TLHA Conference and Projects

Last weekend, I attended the annual Texas Living History Association's annual conference.  I love going every year-it is one of the highlights for me.  There are always several good sessions to attend and lots of new people to meet.  Oh, and Paula and I officially joined a unit-the 173rd New York.  So, it was a very productive weekend for me.

The conference was held in Fredricksburg, TX and sessions began Friday morning.  I was not able to go up for Friday's sessions because of school, but I heard that they were good.  Paula attended a pattern drafting workshop and was able to get a bodice drafted for herself.  Saturday, Paula and I manned the registration table for a while before attending a workshop on fibers.  I learned a lot about the fiber and spinning industry in the 19th century.   Pretty cool stuff.  I wore my 1850's outfit for the day.

Myself and Paula manning the registration table.

Here is what the back of my hair looked like:

This was after a very windy day!  It looked much nicer when I first put it up... without all the little flyaways.  Anyway, I took two of those little squishy hair donut things from Walmart and cut them open.  I took about two layers off each one and used those as the rats for the sides of my hair.  I just took a little section of hair and wrapped it around the little rat over and over again until the whole thing was covered.  I did the same with the other side, took the rest of my hair, and turned that into a bun.  Then, since I have such long hair, I wound the ends of the side pieces around the bun a couple of times and pinned the ends inside the bun.  Then I finished it off with a little decorated hair comb.

After the fiber workshop, we retired to our room to get ready for the evening.  I did not end up finishing the green ball gown, but instead fixed up the blue sheer that never actually fit me (lesson learned-silk essentially no give.  ALWAYS make your muslins in a similar fabric as your final product or the actual dress may not fit you).  I was not able to finish the tucker, so the sleeves were falling off my shoulders half the night.  Once I get the tucker done, it should lay nicely on my shoulders like it should.

I don't think I got a non-blurry picture of the back.  Anyway, here's a picture of me and Paula, with my sleeves actually where they are supposed to be!

The dress is made of a dusty blue silk organza.  I decorated it with some cotton lace from www.cottonlace.com, self-fabric bias, and some silk flowers.  The undersleeves are made with silk gauze (because I had it on hand.  Seriously.  Don't ever use that stuff-it's horrendously slinky and it catches and pulls on everything).  The necklace and earrings are corral colored courtesy of Paula.

And the back of my hair for the evening:

I began by separating my hair into three pieces-two smaller front pieces with most of the hair in the back.  I pulled the large back piece into a bun in the middle of my head.  Then I fitted on the little curls (a hair piece that I made-my own hair hangs halfway between my hip and my knees-I could never get curls that short).  The curls are getting a little crushed-I need to buy them a little box and redo them.  Perhaps I'll make a tutorial on how I did them while I'm at it.  Anyway, I then twisted the front pieces and wound the extra around the bun.  Then I fitted on the little tiara thing.  It's made of black silk taffeta on a buckram base, trimmed with coral beads and silk and paper flowers.  My inspiration was the following:

It's from the October 1861 issue of Godey's Lady's Book.

The other thing I got to wear at the conference was my new nightgown and cap.  At the time of taking pictures, there was no one else around so I settled for a few 1860's nightdress selfies.

I wasn't able to get any pictures of the back, but it basically looks the same as the front, but without the buttons :).

Sunday morning, I went to a session on wrappers.  It was awesome!  The projector wouldn't play the PowerPoint, so we spent 4 hours studying over 20 original wrappers from 1820-1900.  That was definitely a session worth going to.

Anyway, I'm currently working on the sari sheer dress.  I'm dubbing it the Piña cloth dress, since the fibers look and feel so much with the original pineapple cloth fabric length I have in my stash.  While the fibers are a bit thicker than those in the original cloth, the sheen and stiffness match the Piña cloth very closely.  I have the sleeves cut out and sewn together, and the skirt cut out.  I haven't done the bodice yet.  This is my basic inspiration for design:

I'm not doing the double puff on the sleeves, but I'm thinking of adding a sleeve cap.  But other than that, I plan on doing the half-high neck with the v and the pagoda sleeves.  I'm also not doing a waistband-I'm going to attach the bodice directly to the skirt and then have a belt made of the fabric to wear with the dress.  I'm making the most of the bits and pieces of the sari-I think the finished product will be lovely.

In other projects, I started the broderie anglaise petticoat-it's about 1/4 of the way finished already.  It really isn't as difficult or as time consuming as I originally thought.  I should have no problem getting it done before Welbourne.

I also broke down and bought another original shawl.  This one has a large brown spot on the front where the dye has faded, but I think I can re-dye it with some of Dharma's black dye I have leftover from the paletot.