Dressmaking demo at the IKT

Or; A Dress-Not-In-A-Day!

Two weekends ago, the usual suspects and I put on a dressmaking demo at the Indian King Tavern, where I'm a docent. We advertised it, very falsely, as a Dress In A Day...well, we did try! But we're none of us professionals, we're not so good at talking to the public while continuing to sew, and we were only there for about 5.5 hours. So it ended up being a 2/3-of-a-Dress-in-a-Day!

All hand-sewn, with the best 18thc technique we could muster!

Robin of SewLoud was our dummy victim model, as she very helpfully volunteered her dress-length of lavender silk for the event. She's got a dress writeup on her blog that I've linked to if you want to read a bit more and see more finished photos!

It was unpleasantly hot that day; we just skirted 90F. So really, our model in her stays got the better end of the deal! ;) (Otherwise I would have worn a nicer dress, to show off my mantua-making "skills" to my "client"...but in that heat I'm going for linen, thankyouverymuch.)

 

We ended up with about 2/3 of the dress done. At least it was looking like a dress when we finished!

A very big thank-you to my friends for being good sports and working on their days off! :)

This past weekend, the Indian King had a guest speaker that told us about tea in colonial times, and 2/3 of my team thought it would be fun to attend - especially if Robin managed to finish the rest of the dress! She did, and since it was, no exaggeration, 30 degrees cooler than the Saturday before, we determined it was Silk Sunday and dressed accordingly!

And Robin wore a splendid hat! I wonder where she got it...?

Yes, it's my hat! Thievery!

And my mitts, for that matter...

Enjoying a stroll in the just-slightly-too-modern-for-our-dresses cemetery

I think we were all pleased with how the dress came out, and Robin looks lovely in it!

Up next: something very modern; we're going as the public to the WWII air show in Reading in the beginning of June. I hold out a faint hope that it won't be 90F that weekend...