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Goddesses and queens in the Rose Garden

Published by The Dreamstress

Last Sunday Elisabeth the Sewphist and Sarah of Capital Adventures and I had a photoshoot in the Rose Garden and Greenhouse at the Wellington Botanical Gardens.

The photoshoot didn’t go quite to plan – Madame O was supposed to join us and wear her fabulous frilly pink polonaise gown, and I was wearing my chemise a la reine and was going to bring 18th century for Elisabeth, and we would have been the perfect late 18th century trio.  But Madame O couldn’t make it, and I couldn’t find a petticoat for Elisabeth, and we ran dreadfully late in getting ready.  And my hat just wouldn’t sit right.

But I sucked up the hat, brought my green silk satin pseudo 1930s Stella gown for Elisabeth to wear, and we caught the last hour that the Greenhouse was open and the last of the Rose Garden sunshine and had a lovely time anyway.

Elisabeth channeled the (rather strange) statue in the begonia house in both elegant and literal fashion.  Sarah wore the tropical flowers without picking them.  I frolicked among the frangipani and bromeliads and dipped my fingers in the fish pond, and we stopped to admire particularly choice shots.

I’m still figuring out my new camera (and the battery ran out) so I didn’t get the best images, but these are the ones I did get, and of course, you can follow Sarah for her images. The lovely Elisabeth is responsible for the images of me on my camera – she did better with it than I did!

Nana’s Corset – beginnings

Published by The Dreamstress

Remember how I posted that I wanted to finish a corset so I could make shorts so I could make panniers?  Well, you have seen the shorts, the panniers are done but yet to be posted about, but the corset isn’t quite finished.

But it looks pretty amazing anyway, and here is a sneak-peek:

Curve happiness

This corset is my long planned, long awaited version of the Nana corset for me.

Manet's Nana, 1877 (detail)

I’m never going to achieve quite as many curves as Nana (and also, I’m not a teenage courtesan who destroys the lives of every man she encounters – but Manet didn’t know that) but I’m pretty pleased with how I look in it.

I have a waist! And hips! And a bust!

The images of me in the corset are courtesy of Mrs C, who kindly took photos on her camera at a sewing night at her place when I stupidly forgot to bring a memory card for my camera.  D’oh!

I’ve been working on it since the sewing night, and the corset is almost done.  I just need to finish the binding on the bottom of the corset, add the straps, and bind the top of the corset.

Bound bottoms, top and straps still to do

The fabric is a gorgeous silk duchess satin, the same fabric as I made Ninon’s 1660s dress out of.   When I posted about that fabric, Josephine of the Silk Futures  (awesome blog name!) mentioned that she had picked up some of that silk in the same sale in pale blue.  So I begged and pleaded and she agreed to sell me half a metre.  Lovely sweet Josephine!

The pattern is based on what you can see in the painting (the hip pieces are quite evident), and strapped corsets of the 1870s and 1880s.   I have a whole pinterest board of inspiration.

Blue duchesse satin and white sateen lining

Corset classes in Melbourne!

Published by The Dreamstress

DISCLAIMER: This post is ‘sticky’ and will stay at the top of my blog for the next week – but don’t worry, there is plenty of fun new content below, just scroll down to see it!

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Super exciting news!

I’m going to be in Melbourne (for the first time ever) the first week of April, and…

(super, super exciting news)

I’ll be teaching a corset making workshop at Melbourne’s fabulous craft lounge, Thread Den  on Friday the 6th of April!

How exciting is that!  (Especially if you are in Melbourne).

It’s an all-day workshop, so we’ll have plenty of time for each student to make an entire corset, learn some corset history, work through all the techniques, discuss the different materials available, look at some of my corsets, get to know each other, and generally have a fabulous time.

The workshop will be based around this corset:

It’s a simple, flattering underbust  corset that can easily be fitted to a huge range of shapes, and that can be adapted to a lot of styles.  Once you have mastered this corset it is easy to add cording, piping, quilting, and to use all the same techniques to make an overbust corset.

To read more about the course, check out Thread Den’s class description, and then rush over and book it.

The price is Au$200 – $175 for the workshop, + $25 for the materials kit (your pattern, busk, boning, grommets and lacing).  This is a really fabulous deal for a full day workshop, and for all the materials.

Spaces are very limited – only 9 students – because I want to make sure that I can give each of you lots of personal attention so that you go away from this feeling very confident about making lots and lots of your own corsets.  This does mean that its very important that you book right away, before  the class fills up.

I’m really thrilled about doing this: I love teaching, Thread Den is such a fabulous space (I follow their blog over the internet and drool), and corset making is so fun!

Will I be seeing you there?  Hope so!

(random corset goodness. The Cymbidium Orchid corset)