Oh man, life has been busy! A lot of General Life things going on, still, which I will eventually get around to talking about, depending on what comes to fruition!
Anyway, one of the Life Things is cleaning up, going through my closet and soon my fabric stash. So I had some costumes out and steamed them to take pictures, and I realized my country Regency dress was still hanging out on my mannequin, waiting for me to put closures in. So I took some pics of it!
I made this dress for a tea in late June, it’s the same one I talked about working on in May and June.
We had a costumed tea as a combination birthday and last costumed hurrah for our preggers ladies, at our staple Lisa’s Tea Treasures.
Since it was a more casual event, I skipped the wig and makeup, and then showed up and everyone else was bejewelled even! I felt really under-done XD (but at least my hair matched my dress…)
And also like maybe I was the poor consumption doomed relation.
Also I’m not sure about how I chose to do the petticoat layer… by itself it looked fine, but with everyone else it looked like I outgrew my dress!
Doris and I ended up being sleeve twins! We both opted for the petal look, but I went forward and she went backward. I really wanted to have a detachable long undersleeve for this, but I didn’t get around to it in time for tea (or… at all to be honest, but next wearing! It’s totally there).
Anyway so, for the tea I didn’t actually wear my stays, but I put them on my mannequin because I was thinking of putting buttons on them, to button the petticoat directly to it.
I think I already talked about my reasoning for why I did the petticoat suspenders style, but it boils down to of all the extant examples I could find, I felt this offered the most versatility.
I honestly have no idea why I wanted it SO full in the back though…
Because it *is* so full, and my mannequin is smaller than I am, it really weighs the back down in pictures. It’s a bit more even on me, but still a bit heavy in the back.
I was really pleased with how my hand-done button loops came out though! I want to play more with that, it was fun.
The rows of pintucking weren’t as fun, because I had made it soooo full it just took forever!
The full shot looks really weird because I steamed it, and it made the dress stick to the petticoat aaaand, just trust me, it’s not this weird looking normally!
Also my mannequin has a bigger bust, so things don’t quite close, and often look a little… awkward.
I’ll get a better mannequin eventually!
I’ve run out of commentary. But here you can see my lack of closures.
My original plan was to have covered buttons in the blue, and hand bound button holes in the offwhite, but for the tea I just tacked these bows on to hide the fact that I didn’t have proper closures, and I think it looks pretty cute so now I’m not sure if I should just do hook & eyes under it.
That hem :/ I’m thiiiiinking about using the rest of my fabric, which isn’t that much, to extend the blue dress and hide the seam with some pin tucks.
Ending with my favourite part! I just really like how the back turned out, and I can’t wait to properly finish this and wear it again!
