A Dedicated Follower of Fashion

This past weekend was Victorian Belvidere - it's a cute little town in north Jersey that has a Victorian-themed sort of festival every September. They have house tours, teas, a baseball game, a fashion show, and lots of vendors. Oh, the shopping. That was about 90% of the reason we showed up. ;) It's very much a "wear something Victorian! Ish!" sort of event, so Robin and I wore hoops, and Alice her mid-1870s (all very impractical for shopping in tents, natch). We were very bad with the photo-taking this year (partly because nobody wore anything new, partly because we were having far too much fun to remember to take pictures), so the only one of all three of us is from some helpful person who shared it on Belvidere's Facebook page. courtesy Marianne Meyer-Garcia

Tardy post again! It's a rewear so I didn't bother getting my own pictures, just concentrated on enjoying myself! Saturday I attended Madame Modiste 's Victorian party; we had absolutely perfect weather - not too hot, partly cloudy, with a breeze. Eating snackies and chatting with well-dressed friends all afternoon, what's not to love? (Besides the closing of lanes on the bridge I take to get there, so it took almost twice as long to get there!) Plus Kat and her husband were celebrating their ten-year anniversary by renewing their vows, and they decided to share the ceremony with all of us! I originally planned to finish the long-neglected natural form cotton dress, but after the last-minute spencer sewing two weeks ago, I decided I didn't want to be doing any of that this time, and that I have a perfectly garden-party-appropriate 1860s dress in my closet anyway. I did still have to put fastenings on, so I took it out on Thursday to do so - and was glad I did,...

So - the few of us that were going to Fort Mifflin's Civil War Saturday changed our minds somewhere around Tuesday, after much checking of the weather forecast and deciding nobody really  wanted to fall over from heat exhaustion. Didn't want to waste all that work on our sheer dresses, so we decided to have tea (INSIDE) instead, and extended the invite to some more of our friends, making it a Victorian tea in a Victorian tea house in Riverton. Which had delicious food, by the way. I had the rose tea, which I really enjoyed and should've bought from the gift shop! I love this group shot!

I have one day left...now let's hope I don't screw anything up! Still have to finish the neckline trim, gather the skirt, and attach it to the bodice - and whatever odds & ends are left over that I've forgotten but still have to be finished. Anyway, this is a bit of the finished skirt (the hem facing is now tacked up as well). I'll be wearing this Saturday (hopefully...), so pictures after that!

I've budgeted out my time and remaining tasks to do on this dress, and I should be able to put it all together in a week if I stay on schedule! Which, thanks to hours and hours worth of work on it today, I am. ...although I'll be in trouble if my 25-more-yards-of-silk-ribbon doesn't ship quickly! *chews nails* 40 yards apparently isn't nearly enough! Anyway, where we are now. Two more flounces to go on the skirt, and then attach the skirt and bodice. Doable. (Also that's a 21-yard ruche. I felt you all needed to know that - because it was horrible .)

I'm really the WORST at updating here, I'm sorry! And I even have a few more followers than last time I checked...guess my lack of Doing Anything Interesting here hasn't deterred you. That's nice, I like you already. Currently in the works is a sheer dress, based on a fashion plate from 1862. (The one on the left is mine, though my hat's based on the other two.) In an attempt to stop buying fabric , I decided to use something from the Stash - white self-striped cotton organdy. (We won't talk about how I bought voile, then decided on this particular dress, attempted to buy morefor the billion yards of flounces, and despite having 200+ yards "in stock when I ordered it, the site was sold out! I was...displeased.) This has led to more of a giant marshmallow effect than I'm usually comfortable with...but you gotta step out of your comfort zone sometimes, right? (And I did buy 40 yards of blue silk ribbon to trim it with, but we won't discuss t...