A Note of Thanks

It is customary at the turn of the year to review sewing accomplishments and set goals for the upcoming year. This year, I'm not going to set any new goals because really, I just started following by 2015 goal to take my time and not skip steps of projects...and it's going well! So I'm going to work on keeping that up, rather than making new goals.

I'm also not going to do my standard month-by-month sewing review, because honestly, I didn't make that much this year. I made a few big projects well, and I'm happy with that. Instead, here is a review of my top five adventures!

5.

Gathering this fall for an 1860s weekend, I got to focus on my photography--it was a stressful Fall, but a fun interlude!

4.

The Boy came along for a summer 1920s adventure! He won't be making regular blog appearances, but sometimes it's fun to have him join me in the crazy for a bit :)

3.

I participated in the Historical Sew Monthly for the first time! I didn't actually blog about many of my entries, but it was a blast to be part of the HSM community and to see everyone's projects.

2.

My Starfleet crew is fierce, brilliant, and coming for you. I love that our crew grows every year!

1.

An adventure of palatial proportions (heh...sorry...) to Versailles--this isn't top of the list for its location, but because it was a chance to do something really insane with some of my favorite people. And to make new friends along the way!

I'm grateful for a year full of new and old friends, new and old places, and willing photography subjects. I started off 2017 with a meeting of awesome historically-minded women, and I hope that is the first of many! I hope all of you have things to make you feel optimistic about the coming year, even when the outlook is bleak. I look forward to sharing more adventures with you. Here's to a new year!

Living the Dream: Vogue-ing at Versailles

I'm a big fan of Annie Leibovitz's dramatic portraits, so it should come as no surprise that I've been in love with her shoot of the Marie Antoinette cast at Versailles since it was published in Vogue since 2006. 

Annie Leibovitz for Vogue Magazine (you can see the rest of the shoot here)

When thinking about my own trip to Versailles, I had a particular image in mind as inspiration:

Annie Leibovitz for Vogue Magazine

I'm incredibly lucky to have friends that are always game for photography experiments, and when I said "I really want a picture based on the Vogue shoot of you all looking bored" they obliged. I am also very lucky to meet lovely people who offer to take my picture--so after setting up the shot, I handed off the camera and jumped in. Thank you, A! 

the shot

I worked off of that theme to get a few more group shots and a couple of solo self-portraits, and I love how they came out. Hooray for indulging all my favorite things at once!

A Rather Elegant Adventure

As previously mentioned, last week I went on an adventure to France where I attended the Fetes Galantes at the palace of Versailles. It was my first time at the palace, and it was incredible to see a place I've read so much about. You can't really capture the scale of it in a book or even in a movie, really--being there with everyone in costume was truly amazing. It was also neat to actually use the rooms! We played period games, danced, listened to concerts, watched the crowd, and chatted with friends. The space felt alive, and it was pretty magical.

entering the Hall of Mirrors

There were some quite fabulous ensembles, and it was so fun to meet historical sewing friends from around the world! I met some wonderful people, and I look forward to our further correspondence.

new friends and old, excepting one new friend who volunteered to capture the photo (thank you, A!)

At the risk of sounding wholly insufferable, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

soaking in a sumptuous salon

we tried our hand at an interesting cue sport from the reign of Louis XIV, which was really fun! 

luckily friends had phones to capture it

fabulous friends in fabulous rooms!

the hair was quite something across the board

these are our "scandal!" faces

baroque dance performers

gossiping in a salon

catching up

watching fireworks in the garden from the Hall of Mirrors

Triumph!

I am utterly thrilled to announce that I completed my robe a la francaise and wore it to the palace of Versailles without a single pin. Or, rather, without any pins that shouldn't have been there. Victory!

I made it, hem and all!

The gown and matching petticoat are dusky lavender silk taffeta, and trimmed with self-fabric pleated ruffles.  The stomacher is decorated with four canary-yellow bows descending in size from bust to waist. There are matching bows with four loops instead of two on the sleeves. You can see my inspiration for the arrangement in this post and on my project Pinterest board.

on the palace stair

I did not think I was going to make it--I had resigned myself to pinned-on trim before I got on the plane, but then by some miracle everything was sewn down! I did spend the day of the ball hemming, but even that was done in the nick of time. I'm still not sure how I managed it, but it was immensely satisfying to be dressed.

I accessorized with bling, a fan, and a quick last-minute hair accessory made out of a scrap bow and some borrowed ostrich feathers. My shoes are American Duchess kensingtons, which I painted yellow and stenciled with flowers.

shoes!

shoe shot! all pictured shoes were made/decorated by their wearer

I was unsure how everything would go together, but it really worked in the end. I suppose it would be impossible not to feel elegant at Versailles.

my fan is based on original mask fans like these, and was custom painted by Kate Dengra. She was great, you should check her out!

in the Hall of Mirrors. I swear I powdered my hair, but it's impossible to tell here!

My hair is all mine, pomaded and powdered, and brushed up over a form. After testing my hair, I decided I wanted a smaller, rounder shape...somehow I ended up making my hair bigger. Whoops. In the end I was happy with the shape, though, so it all worked out!

Of course, I ruined my karma by finishing my clothes on time, and it was pouring the day of the ball. We had a ten-minute walk from our lodging to the palace gates. Time for a creative solution! We scampered to the market, bought a roll of large trash bags, and went to work. We might have looked batty, but we were dry! I was quite pleased with my garbage bag calash--although if I look a bit rumpled in the pictures, that's why. (I'm pretty sure my panniers also slid down when I was pulling everything off, making my width a bit lower and rounder than it should have been otherwise.) So a bonus shot of us in our waterproof attire!

many thanks to Peryn for capturing this insanity!

HSM 16 #5: A Plethora of Petticoats

I couldn't resist the alliteration.

I really don't know how to pose with such wide hips yet...

I've managed all but one of the HSM challenges so far this year, but I didn't have good pictures or enough to say to warrant a blog post. But hooray, I do for May! I've been buzzing away on undergarments for my trip to Versailles this month, including two under-petticoats (one an outer-petticoat for a future ensemble). Today I'm adding my visible outer-petticoat to the "complete" list! Hooray!

The outer petticoat is silk on the front and cotton on the back to save my expensive fabric for where it will be visible (as seen on several originals). It is constructed similarly to my two under-petticoats, following Katherine's awesome tutorial. The only difference is that this petticoat is wider (in retrospect, possibly too wide) and is trapezoidal so it narrows towards the top to remove some bulk at the waist.

petticoat under my gown in progress

This week we had a sewing and hair party, and worked on our projects for the trip. It was the first time I tried getting my hair to hilariously tall heights and powdered it. It's not quite there yet, but this was very good practice! The powder (from LBCC Historical) was much easier to use than I'd expected, so that was good. I was able to try everything on with the hair to see the scale, which was also great...it's nice to hit the point of in progress where things can go on my body.

the towel on the floor was my powdering station--it gets everywhere!

I'm entering my petticoats as my Historical Sew Monthly item for May for the theme "holes" because they have holes for pockets formed by the two pocket slits in the side seams. This was my first time making pocket slits/thinking about room for pockets, so they felt like very noticeable holes to me! (Also, as a disclaimer, the outer petticoat isn't finished in these pictures, but it has been finished since then!)

contemplating everything...

Just the facts:

The Challenge: Holes

Material: Silk (for visible front of petti #3) and cotton (for everything else)

Pattern: None, but used Katherine's tutorial (link above)

Year: 1760s

Notions: thread, twill tape for waist ties

How historically accurate is it? Partly sewn on machine (everything not visible), but all the other materials and methods are good. I'll say 80%?

Hours to complete: Many...4 episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race and two or three of Agents of Shield.

First worn: for fittings! Will be worn for an event on the 31st at Versailles

Total cost: we'll say 2 yards or so of silk at $8/yd, plus the cotton for the back and under-pettis...around $40.

Floral Shoes

This didn't turn out to be a good weekend for sewing, but I still wanted to accomplish something on my Versailles project. Painting my shoes was a perfect choice, because I could work on my grad school final while I waited for paint to dry. Win!

For some reason, while doing research for this project I've been really drawn to yellow shoes. I don't know why--yellow isn't a color I usually wear, and it's not an especially iconic shoe color--but yellow shoes just kept popping up. Especially yellow shoes with floral designs.

So I decided I needed a pair.

Here are some of the originals I had in mind:

embroidered shoes, 1750-1760

bronze shoes, 17755-1780 (via)

brocade shoes, 1750s (via)

yellow silk, 1730-1770 (via)

I started with a pair of American Duchess Kensingtons in ivory, which I de-glazed following the instructions on the American Duchess site. I taped off the soles, inside the latchets, and around the edge with painters tape.  

ready to go!

Then it was time to mix paints! I was really worried about getting a yellow color I liked. The yellow (I used Angelus leather paints) was very bright on its own, and I thought mixing with white would make it lighter rather than less neon-y. I ended up ordering both white and a very light gray called "bone" as potential mixers. I'm really glad I did--I ended up using both throughout the process. It took a little bit of experimenting, but I ended up getting a color I was happy with (involving yellow, bone, and white). 

SO YELLOW

Then I let it dry, and got ready to stencil! Initially, I had planned to use a stencil and a sponge applicator, but the curvy shoe surface and the thin leather paint led to a lot of bleeding, and the first flower was a mess. I got some help from my resident painting expert (who also let me steal is setup) to fix up the edges as much as I could, but it definitely wasn't going to work as a method for the rest of the shoes.

the messy stenciled flower

After some thinking and poking and fussy noises (and overnight for the paint to dry completely), I decided to try tracing the stencil onto the shoe with pencil, and then painting it by hand. This worked much better! 

one toe box complete, one penciled and ready for paint

Stenciling also felt very period appropriate to me. Stencil designs definitely existed, although not for shoes that I've found, and hand-decorating shoes led to some of the lovely embroidered examples above. 

in progress

fully painted

These were a lot of fun to paint, and a perfect "I'm too braindead to sew" project. I'm really happy with them, and I can't wait to get them on my feet!

stenciling the side

Done:

shift
panniers
under petticoats

paint shoes

Still To Do:
stays
visible petticoat
francaise gown
hair