Pierrot jacket

The pattern for this pierrot jacket is taken from Kvinnligt mode under två sekel. The original is made of striped silk and luckily enough I had a piece of striped cotton in my stash. Though I have used this jacket for several years, it is still not finished. I need to tweak the front so it fits better and both front and sleeves need their buttons! For now I just pin it shut.

18th century hats

18th century hats are so much fun and I love to make hats. And I only have three, go figure. I'm working on getting more of them, though. The first one is a straw hat I bought in a store for oriental food for very little money. I cut off the crown and shortened it before I re-attached it. The pink ribbons are the same as on my blue jacket.

1770's French gown

Or Robe à la Française. Once again from Janet Arnold, but I changed the front a little. I made this gown to for the purpose of lending it to a friend when we attended the Georgian ball in Bath in 2006. Don't tell anyone, but it's high quality dead dino. It's rather practical, actually, to have a gown that you can wear when thre's a possibility to be kids with sticky fingers around and I don't have to worry that precious silk may be ruined. At the same time it's rather fancy and people usually think it is silk, so good for going out in the public too.

A 1740's wrapping gown

The funniest thing with this painting of a woman in a red velvet wrapping gown with fur trim is that I found it well after I had finished my green velvet wrapping gown with fur trim. The pattern used is once again from Patterns of Fashions by Janet Arnold and is called just a wrapping gown. I wanted something cozy for winter but originally I had planned to trim it with fake fur. Then my Mum gave me my grandmother’s old muskrat fur, which is why I used real fur in the end.

I'm not ignoring you

For some reason I can post and edit my posts, but as soon as I try to answer comments, Blogger refuses to acknowledge me and eternally wants me to log in again. But every time I log in I get kicked back to the log in page when I try to answer. The same happens when I try to comment on other blogs. Very frustrating as I have a couple of comments here that I would like to respond to. I promise, I have tried!

Chemise a la reine

I made my first chemise a la reine in 2003; I have since made another one, and liked it enormously. Such an easy gown to make and very comfortable. I used the pattern from Norah Waugh’s The Cut of Women's Clothes: 1600-1930, more or less as it is- the only change in the actual pattern was a slightly bigger armscye. I also omitted the front opening and pull it over my head and the channels on the bodice. I find that works perfectly fine with just a sash to pull in the wrinkles.

Red stays

My first pair of properly fitting stays, front- and back-laced with an additional stomacher. The pattern is similar to the picture but taken from Norah Waugh’s Corsets and Crinolines. It’s my second try to that particular pattern, but the first one was very sloppily done and more of a mock-up than finished stays. This pair is made of two layers of linen and boned with stripes of the kind of plastic that windshields of MC helmets are made off. In the back some of the boning is replaced with hemp cord, which made these fully boned stays to breathe a little. The stays are boned with linen tape, which may be period correct, but a complete hassle to sew.