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My historical costuming people thedreamstress.com

So you’ve made a historical costume: where do you wear it?

Published by The Dreamstress

In my last post, I discussed some ways to get started in historical costuming: different strategies for tackling your first makes, and where to get help with making. But once you make a thing, you need a place to wear it! And that can be hard – especially if you don’t live somewhere with a lot of historical costume themed events. (I know all about this – NZ is fancy dress party central, but historical costume events are thin on the ground…) A lot of people get started making historical costumes because they have a specific event to go to, and want to be dressed up. If that’s you: you’re sorted! Just talk to other people at the event, and you’ll probably learn about more events to wear your historic costume to. A costume event is how I really got started in historical costuming: I made outfits for myself and a friend to wear to the SF Bay Area Renaissance Faire. However, I went for 5 years between my 16th c Flemish outfit for a …

Historical Costuming - jump right in! thedreamstress.com

How to get started in historical costuming

Published by The Dreamstress

True story:  quite a few of my closest friends became my friends because they heard I do historical costuming and said “Oh, I’ve always dreamed of making X kind of dress.”  And I said  “Really?  Well, I can help with that!  Let me tempt you to the dark and full of handsewing side…”   And then 300 hours of pattern choosing and handsewing later we’re sending each other terrible memes at 3am, and crying on each others shoulder when things are hard.   I can’t promise you a costuming friend for life, but I can give you some of the tips that I give friends when they start on this journey.  Hopefully they will help you achieve your costuming dreams. First, choose what you want to make: That’s pretty obvious! But it can be a bit overwhelming. The three main strategies that people use to get started are: Pick an era, and make a complete outfit for that era, from the inside out. Pick a simple item that can be used for multiple eras, and …

The NZSEHR 2019 in Regency thedreamstress.com

Costumes and Kunekune pigs

Published by The Dreamstress

I was very excited when the intro guide to our cottage for our Sew & Eat Historical Retreat said that we could put all the food scraps in a bin for the pigs. I’m always a fan of anything that keeps food out of the rubbish (food waste is a huge contributor to climate change – food rotting without air creates carbon). I was even more excited when we arrived, and it turned out that the pigs were pet kunekune pigs, not farm porkers destined for the slaughterhouse. And we could feed them and pet them! Happiness! Kunekune pigs are descended from domestic pigs that were brought to New Zealand from Asia by whalers or traders in the early 19th century. They are now a unique breed of their own, from isolation, or crossbreeding, or because the breeds they descended from have since gone extinct (as has happened with so many breeds of domestic farm animals in the last 200 years). Kune means plump in te reo Māori, and when you double up a word …