All posts tagged: Theresa

ca. 1800 Recamier gown thedreamstress.com

Getting things right: my foundations pledge

Update:  Please do read this post and comment on it, because it’s interesting and pretty and important, but don’t leave your links to your HSF/M Foundations challenge blog posts on this one, because that’s not what it’s for!  They belong on yesterdays  post. 🙂 Five years ago I made this ca. 1800 dress, inspired by two  portraits of Madame Recamier: I managed to make it in one day, even though it is predominantly hand-sewn.  Unfortunately, in the rush to make it, I didn’t double-check Janet Arnold, and I made a rather big mistake. Can you see it? It’s the front-skirt to bodice join.  I gathered my entire front skirt to the apron bodice, where there should have been almost no gathering, and the sides of the skirts should have hung over, and wrapped around the back, thus eliminating that enormous fold running down the side of the skirt, and the weird gathered-front but flat sides effect.   I realised the mistake almost as soon as the dress was done, but didn’t fix it.  Every time …

Pride, Prejudice & Pohutakawa Trees

Theresa was in town recently, and you know what that means!  Dress ups!  And photoshoots! For this photoshoot we wore Regency, because the pohutakawa (the New Zealand christmas tree) were in full bloom, and I think my 1813 Kashmiri gown works beautifully with the blaze of red blooms.  Also it was too hot to think of anything that involved full corsets and layers of undergarments. This time we did something a little bit different, and Mr D came along and was our photographer, so (for once) we have lots of gorgeous photos of the two of us together. With two ladies in Regency wandering around a garden it’s impossible not to make Jane Austen themed commentary about the photos.  In doing this I’ve realised an unfortunate problem with Austen: other than Lizzie and Jane from Pride & Prejudice, there are no sets of two females that a pair of friends would really be happy to be.  Emma is insufferable, her friends silly. Fanny is a prig, her associates terrible.  Anne is great but none of …