Friday, April 17, 2015

1795s - 1800s coif

A quick post to update on my 1800s working outfit, today I finish the coif !

It is in thin cotton, and I have used this wondeful tutorial by Art beauty and well-ordered chaos, it has been so helpful and it worked right away! I am very pleased with how the coif turned out.
I now have to add a ribbon, and it's ready for reenacting.





Until next time :)

Friday, April 10, 2015

1940s striped dress - PART 1 : Pattern and fabric.

Spring is here and I have envies of 1940s clothing. I found a pretty coupon of striped fabric in Paris for only 5€ and when I've seen it I instantly imagined an early 40s dress made of it.

I did some research about striped dresses of that period,  to have an idea of how it will look and I found pretty things!

Here are my 3 favourites :





I will be using an authentic pattern I bought on etsy a year ago, I've never used it before so I don't know how it looks in real once the dress is finished.

On this picture you can see the true color of the fabric I bought, as a redhead green is my color to go with!

And here is the pattern I will be using.

Tomorrow I will be cutting into the fabric and maybe start sewing if time allows me to. 

That's all for now :)

Monday, April 6, 2015

1805 Provençal cretonne dress and new shoes!

I've been spending a lot of time on pinterest lately, searching for fashion plates and I have to say I found quite a lot of nice ones. I had the idea of provençal regency clothing because I play a provençal washerwoman at reenactment. I knew there was specific 18th century clothing from that province of France, but ignored that in fact there was 19th century too.

It is characterized by a fabric called cretonne, which is a strong cotton cloth with a very specific print such as this :


A close-up for a better view of the print:
And here are my two favourite fashion plates I found on Pinterest :

Amsterdam, 1807.
 

Washerwomen, one of them is wearing a provençal cap. 


I will be making the red dress and the blue spencer as seen on the plate above.

For the dress, I'm using as always the bib-front pattern from Janet Arnold from her "Patterns of fashion" with some alterations, since I am sewing a working class dress there won't be a train and also short simple sleeves.

So far, I finished the bodice and have attached the back of the skirt to the bodice. Everything is handsewn so it takes a lot of time to make, but I prefer it instead of machine stitches which I find breaks a lot easier.

I also bought regency looking shoes from amazon, and I love them, they're perfect for a working class lady. The shipping was very fast, I received them in a week, and also the price is very interesting! I ordered the brown ones, but I will definitely buy more shades.
You can purchase them here :

http://www.amazon.com/Ollio-Womens-Comfort-Pointed-Oxford/dp/B00GXMEC8A/?ref=pd_sbs_shoe_21&ie=UTF8&refRID=19TYMTPVSNH1FTTRJYNH

And here are some pictures :



















The back finished. The lighting makes it look pink, but in real it is red.




That's all for now, until next time ;)