It's been a while! Life has been crazy with moving, traveling the world, and, of course, the start of school. I've just been able to catch my breath.
Speaking of moving, when I was packing all my fabric, I found three dress lengths that I had forgotten I had. One is a lovely black tropical weight wool that is so wonderfully thin and light. Another is a lavender silk-almost like a tissue taffeta but not as stiff (maybe habotai??). And the other is a beautiful blue shot brown silk taffeta. I've spent weeks researching what I want for each dress (and I've had a lot more time to do so since I got back from Welbourne!) and I think I'm ready to organize my plans here.
Black Wool
This fabric has been lovely to work with; I've already cut out most of the pieces and put the bodice mostly together. Here is my basic inspiration for the gown:
The dress is from the Connecticut Historical Society and is one I have been eyeing for quite some time. I don't even like bishop sleeves and I love this gown. Anyway, I plan on recreating the sleeves exactly (Making the bishops removable for a reason I will share momentarily) as well as the skirt trim. I was between coral and ice blue for the trim on my gown, but decided on the ice blue since I'm more of a cool color person than a warm one.
I have also taken quite a bit of inspiration from the following gown:
I like the evening look for a dinner dress and the removable sleeves and pelerine. I have kept the double puff and simply made the sleeves removable so I have just have the double puff if desired. I also plan on trimming the pelerine in the blue fringe like this original. I haven't decided if I want to trim the evening part with fringe yet. I'm thinking it may be a bit too overwhelming. I may, however, make bretelles with the fringe to add on to the gown if I want to dress it up a bit-almost like the blue gown in this Godey's plate.
In addition to the bishop, I am also making a set of removable pagoda sleeves like the Augusta Auctions dress so that I can switch out sleeves if desired. I hope to have this dress done by early December so that I can wear it to Liendo that month.
Lavender Silk
The lavender silk is lovely but is almost like cutting water it is so smooth. It will be lovely when it is done, though, I'm sure. This one I have a lot of plans for, though. My basic inspiration is the following lavender gown:
Lots of ruffles! I plan on making the top a removable pelerine just like the black gown. Underneath will just be a plan evening/ball bodice that I can decorate with a variety of berthas (more on that later).
I'm thinking making straight ruffles instead of coming down to a v, though. More like this dress:
On top of the ruffles, I bought a lovely purple shot black silk that I'm going to make into a ribbon-like trim, much like this Ebay wool gown:
I also want the buttons covered in the purple silk. For the sleeves, I want to keep the open coat sleeve, but I'm thinking of adding some woven ribbon in a basket weave pattern in the opening. I want to also do the same with the top for the evening gown sleeves. Here is the inspiration for the evening gown sleeves:
And, of course, several of berthas to interchange and give different looks.
I'm also going to make bretelles to go with this gown:
Blue Shot Brown Silk
I am in love with this silk. I've never had a shot silk dress before but it is so much fun to play with. This is my basic inspiration:
I'm going to use some of the silk to fringe it on the brown side and make the peplum a belt that can be removed. I want the bodice trimmed like this:
And this is what I want for a dinner bodice:
Petal sleeves for the ball gown:
Ball bodice:
I'll be updating when I get things rolling!
