Rebel Symbol Scarf

YAY! I finished something this break! A Rebel Symbol Scarf!!!!!!!

The scarf was a request made by Devin (above) because he got a wonderfully grey peacoat and needed a scarf to make it complete. In 6 hours I created and finished this scarf while watching the BBC's Wives and Daughters.

Awwww, isn't he adorable?!

Hoorah for accomplishments :) My next post shall be my hand-stitched petticoat, so STAY TUNED

Christmas 2010!!!!

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas equipped with all the festivities, family and fun. I had a very blessed time with my family and I got a lot of awesome things this Christmas that I'd like to show you all :)

BOOKS
The past couple of years, I have been receiving books for the majority of my presents. I have an Amazon Wishlist and from it I received:

The Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Fashion in Detail by Susan North

and 

The Nineteenth Century Fashion in Detail by Lucy Johnston

Both these books are from the Victoria and Albert Fashion Museum collection and are really fascinating. I love being able to see individual stitches, minor flaws (that make me feel better about my work), and simply the wonderful detailed photographs/descriptions of the garments. The only thing to make them better would be to have photos of the whole garment instead of really up close ones. The book is great though. I'm soooo glad I have them now!

The Cut of Men's Clothes: 1600-1900

and

Corsets and Crinolines both by Norah Waugh 

These books are just wonderful. I got a used/older version of the Cut of Men's Clothes and a new version of Corsets and Crinolines but I couldn't be happier. These are definitely must-haves.

After a Fashion: How to Reproduce, Restore, and Wear Vintage Styles 

and

The Edwardian Modiste: 85 Authentic Patterns with Instructions, Fashion Plates and Period Sewing Techniques

both by Francis Grimble

 I knew these would be great the moment I saw them. Last year I was happy to get Francis' book: Reconstruction Era Fashions and to say the least, It's fantastic. After a Fashion is chock full of very useful information for me since I'm quite a novice at just about everything. I was looking at some of the chapters in it just thinking "Oh, that makes sense now!" and the like. Very good book. The Edwardian Modiste is also good. I find it funny that each fashion plate has a pasted face on it. 

Heirloom Embroidery by Jan Constantine

This was a surprise book my mom happened to find. I keep telling her that I want to start embroidery so she got me a book on it :) I love my mommy.

Spencerian Penmanship by Platt Rogers Spencer

Another endeavor I would like to start on is my handwriting. I would like to write well and beautifully. I think of all my books I got, this present got the biggest reaction from me. This is something I'm dying to start on.


OTHER THAN BOOKS
Apart from all the awesome books I got the following things:

Young Victoria

This movie is superb. I seriously love it.

Return to Cranford 

How can you go wrong with a period miniseries? You can't. Especially if it's from the BBC. My brother and I bought Cranford (and other series) 

The whole show is just so darn adorable. Judi Dench plays a really caring/naive character, which is soooo refreshing compared to her role as M from 007, which is pretty rigid. The series is definitely one worth watching.

Pennywhistles!

I recently played an original arrangement of O Come, O Come Emmanuel at my church a few weeks ago. I decided I wanted more of them (they're fixed key instruments) so I got 4 new ones in keys other than D so now I can play WHATEVER I WANT :D

I also got a Yarn Carrier, Truffles, a 9-headed Dragon Incense Burner, a SnapFish photo album of my boyfriend and I, a LIGHTSABER UMBRELLA, some clothes, a springform pan, and some moneys. It was a really blessed Christmas to say the least. I received way more than I was ever expecting. OH YEAH!!! And I got a necklace that belonged to my Great-Grandmother.

Isn't it pretty?

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!!!!

 

Lawn Dress

It's long past due for a new post. My Red Dress is fitted, now only the sleeves need put on. The Regency Bodiced Petticoat only needs buttons. The Darth Maul Amigurumi hasn't been picked up yet. I haven't even thought about my quilt. But, I can post about an old dress I bought a while back at an antique store.

The dress is called a Lawn Dress. I have pondered the reasons why it would be called such; wearing it for garden parties (on the lawn. harhar), the fabric being called lawn, or some other crazy reason that no one would ever have thought of? Well, I've never really found a good explanation, and don't know enough about  fabrics to say if it is in fact lawn or not.

Regardless of my prattle, I'm sure you want to see some pictures, right? Yes, you do!!!! So, here is the ca. 1910 Lawn Dress snatched for $60 at an antique store.

Disclaimer: Yes, that is me wearing the dress, 3 years ago, the day it was bought. At the time, I had never read anything about human oils deteriorating antique fabric. I was very careful and only wore it for about 15 minutes.

These are the only two photos of the entire dress

stupid look on my face.. I know

torqued off Amber? Maybe.

The dress has a lot of rips and tears. It used to have a lot of stains, but my mom read up and found a way to clean antique fabrics without damaging them. It worked like a charm.

The details are much better seen in Black and White

CrAzY picture of my face

the back of the dress is pretty too!

and this is a cool pic of the sky I happened to take that day

So, yeeeah. There's a new post !!!!!!!!

Devil in a blue... I mean RED dress. Oh nevermind

Hooray! I am happy to say that I am officially done with Fall Quarter 2010 and am off to my wonderful 5 week break. I received 3 A's and 2 B's for the quarter (of which I'm quite surprised to see I did so well).

Now that my break has begun, I'm delving into new projects each day. Right now I'm dealing with a red dress that's being fussy.

The dress is a performance dress for the choir I am the accompanist and assistant director of. Our school colors are Red, Black and Grey; which was all I had to choose from. I bought my red dress from a consignment shop for $19 bucks and I figured I could just alter it to fit me, add some sleeves and be done with it. At the time I was a size 6 (the dress being a small 9/10 wouldn't have been that hard to alter) Well, not to toot my own horn, but I've lost a little bit of weight, bringing me down to a solid size 4. Oh goody for me.  As you see in the picture, it is now quite gappy in a few areas.

I also want to add sleeves to the dress since I am technically a representative of the school and probably shouldn't be too revealed. Though, I'm not sure what kind of sleeves just yet. The girls in the choir said I should do a sleeve like this:

the sleeves would be slightly smaller in width

Yet my mom says I should do something more like this:

A much more matronly look

but maybe bigger drape thing like this:

EVEN MORE MATRONLY :D

What do you all think I should do? I'm at a loss