A Dedicated Follower of Fashion

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!

I was invited to join some new friends at an 18thc living history demonstration they were doing for the New York Historical Society this past Sunday...I could sit and sew things and talk to the public about it? Sign me up! I worked on a cap, which was apparently not as exciting as the tailoring demonstration going on next to me; I kept teasing that next time I'd have to bring a whole gown with me, would that be impressive enough? And I was very glad I was inside yesterday, unlike the poor guys with their drumming...it was HOT! And the triathlon closed down half the streets in the city so we couldn't even get to the Historical Society; we had to park about six blocks away and hike our stuff over so I can tell you just how hot it was! Was very grateful a gauze cap didn't weigh much, at that point...