I realized I never posted about my collection of Edwardian underwear that I sewed, jeez, four years ago now??? I’m wearing most of these garments under my Alice Roosevelt gown. The thing with historical costuming is there’s just SO. MANY. LAYERS. When I want to make a modern outfit I just whip up a dress in a few hours but if I want to tackle a new costuming era there’s a bare minimum of four…
This dress is the culmination of months of work, not only on the dress itself but also on documenting the process on my new YouTube channel. So I’m not going to go into too much detail on how I created this gown because you can watch all the drama over there. Also, this YouTube things is a new adventure for me. I’ve been blogging under some version of DixieDIY since 2007(!!!???!?!), and during that time…
You might remember my last Regency project – this black velvet and silk spencer, which I made specifically to hide the back bodice of a poorly made white striped gown. Which was my second attempt at making a white striped Regency gown. It feels like I’ve been trying to make one stupid dress for years with no luck – until now! Sheer white muslin dresses were like the little black dress of the Regency era….
This historical costume project came about as an attempt to salvage another historical costume project. Let’s begin with the dress that inspired the jacket. Warning, this post is long so if you’d like to skip to the discussion on the jacket, continue down until you see more jacket photos. I sewed this white Regency gown years ago but due to a massive fail on my part, it lingered in the Drawer of Shame ever since….
There’s nothing like a strict deadline to motivate you to finish a project. That’s what I gave myself for this newest historical costume. To celebrate my birthday I decided to visit the Medieval Faire near Austin and of course, I needed clothes to wear. The Faire I went to is themed more toward the European middle ages than the Renaissance so I went with something in the middle – the 14th century. Plague times, yeah!…
After what seems like years I’ve finally finished my 1840s costume. I completed the dress months ago but the bonnet languished unfinished until recently. Underneath all of this, I’m wearing my Victorian undergarments (including four petticoats!), silk stockings and brown leather ballet flats (not exactly period accurate but close enough for now). Let’s talk about this dress: The pattern is Laughing Moon Mercantile #114 with some minor adjustments. I made View B but with the flat…
This might be my most elaborate costume make to date. And I finished it justintime for my event at an art museum where these photos were taken (so ignore the buses and cars in the background). To summarize, I’m wearing a cotton chemise under this Victorian corset, a steel lobster-tail bustle with ruffled petticoat, an underskirt, overskirt, bodice, bonnet, along with silk stockings and costume lace-up boots. Also, my mother-in-law was kind enough to let…
I’ve been neglecting the blog in favor of Instagram this month. I haven’t finished many projects but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been sewing. So so much sewing… and drafting and cleaning and planning, etc. As a little re-cap, here are just a few of the things I’ve been working on lately… Blank Slate Sewing Team Earlier this month as part of the Blank Slate Sewing Team I shared my Denver Sweatshirt hack over at…