These are a few of my favourite things

Or rather portraits. It's raining and I have been looking though my Photobucket and now I'm inflicting you with some pictures I particulary like. With that I bid you a festive Midsummer and I will return next week- hopefully with something sewing related.

Elizabeth of Austria

18th century mourning clothes

I have been thinking a lot of 18th century mourning clothes lately. If the Victorians practically reveled in it, mourning in the 18th century was a bit more restricted. It was something mainly for royalty and the upper classes, though by the end of the century it had started to seep down into the middle classes. Mourning clothes could be black, grey or white in material with a dull luster. Depending on the degree of mourning no jewelry, or very little of it, were worn.

Meets Lipton

He is a five-year old Shetland Sheepdog who, as of Friday, will bes our dog. We already know him very well as we have dog-sat him when his owner’s have been on vacation. Now a developed asthma makes it impossible to keep him and we were asked if we could consider taking Lipton in. We have been thinking of getting a dog for some time, so it was very easy to say yes. Lipton is a lovely, well-behaved dog and it will be so much fun to have him. He also gets along well with the cats. Mats love and adore him (he was raised by a dog) and the others treat him with indifference. In Page’s case indifference as long as he keeps away for the cat food. And it will be so beneficial for me to have to walk a dog every day.

To tie it all to the 18th century, here are some nice pictures with dog from the period.

The masquerade gowns

I have a bit of a thing when it comes to masquerade gowns in the 18th century. They are so much fun! So far there have been three and a fourth is planned for October.

Blue 1790's outfit

This was a totally un-planned outfit. In December 2009 I stumbled over this painting and fell in love with the blue and rose outfit. Love at first sight and I just knew I wanted it for the 12th Nigh Ball that was (then) a month away...

White gown of 1797

I fell in love with the beautiful gown from Tidens Toj years ago and set out to make it in embroidered white linen. Only I found that I didn’t have enough for fabric for the lovely drape in the front. As the fabric had been resident in my stash for years there was no chance to get some more. It still turned out to be a lovely gown and I’m very pleased with it. I adapted the pattern for my roundgown for it, making the front a bit less gathered, for example.

Round gown

I have a knack that I’m not particularly proud of- the knack of making the shirts of my 18th century clothes too short. I managed to do that beautifully with my 1790’s round gown, as you can see on the pictures. The patterns is from Kvinnligt mode under två sekel, again- I love the book. And I love the pattern, it was very easy to put together and had some fun construction details such as the bodice have a seam MB, but then a narrow extra back piece is stitched on top of it to give the impression of two curved back seams. I have since used the pattern for two other projects. The fabric is IKEA’s Anneli in yellow, an 18th century re-print in linen/cotton.