18th Century Ballgown

Well, my dear readers, I've promised again and again to get photos of my finished ballgown.  It's been two months since I wore the dress to the Vintage Ball, and I've finally gotten some pictures.  What better day to do a photoshoot than when it's nearly 50 degrees out but there's 5 inches of snow on the ground?!

Yes, that's right I'm playing in the snow.

Little church in Eagle Rock.

The church we attend.

My mom cracks me up.

Random blurry photo that I thought looked really cool.

Credit goes to my wonderful mom for taking the pictures, tramping through the snowy woods and getting her shoes wet, and driving me to the churches!

Giveaways....

Okay, so y'all know just how much I LOVE  English Country Dancing (duh, I was sooo excited about the Vintage Ball!).  Well, dear Lucia over at lucia, etc. is giving away a tutorial DVD called English Country Dancing, Vol. 1.  So head on over, enter the giveaway at  http://one-beloved.blogspot.com/2012/02/english-country-dance-dvd-giveaway.html, and start learning how to REALLY dance.  (Warning, no teenyboppers allowed.  Young ladies only.  LOL)

Also Savories of Life is having a giveaway as well!  With earrings, lip balm, a greeting card, and tote and shopping bags, there's sure to be something to interest you.  Go check it out!

On a completely different note....some exciting news is that there is the newly founded Regency Society of Virginia.  Any readers here in VA that like Jane Austen (uhhhh, am I talking about myself?) should probably enjoy them!  I'm just hoping that maybe there will be some dances....even though I think Regency fashions look absolutely horrendous on me.  :-/

Silly photos

Hello my dear readers!  I'm so sorry that I haven't posted anything as of late.  Time and again, I've tried to get photos of my ball gown and stays, but it's either been too cold out or my brother has taken the camera!  Anyways, it was a beautiful day a few days ago, so Grace and I took a walk in the woods and got some pictures of me being goofy.  Enjoy!

Hello down there!

"I will worship while I'm waiting..."

...and how am I supposed to get down from here?

What next?

Agghhh!  It's a leaf!!!  LOL

I'll load up more when I'm at school on Wednesday because they have wayyyy faster internet than here at the house!

One Thing in Common

“ 'What do I, a seamstress, have in common with a writer?  What can I say to people who might have completely different interests than I do?'  Then I realized that even though we might have different interests and talents, we all have one thing in common, and that is that we can, and should, use our different gifts to the glory of God....."


See the rest of my guest post over at Struggles of a (Maybe) Teen Author, a blog by Miss Emily Rachelle!  :)

1780's dress (and the Vintage Ball)

After two weeks of sewing like crazy, Sarah and I finally got my dress done!  I absolutely LOVE it!  It's a robe a la polonaise in chocolate satin with a cream brocade, and it's lovely.  On Friday, my sister Grace and I went over to Sarah's house to get ready for the Vintage Ball.  We had the best time getting ready.  We then took some photos with Sarah's brother Josh, and headed to the Ball!  I don't have any pictures from the Ball, so y'all are going to have to be content with these.

Curling Sarah's hair....and you can kinda see how I did Grace's hair...

 

Josh, Sarah, me, and Grace. 

 The back of Sarah's dress....it's sooo lovely!

Grace and I - isn't Grace turning into quite a lovely young lady?

 Ta-da!  Finished dress!  

And the back!

I don't have much to say about the Ball.  I did have fun dancing with Josh and his friend Micah because they're like my younger brothers, and we made funny faces at each other throughout the dances!  And I was very glad to catch up with a dear friend that I hadn't seen since soccer season in the spring!  But I was disappointed because no one asked me to dance....well, at least without being told to.  I was bad enough to ask Micah to ask me, and told Josh to!  But, overall, it was a good time.  

I had to steal these photos from Sarah's mom's facebook, since I don't have a camera of my own anymore and my brother wouldn't let me take his.  :(  I'm going to take better pictures soon, I promise, and post in more detail about the petticoat and stays and gown.

Grace's dress

Two more days 'till the Vintage Ball!  I'm so excited!  Last week, I finally finished Grace's dress.  I had worn this dress before, but the sleeves were too tight and I couldn't raise my arms over my head (which is very necessary for English country dancing), so I only wore it once to a formal banquet.  Grace bought the dress from me a few months ago on the condition that I fix it up in time for the Vintage Ball.

I fixed the sleeves by making a slit on the side and inserting a triangular piece of lace.  It was a PAIN to get it to look right, but I think I finally got it right.  Because I had to take the sleeve off the bodice to work with it, and the satin stretched out while I was working with it, I had to make a little inverted box pleat at the top of the sleeve to make it look right....

The lace insert.

I also added lace to the front and back necklines.  

Doesn't it look lovely on her?  

I've also been working on my 1780's ballgown and my 18th C. stays.  I finally finished the stays... hurrah!  My dear friend Sarah (check out her blog over at because modern clothes are stupid!) has helped me so much with my dress, and it's looking lovely!  Oh, let me tell you a little secret....*her dress, which is modeled after Lizzy's white ball dress in the newer version of "Pride and Prejudice" is absolutely amazing!* But I'll let her tell you all about it!  

I promise that I will post lots of photos from the Ball!

Lucy Locket lost her pocket....

I have finally finished my 18th century pocket!  I would have finished it much, much sooner if I had just been more consistent on working on it.  I have that horrid habit of getting a project mostly done, then not finishing it for a couple months.  But I finally made myself do the last few inches of embroidery, and then bind the pieces together.  Here's the finished pocket!

Photo with needle-case and pin ball.  Sarah made the pin ball - it reads on one side "SW to AT" and on the other "Faithful Friends Forever Be."  Isn't it sweet?

My two favorite embroidered flowers.  They turned out especially well in my opinion.

Now I can carry my chapstick with me to the Ball in style!  Not that anyone else is going to see my pocket under my petticoats, but at least *I* will know how awesome it is.  LOL.