The Dreamstress

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Fairies! And Dinosaurs! At Versailles!

You know those days when you are having brunch with friends and someone says “We should have a fairy party!”

No?

Well, among my friends group not only does that happen, but then I pipe up with “Yeah! Fairies! And Dinosaurs! At Versailles!”

So, because a number of us had big, exciting birthdays, or little, equally exciting, birthdays this year, we had a joint birthday ball with that as a theme. Because of course!

I was hoping to get my Marmotte Masquerade stays done for it, but they weren’t ready and I needed to concentrate on party prep, so I just wore the outfit I had been planning with my gilt stays as a backup. C’est la vie.

I’ve never gotten proper photos of me in the stays, so while I’m sad that the Masquerade ones weren’t done, I’m excited about pictures of me in the gilt ones, especially since Sarah the Photographer and I managed to pop down to the beach before guests arrived and get in a quick photoshoot (the benefits of a hall just across the road from the sea!).

I did some sitting on rocks getting my derriere poked:

And some wobbling about with bare feet on cold evening rocks:

I can’t wait to see Sarah’s photos from the shoot (I’ll let you know when they pop up on her LiveJournal in the next week or so). For now I have the ones Mr D took of me while Sarah was photographing me. Mr D is an irregular photographer – he gets the occasional great shot and a lot that are out of focus or have poor lighting. Flaws aside, some of these are pretty cute!

Especially the ones where I try to balance too ambitiously and fail 😉

Quite fairy-like indeed !

Sarah and I had lots of fun with the decorations and food:

And there were some amazing costumes, particularly Sarah’s and Madame O’s. I got photos of Sarah by the water on her camera, and I hope someone got better images of Madame O than I did, because her outfit was fabulous. It involved fairy lights!

I may not have managed an actual light-up costume, but I did manage to include fairies & dinosaurs & Versailles in my outfit. Rococo pastel dinosaur battle hairdo FTW!

Masqued marmotte madness

Published by The Dreamstress

Progress on my Marmotte Masquerade stays is moving along faster than I can blog about it, despite a little un-help from Felicity.

Nope. Can’t have it. My fabric.

All the pieces were boned, and sewn together:

Then, with a bit of help from Mr D, I tried them on. He wasn’t in a very good mood for lacing or photography, but you can still see that my lacing is nice and even

The fit was pretty good straight from the pattern, with no alterations other than a bit of lengthening (and I’ll lengthen any future versions another half an inch).

The one change I will be making is to try to reduce the waist as much as possible. The stays aren’t giving me much of a cone shape, and I’d like a bit more compression in the waist for comfort.

The uplift and shape in the bust is great though, especially considering how little I have to lift and shape.

With fitting done, I made adjustments to the pattern and started covering the pieces with my fashion fabric. Mmmm…marmottes…

Now I’m just doing a lot of binding in a hurry! I’m supposed to be wearing these on Saturday evening…

Bits & Bobs

Published by The Dreamstress

Every once in a while I accumulate a little pile of interesting tidbits that aren’t big enough for a post apiece, but that I really want to share with you.

First off, the latest issue of Glory Days, the New Zealand vintage magazine, is out. The theme is ‘Victorian Christmas’ so there are all sort of fun goodies, from instructions on how to make Christmas Crackers, to an article on one of the few New Zealand living history museums.

In addition to my feature on corset history (page 64) I was interviewed about my collection for the Other People’s Wardrobes (page 59) feature, though ‘Wardrobe’ is bit of a mis-nomer in my case, as I don’t wear most of my collection!

Here is one of the images I took for the corset article:

Be sure to like Glory Days on Facebook to get notifications of new issues and other fun stuff!

Moving on to the next bit, remember the charming vintage sun-frocks I made for S back in July? She sent me photos of the dresses on and I’ve just been so busy I haven’t shown you yet, which is rather remiss of me as she’s adorable in them!

Seeing frocks on bodies is so different to seeing them on mannequins, isn’t it? That’s part of why reproducing historic dresses is so important to me: it really shows you what history looked like in it’s own time, and how those frocks affected how you lived and moved.

That also reminds me that I should review the patterns on the pattern review site…

And finally, for a little visual pogey bait, here are some of the bits and bobs that I picked up at op-shops on a recent road trip:

A rainbow of vintage threads:

And a selection of vintage patterns – some of which may end up in the giveaway I’ve been planning for ages:

Not this one though. This one I want to make up exactly as it is shown, in yellow and grey plaid, with a grey coat with a yellow lining. And then in the green floral!:

And zips to put in the frocks I’ll be making. And bias binding, because you can never have too much bias binding:

And more threads, and un-dye, just in case I ever need it again:

And gorgeous bits of vintage lace and trim for embellishing frocks and trimming undergarments:

And proper braces! (or suspenders – depending on which vocabulary set you are using). It’s so hard to find real button-on braces, and I found THREE all in one op-shop. Mr D had better watch out!

And finally, books, books, and more books:

Because after all that sewing, I’m going to need a little mental break!