Saturday 28 April 2012

at last a regency ball gown


I was inspired by a gown in Bradfield's Costume in Detail from around 1817

.
 
I wasn't up to the task of mocking up the sleeves, so I used the sleeves & skirt of the 1816-19 evening dress from Waugh's Cut of Women's Clothing (Diagram 37). I was really impressed with how easy it was to draft the sleeves & scale them up ... I literally drew the sleeves on the fabric with my chalk wheel. I thought I'd taken a photo of that but it seems not :-/

I had to get the back pinned (straight pins) closed on the night, as I haven't yet found a matching cord for the closure.  I'm also thinking of re-cutting the bodice as the neckline is a lot higher than I planned. I put that down to silk taffeta not behaving the same way as the poly-cotton I used as the mock ups.

a new under dress for my open robe

I started cutting out a new underdress in April 2011, and it's lurked in my unfinished sewing ever since. It's the same tufted hailspot cotton voile as my green dress, but a different pattern. I used the same bodice & sleeves as the open robe, but cut slightly higher at the bodice, a rectangle skirt pleated onto it. The same centre front opening as the green dress.




















Because this has been the Year of Bad Health, I really needed something quicker to make & wear for the Jane Austen Festival Australia, than any of my other ideas. This was at least partly cut out, I knew it would fit and it would go with my existing open robe.

the good and the bad of packet mixes

I needed to make another cake to take to work .... if I want to join in the morning tea then I need to make it myself!

first the bad - a cup cake packet mix.  It looked like it would be good, but it turned out to be so hideously sweet that I could only eat 2 mouthfulls and then chucked the cupcake away.  Hideously, sickly diabetic coma inducing sweet. (even for a non diabetic)


Never to be tried again. Ever.

















the other mix I tried was the buttery sponge from the range I've successfully used the chocolate cake mix



















Now this was a success!  Even using nutlex instead of butter it was delicious.  I ended up not going to work the next day as I had a migraine, so I took it with me to Ironfest and fed it to my re-enactment group who happily declared it tasty and you'd never guess it was special for silly innards.



















I've already bought another packet for the pantry just in case I need it again