  I think it's fun that we borrowed each others fans!

Mom looks so stunning in the silhouette of the 1890s!

These next few pictures are from the fashion show that we were in earlier in the day.  She doesn't have on her royal jewelry, but you can see her in her lovely dress!

My beautiful Mama!!!

Fun with Picasa.

I always like to manipulate some of the photos taken in recreations to try and capture a bit of what we would have looked like "back then".  I think I need to invest in a true "antiquing" photo shop program.

  

You can really see the difference between our dresses in this picture.

Affecting an Empress Alexandra look again.

At the Ball!

Mom dancing with a charming gentleman.  We helped him pick out his outfit on Friday.  From the looks of things, he had taken more than a few dance lessons.

I got to dance a dance too!  This charming gentleman, Jerry Cheetham, husband to Julie Ann Cheetham.  OHMYGOSH!  What a true master of dance!  He told me as he was literally spinning me around the dance floor that he had taught dancing for over 15 years.  There were times that I had to just focus on his bow tie to get from getting seriously dizzy!

Too much fun!  Mom said it was fun watching my train swirl around as we were spinning.  It reminded me of the dancing scenes in "The Age of Innocence".

We were joined at the ball by Rebecca Maiten and Vanessa Wood.  Both of these ladies looked so grand in their gorgeous ball gowns!

Rebecca and her boyfriend, Sean.  They are such a lovely and fun couple!

Vanessa and her boyfriend, Caleb...another lovely and fun couple!

We left the ball at 9:00 as we were starting to turn into pumpkins.  We were both hungry so stopped at the best Thai restaurant I have ever been to.  I ordered Yellow Curry and chicken Satay for us to share.  We went back "home", disrobed, ate our dinner on the floor and fell into bed!

I hope your weekend has ended on a most lovely note my friends!!

Be Blessed!

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Rogelio Egusquiza Barrena Painting Dress Complete!!....

Well, except for the dust ruffle or Balayeuse, which I hope to complete this week.  Here she is in all her Dandilion Fluff glory!  I have placed on her my new Royal Orders and fun jewelry.  I still have to make the Order Sash, but will get to that later.  

I am wanting to pose in the dress as the young lady in the painting is doing.  I have an antique, ivory silk shawl with sweet pink violets embroidered on it that I think I'll drape over my arm and other fun accessories to add....can't wait!!

Source:  Wikigallery

Inspiration dress...

I tried and tried to make the bustling in the back with a puff, but alas, the dupioni silk did not lend itself well to cooperating with me.  I tried one puff, then two puffs and it just looked like I needed a diaper change.  After three days of messing around with the stupid, frustrating, infuriating thing, I scrapped the idea of the puffs.  I went online and typed in "Natural Form Era Ball Gown".  The very first image that came up on my Google feed was the gorgeous pink NFE dress, also from a painting, made by the fabulous Merja of Before the Automobile.  Her train was smooth and simply fell from the waist and sooooo did NOT look like she needed her diaper changed!  I clung to that image of a smooth, elegant train like a drowning lady clings to a life raft and thought it was a great idea and so adapted it for my train.

Hopefully, this weekend will see the completion of this dress.  I have decided that most of my next projects will be from the 1890s as there was a decided lack of pleating and fuss in those years.  They were a more tailored look and right now, after all this Dandlion Fluff, that is so what I am yearning for!

Be Blessed my friends!!

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Rogelio Egusquiza Barrena Painting Project: Trim and Tutorial!!!

Right then!!  Moving along at a nice rate of speed.....figuratively speaking.  I got the bodice all finished and am quiet pleased with it.  Now on to focus on the skirt.  I finally figured out why this project has taken me so long.  I am not too thrilled with the simplicity of the whole thing.  The dress in the painting is beyond stunning and it gave me that awesome little "zing" when I first clamped eyes on it, and it still does.  However, how simple it is, is really throwing me.  I'm used to ruching and pleating and trim galore and and and and....you get the drift.  So, it is just taking me a while to rework my mind to simpler things.  

That said, I spent Thursday, yesterday and today working on the skirt and the trim around the hem.  I knew that I wanted pleats...the trim in the painting is really hard for me to see, so I am totally going to improvise and "Gina" the hem.  Which I did.  So, 6.5" pleats made and sewn on.  What next?  I new I wanted something new and different.  Something I had never attempted before.  I did quite a bit of researching into the fabulous trim of the Natural Form Era and finally new that I wanted a "fan/shell" sort of thing going on.  Next step...find a tutorial.  I looked....and I looked....and I looked...and I looked...and I looked.......

NOTHING!!!  

I found some super lovely samples from a Candice Kling, and I understood that she gives classes and lectures on how to manipulate ribbon, and has many books on the subject, which is essentially what I was attempting to do.  But, I don't have time to wait for a book to get to me from heavens knows where and I don't have time to take a class!  Back to the internet I went.  I found a piece of ribbon that was manipulated in the way that really blew my skirt up.  After studying it for a bit and a lot of trial and error, I finally came up with something that I was super happy with!!

Bodice and underskirt complete!!  Huzzah!!!

This is the look that made me so happy...little fan/shell looking thingies!!!

I thought that a glass pearl would look lovely at the pleat points met and would also finish it off!

Fan Trim Tutorial

Step 1:  Cut fabric or get ribbon ready.

I wanted quite a large trim, so my fabric was 3" wide.  I also cut the strips on the bias as this was less bulky than trying to use a tube sewn strip of fabric.

Step 2:  Fold strip down like above image and iron the fold flat.

Step 3:  Take strip and fold up, making sure the fold on the bottom is even with the horizontal edge underneath.

Step 4:  Mark pleat points.

On the left side of the folded up strip, mark 5 points.  I measured 1.1".

Close up of the 5 points.  The distance between the bottom right hand corner and the subsequent points if 1.1".  Don't know why, it's just what worked!

Step 5:  Begin pinning marked points to bottom left hand corner.

Pinch the place where the first marked point is and place in right on the left hand corner.  Pin.

Oh yes....you will also want to pin down the bottom right hand corner as well. This will keep your fan from flopping around.

First marked point is pinned to left hand corner.  

Continue pinching and pinning marked points to the bottom left hand corner.  You can use the same pin for all 5 points.

Just keep pinching and pinning...

Pin until all 5 points are at the bottom right hand corner.

Step 6:  To start another fan, fold strip over like above image and simply go through steps 3-5 until you have a strip of trim the length you wish.

Finishing the trim off.

The above images were taken on my ironing board so you could see clearly what I was doing.  For the dress, I actually made the fans directly on my skirt.  

To finish the fans off, I tacked the 5 points junction and placed a pearl at the point.

  I also decided it would be best the place little stitches in between each soft pleat towards the edge of the fan so that it wouldn't flop around.

Well, now it is time to concentrate on the overskirt and bustling in the back.  I have decided that I don't want a long train for the back as I don't want it to get overly dirty and I certainly don't want it to hide my hard work on the fans.  For the overskirt, I want quite a long apron like in the painting...

Well, have a most blessed day my friends!  I think I will take a nap.

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