MLS Designs

I had a lovely time at the ball last night, but I've been struggling with a headache since Friday because the weather has changed from lovely summer to rotten winter :( So I have downloaded my pics but don't have the energy to post them now, maybe tomorrow! I do have one though, ( taken at home after the ball ... ever so slightly deshabille! )


I'm pretty pleased with how the dress turned out, but I have realised I do need to re-do the bodice, it doesn't fit right at the bust or shoulders. But that can wait, its next incarnation will be a plaid trimmed day bodice for June 19th, I just have to come up with a plan ....

Scotland was lovely, we had wonderful weather and had a nice relaxing time, did some sight seeing and visited a few castles. I didn't get as much sewing done as I thought I would, I think because I'm totally uninterested in Elizabethan sewing at the moment! I knew I should be doing the Elizabethan sewing but just didn't really want to :( But I did manage to put my kirtle bodice together, then couldn't get any further, because even though I remembered my lacing strips I forgot to take a lace! So I threw the horrid thing in a corner and turned to Regency sewing instead!

With waht I managed to do while we were away, and what I've done today, I now have a half made pink silk spencer, a pink coal-scuttle bonnet just waiting for ribbon ties and an almost finished white figured muslin long sleeved cross-over dress :) The dress would have been finished days ago if I had remembered I needed to fit the pattern over my new short stays :(

I had the sleevs set in, the darts sewn, waistband sewn on and the skirt pinned in place, when I tried it on to find it didn't fit :( so I had to take out all the hand sewing in the waistband, darts and side seams to make it bigger! I had to taper the side seams into the armholes, because there was no way I was going to re-set the sleeves as well as everything else! It now just needs half a hem and wrist ties, and the lace trim round the neck, down the front and round the sleeve hems. I'm hopefully going to wear it for a birthday tea part in a few weeks :)

The spencer will be taking a back burner now though. It's made from the train from my huge pink 1860s ballgown, after taking off the ruffles and waistband. I decided I'm not likely to ever wear the train again, and it's such lovely fabric, so I finally get the pink spencer I've been wanting since I was 12 :D

I do have slightly scary plans for the next 2 weeks though, there's a ball coming up and I may have decided to be totally insane ...! The huge pink ballgown is lovely, I'm really proud of it, but I'm bored of it. It has a day bodice and an evening bodice, but the evening bodice doesn't fit anymore after I lost so much weight with the gall stones, and I've worn it several times already, so I was thinking of what I could do with it. It's a shame to just leave it in a drawer. Amazignly, a solution fell into my lap without me even looking!

I took The Buccaneers to Scotland to watch while sewing, I'd never seen it before, and then when I got home and read through the many pages of my Flist I was bombarded on all sides by even more bustley goodness, so I think I may have finally given in to the dark side! A be-ruffled pink bustle is in my future! More plans tomorrow, but for now, bed ;) Let's see if I can manage the undies and re-make in time for the ball, on May 14th!