All posts tagged: 1880s

Announcing: Polly / Oliver!

Published by The Dreamstress

Well, it’s been five years, a lot of fabric, a lot of thread, a lot of buttons, a lot of gold braid, and a bit of moaning and swearing and threatening the garment with dire consequences (“I will DYE you blue.  I’ll do it!  I swear!  You’ll be an abomination unto Nuggan from head to toe.  Behave or dye!”) but I have finally finished the whole Polly / Oliver Perks ensemble, and Polly is ready to stand for Borogravia and women’s rights and well-maintained pubs and clean socks everywhere. (well, not quite everywhere, but not just on feet and in the sock drawer and other places you might normally expect to find them). This dress and I have done battle, I lost some skirmishes, but I’ve come out the winner in the end, and I’m rather pleased with it.  It’s Borogravia does girlie-military, with lots of gold braid and fitting, meets historically plausible 1880s fancy dress.  After seeing the photoshoot images, there are a few places where I need to tack the skirt panels into …

Dressing Polly / Oliver. Inspiration, and a teeny bit of progress

Published by The Dreamstress

This week is Polly / Oliver week (also Tax week, T-Shirt week, get-that-darn-car-sorted week, and plan-next-semester’s-schedule-week), and I’m working on it like mad. As a bit of a Hudson-Bay start after my little meltdown/epiphany over the weekend, (or really, a Hudson-Bay Start after a 5 year delay in getting this enterprise off the ground), I took stock of what I had, re-looked for inspiration, and have finally sorted out what I’m actually going to do, and what is actually going to work. I started with late 18th century female dress borrowed from male hunting attire and military uniforms, some real, some rather satirical: This print shows an outfit almost identical to the one on the cover of Monstrous Regiment, but for women: I’ve already shown you this image: And, of course, the MA portrait in hunting attire: Finally, the ubiquitous Reynold’s portrait of Lady Worsley: From these, I really love the white single-breasted waistcoat on Lady Worsley and the “Officer in the Light Infantry”, and their black feathered hats.  I’m also borrowing the gold binding/ …

The faille skirt of fail

Published by The Dreamstress

So this fortnight’s theme on the Historical Sew Fortnightly is Literature, and, of course, I’m using it as an excuse to finish (finally) my Polly/Oliver outfit (inspired by Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiment). It’s been so long since I worked on the outfit, or thought about it, and my skills have improved since then, and my image of the details has shifted somewhat, though I’m still going with the basic concept of 1880s Victorian does Georgian riding habit/military. I bounced out of bed on Tuesday and thought “Right!  I’m going to make massive progress on this today!”  I had a rummage through my fabric stash, found a big bolt of blue rayon faille, and thought…”Oooh…what a great shade of military blue…and so practical and late Victorian.”  Sure, rayon isn’t entirely accurate, but it the fabric does a reasonable approximation of silk, and the hand is perfect. So I unrolled a length of the faille, spread it out on the floor, went at it with chalk and measuring tapes and scissors and quickly drafted and cut out …