Aqua Regency Ensemble

So I promised pictures of at least the new things I made for Costume Con!  The first was probably my favorite outfit of the weekend, especially to wear as it was very comfortable.

I don't have a good picture of the dress alone.  It's a drop front based on the pattern in Janet Arnold.  I am not happy with the sleeves and plan on re-doing them at some point, but with the Spencer, that doesn't show and so doesn't matter too much!  The dress is made from a very lightweight cotton with blue Swiss dots.  I left a train, and I love the way it looks.  I sewed most of this by hand.

The Spencer was made from silk from Sewfisticated.  It has a very fine slub but it doesn't show too much.  I based this on a Spencer that Elizabeth Bennett wears in the 1995 Pride & Prejudice. Most of this was done by machine as I was in a hurry to get it finished.  The bodice is lined with aqua cotton, the sleeves are unlined.  They are in three parts, the long undersleeve, short puffed sleeve and vandyked over sleeve.  The puffed and vandyked sleeve are the same pattern with the bottom cut off the oversleeve.  The raw edges were then turned up and hemed with a small running stitch.  The back and shoulder seams were also top stitched by hand to add to the look.

My accessories were a straw hat or capote based on one that Marianne Dashwood wears in Sense & Sensibility.  The stripe fabric was cut on the bias and gathered to the crown piece and the brim.  I then wrapped a piece of ivory silk ribbon and a piece of blue velvet ribbon over the brim and finished it with a small rosette made from the striped fabric with a covered button in the middle.  The brim was created from a straw hat from Michael's that was partially dissembled and then slightly shaped with water.

The reticule is from the same stripe fabric as the hat.  I made up my own pattern of four diamond shaped pieces sewn together with a drawstring through the top and a small tassel of velvet ribbon on the bottom.  I also wore elbow length leather gloves with it and cream boots.

My hair was super simple to do as I created some little curly hairpieces to go on either side of my face and over a bun of my own hair in the back.  I was inspired by Harriet Smith's hair from the new Emma movie.

Regency Musings

So, I'll need to put up pictures soon of the bib front Regency dress I started a couple months ago (first I need to actually take some!).  It was going to be for a Regency ball, but I ended up going to a Steampunk event that weekend instead, so I didn't finish it.  But I'm going to finish it for Costume Con and I have lots of scheming plans for it as well.

A few months ago, my favorite store for silks (Sewfisticated) had this gorgeous aqua silk.  Now, remember how I'd made a New Year's Resolution not to buy any fabric?  Well, I had been good and resisted the silk a couple weeks before, but when I went back and it was still there I had to buy just a yard.  I had to!  Turquoise and aqua are my colors!  It was screaming my name.  I couldn't resist the siren song.  So, I didn't know what I'd do with it at first, but I think when I got home I realized how perfectly it matched the tiny blue dots in my Regency dress.  So I thought, bonnet!  But then, I had an even better idea, last week.  I was already planning a couple of other bonnets, so why use this glorious fabric on just that?

The stripe is for the gathered crown of my bonnet! :)

So instead I'm going to make a little spencer!  The original plan was for short sleeves, but then I went and bought another yard (they still had it at the store!) and I'm thinking something like Lizzy Bennett's blue spencer from the good P&P.  It's either that or something like Jane's short sleeved one from that same movie.

I've found a few fashion plates with short sleeved spencers, but not in the exact style that I wanted, but I am totally drawn to these late 1790's plates.  I think I may take some of my cues from them.

1796 from here
labeled: a short-sleeved black bodice with black lace trim

1795 - its the one in the middle labeled:
Robe of coquelicot-coloured Irish poplin

from here

eta: I had the description wrong originally.  Since I can't see the back I'm not sure if this is more like a full open robe or just a short jacket.  Kinda interesting though!

So what do you guys think?  Short or long sleeved spencer?


All that's left to do on the dress is the sleeves and hem, but now I'm not totally happy with the bib front so I think I will redo that just a bit.  I think that will be pretty easy.  For sleeves I'm going to do a straight elbow length with the short puff sleeve spencer on top.


The other thing I need to do is create a better petticoat or bodiced petticoat and/or fix my short stays.  While I'm happy with how my long Regency stays turned out they are actually not the most comfortable thing to wear.  I made a short pair years ago from the Sense & Sensibility Simplicity pattern and they actually worked pretty well, but now they are far too big.  If I fix them I may just baste a "petticoat" to the bottom of them to make a little bodiced petti, we'll have to see.

All of this is time dependent.  I am so so busy it's not even funny.  I have so much to do and it's stressing me out.  Another problem is that I stay up until midnight getting stuff done and then when I try to go to sleep I can't shut my brain off worrying about getting everything done and so miss about an hour or so sleep at night.  It would be no use to try to be productive instead though.  *Sigh*  I just need to tell myself like I did while on study abroad in London that I can sleep in May.  Most of this stress will be over in May, let's not dwell on the fact that I'll have new deadlines at that point though...


Anyway, back to Regency plans!  I'm excited for how this ensemble is looking in my head at least!  Hopefully that will be realized in real life. :)

Accessories!

Last night I wanted to be productive but I didn't feel so much like handsewing (though I did some of that later) so I worked on a couple straw hats.   I had started taking apart some straw blanks a few nights before So I worked on getting them to the state I wanted.

And after a little bit of work, I had made a cute little hat to go with my Floral Francaise!

The hat before trimming.   I'll have to get a picture of what it looked like before.

After trimming!  I used some of the trim I'd made for my seaside bustle gown, some silk ribbon and some trim that kind of looks like fly fringe.

And here's how it looks from the side.

 I'm really happy with how it turned out!

I also started the brim for my new Regency bonnet, which is not exactly how I wanted it, but I think it comes pretty close.   I'm going for something similar to Marianne's bonnet from Sense & Sensibility.

And here are the fabrics I'm using for my Regency ensemble, which I'm writing a post about now (still trying to figure out exactly what I'm going to do).  The stripe fabric will be the hat.  The white with blue swiss dots is the fabric of my drop-front dress.

And for fun, cause I'm proud of it, here's a picture of my tiny hand stitches on the bodice of my francaise!