Rate the Dress: the Marchesa in matching separates
So, what do you think of this distinctly 1777 moment in fashion history? Does the Marchesa’s dress match her curious mind and vivacious personality, or should she have gone for a more timeless look?
All posts tagged: 1770s
Rate the Dress: a 1770s belle in lacy bells?
Last week I showed you Elizabeth Craven, Lady Powis, in her all-over embroidered early-Stuart jacket and skirt. It’s an outfit that I love SO MUCH. Everything about it makes me happy. It’s got blossoms and berries and birds and bees and bugs and other ‘various sundrie spottes’. It’s like Spindle’s End got turned into an outfit. I want it, oh, I want it! The only reason it isn’t top of my sewing list is that I would be 70 before it was done if I started today. So, umm, slightly biased. And many of you agreed, giving it a satisfying 13 of 27 10/10. But some of you who didn’t agree really didn’t like it much, pulling the score down to 8.8 out of 10. That’s OK, I still adore it! Now, on to this week! A confession: I just wasn’t feeling Rate the Dress this week. We spent the weekend painting the house, and cleaning the house, and my Mon & Tue work schedule was incredibly hectic, and I just didn’t want to blog. …
Panier Along #1: Pattern pieces
Yay! Hello! Welcome to the Panier-Along! Over the next two weeks I’ll be walking you through making 1770sish paniers. To start with, check out the Materials List. Now that you have all your materials sorted, let’s get the pattern figured out, and your fabric cut. I’m using a lovely heavyweight linen in a sort of pinky-terracotta that was in my stash. It’s got some light fading, but is really ideal in terms of weight and the tightness of the weave: it will support the boning well without being too thick to pleat. I know I said I’d be machine sewing, but linen is such a pleasure to hand-sew that I have changed my mind, and will be hand sewing it. The pattern pieces for the paniers look like this: There are two of each (one for each side of the paniers), and they are laid out as I cut them from my 45″ wide fabric. The rectangles are pretty self explanatory, but here is how to draft the panier bottom: Start with a 10″ pattern …