All posts filed under: Admire

Historical costumes at Fernside thedreamstress.com

Frolics at Fernside

Last weekend Fernside, an early 20th century home and gardens an hour away from Wellington in Featherston, held an open day in the gardens as a fundraiser for the local theatre. I’ve always wanted to see the gardens: they are a lovely example of a restored early 20th century garden. You can generally only see them as part of a (long, expensive) Lord of the Rings themed tour, as the gardens were transformed into Lothlorien for the the films. I’m not that keen on LotR (well, mostly I’m not that keen on long expensive tours where you’d just get trotted through the gardens to the most important filming scenes and then back out again, and can’t wander around), so I was really excited to have a chance to explore the grounds at leisure. And obviously, to dress up! We got together a group, and settled on early 20th c clothing, to match the grounds and house (and also, because it was the easiest to get dressed in a cafe bathroom in. We weren’t going to …

The NZSEHR 2019 in 1360s Medieval gowns thedreamstress.com

Medieval Madness

Published by The Dreamstress

My local historical sewing group has been setting a loose theme for every year, so that we all end up with a costume from a period, to wear to events together. In 2018 we did Regency, and wore it at our first Sew & Eat Historical Retreat. Our 2019 theme was Medieval, and boy did we have fun! I already had the 1360s dress that I made back in 2015 (was it really that long ago!), so I got to be a lady of leisure and not sew anything Medieval (instead I made Augusta Stays all year long!) But I still helped. Nina & Priscilla used the same wool for their dresses, a heathered brown which we dyed yellow, using slightly different dyes for each of them to achieve different hues. (side note: look at Nina’s beautiful buttons!) We draped the frocks in our sewing meet ups, and they sewed the gowns all year long, working on sleeve fit and gore placement, and making accessories. Hvitr made her beautiful black & white twill gown based …

The 2nd Annual NZ Sew & Eat Historical Retreat

Published by The Dreamstress

After the success of the 2018 NZSEHR, with food, and sewing, and pretty, pretty pictures, the Wellington historical sewing ladies decided we definitely needed to do it again in 2019. So we picked a sewing theme, and booked the adorable cottage we had last year, and spent our year sewing and planning and dreaming. And, once again, disaster struck – although this time the disaster was limited to us, and didn’t shut down the whole city! Instead of an overturned truck closing down the main road, the cottage had to cancel our booking, leaving us scrambling to find a suitable place at short notice, on one of the busiest weekends of the year. Happily, we found another cute cottage to rent. This time instead of heading up highway 1, along the Kapiti Coast, we headed out to the Wairarapa on highway 2, crossing the Rimutaka Hills, hitting Featherston (where the Time Travellers Ball was held) and turning towards the sea and driving down along between the hills and Lake Wairarapa. We were sad to loose …