MLS Designs

I also have some photos of last Sunday's 18thC  reenactment to share, I can't find the charger for my camera so had to use my phone, which has the one bonus of easy photo uploading ;)
(I really need to work out how to do a cut on my phone app! )

 

Walking towards the government camp:

The view from our home from home - the officer's tent:

Mummy sorting out her lunch:

Me ditto ;)

Out for a stroll:

After stand down the boys got up a bit of a cricket match, our regiment, Pulteney's XIII and the visitors (who's name I can't remember! )

Needless to say, our boys won ;)

I'm going to be doing a lower class impression next year, which should be fun :)

Still working on my Williamsburg wardrobe, but now it's a 1745 dark blue wool en fourreau gown!



I started pleating the skirt yesterday over my larger hoops, and it would not lie right and looked dreadful and I though I was going to have to scrap the whole thing, but today I tried my smaller hoops and it works great! I am severely limited by the amount of fabric I have, but I've just managed to squeeze it all out. Luckily the petticoat is adjustable, so it works just fine with the smaller hoops. I have plenty of hand-sewing for work tomorrow, and hopefully it won't be too long before I can cross another thing off my list :)
Talking of which, last week was great for list crossing! I finished the Brunswick, right down to the matching stomacher for wearing it as a pet en l'air, and my fur trimmed short cloak (which I have just realised I've not posted any photos of!) and I knotted several necklaces and made a new fichu.

My stripy jacket is coming along nicely. By the time I get home from work tomorrow night (about 9pm I think) I should hopefully have sewn in the sleeves, covered the linen shoulder straps in the silk, and hemmed the 'skirt'. After all, there is one up side to the amount of time I have to spend in school doing nothing during a performance week - lot's of sewing time!
Knowing how much time 'll have to kill at school, I don't want to do any of the hand sewing at home, so this evening I started cutting out a capelet. I'm making it from a very pretty sage green silk taffeta I bought in Paris, lined with dark cream wool left over from my 1860s bathing suit. Unfortunately I only have enough wool for the body of the capelet, and I wanted to make a hood.
My question is, do you think I could have an unlined taffeta hood on a lined capelet? I'm planning to bind the edges in cream silk taffeta, like the little girl in 'The morning toilet' here: http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/jean-baptiste-simeon-chardin/the-morning-toilet But it's so hard to tell what's going on at the neck of her capelet!
If I DO make a hood, how would I finish it to match the rest of the capelet? with the same wide binding round the face? or if I don't make a hood, how would a small cape collar look? It would certainly work with the binding style at least.
Ugh! I don't know what to do now. Help!!

So, we're all off to Keddlestone on Saturday, and next Sunday we're dancing at a Marie Anntoinette tea party, then April 2nd we're at the minuette ball in Bath. Mummy has been borrowing a coat from school and a modern shirt adapted to look 'right' with her own breeches and waistcoat I made last spring. The coat and shirt have had to go back to school because I need them for an upcoming play, so I'm making her her own.

Yesterday I started the shirt, because I figured I can't really fit a coat pattern very well if she isn't wearing a shirt! Mummy has been saying she'd really like girls clothes to wear for Georgian, but I don't have the time to make any for her, especially when she needs boy's clothes for the demos, so I want to make her boy's stuff really nice to make up for it. So I decided, instead of adapting a modern shirt for her I would make her a proper 18thC shirt, with the proper rectangular constuction.

Boy do I wish I hadn't decided that! Mummy has VERY sloping shoulders, and men usually have very square shoulders, so I have had soooo much trouble fitting the collar and neck gussets! I decided to make the shirt by machine, becase I have so much to do and the rest of her outfit is machined, and I worked out how to put it together looking at various different instructions. It went together fantastically, then I tried it on when it was all complete and the fit around the neck was awful! Absolutely dire!! By then it was time for bed, so I left it till today. We were out all day and had a few hours this evening before we went out for a meal with friends, so I took the collar off, took out the neck gussets and recut the slits lengthening them by 3 times as much I think? New huge gussets and several tries of the pinned on collar later and I have a finished, perfectly (almost!!) fitted shirt! As much as they can be when all they are is rectangles! It just needs ties at collar and cuffs and lace frills.

So, tomorrow it's onto coat patterning! I bought 2 lots of fabric last week, to go with what she has already. Her waistcoat is old gold, and her breeches are red floral damask. I found some bright, deep crimson chenilley velvet upholstery fabric, it's not right, but I think it will look nice, for a day coat for her, that I will make for Saturday, and she can wear for the Tea Party. I also got some old gold and brown fabric, it's sort of a taffeta, with lines of raised threads in a diamond pattern, with brown 'spots' at each conjunction, that I will use to make an evening coat and breeches for the ball.

She loves the fabrics and is very happy with the plan, except she would love an embroidered waistcoat like Clare! She was saying so so often that I had to tell her my plan for her birthday present, a waistcoat with ribbon embroidery! I'm not sure if I'll be able to get to it though, ( her birthday is March 20th) I have so much to do for the ball, so I've decided, as a surprise, to make her another waistcoat that she can wear to the Tea Party with the new red coat. I have 2 small scraps of brocade in a lovely narrow red, gold and cream floral 'regency stripe' that I think will be just enough for a waistcoat, hopefully she will like it :)

So that's what I'm up to at the moment! I also need to finish my dress for the Tea party, but my outfit for Saturday is all sorted, I'm wearing my Ikea duvet cover Anglaise, brown linen petticoat, the mits Clare knitted for me and my cardinal cloak. I'm going to see if I can wear the jumps under the dress as well, fo extra warmth. IF I have time (ha ha!) I want to make a muff, with a skin of cream taffeta with yellow taffeta and rococo ribbon trim.

And now, bed!

Here we go, let's see how long this takes!!

( The list of my year's adventures in costuming, complete with piccytures, is all under here!! )

I've decided I need to do less this year, this list took far too long! All afternoon!!! It's so much fun to see it all in one place though ;)

Well, I didn't wear my red wool after all, didn't get the buttons on the shift so decided to wear my Indian print instead. It was a rather glum looking morning, but by the time we set off at about 2 it had cheered up, and we had glorious sunshine all afternoon!
Clare decided not to dress up in the end, so she was our official photographer! There are quite a few pics, so they're all ( under here... )

Now I need to finish my bathing suit for Wednesday, and then I can get on with my long long list!!

From the historical bazaar this time, which was a bit of a waste of time, but it was held in the grounds of Rufford Abbey, which was well worth a visit, and we had a nice lunch too! Any way, to fit in with the multi time period bazaar we all dressed in different eras - 2 Anglo Saxons, 2 Georgians, a Regency lady and a WAAF girl :)
Since the only time we've done Georgian before has been for balls, or demos (where hats can be problematic!) I realised I had nothing for my head! SO I took apart a £1 straw hat and shaped it into a tricorn, covered it with biscuit coloured dupion silk from the stash. I decorated it with the very last of the pink silk taffeta from my frilly 1860s ballgown, along with an ostrich feather stolen from another bonnet, 2 arrow-head shaped ostrich tips and a diamante brooch, to make the prettiest bit of fluff! I love it!
Anyway, the photos are ( right this way ... )

I still have some more photos to share, from this Sunday, we didn't have dance practice, so the organiser suggested we go on tour instead, we went to Hawkstone Park in Shropshire. It's 18thC owner created a path up and down the sides of the valley, through caves and under trees, over bridges made of logs and through arches blasted in the side of the hill, he filled it with follies and in the 19thC it was opened to the public, so we went in our Victorian kit for a picnic and, for those of us who's joints were up to it, a walk over the trail! So hopefully I'll get them posted tomorrow.

My millinering went very well, my hat is a froofy bit of cute and I LOVE it :) can't wait to wear it now, and you have to wait for photos till Sunday because it really needs hair to do it justice ;)
Pub tomorrow lunch time, then a ball in the evening, and dressing up again on Sunday, even if the bazaar is a total wash out it will be fun to dress up, and hopefully it'll be a nice sunny day! So a lovely weekend should be on the way ...

So, I'm home from work at school and the lunchtime shift at the pub, waiting till it's time to go back to the pub for the evening shift! So before I go for my little nap, I thought I'd post a photo of the jewellery I made for the ball on Saturday:

I had a very bad night's sleep last night, so after work and the pub I'm so tried :( I hope a nap now and a good night's sleep later will help, and luckily I don't have to do the evening shift the rest of this week, otherwise, this would be a very very long week!