All posts filed under: Sewing

Things I sew – historical and modern

Frothy fairy dresses

I’m sewing a frothy goddess frock – just for the fun of it. It’s a nice break from the UFPro pile, and commissions, and historical costuming I’m working on, all of which have specific requirements for their creation. The dress was kind of inspired by this week’s poll. I don’t understand all this modern vampire and werewolf and zombie craze. I want to be a fairy. It turns out that I’m not the only one who wants to be a fairy – well over half of you have the same impulse. So I’m making a fairy frock. Not a tinker belle fairy frock, sort of a fairy godmother meets the traditional faerie queen fairy. A study in contrast: natural materials with an etherial feel, elegant formality and whimsical fun. I liked the idea of making a dress that looks a bit like a sarong tied around you, and a bit like a Regency gown. One that blends total relaxation and classical formality. The fabric is an ivory cotton voile with tiny woven-in stripes of silver, …

Sewing my wedding dress

Published by The Dreamstress

There is a superstition (which I am convinced was invented by the wedding dress manufacturers) that it is bad luck to make your wedding dress. Marriage-wise, my own observation would indicate that it is extremely good luck to make your own dress- all the women I know who did have had long and happy marriages. Perhaps the bad luck is in the making of the dress itself? I could see that. Making my dress was an unhappy and traumatic experience, and both my mother and mother-in-law suffered unfortunate incidences related to the making of their dresses (one of which involved brand new sewing shears, tripping over the toile, lots and lots of blood, a trip to the emergency room, and a permanent scar). Still, if that is the price you pay for a successful marriage, bring on the wedding dress making horror stories! My dress was a case of anything that could go wrong, did. Part of the problem was that in between bouts of dress making, I wrote a thesis, graduated from university, moved …

Tackling the UF-pros – a 1930’s evening skirt

Published by The Dreamstress

As part of my whole “doing the mending, cleaning the house” binge, I have tackled my pile of UF-pros (un-finished projects). On the top of the pile was the 1930s dress I made as a trial run for my wedding dress (yeah, I’m blogging about that next week – don’t worry!). The dress had two problems: It was blush pink georgette, lined in beige. Not a good idea for someone who is already basically blush pink and beige. The bodice never fit properly. Unfortunately, there are no images of the original dress for me to show you what it looked like, or what I looked like in it. But it needed help. So, after a go at re-lining the whole dress in a maroon-fuchsia (I just can’t describe the colour right now!) satin, which did improve the whole blush pink and beige problem a bit, but made the bodice fit even worse than it had previously, I chopped off the whole bodice. Then, I did the worse job ever of stay-stitching along the top of …