Edwardian Mad

I don't mean to cheat on my beloved Downton Abbey, but I've recently discovered Mr Selfridge, which has sent me even more Edwardian-crazy. I'm particularly a fan of Agnes' sailor-collar work dress: 

...And Mrs Selfridge's floaty lace get-ups. 

Not to mention all the gorgeous A-line and bell-shaped skirts. No doubt you'll see my own versions here in the future. In brief other news, I made a party frock to wear to a wedding in November out of the remainder of the fabric from the Edwardian evening dress I made recently. Didn't even need any extra! Think I made the neckline a tad too low but I'm sure my reputation will survive. 

Back to Edwardian-ness - I've been wanting an excuse to incorporate into some ensemble these yummy vintage French made gloves that were given to me by my rad pseudo-mum-in-law.

I was down the Sallies one day and found a huge gorgeous cream brocade curtain. That baby swiftly came home with me and got paired with said gloves, hat, buttons and of course pattern from the late-teens. 

And I've already got this far, because when I get into something I'm like a runaway train...

It just needs back fastenings and possibly some trimming. Notice the darling apron and headpiece with the maid's uniform? Pretty stoked how they turned out. (Ignore the beads, that's just where they live at the moment). Better Half and I joke that I should don the outfit to do our housework. 

The hat in the picture above was also a Sallies score, but it's a little too small. But as I never concede defeat with such things I decided to fix it. Token before photo: 

I picked off the satin ribbon as well as the crown-lining ribbon in hopes to stretch it out, as the weave of the hat is on the bias. So I stretched it over this bowl and gave it a good seeing-to with steam from my iron. 

This should give it more of a cloche shape. I'll see in the morning how well it holds it's bowl-shape, and maybe give it a go over with hairspray or something and see how that helps. Once I'm happy with it I'll return the satin ribbon. And one of these days I should actually take some photos of me IN a dress! 

I might as well face it, I'm addicted to piping

So in the end, for my maid's uniform, it was between Anna pre-1920...

...And Anna post-1920. 

And I only chose the latter because I didn't have appropriate white lace in my stash for the collar of the former, and, well, I wanted to do more piping. 

It's a very simple process - just cut diagonal strips of chosen fabric and sew them together to make one long strip. (Don't ask me why I sewed black thread onto white, I'm just lazy). 

Iron it in half lengthwise...

And, using a zipper foot, sew some string into the fold in one continuous length. 

I'm terrible at taking progress-photos, so here is a picture of the dress almost-finished. I just have to do the buttonholes really. 

The collar isn't quite the right shape, and I did have to add an extra little dart into it to to make it sit properly on the shoulders, so hopefully that won't be noticeable. Haven't decided if I'll actually bother to make the apron or not...knowing me I'll just get distracted by something else. Probably something else with piping. 

1860s day dress

Somehow I managed, between assignments, to make a whole Victorian-style dress in the past couple of weeks, complete with techniques I haven't tried before. (Ignore the lack of buttons though - I'm still awaiting them in the post). I used Laughing Moon's Ladies' Early 1860's Day Dress for the main part of the dress, but as I wasn't convinced about the sleeves, I used the sleeves from Butterick's Making History #5831.

The back featured some weird fake-seams which I managed to pull off pretty well:

And I did a whole 'lotta do-it-yourself piping, which I've also never done before. I thought it would be real fiddly and difficult, but it was real easy! I made metres of the stuff! Unforch didn't get any photos of it before I used it, so will endeavour to get some in the future. But here are some of it on the dress itself:

My next project will be a similar-ish style inspired by the maid's outfits from Downton Abbey. Despite them not being fancy or sparkly like the upstairs costumes, there's something about them I'm really drawn to. I like their simplicity and functionality, and above anything else perhaps I just relate more to the working class than the upper class. Anyway, here are some examples:

And here are a couple of other examples I found while Google-snooping.

I think I'll do a black one first and then hopefully source enough patterned green or something similar for another one. Now those wretched buttons better show up soon, I hate having UFOs lying around.

Finished patchwork apron

So I finished the patchwork apron a little while ago and gave it to Better Half for his birthday. I think he'd forgotten about it by then so it still ended up being a surprise! Here is the handsome fellow modelling it:

He's going to put it to good use this evening to cook us a beer-can roast chicken! And while obtaining said beer-can this afternoon I spotted this ginger beer that I thought I'd try.

Don't like it. Far too bitter. It's hard to find a good alcoholic ginger beer, and I've only managed to come across two so far that I actually like - the one by The Sprig and Fern Brewery and a new beer called Ranga, the name of which some people got their knickers all in a twist about. Maybe I should just stick to what I know.

In other news fabric has been obtained for my next wedding dress project - don't actually know if it's supposed to be a secret or not, so I should probably ask my bride - but actual construction probably won't start on that until September. In the meantime though, I've started a party dress from the remaining maroon fabric from the Edwardian dress to wear to said wedding. 

More costumes for sale!

I've dug out two more costumes I'm not particularly attached to, so here's your chance of owning one! Pics of the finished Edwardian dress will come as soon as possible, I promise.

Womens' Elizabethan costume

 

 

Womens' Renaissance costume

 

 

 

Evening Edwardian progress

I'm really enjoying making this dress, and am already pretty much on to the finishing touches. Here is a photo taken the other day of how the bodice was coming along:

I was going to take some more photos after some delicate hand-stitching:

But then the cat decided that she thought the dress looked rather comfortable.

So that's that for the time being.

Brooch dress finished ft. I would really like a new bloody camera

I am yet to try it on, but I've finished the 1913 brown velvet day dress designed around the Belgian brooch! Here we are:

Rubbish photo of my brown velvet day dress from 1913

Next on the agenda is a 1909-1913 evening dress from the Laughing Moon Mercantile pattern I recently bought:

Laughing Moon Mercantile pattern #104

I'm going to use some of the fabric I bought in Samoa, and it's going to look vaguely something like this:

Rubbish photo of my plans for an Edwardian evening dress

If I don't have enough left over I may have to try and source some more...as I have another plan for this fabric, and I'm torn between the two. I'll make this first, and see how much I have left :)