4:30am, or: Broken Promises

 A few weeks ago I participated in a 1914 dance performance, and we wore 1910s evening attire. It's been a while since there was a Ragtime ball to which I didn't just cheat and wear 20s, so I've never made a truly performance-acceptable Ragtime evening outfit. Well, this was the time...unfortunately, the performance fell on a week I was traveling for work and super busy, so I didn't have a lot of time to work on anything (despite my best intentions to not rush to deadlines).

As a result, I finished around 4:30am on the Saturday morning of the performance. Not my favorite way to sew! But I am really mostly happy with this project. I love the lace and brocade, and the colors are awesome. I did mess up a few things (namely the draped green piece over the closure on the front side seam) because I was sewing while exhausted, but they're fixable. All in all, this could have gone a lot worse and I will definitely keep this in the wardrobe (with some fixes)!

I also tried out a new technique (thanks to Emily!) to get iconic finger waves into my hair. While they are usually associated with flappers and the 1920s, they do show up earlier in softer forms. Here's an example:

fashion image, 1914

I attempted to copy the general style, and it worked pretty well! I think I need more practice and some tweaking to get the severe waves of the 20s, but my hair worked perfectly for 1914.

Here are a couple of quick progress pictures, and two of the finished product from the performance!

the whole crew for the performance