All posts filed under: What I wear

The Henrietta Maria in Mint

One of the joys of prepping patterns is the excuse to make samples of every single view.  It’s something I can get a little carried away with: I’ve got no less than 5  new versions  of the Henrietta Maria to show you! It’s easy to get excited about making all the versions when I really love a pattern, and can find so many opportunities to wear it. It’s shown here in mint green viscose (rayon) crepe georgette.  I love how fresh and spring-y the colour is: it makes me feel like I should be eating strawberries and skipping through daisy fields. And I absolutely LOVE View B of the pattern, with the curved back hem.  It was inspired by a student who couldn’t decide what length she wanted the top to end at, and cut it with a curved hem.  I’ve been playing with the curved hem ever since, getting it to just the right curve to skim over the hips and dip over the bottom. View B has become my go-to top with jeans …

Early 1920s Fringe & Poppies ensemble thedreamstress.com

The 1921 Fringe (yes, fringe!) and Poppies ensemble

It is a pretty well known fact to readers of this blog that I dislike fringe.  Dislike may be putting it mildly.  I believe the word I usually use is loath. My dislike of fringe stems primarily from all the terrible, awful, horrible ‘1920s’ ‘flapper’ dresses which owe everything to 2nd-half of the 20th century costume designers, and nothing to period originals.  To a lesser extent, I also dislike fringe because of the  fringing on some 1860s dresses, where the designers  seem to have gone “Woohoo!  Fabric is relatively cheap!  Fringe is relatively cheap!  Dresses are HUGE!  Let’s just throw acres of fringe at the hugeness!” Blech.  Ergh. But, for every rule, there are exceptions.  Vionnet’s famous 1938 scalloped fringed frock gets a pass for being fabulous and amazing.  Shawl fringe is generally attractive as long as it is sympathetic to the overall design of the shawl.  But I’ve never really been tempted to make a garment with fringed trim. And then, while prepping for the Hamilton Garden’s Katherine Mansfield Garden Party, I came across …

The Peonies shouldn't be Wallflowers frock, thedreamstress.com

The Peonies aren’t Wallflowers dress

The last time I posted a bit of self-sewing, the post was all happiness and delight and ‘this is the best dress ever!’-ness. Yeah. This post isn’t going to be like that. Today’s dress is  not really bad…  It’s just…definitely not my favourite thing I’ve ever made for myself. It started like this:  a friend and sewing student had a dress she loved, but that wasn’t quite right, and she wanted to make a dress inspired by it, but  perfect.  So I helped her to draft a pattern that took all the good stuff, and changed all the not-good stuff.  And she’s been making versions of this dress right and left, and they look AMAZING on her. I tried on one of her versions, and well, it looked pretty good on me too.  So, with her permission, I made myself a version out of an orchid purple peony patterned silk that I got for $5 per meter (!) in a Fabric Warehouse sale. The fabric is amazing, but as this dress?  Well…I just don’t think …