being sick has it's upsides!

[mlsdesigns]

i've been off work all week with a horrid cold, but now i'm finally better, i suppose i was skiving a bit maybe yesterday, but i got very tired in the afternoon, so if i'd been at work i'm sure i would have keeled over by lunch time.
anyway, i've done no sewing at all since i finished the ball gown! but i WILL start on my CC stuff tomorrow, even if all i do is dress meg in my undies and get my fabrics out to play :)
but, i do have something nice for you all! i spent most of today editing the 1 hour and forty something minutes of video into 8 more videos from the ball :) they are all up on you tube now, so here you have a link, just to make things easier it's to my 'homepage' or whatever they call it, instead of putting 8 links, or worse, embedding all 8 videos :)
http://www.youtube.com/user/mlsdesigns

Comments

[myladyswardrobe.livejournal.com]

I really love your frock. Its SO gorgeous and the colour of that fabric is just exquisite.

Hope one day to see it in person!

BTW - During August/September I will be working on my 1840/50s gown. This one of Konigin Marie-Louise van Belgie. I have the blood red velvet - a very nice silk/rayon mix (the silk is the pile!) but I have a question. Should I completely line the skirt? My previous 1845 gown I made for Dickens last November was not lined in the skirt. The fabric was nice and stiff and when turned up a couple of times for the hem gave a nice stiffness there too.

So, should I line it? If I did, I was thinking of a habotai silk in ivory as I want it to line the sleeves anyway (white cotton drill for the bodice I think). Also, if I did line it, should the lining be stitched to the hem or left loose?

[mlsdesigns.livejournal.com]

i think if you're going to line anything in the 19th century it should be flatlined, bodices, and sleeves if they're lined, are done this way. but, now i'm probably wrong :) but i don't think skirts were lined. they liked to use hem facings, some very narrow, some very deep, and hem braid and dust ruffles, but i'm not sure that lined skirts were the norm. i certainly don't line our 1860s skirts (not since the first one i made, it was soooo heavy, never again!! when i re-made it for mummy i took out the skirt lining! but it was flatlined and i didn't have any problems with different 'sag', the skirt was wool lined with, *gasp* polly curtain lining form dunelm!!)
to keep your skirt having a nice shape use lots of cording in your petticoat hems :)
any way, thank you for the compliments! you know very well how absolutely gorgeous the fabric is in person :) and i felt so wonderful being covered in frills and furbelows!
i hope you do too :) even if it isn't till 2010 :p

[myladyswardrobe.livejournal.com]

This is what I was thinking - that skirts weren't lined at all. Victorian crinoline skirts in portraits look very different from Tudor/Elizabethan skirts in portraits and we know that 16th century skirts were fully lined and stitched at hem and waist.

Seems that the 18th century with the sacque back gown stopped lining skirts - which does make sense when one is trying to pleat that amount of fabric into the back of a gown. Gives a more "floaty" effect rather than the stiff silhouette of the tudor period.

Thanks for your advice. Makes things a bit easier when making the gown. I suppose plenty of petticoats and ensure they have nice hems and frills etc.

[mlsdesigns.livejournal.com]

yes, lots of petticoats :) if you gather your frills on corded headers, and cord their hems too, you should get lots of body!
yes, they were certainly very poofy, look at how my skirt bobs up and down :p

[myladyswardrobe.livejournal.com]

Oh, and we don't need to wait till 2010! Could always try to meet up for an event or just meet up before then! :-)

[mlsdesigns.livejournal.com]

that would be nice :) one of these days i'm going to manage to visit kentwel, i've never been! so at least we get to meet, but you don't get to see the dress :)

[librarianofdoom.livejournal.com]

Hello! I found out about your journal by way of various people's posts about Costume Con (and, more recently your comments on jennil's journal). May I add you as a friend?

[mlsdesigns.livejournal.com]

yes of course :)

[librarianofdoom.livejournal.com]

Thank you!