Regency Walking Party

I finally had an occasion to wear my new Regency dress and purple Thrift Store Spencer (though it quickly became too warm for that).  As you can see above, the curve of the back actually turned out nicely. I was having loads of issues getting it to lay flat when pinning it, so I am pleased with this result. It think it shows off my bustle beautifully.

There are a lot of things I wish I had done differently with this dress even though I am still happy I made it. One thing is, the dress turned out way too short. I can't understand how that happened since my Regency Dress 1.0 was extremely long and I used the same pattern. Oh well... the shortness actually came in handy for the walking party, since the other girls were either dragging their hems through the mud, or eventually became tired of holding up their gowns.

The table spread reminded me of the Mad Hatter's tea party.

Another thing I messed up was that the bust of the dress was too high. It kept riding up and slicing my boobs a bit. Heather says if I have the right foundation garments this might solve the problem. Also, Jennifer gave me some pointers of how to modify my bodiced petticoat slightly to push my boobs together more. So, hopefully I can make this dress work.. eventually.

Fun picnicking blankets!

The picnic was so much fun, as we had a lot of food to share and loads of wonderful conversation. I can't wait to have another event like this! There were many beautiful dresses to look at and many looky-loos wandering our way. Hopefully PERC Fresno will grow over time with more period costume fans in attendance. 

The whole group in assembly at the Japanese Gardens in Fresno.

More pretty costumes!

1940s Shirt Dress Mockup

I've been working on my 1940s shirt dress muslin designed from a Hollywood Pattern and here's what I have so far: 

I keep forgetting to clean my mirror before I take the pics. Oh well, I just wanted to post SOMETHING since I've been MIA from the sewing world for a month now.

The muslin is obviously not made of muslin. It's a green Rayon fabric that is so clingy it is currently circling around in my dryer with a buttload of dryer sheets. My main goal of making the muslin is to learn to decipher vintage pattern directions as well as see if this pattern even fits me. The package measurements as stated are only slightly off: Bust is 1.5 inches larger and Hip is one inch larger. Therefore I figured I'd just make the muslin without any alterations and see what's what. 

I ended up actually folding the facing on the bodice wrong and inadvertently shaved off about and inch from the width of it. It seems okay, though it may have made the collar opening too risque.  What do you think?

Also, I know I SHOULD make all those thousands of buttonholes as practice, but that would require me to go buy some interfacing, and I don't really feel like it right now.  Hey.... question... would you completely laugh at me if I didn't do bound buttonholes on this? The dress is for a play (where you as an audience member would be about 5-15 feet away from me at any given time)... and I don't want anyone laughing out loud at my buttonholes and saying "wait... this IS 1941, right?"  That would be embarrassing.

Also, I have no idea how much to hem off the skirt. Unhemmed, it hangs about 3 inches lower than my knee.

BTW, I'll be at a Regency Event this weekend so I'll finally have some Regency dress and Spencer photos to share! 

Here's a little preview with myself and Jennifer Rosbrugh from Historicalsewing.com whose name is actually pronounced Rosebrook.. go figure: