The Dreamstress

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Five for Friday: Summer- Autumn-Winter-Spring-Summer-Again 2019 Catch up Edition

Here’s a big catch up post of things I’ve been doing in the last ~~8 months~~ year (this post has been a long time in the writing!):

1. I cut 13″+ off my hair

I have crazy Rapunzel hair, and this year it got to be so long that I couldn’t even bun it properly, and so I put it in a braid (so I could keep the braid and use it for historical hairpieces) and went to my hairdresser and said “whack it off”

He said: “how much?” I said “Oh, about 8 inches. Just above I put the middle hairband.” He said: that’s a little more than 8″, are you sure? I said “Yep” and he cut it off (and then made it all pretty).

And then I took the braid home and measured it, and it’s 13″, braided!

Here’s what it looks like post-chop:

Well, looked like. The chop and photos was actually a few months back (in fact, the week after my last Five for Friday post).

So many months that it’s already grown back at least 7″!

Like I said, crazy Rapunzel hair…

2. Drawing crazy costumes with my Toi Whakaari costume construction students.

This is Captain Clash:

Her superpower is that she can turn anything plaid!

Although the course is construction based, we do a little costume design, so I did this as a demonstration exercise in figure drawing for costume design, and creating different textures with watercolours. The design was a collaborative effort of awesome-awfulness….

3. Making pies with my mother in law:

Pies are the best part of of Thanksgiving…

The last one is our own invention, combining an American strawberry pie, and a NZ louise slice. We call it Strawberry Louise Pie. And it’s so, so good…

4. Buying bright yellow boots.

My old pair of winter boots finally gave up the ghost, after 8 years of service. So I went boot hunting. And bought bright yellow boots with bees on!

And you know what? Bright yellow goes with everything, and makes winter so much better.

They are by NZ shoe brand Minx, and are called ‘Bees Knees’, but I think they are sold out.

And designing T-shirts:

Yussssss….

(this is a reference that is more obvious in some countries than others, sorry).

Robe de Style, Paul Poiret (French, Paris 1879—1944 Paris), 1925, French, silk, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982.249

Rate the Dress: Poiret does evening blue

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week’s Rate the Dress was quite popular, although not everyone was on board with its colour. For this week’s Rate the Dress I’ve picked a very different dress, but one in the most-suggested alternate hue for last week’s frock.

Last Week: an 1882-3 day dress in fawn brown

Last week’s dress was way, way, way more popular than I thought it would be! I just didn’t expect people to be in to fawn brown, all the pleats + lace, and the very unusual front pocket situation. But it turns out you just really, really like pockets. And some people even like fawn brown!

The Total: 9.2 out of 10

A very elegant effort.

This week: a blue velvet robe de style by Poiret

This week’s Rate the Dress is a robe de style by Paul Poiret. While the overall shape is typical of a robe de style, in typical Poiret fashion it combines unusual and inventive elements to give a twist to the standard shape.

This take on the robe de style features multicolour embroidery on a blue-grey velvet ground, forming a pointed collar which frames the neck, and a girdle which emphasises the dropped waist and fine pleating of the skirt. The effect is medieval-esque, turning the dress into a garment that is both the princess’s robes and the jesters tunic.

The girdle of embroidery dips to an unexpected point at the back. Unless the Met really messed this one up, and put the dress on the form backwards.

The dress is both winter and spring in its colours and materials: cosy enough for cold days, but with a playfulness that suggests new flowers.

What do you think? Has the experimentation worked?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

A reminder about rating — feel free to be critical if you don’t like a thing, but make sure that your comments aren’t actually insulting to those who do like a garment. Phrase criticism as your opinion, rather than a flat fact. Our different tastes are what make Rate the Dress so interesting. It’s no fun when a comment implies that anyone who doesn’t agree with it, or who would wear a garment, is totally lacking in taste.

(as usual, nothing more complicated than a .5. I also hugely appreciate it if you only do one rating, and set it on a line at the very end of your comment, so I can find it! And 0 is not on a scale of 1 to 10. Thanks in advance!)

Regency Ladies by the River or, Playing the Plantain Game

Published by The Dreamstress

I’ve been working on my photography skills over the last year and a bit, getting better at settings, and angles, and playing with new things. I still get 1 decent image for every 25 I take, but hey, practice makes perfect (or at least, a little bit better…).

The Wellington historical sewist have been letting me practice on them every time we do a dress up event. There was lots of practicing at our 2019 Sew & Eat Historical Retreat. (Practicing does include me setting all the functions and handing the camera over to someone else).

I’m still most comfortable with ‘people stand perfectly still and pose photos’:

But once you’ve done those, and the obligatory ‘smell the flowers and look into the river’ photos…

And pretend to push each other into the river…

Then you have to get more creative!

So I taught the ladies how to play the plantain game.

It’s a shooting game you play with plantain grass heads. My first memory of playing it is with my family outside one of the cabins in Haleakala Crater. The goal of that particular game was to hit a nene goose with your grass head. It’s definitely the only kind of shooting of nene geese that’s allowed!

Here are two videos of how you do it: