Costume College: Sunday Breakfast Belles and Beaux and a Royal Ascot Tea...PJs from a Photograph and A Dress From a Museum

Sunday morning at Coco was Breakfast Belles and Beaux.  I had planned to wear my so very comfy and very lovely pistachio green Edwardian Corset with my lace insertion combinations, but when the packet for Coco came out and I read that the theme had changed, I knew what I would wear.  I had purchased a small yardage of gorgeous embroidered silk years ago with the knowledge that I would turn it into a Kimono.  Huzzah!!!  I now had a reason to make it!  Now I had to think up some pajamas.  Enter Pinterest...of course!  I found this fabulous image of a 1920s vixen in some silk PJs!!  Laaaaaaa!!!  I had two golden silk curtain panels that were put to use in the making of the pjs....this was such a comfortable morning!  Yeah for Belles and Beaux!!!

Of course I took a ton of pictures of other ladies and gentlemen in their jammies and you can look at them HERE. 

I didn't take any pictures of me in my Royal Ascot Tea dress because I had a lot of them taken last month...the post can be found HERE.  Sadly, I didn't get a full length picture of Josie and me....only a selfie...:-(

My Facebook Royal Ascot Tea album can be found HERE.

Source:  Anything Goes

Georgiana's dress matches my outfit!!  Josie and I felt our husbands should join us for breakfast...via our Royal Family Orders...

Kimono sleeves are so much fun!!  I need to make a full length kimono with the fabulous full length sleeves.

Those 20s ladies struck some really silly/fun poses!

Two ladies in their PJs!!  This was a fun day!

Laaaaa!!!  I think that I will have to make more 1920s silk pajamas.   They are beyond comfortable!

Be blessed my friends!

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Costume College: Saturday Night Gala, A Dress From History

OHMYGOSH. OHMYGOSH. OHMYGOSH!!!  The Saturday night Gala was so fabulous!  There were so many awesome dresses, shoes, accessories, tiaras!  What a wonderful event to behold!  It was truly fun to see what all the convention goers came up with!  You can see the ones I caputured HERE.  Such a great talent was housed in a hotel for a weekend!

Remember all the crazy royal orders and royal family orders I made earlier in the year?  Huzzah!  I was finally able to wear them!!  Yeah!  If you don't remember, you can read the posts HERE and HERE.  In a few weeks, I will do a mini tutorial on how to make the royal order sash and bow.  You can also see my Pinterest boards on all the royal orders, sashes and fun research Royal Family Orders, Royal Orders, and Royal Sashes.

Josie and I attended the Gala as Royalty.  My original thought was to wear court presentation dresses (Yes, I have a Pinterest board for that too...Court Presentation Gowns).  About 7 years ago I came across an image on Getty Images of a lady in what looked like a wedding dress while researching images for a masquerade ball that I was going to be attending for SASS in Las Vegas.  My curiosity was piqued and I dug a little deeper into this bride with feathers on her head.  Much to the delight of my royal loving heart, I discovered that she was in Court Presentation attire.  More research told me what I wanted to know about Court Presentation.  Fast forward to 2 years ago when I was pinning to my Mourning Fashion board.  I came across a dress that I didn't remember from my first brush with CPGs.  My breath literally left my lungs in a big woosh...followed very closely by my sucking all of the air out of the room in lustfull excitement!  OHMYGIDDYAUNT!!!  I HAD to make this dress.  Hello!!  It is a mourning dress (Oh how I love thee mourning) aaaaaand a CPG!!!!!  It was quite literally a match made in costumer's heaven!  Here she is in all of her gorgeous glory...Countess Victor di Carrobio.  She is so beautiful!

Well, things didn't get completed and I, being who I am, didn't want to stick with the edicts of court presentation...PLUS, I had all those fabulous blingy jewelry bits to wear...soooooo, Josie went as Queen Josephine, and I went as Empress Gina!  We didn't have the court length trains that attached at our shoulders, and our veils were much longer than court dresses.  But we did wear our Prince of Wales feathers!  I did a Queen Josie and Empress Gina album on Facebook.  You can see Josie's gorgeous off white court gown.  She did a fabulous job on it and it was fun to go as sisters in our black and white gowns!  We will be adding a beaded wheat and bow design to the skirt and bodice here very shortly...

Yes, I am trying to affect a very regal, Edwardian look here...I'm not mad, I promise!

I decided we needed star brooches at the back of our veils!

Again, my wig was wonderfully styled by Greeneyed Nana.

My inspiration for this wig came from the Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone.  Isn't she so very beautiful?  Her face is so sweet.

Source:  Grand Ladies

Affecting a stance and look like Empress Alexandra of Russia.  I know she always looked sad, but in her sadness was a real beauty.

Here is Queen Josephine and Empress Gina in our Royal finery....Oh my did we have a blast at the gala!!!  Bring on the beads!

Picture by Mary Agnes Tibbs

Have a wonderfully blessed day my friends!

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Costume College: Friday Night Ice Cream Social, A Dress From A Portrait

The theme for Friday night's Ice Cream Social was "Ice".  I thought that since icebergs have a lovely shade of blue in them many times, that I could wear my blue 1830s portrait dress!  Josie's Mom, Greeneyed Nana, styled a wig for me and it turned out fabulously!!  I made some hair ornaments like the Countess Emilia Sommariva Seilliere wore in her painting.

Again, I will share my Friday Evening, Ice Cream Social album with you as there are so many photos of fabulous dresses!

Two images of me trying to get the same pose as the Countess.  The one on the left is the right body pose, but my hair needs bangs...the one on the right has the right bangs but my body isn't right!  Hahahaha!!  Josie did a great job posing me, don't you think?

 

Nice view of my hair ornaments and Greeneyed Nana's fabulous wig!  Thank you for helping out with the ornaments and the extra braid Josie!

Yeah for wonderful black fur tippets and jewelry!

I starched my corded and plain petticoats.  Oh man were they stiff when they were dry!  It took me over an hour to iron them out and in the end my the shoulder and bicep of my right arm were exceedingly grouchy with me!

This is a wonderful shot of the pleating on the back of my skirt and the back of my hair.  I decided to do spiral lacing for the closure.

To keep the sleeves in their beret shape, I made circles of hoop boning and sewed them to the netting on the inside of sleeve.

Costume College: Friday Day, A Dress From A Movie

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!

Be blessed my friends!

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Costume College: Thursday Evening Pool Party, a Dress From a Catalog

Oh my giddy Aunt!  Did I ever have a fantastic time at Costume College!  Days of dressing up, meeting fellow costumers and bloggers, learning things I didn't know before, drooling over all the talent in one place, eating wonderful food, not getting enough sleep...Le Sigh...Yes, I did have a fantastic time!

I think my favorite part of this past weekend, besides rooming with my bestie Josie, was meeting my fellow costume bloggers and people I have come to know via Facebook.  Being of average height, I always envision others being 5'6" and having my voice when I see them on their blog and read what they have written.  So, for me it was a great joy to hear their voices, because now I can "hear" them when I read a post!  I can even "see" them as they really are height wise, which is fun as well, because I get a better "view" of how their costumes fit!  Yes, I am a very odd person when it comes to this sort of thing.  I like to see and hear a person as they really are!

Thursday evening was the Pool Party with the theme Tiki Party.  I didn't want to just dive right in wearing my Victorian things, so Josie and I decided on a 50s inspired theme for ourselves.  After all, housewives from this era did attend pool parties too!  Never having worn anything 50s, this was a super fun and different adventure for me.  Especially where the shoes came in to play.  I am used to wearing modern shoes that have been made to look antique, but for this evening I actually wore a pair of shoes from the 1950s.  My feet were less than impressed.  BUT!!  They looked awesome!  Hahahahahaha!!!

Ok, now for pictures...

First off, my inspiration image from Reminisce

I photoshopped this image to get it to look like a catalog picture...See my fabulous shoes?  My feet are starting to swear quite loudly at me here...

I think I did a pretty good job matching those little pesky polka-dots up.  Note to self...NEVER make a dress with this size of dots again.

Trying to pose like a girl from the 50s...too fun!  Josie helped me with my hair...I was a total loss with the hair from this era!

Fun "best friends walking" pose!  Josie in her fabulous "Fruit Salad" dress.  It was so incredibly as was her vintage 1950s fruit jewelry!

And so wraps up the first night at Coco!

Blessings!

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1830s Fur Tippet Mini Tutorial and a Completed 1830s Bracelet

For my 1830s Painting Dress, I wanted to make a black fur tippet like Countess Emilia Sommariva Seilliere in her painting.  I watched eBay for quite a while looking for a vintage cape that didn't cost an arm and a leg and finally discovered the one below.  It pays to buy vintage furs in the summer when the last thing one wants to do is wear a fur...at least in Idaho where it can get to 105!  ACK!!  Anyhoo, I was able to recycle a 1940s cape into an 1830s tippet!  In my mind the lady who wore this cape was a very lovely lady who wore it on an airplane while on her honeymoon to England to visit Bath or the V&A Museum!  Ok, so my imagination is a bit wild!

My fur cape from eBay.  It is dyed and sheared muskrat.  I took the lining and padding out and layed it flat.  As with other fur, it had many pieces stitched together to get one big piece.

I decided that I wanted my tippet to be 3" wide, so cut strips of 6" fur.  Happily, the makers of the cape had sewn together 6" strips already so it was rather simple to cut apart.  I used an Xacto knife very gingerly on the back side to cut the strips apart.  When I had all my strips cut apart, I began sewing it together.

I layed the strips down and butted the pieces together.  I hope you can see it here... black thread on black leather is kind of hard to see.

After all the strips were sewn together I folded it in half and whip stitched the long pieces together forming a looooong tube.  Then I turned it right side out...which took about 45 minutes...I'm not even kidding you!

My beautiful tippet complete and hanging on the dress that it goes with!

I think it is just the right size for the painting reproduction!

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Another thing that has to be done for the painting reproduction is the jewelry...the bracelet in particular.

Remember the brooch I found on eBay?  No?  Ok, well it is above...I removed the pin part of the brooch with a pair of side cutters or dykes.

I found a pair of curved earrings at Hobby Lobby.  Of course I forgot to take a picture of them before I cut off the ear hole loops.  Grrrrrrrr...I chose these earrings because they had a curve to them that the straight bars did not have.  I used super glue to attach them to the brooch.

These are the beads that I used for the bracelet part of the bracelet!  Ha!!

The completed bracelet.

Next up...make the necklace for the outfit, then I shall be complete!  Huzzah!!

Blessings to all of you!  And if you are reading this from the United States, I hope you have a most wonderful Independence Day tomorrow!

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