All posts tagged: Regency

Reticule thedreamstress.com

A sparkles and tassels reticule

November’s Historical Sew Fortnightly challenge was Purses & Bags – and, despite everything else that was going on, I managed to make a thing!   It did take me more than a month though.  I started it at our Historical Retreat (we tried to cram reticule making and bonnet making into one weekend – and of course finished neither), and didn’t get it done until the first Wednesday in December. I was inspired by the shape of this reticule from LACMA: And the decorations of this bag from MFA Boston: I used my gilt linen of doom: the stuff I used for these stays, and this pair of bodies  (which were one of my entires for the very first Historical Sew Fortnightly – back when it was still fortnightly!) – and I still have a couple more metres of it to go! Because I was sewing sequins as decoration, I decided to line the reticule, to keep the knots and thread from catching on whatever I put in the bag.   I used a blonde …

Evening Dress, French, c. 1817, silk and wool gauze with silk satin, iron floral pailettes, silk embroidery, silk-wrapped paper, cording of silk around metal core, and glass beads, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1958-74-1

Rate the Dress: Puffed sleeves & pailettes

Post an ‘interesting’ dress, get an ‘interesting’ set of responses!  This week’s puffed sleeves & pailette embellished Rate the Dress pick is a little more subtly interesting: possibly somewhere between last week and the week before.  Let’s see what you make of it! Last week: late bustle-era velvet, beading, and patterns Not surprisingly, there was a wide range of reactions to last weeks late 1880s bustle dress.  Ratings ranged from 3 to 10.  It was not a dress that was compromising, or trying to please.  It was a dress with a definite viewpoint, and a definite opinion. The Total: 8 I strongly suspect that the wearer of the dress wouldn’t have cared a fig what we rated it, and whether we liked it or not.  She liked it, and that was the only opinion that mattered! And that fact rather makes me like it even more. This week: a late Regency era evening dress This week I’ve gone simple and classic, but with hopefully enough interesting details to keep it from being boring, with a …

1795-1800 muslin dress thedreamstress.com

A mental meh and a very-end-of-the-18th-century muslin gown

I was really excited about my trip to Australia, and an opportunity/excuse to make a new ca. 1800 dress. I’ve done very little historical sewing since last Costume College, and I’m definitely missing it.  Regency has been on my sewing wishlist for quite a while.  I had a length of muslin I found at an op-shop that was just asking to be a simple almost-white dress. Should be perfect! Unfortunately I’m pretty meh about the result. I’m not sure if it’s really the dress, or simply in my brain. I’m currently going through a really hard patch as a costumer and historical sewer.  Mentally, I need a certain amount of time to focus on a project in order to really do a good job.  And I also need to keep in practice in order to not only to keep growing as a historical sewer, but to just stay at the levels of sewing that I’ve achieved in the past. And for the last few years I just haven’t managed to make that time.  Between starting …