A Dedicated Follower of Fashion

Back from our Not-So-Grand Tour of New England! We drove up Monday and stayed outside of Boston for two nights, then down to Plymouth on Wednesday, Providence Thursday, and drove home Friday, stopping in Sleepy Hollow/Tarrytown on the way. The only time I'd been up to New England was a school trip to Boston about ten years ago, so I was excited to go back. So much Historical Stuff (I planned a lot of our itinerary; can you tell?), and the scenery is just beautiful. My mom agreed with me, Lil' Sis...maybe not so much. Don't worry, this isn't where I inflict all my touristy pictures on you, just my What I Wore. Since I spent most of the previous week working on some new dresses, I thought I might as well get snaps of them too. First off is a cheater. I didn't make it, it's vintage. (I had one more dress in the works, but ended up putting it aside in favor of Katherine Parr. Right, that's a thing I'm doing...) It's just a cheap little house dress, b...

Just a quick update, then I'm off with the family for our (Not-So-)Grand Tour of New England! We'll be back Friday evening so you won't even miss me here. Since the vast majority of sewing this week has been modern dresses for said Tour, I'll post about those when I get home. I did also finish sewing spangles on Katherine Parr's forepart, though. That's something! They're little tiny 2.5mm spangles, so they don't look like much on camera. I promise they're very nice in person!

I got kind of sidetracked from K Parr this week. I'm going on a Family Vacation next week, and wanted to make a new dress or two for it. (Look, I work in a job where I have to wear ugly sneakers and ugly polos, so I like to dress up when I'm not at work.) I successfully finished a novelty print 1960 skirt, and am close to finishing a Hawaiian print late-50s dress...but got stuck on the piping tonight. I always forget how much I dislike piping. But I finished the eyelets in the kirtle bodice and tried it on (yay), to discover it's not quite snug enough (no yay), and cut all the panels for the kirtle skirts and their linings.

First off, this week I finished the French hood as much as I can without pearls and bling. I confess to not loving the upper billiment's gold trim, but it has to stay until I can find something nicer, which I rather doubt I will. Non-cheesy gold trim (of the right shape for this, no less) is really hard to find! Awesome bathroom mirror shots.

This week I decided to keep on with the coif-making I started last week, and so mostly worked on the French hood. Though I did take a day in there to sew the kirtle bodice - half the front is now boned, and I stitched together the back piece. As of today I've finished the paste, which is the colored bit of the French hood. Here's how it looks on my unimpressive styrofoam head: It doesn't have the braids across the crown of the head that I'll wear with it; that's what gives it stability and just a little bit of height. (Not a great big crescent plopped on top of the head!)

More Katherine Parr! Finished farthingale, started boning the kirtle bodice, and started work on the foundation layer of the French hood. I may have to add more fluff to the bumpad later; have to see how much the weight of the skirts affects it.

Figured I ought to try and get back into my weekly updates here, even if they aren't much - just so I don't have to write out any more long posts like last week's! I didn't do a lot of sewing this week - I took a day off Katherine Parr for an attempt at making a 1950s bra top ( Simplicity 1426 , view C). I say "attempt" because I got it to a try-on-able point (i.e. mostly finished) and discovered it didn't fit in the least! That particular pattern variation is not small-bust-friendly. I could pick it apart and fix it, but I wanted it for a quick and easy project that I  could wear to a party this past weekend. So much for that! As for K Parr, I got my forepart/lower sleeve fabric in the mail, which is the last big thing I needed for this project (except for, um, the jewelry), and so of course I had to lay all my fabrics out to see how they'll look. Red & gold silk damask for the forepart, taupe silk damask for the gown, and white fur for the...