18th century masquerade

In Oktober we will attend a masked ball at Kalmar Castle . We have just purchased tickets and booked rooms. Yay, I'm exited! I was often inKalmar as a child so it will be nice to go back. The castle is quite magnificent.

A review on Seventeenth-century Women's Dress Patterns

My goodness and oh my! Buy this book!

Ahem. Seventeenth-century Women's Dress Patterns edited by Susan North and Jenny Tiramani arrived today. It's a wonderful book with patterns from V&A's costume collection. Though clearly heavily influenced by Janet Arnold's patterns books, this books goes further. For one thing, there are colour pictures! The book begins with a section on tools and techniques and some history. A how to on knitting, sewing and embroidery stitches. Then there are 15 patterns including bodices, jackets, mantle, gloves and a cap. There are pictures of every garment from several angles and, if possible, a portrait from the time. A description of the garment. Then there are several close-up, followed by the patterns. And then you get the construction! Some garment have extra suggestions on fastening and such and some have x-rays.

This is an incredible book! So informative and interesting. The only less good thing about it, and that is also mentioned in the foreword, is that V&A's 17th century collection is rather limited and most garments are from the first three decades. Not a plethora of styles unfortunately- I had high hopes on something from 1650-1680. Perhaps one can hope that this book will spark an interest for the 16th century and something else will crop up.

Aaaaand. This book is Book One. There will be more books. I wonder what is next. I hope there will be books on men's clothes as well. And I can't wait for the 18th century book.

Descriptions and pictures of clothes from the 16th and 17th century #3

The third and last part, Gustav Vasa’s son, Johan III and his second wife, Gunilla Bielke. I think Johan’s burial clothes are the most interesting of them all.

Descriptions and pictures of clothes from the 16th and 17th century #2

The second part, Gustav Vasa’s two last wives.

Descriptions and pictures of clothes from the 16th and 17th century #1

This post and the next two are a revised re-post from my Livejournal in 2005. As it seems much more likely that if I give anything up it will be LJ and not Blogger, I have decided to re-post some of the more interesting things I have written. Here are the descriptions and pictures of clothes from the Swedish royal family in the 16th and 17th century found in the book Vasagraven (1956), edited by Martin Olsson.

18th century hair tutorial

I did this hair on a friend a couple of years ago. It's a rather easy way to get a 1770-1780's hair. The model's hair was thick and long, somewhere between BSL and waist and a dream to work with. She had curled the front hair and then I teased it quite a lot, adding extra strength hairspray.

Banyans and masked balls and straw hats, oh my

I have been a bit quiet here, but not for lack of sewing. I just haven’t much to show yet. I have finally cut out the banyan for my darling. I’m sure it will be very nice- steely blue-grey taffeta with pale grey charmeuse for lining, but charmeuse is truly hell to cut in. First time I work with it a slippery is just the beginning. There will be a matching cap and hopefully I can get a waistcoat out of the remnant fabric too.