A Most Beguiling Accomplishment

It took me forever to figure out what to write for this! I knew that the Redo challenge needed to be October's Secret challenge, which I missed, but Secret was much easier to do while sewing, putting a little secret embroidery or hidden pocket. At last I remembered an historic dress that has its own secret. Evening dress; Old Sturbridge Village 26.33.132 This gown, in the collection of Old Sturbridge Village, was among the ones I evaluated for patterning when I went there last year. And because it appears to be a lovely early 1820s evening dress, I patterned it. But while I was patterning, I realized that this lovely gown holds a terrible secret - it's not from the period! It's the best costume/reproduction I've ever seen in a museum, to the point where I really grappled with myself in deciding what was going on with the gown: idiosyncratic Regency garment, or very well-made costume? In the end, I decided it was likely a costume, despite the fact that it's e

While I'm still working on December's post, doing the "Secret" challenge I missed in October (translation: still trying to figure out what I should write about), I finally took a look at next year's challenges. Because I did so much sewing this year - compared to previous years' output, in both clothes to wear in everyday life and historical clothes - I finally feel like it's possible for me to make sensible choices for projects, and actually follow through on them! In order to facilitate that following-through and have a published record of what I should be doing, here are my thoughts on (some of) the 2016 HSM challenges . January: Procrastination – This one is very easy. I've had a Regency morning dress half-done for about a year now, which I will need for the Battle of Ogdensburg in February, where I will be speaking! It's a lovely soft cotton twill, smallish checks on a beige ground, and the pattern is taken from Regency Women's Dress  (

Sorry that I missed October! I promise to get to "secrets" in December for the re-do challenge - there was a lot going on and that's a tricky one for writing. The Hunger Games  and its sequels are set in the far future, in an America ravaged by climate change and changed politically beyond recognition. However, there's so much influence from the 1930s and early 1940s in the costuming and design that I tend to spend a lot of my time watching for that. This is really an image-heavy post rather than a text-based one, because I want to highlight these design elements that your eye might have skated over. Warning: there's a spoiler for the latest movie in here. It's from the book, but if you're a movie-only fan ... Very little in the various districts would look out of place for rural Depression-era towns. The buildings are dilapidated shanties or abandoned factories, with nothing futuristic about them. Two views of District 12. Compare to th

The bib-front gown is a very popular choice for Regency costumers because it fastens in the front, making it much easier to dress yourself. Once I started researching and patterning for Regency Women's Dress , I became convinced that the bib-front was something of an anachronism for most of the period - but then I took a closer look at the extant examples, and I realized that there are two distinct types of bib-front gowns. One type, certainly the most common of the two, is undeniably early in the period. The ones on p.42-45 (dress 1) and p. 46-49 (dress 2) of Regency Women's Dress are excellent examples, as is the famous one on p. 48-49 (dress 3) of Patterns of Fashion I. These three share some characteristics that pin them to the early years, roughly contemporary with the gowns that fasten on drawstrings in the front. For example, they all have very narrow, trapezoidal center back pieces, with the rest of the bodice functioning as front and sides, just as in 18th century dr

As a member of several historical-reenactment Facebook groups, I see a lot of people post a photo of cloth they've bought or are thinking of buying with a question about its suitability for a certain era. And so I thought I would write up a guide to give seamstresses more confidence in choosing a fabric, and perhaps help prevent people from buying something too modern and only discovering it once they get home. Note: you can of course use anything you want. You can make a spencer and petticoat out of a Hello Kitty print, if you like, and actually that would be pretty fun. Please see this guide as a helpful aid for those aiming at accuracy, rather than a prescription. White Cotton Let's start with the easiest category: white cotton.  The simplest way to make sure that your fabric is accurate is to pick a white cotton at either end of the spectrum - very light and smooth, or completely solid and with some body. With the lighter, sheerer cottons, you can also use a woven c

Finally, Regency Women's Dress is now actually available ! If you preordered it over the last few months, it should be coming to you very soon. I'd love to hear what you think! Last week, Joy Melcher sold the first copy of the book at the JASNA event in Kentucky ... and then sold out! I'm so excited. And a little worried that everyone's going to hate it. But mostly excited. And, of course, thinking if the next book. As you may remember, I already wrote a book on the 18th century, but I've found some more collections in the meantime and look forward to adding to the patterns I took for it. Would being published give me enough cachet to be allowed to pattern the bizarre-silk early 18th century mantua at the Met? (Almost definitely not.) But maybe! (No.)

Surely  I've said everything I feel the need to? No, because I've continued conversations on the Historical Sew Monthly Facebook group and on Reddit, and Sarah Chrisman did a follow-up interview with SheKnows and then kindly sent me the full text of her answers, some of which were not used. Basically this is like an exclusive interview, in a way. If you see a quote here that's not on SheKnows, that's where it came from!

Edit: I guess this is the last time I try to post on Blogger from a mobile device - this post was finished and up, and then when I came back to work on another one I realized that most of it had been eaten and it was set back to draft. Why? Who knows. Probably user error. Apologies! This post is later in the month than I've usually been for the HSM. I just didn't know what to go with! But in the end, I've decided in the end is to give you a preview of Regency Women's Dress 1800-1830 (out sometime in October): the corset made out of brown cotton twill and its description. Corset 1805-1815 Courtesy of the New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, NY N506.61 Longer corsets of this type were taken up not long after the turn of the century, and were worn for several decades, not falling out of use until the 1850s, when the popularization of the split busk made it even easier for a woman to put on or remove her corset herself. The shape gave a

And what a great birthday it is! For this morning, as I came here to post a link to the Amazon US page for Regency Women's Dress , as it's now pre-orderable ... ... I noticed that I'm listed as the #1 new release in Textile & Costume ! Based, I assume, on preorders from my Facebook announcements! ( Amazon UK ) ( Amazon France ) What a really fantastic birthday present! I seriously grinned at the screen for a moment. The sites all say October but I've been assured that the publishing date is September 17 everywhere. Exciting!! Who'd have thought the "grand project" (see post tags) would have really come to this!