Port Townsend Victorian Festival: Friday

This past weekend, my Mama and I found ourselves in Port Townsend, Washington for their annual Victorian Festival.  We had a great, if not wind blown time.  Mom and I planned on wearing our Sailor Dresses (Seaside dresses) for the weekend, as hello!!!  Sea Port!!!  Interestingly enough, the theme for the weekend was Nautical!  Perfect!  We had a great time there and got to visit with friends that I hadn't seen since Coco in August.  Val LaBore of Time Traveling in Costume, Rebecca Maiten of The Lady Rebecca LJ and Vanessa Wood were there in their beautiful creations!

I have decided to break the blog posts about the weekend into the days that we were there so as to not blow up this blog with pictures...

Day One:  Friday

1912

Ok, so Friday was seriously windy....like so windy that I was afraid Mom's hat would take flight while she was wearing it!  It was only the night before, while sitting on my bed in the hotel room, that I decided to sew the huge white composite wings to the hat.  For a long time, they were just pinned on because I wanted to be able to use them on other hats.  I am so happy that I did sew them on, because on Friday there were times when the hat, while pinned to her wig with HUGE hat pins, literally lifted off Mom's head!  I am not even kidding!  It was quite impressive!

Needless to say, we didn't get any pictures of us in our seaside dresses along the seaside.  There's no telling what would have happened if we had been out in the open with our large 1912 era hats on!  The Flying Nun comes to mind....

I wisely took my hat off...Mom had to hold her hat down...

My collar performing its pre-flight check!

  

Wing flaps:  check

Landing gear:  check

Fuel gauges:  check

Cabin lights:  check

Oh ya...it was windy.  Sometimes it literally stole my breath away!  Oh! And it was a bit on the cold side!!

My Sassy face.

I was pretty happy with my hair on this day!

I thought I could get away from the wind if I was low to the ground.  Nope!!!

Mom's hat going through its pre-flight check...

I love this picture!  It shows the force of the wind!!!  Look at that dress billow!!

My Mama is so fabulously adorable!!

I think this would pass for a very good antique photo if we weren't smiling...but we both look stoned when we look serious!  So smile it is!!!

I hope you are all having a most fabulous Thursday my friends!!  Next up...Saturday Day, Bustle Day!!

Blessings!

g

Ruth DBK Boarding Suit: Soutache Sewing is Complete!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Huzzah!!  SQUEE!!!!  Whoot Whoot!!  Laaaaaaaaaaa!!!  I'm Soooo Heppy!!!!  

Ok, I guess you can tell by my excited out burst that the soutache has all been sewn onto the Ruth boarding suit!!  Truly, I am so happy!  Tracy Gomez came through for me again and found some more soutache for me so I could complete the coat to the suit (thank you soooooo much Tracy!!!!!).  Needless to say, my fingers are more than thrilled with this develompent!!  

The collar was also sewn on.  I am not 100% pleased with it, but I keep telling myself that it can't be exactly like the original as I don't have the pattern from the original.  So, I have decided that it will do just fine!!

Hopefully tomorrow I will put in the lining, add the sleeves and maybe cut out the skirt!  Hurray!!!!  Yes, I know I am being optimisitic!!!

Sorry for the lousy pictures as I used my phone and it wasn't wanting to cooperate this morning...

Bring on the lining!!!

Be Blessed my friends!!

g

Violet 1912 Dress Debut

Today I got to wear my 1912 Violet dress for the first time in public!!  The Bishops House hosted their last Table Rock Trio concert and We Wear History was asked to come again and lend our Old Fashioned charm to the event!  We of course were delighted to attend in our finery!

When the concert was over, I was outside the house and this couple who had been walking the trails behind the House came by with a Grayhound and this fabulous Russian Borzoi.  I think I sucked all the air out of the surrounding area and practically screeched, "May I please have my picture taken with that magnificent animal!?"  The lady handling the Borzoi said, "I was just going to ask you if you would take a picture with my dog!"  Too fun!  So, after Broche (the French word for brooch) got acquainted with me and my enormous hat ("I think she is afraid of your hat."), we had our picture taken!  Broche was so beautiful and charming, then her owner said that they were bred by the Czars of Russia in the Victorian Era!  PERFECT!!!!  Isn't she grand?

The beautiful Broche

I think we looked pretty good together!

This dog was enormous!

Marilyn, Me and Mom!  We had such a great time!

Of course I had to sneak a silly picture into the lot...I don't know how to be serious!!!

Today was a wonderful day and I am sad to see the end of the concerts from The Table Rock Trio...but am excited to see what the future holds with our partnership with The Bishops House!

Be Blessed!!

g

Getting Ever So Much Closer to the End!!

So far so good as of late!  No grumbling whilst tearing out stitches!  Huzzah!!!  Just a lot of hand stitching down of squiggles!  That I can totally handle!  The going is slow, but I am really liking the end result!

What it looks like before I stitch all the soutache down...a HUGE green wool pin cushion!  My husband thinks I'm crazy!

The center front is complete!  Huzzah!!!

The side panel is pinned on.  Praying that my friend Tracy can locate more soutache like this so I can complete the coat with like soutache...I ran out!  waaaaahahahahahahaha!!!!

Really happy with the back.  Playing around with the velvet covered buttons...I think I will move them on the final step.

Now I'm just waiting to hear if the same soutache has been re-ordered from the place where Tracy found the first stuff.  If not, I have a very close color that I can use...Here's hoping!!

Be Blessed my friends!

g

Ruth DWB Boarding Suit Progress

(Deep breath...deeeeeeep breath)  Hello there lovely readers!  I have a progress report on my RDWB boarding suit.  You know, one day I am going to say, "I hope that 100 things go wrong on this dress!"  Because maybe then NOTHING will go wrong on a dress!  hahahahahahahaha!!!  It has taken quite a bit to be able to show you this progress.  Wednesday I spent all day (8 hours) sewing the straight, outline lines of soutache onto the coat.  I got them all done in a time that took forever and discovered that there were puckers and buckles along the soutache and on the wool.  It was then that I realized that wool does not take kindly to pulling and tugging.  So, this is my warning to anyone who will work with wool in the future....DO NOT PULL OR TUG ON WOOL!!!  IT WILL THROW A FIT!!!  I decided, in my deluded, lazy mind that I could get away with just laying the soutache on the wool with out hand tacking it down first if I sewed really slowly.  WRONG!!!  After going to bed and trying to talk my OCD mind into going to sleep and failing miserably, I got back out of bed and ripped out stitched soutache until 2 in the morning.  I then woke up on Thursday and after getting everyone off to their respective schools/work, set about ripping out the rest of the soutache.  GAAAAAA!!!!!  

Well, I have since hand tacked all of the outline lines then machine stitched them down and have started on the squiggles.  My fingers hate me.

Front panel of squiggles

The front squiggles I was able to machine stitch after hand tacking them down.  There was minimum warping that I was able to remove with ironing!! 

The back is looking pretty good!

While I was able to machine stitch the front squiggles, I am having to hand sew the back squiggles down.  There was too much warping going on when I used the sewing machine!

More squiggles to come!

Be Blessed my lovely friends!

g

Ruth DWB's Green Boarding Suit: Part 2

This past Sunday through Wednesday, Mom and I went to Spokane to visit my brother and his family and had a fabulous time!  We celebrated my niece's birthday and had lots of fun with her and my nephew!  Then there was the usual binging on food and visiting kid friendly sites like the park.  We were also able to get in a few fabulous anitques shops...and found some neat-o finds!  And OHMYGOSH some silk tulle at a fabulous fabric store that we had been driving by for years.  I finally stopped in to see if they had any soutache, they did not, but found real silk tulle!!!!!  I am so deliriously happy about it!!!  But I digress...

This post is about the progress on the RDWB green wool suit.  I was finally able to cut out the wool after doing the mock up and getting it to where I liked it.  I had some issues with the collar as the patterns I am using didn't have anything suitable that would match the original.  And of course I need to mention the package I got in the mail on Thursday.  I had asked my friend Tracy Gomes (Lady Fleur as I knew her a long time ago) if she had a source for Olive green soutache.  She said she was going to LA "this weekend" and would check for me.  While I was in Spokane, I got a message from Tracy saying to check my mail on Wednesday!  Joy!!  I was going to see samples of soutaches that would possibly work for my outfit!  Well, the package came on Thursday and OHMYGOSH!!  Tracy bought a ton of soutache for me!  In almost the exact shade...I had to coffee dye it 2 times to get it a deeper color, but SQUEE!!!  It totally works!!!  Thank you so much Tracy!!!

Yesterday and today, my OCD took over and I didn't stop sewing until I had both sleeves done.  I think that I just needed to see if everything would work well together and to get down the rounded zig zags that go in between the straight strips of soutache.  Laaaaaa!!!!  I am quite happy with how they sleeves turned out!!  My neck, hands, arms and back are not so thrilled, but my creative brain is super happy!

Ruth's dress...check out all that soutache in on the sleeves....
Photo courtesy:  moviescreencaps.come

My sleeves...I hate the way this fabric and soutache photograph...sometimes it has a blue cast...grrrrrrrrrrr

Velvet strip

I love the way the designer of this outfit used such different shades of green...very era correct..

Fun corner soutache.

It took me forever to do two sleeves...I am fearful of the rest of the miles of soutache I have left to apply to the dress!  But it will get done and I will forget in time what a pain it was to sew it all on!

Next up....sewing the body of the coat together...

Blessings!

g

Ruth DeWitt Bukater's Green Boarding Suit: Part 1

Aaaaaahhhh....green.  And wool.  And velvet.  And Soutache.  And 1912.  And Titanic.  And Ruth DeWitt Bukater.

What do these things all have in common?  Ruth's FABULOUS green boarding suit!  My heart does a most wonderful hiccup when I watch this scene from Titanic.  I understand that for most people, the heart hiccup comes when they see Rose step out of that aweomse car, all resplendent in her pinstripe suit and gynormous hat.  But for me again, it is the outfit that Ruth is wearing.  First of all, my favorite color is green.  Secondly, hello totally off color green velvet and soutache!  Then there is the pheasant feather toque and hand muff!  Le Swoon and Le Sigh!!

I have determined to make this whole outfit for the Titanic Event at The HasBrouck House at the end of April (yes, even the toque and hand muff.).  I would quite honestly love to recreate all of Ruth's fabulous wardrobe, and I may just have to do that when it is all said and done.  For now though, I'll content myself with her green boarding suit.  

I scoured the internet trying to find images of her fabulous outfit and found this site:

Movie-Screencaps.com

My word they have a ton of fabulous screencaps!  I found several that highlighted the details on Ruth's suit perfectly.  I believe I am going to have to order about 1,000 yards of soutache to get this baby complete!  Thankfully I already have the almost exact shade of wool and velvet!  Whoot whoot!!

Frances Fisher is so beautiful and I think was perfect in her role as Ruth.

Lovely sweep of Ruth's coat and skirt.

I believe I see some buttons on the back!

The back of the coat has a very interesting cut.  The sides are shorter than the back center.

Oooooh!  More buttons!

This angle shows that she is wearing ivory boots and how wide the circumference of her skirt is!

This picture creates the illusion of her being almost angelic!  Hhhhmmmm....

Fun positioning of the soutache on the sleeve.  See where it meets the soutache on the bodice of the coat?  Awesome!

A.  Look at the size of that hand muff!  B.  I see more buttons on the front of the coat!  Laaaaaaa!!!

Nice close-up of the blouse beneath her coat.  LOVE her hair!

Image of the front of her coat.  Unfortunately the source where I found this no longer exists...

A fuzzy close-up of the soutache trim and the velvet piece on the sleeve.

For my outfit, I have chosen to use two patterns for the coat:

The general lines of Simplicity 2581 are perfect for the coat.  It is a bit long on me (I have been working on the mock-up) but that can be fixed easily.  The sleeves are even perfect!

I did, however combine the front and side front pattern piece from Vogue 8346 and the Simplicity pattern because of the lines on the green coat.  The seam ended at the armhole, not the shoulder seam.

I'm still undecided on what skirt pattern I will use.  It will all depend on how much fabric I have after I get the coat cut out!

My fabric that doesn't photograph well... :-(

My fabric!  Unfortunately, it doesn't photograph nicely.  It is pretty spot on in real life!

I am really excited about this project...not so much about the sewing on of all that soutache, but I think this will be a very satisfying project!

Blessings!

g