Gotta do something about that yard...

Today was an unseasonably warm and beautiful day here in Texas (especially considering that it's been raining for the 3 days prior to that). I took my 3-year-old outside with me while I relaxed in the sunshine, and let him run around and play. Looking at my awful yard, I decided that it's time to do something about it.

We've been living in this house for 3 years, and we haven't done anything with the yard yet. It doesn't even have any grass (it's a very shady yard, with lots of oak trees in our and our neighbors' yards, and it's hard to get grass growing).

I'm going to start with a little bit of side yard on the north side of the house. It's been buried under dried leaves ever since we moved in... yikes! I raked them all out today, and found the remnants of silk flowers that the bizarre previous owner had "planted" there. Um, okay.

Over the next couple weeks, I'm going to figure out what I want to put there. I lost my measuring tape (hahaha) but I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 4'x8'. Not very large, but I think it's big enough for me to put some sort of decorative object, and accent plants around it. Whatever it is would have to be able to grow in the full shade.

The before (the 'after' will come this spring):



After I took the photo, I tore out all that monkey grass, and raked out enough of the dirt and leaves along the edge to expose the landscaping timber that borders the little area. I hate monkey grass, but I think liriope (another decorative grass) is more attractive. This stuff was in bad shape and needed to be torn out anyway.

Trapezoid skirt is finished

I finished my skirt a lot sooner than I thought... thanks to my kids being distracted by Spongebob on TV last night, and my youngest taking an early nap today.

The tedious part is pinning on all the extra-wide double-fold bias tape. In doing so, I discovered the importance of checking the packages to make sure they all all from the same dye lot. I purchased 3 packages a couple weeks ago, and they all had the same color and item code and all that. But I pinned on the first two packages of bias tape, and when I pulled out the third, I noticed that it was stiffer and was darker shade than the other two! I checked all the packages to make sure they were all the same, but then I turned them all over and saw that there was a number stamped on beneath the barcode/UPC, and one was different... guess it must be the dye lot. But the color difference isn't noticeable unless you examine the hem really close.

Anyway, here is my finished skirt, in the best possible picture my camera phone is capable of taking.

Puttin' it all together

Today I started pinning all the pieces of my tiered trapezoid skirt together. I have 5 different fabrics, so I laid them (in stacks) in the order I thought they would look best in. Then I pinned together the first tier (9 pieces), the 2nd tier (18) and the 3rd (36). It took me about 30 minutes to do, which included stopping a couple times to answer text messages from my husband and my sister. And stopping twice to get a tissue because I have a stupid cold!

I think it's looking pretty good so far. I think I can sew together pieces of each tier tomorrow, and *maybe* sew the tiers together. It all actually goes together pretty quickly, but I have so many other things to do... and the spring semester starts this week, which is going to drastically cut into my hobby time. I'll try to get 1/2 hour of sewing in 2-3 times a week, to help my sanity. :) Too bad my textbook doesn't come in audio format, LOL.

Future skirt projects

Okay, so earlier today I posted a skirt tutorial. I have plans for a few more skirts, and I want to share the fabrics I've selected.

These are the prints I am making the current skirt out of. Purchased from Hobby Lobby. I found two lovely tees from JCP that match the shades of cafe brown and pale pink in this fabric, so that's cool. It will be trimmed with pale pink bias tape.



These are fat quarters that I purchased from Hobby Lobby. They came in packs of 5 for $9.99, and I bought two. With 10 fat quarters, I can make a skirt to fit a 28" waist... I can hang on to it for when I finally get down to that size (with my running program), or I can give it to a friend. Harlequin, paisley, polka dot... oh my!



And these are "upcycled linen fat quarters"... vintage sheets that someone cut into fat quarters. I bought them off Etsy, and the seller had two identical sets of 6. So that's 12 fat quarters. I think this will make a perfect summer skirt!!! I'm still waiting for the fabric to arrive in the mail, actually. Maybe some ruffled eyelet along the bottom edge would look nice? Or maybe silly. I don't know, I'll have to try it out when I actually make the skirt.



But I still have other skirt projects I've been wanting to make, and haven't gotten around to yet. Several months ago I bought the Stella Strip Skirt pattern from Sew Serendipity. I also bought a jelly roll of "Hill Country Spring" fabric on Etsy, along with some chocolate brown paisley fabric to go with it. I think it'll look somewhat like the brown & colored skirt on the upper right hand corner of the pattern cover. I have made one strip skirt with this pattern and liked it, but it needs to be ironed to look its best, and it's very time-consuming... which is why I haven't started on another one yet. Maybe someday.

"Twirly Trapezoid" Skirt tutorial

I recently came across a really cool Tumbler Skirt Tutorial that I just had to make. I must give most of the credit to the original tutorial author, but I am re-writing it here for adult sizes (as the original skirt fits a little girl).

Here is a skirt I made this week. Sorry for the poor image quality, I took the pic with my cellphone, which is the only camera I have right now.



This skirt is made of trapezoid-shaped quilt blocks, with the finished bottom width of each piece being twice that of the finished top width. The size of trapezoid quilt blocks I prefer to use are 4" wide at the top, 7.5" wide at the bottom, and 7.5" long. This is just a teensy bit tricky to explain; when each row of quilt blocks is stitched together, the narrow tops of two quilt blocks will be stitched to the wider bottom of one quilt block in the row above it. Each row has twice as many quilt blocks as the one above it. With a 1/4" seam allowance on each side, the finished width of these quilt blocks will be 3.5" at the top, and 7" at the bottom.

The reason I decided to go with this size of quilt block is because you can get 6 blocks out of a one-quarter yard length of 44/45" wide fabric (flipped side-by-side across the width)... or out of one fat quarter (2 rows of 3 each).

Now, to figure out how many quilt blocks you need, measure your waist, and divide this number by 3.5". Round up to the next whole number. This is how many blocks will be in the top tier. Each row has twice as many blocks as the one above it, so you need to multiply this number by 7 (1+2+4) to find the total number of quilt blocks.

Example: my waist is 30".
30 ÷ 3.5 = 8.57, rounded up = 9.
9 × 7 = 63 quilt blocks.
Divide this number by 6 to find the number of 1/4 yd lengths or fat quarters you will need. For my example, I will need 11 quarter-yard lengths of fabric or 11 fat quarters to make my skirt. Or, if I want to use fabric scraps I already have, I could scrounge around until I find enough to make 63 pieces. Any extra bit of fabric can be used to make a matching headband, or decorative fabric flowers.

For the skirt I am making here, I bought 1/2 yard each of 4 coordinating fabrics, and 3/4 yd of a 5th coordinating fabric, to make my 11 quarter-yard pieces. (I have a stack of fat quarters waiting to be made into another skirt sometime in the future).

*Note: the finished length of this skirt is 21". You can make the skirt any length you want by lengthening the pieces, but this will affect the length of fabric you will need. Go longer than 8" (1/4 yd is 9" but I am including shrinkage allowance) and you will need more than 1/4 yd for each length of fabric, or you can't get the 6 pieces out of fat quarters. You could always make more tiers, but that would make for an extremely full skirt- this one is already 240" wide at the hem- and it will mean a lot more fabric, a lot more quilt blocks, and a lot more sewing. Just play around with the numbers, and cut test pieces out of scrap paper to try out the layout.

Cut a trapezoid template out of paper, to use for cutting out your pieces. I highly recommend a cutting mat and rotary cutter, but you can always trace the shapes with a pencil and cut them out with scissors.

If there is a white strip of selvege along the edge of the fabric, go ahead and cut it off. Line the template up against one end of the fabric.



Line up your straight cutting edge along the sides of the template piece. Cut off the scrap piece at the very end, and discard. Cut out the quilt block, being careful not to cut the template piece itself, and don't let the straight edge shift.



Next, flip the template upside-down and line it up against the new edge of the fabric. (Have I mentioned that it's best to have a fabric without a one-way design? Well, now I have).



Continue until you have all your pieces cut out, and have fun arranging the sequence you'd like them to be in.

Start stitching the pieces for the top tier together, but do not stitch it into a full circle yet... leave the last seam undone so you can insert the zipper. Continue with the 2nd and 3rd tiers.

Attach the bottom of the first tier to the top of the second tier, matching the seams of the top tier with every other seam on the second tier. You may need to ease the fabric a bit, because it may be slightly off (as happens to me, haha). Repeat to attach the 2nd tier to the 3rd tier.

Sew the "back" seam from the bottom, up to the seamline where the 1st and 2nd tier meet. Insert the zipper on the first tier, following the manufacturer's directions.

The *easiest* way to fit the skirt at the top is to make a little dart on each side of the waist edge. For example, if I make the skirt for a 30" waist, the finished top edge will be around 31.5". I'd leave 1/2" for ease, and make a little 1/4" dart on a seam at each side (which would take 1/2" off each side, for a total of 1").

I found that the easiest way (for me) to finish the skirt was to bind the edges with extra-wide double fold bias tape, in a coordinating color. I used 3 packages; they are 3 yards long each, and the bottom hem was almost 7 yards wide. This gave me enough to use around the bottom hem, with enough left over to bind the waistband edge. Attach a hook & eye to the waistband trim. You can also finish the hem by folding it under about 1/4", but it may be a little tricky. I prefer the look of the bias tape.

I will update this tutorial with a few more construction photos sometime in the next couple weeks, as I finish making the skirt with the quilt blocks I am cutting out in the above photos. I finished the pink & black & white skirt earlier today, and was so pleased with how it came out, that I decided to quickly throw this tutorial together. I am at the end of winter break right now, and getting ready for college to start again next week, so I'm trying to finish this skirt along with 100 other things around the house.

Swimdress is finished!

I've been meaning to make one of these for the past three years, and I've only just now gotten around to it! (I made one three years ago but didn't like the fabric that much, so I only wore it once).

I used the Modest Swimwear Pattern from Fashionably Modest Patterns. I found this particular swimwear fabric on eBay (search for 'swimwear fabric')... but I have a few other lengths of swimwear fabric (nylon/Lycra) that I purchased from Fabric.com.

The pattern calls for 2.5 yds of 60" swimwear fabric, but with careful layout I can use about 1.5 yards... I'll have to draw up a sketch to explain. I'll do that later. And it says it needs 1 yd of swimwear lining fabric, but I use less than that, too.

Lycra swimwear fabric is surprisingly easy to work with. It's a little bit slinky so you have to keep that in mind, and be sure to use a ballpoint or universal needle (I use the latter).

And no, the swimdress is not loose-fitting... it just looks that way because one of the adjustment dials on my dressform broke, and I cannot adjust it to my size, LOL.

Blueberry blossoms!

I checked on my blueberry bushes today... there are hundreds and hundreds of blossoms. The Tifblue blossoms are more mature than the Brightwell ones... the Brightwell should ripen mid-June thru mid-July, and the Tifblue are said to be "mid to late season". I'm not sure exactly what the late season is for blueberries; I'll have to look it up.

The dewberries also seem to be doing okay, they're covered with buds. I never did prune them this winter, yikes! But they're alive and well, as are the blackberries.

http://www.bottomsnursery.com/blueberries.htm

Tifblue:



Brightwell:



Austin Dewberries:

Sheer dotted swiss gown

I just finished it! I started working on it March 6th and didn't work on it on Sunday, so I think I made pretty good time. I hand-gathered the skirt yesterday and attached it this morning (by hand, whip-stitching every tiny little pleat- hundreds of 'em), and that took me 3 hours. My arm is tired, LOL. Every time I sit down to attach a cartridge-pleated skirt to a bodice I think, "Why am I doing this?"

I really do like this pattern... I would have liked to make a half-high bodice lining (meaning that the neckline of the lining is lower than that of the bodice, similar to Katherine's dress)... but I didn't feel like altering the pattern. Maybe next time... I have some more of this fabric in a medium blue print.

Pictures don't do it justice, of course. It needs ironed and like I've said before, my camera is getting old and worn out. I'll try to get more pics later.

And I still haven't cleaned up the room, LOL. I have an 1876 polonaise gown and a 1860's plaid gown (my project before this one) piled up on the couch there...

Bodice is finished

This went together a lot faster than the first bodice I made from this pattern.

I have the skirt pieces cut out and sewn together... what I need to do now is add the hem facing, turn the top edge under (tapered from 6" in the front to 3" in the back), run the gathering stitches for the cartridge pleating, and whip-stitch each cartridge pleat to the waist edge. I can get that all done tomorrow if I neglect my house-cleaning duties, ha ha. I am in no hurry to get this done, though, so maybe I'll just do one step each day.

And I have 2 3/4 yards of this fabric (50" wide) left over... enough to make a Regency gown. I don't know if I'll use it for that... but I can't think of any other uses at the moment.

New dress plans... another sheer

Once I get finished making the collar and undersleeves for my plaid dress, I plan on getting started on another sheer dress.

This one will be made from the same pattern as the last one I made (Past Patterns #812) but it is going to be made of sheer dotted cotton lawn... white with a printed pink floral pattern. It is beautiful fabric. It's currently in the washer right now...

I haven't decided if I'll put a ruffle on the skirt. I love the way the ruffle looked on my last sheer dress, and I have plenty of fabric (8 yards of 56" wide) but it kind of stressed me out the first time around. It was easier to do than I thought it would be... but do I really want to do it again?

My 4-yard dress

Okay, here is what I managed to get out of 4.16 yds of 60" wide fabric. Sorry if the pics are a little blurry.

I haven't worked on it in the last week because I felt too lazy to run the 2 rows of gathering stitches for the gauging. But doing that and attaching the skirt to the bodice only took 3 hours. :) It still needs a collar and undercuffs, as well as a couple hook & eyes on the waistband (which is currently being held closed with a safety pin).

Oh, forgot to mention... I used the now out-of-print Simplicity 4551, with the coat sleeves (but I left off the sleeve cap and cuffs).

4 yards... can I do it?

About two and a half years ago I ordered several lengths of fabric from a website that was selling out (changing ownership to another company). I don't remember what I paid for it, but it must have been a good price for me to order so many lenghts of fabric... seven!!

Last night I dug into my fabric stash with the intent of making a couple dresses from this fabric. (I'm losing weight right now... currently between a pattern size 18/20- modern size 14/16- and I want to make a dress in each size between my current size and my goal size of a 12- modern 4/6... okay, so that's only two dresses, in sizes 14 and 16). One of the fabrics I pulled out is a plaid shirting that has a cream background with a plaid design of blue and green with a teensy stripe of yellow... almost reminiscent of a Stewart Dress Plaid, except for the blue & green instead of red & black, and the plaid design is identical both vertically and horizontally. I'm too lazy to take a pic but here is a picture of the fabrics from when I bought them... the one I'm talking about is the one in the upper left corner.

I was very sad to discover a label on the fabric, from the online retailer, that said it was 4 yards long. Four yards??? It's 60" wide fabric... but why did I order only 4 yards? I can get a good dress out of 5 yards and I can squeeze one out of 4.5 yards, but 4? Ouch. I pre-washed it in hot water and threw it in the dryer on high (to shrink it) and then I ironed it out... when I measured it I saw that it was 4 yards and 6 inches. Yikes. After a lot of careful thinking, I decided that I will make the dress with narrow coat sleeves, which can be cut vertically (one above the other) out of the side of one of the skirt panels. I can cut the waistband that way too. I cut out the bodice pieces (front bodice and back bodice) and that took 20" of fabric. That leaves me with 130" of fabric. That'll give me three panels that are about 43" long each. I then took half of one of the skirt panels and cut the sleeves out of it, which left me a strip of fabric 4" wide by 43" long, that I can use for a waistband. Two 60" panels and one 30" panel will of course leave me with a skirt that is 150" wide. And if I use my last roll of hoopsteel to make a 90" cage, I can get away with skirts that are 43" long (I need 45" long panels to fit over my 108" cage). I could make it a dress for active work situations, which means I'd need to be 40" or maybe even less than that... but it's such a pretty fabric that I'd rather use it for an "everyday" dress.

Out of all the fabrics I bought, only one of them ended up being more than 4 yards... and that's the teal blue one in the center bottom in the photo. It's 5 yards. And it's my least favorite, LOL. I'm not even sure if it's suitable for 1860's use... it's an uneven plaid with a large repeat. I have no idea what else I'd use it for, though.

The plaid I'm using right now, other than the color, isn't too terribly different from the extant dress at the top of this page... though that one is wool barege, and mine is cotton shirting (very fine herringbone/twilled weave... I'm not exactly sure what type of fabric it is. I just know it's cotton and pretty).

Grant... that's just too funny!

I am working on my husband's shirts now. Today's tasks involve making the collar and the front facing, and attaching them.

The collar pieces are cut lengthwise, so the stripes of the collar are pretty much horizontal (shirt stripes themselves are vertical). I paid attention when cutting out the pockets to make sure they would line up with the stripes on the shirt, and I didn't pay much attention to the collar... I only checked that the pattern piece was straight with the stripes on the fabric.

So I just got done making the collar, and was getting ready to attach it to the neckline of the shirt. Then I noticed that Ulysses S. Grant's image is on the end of the collar... so when my husband wears the shirt, Grant is going to be sitting just above the lapel on the right-hand side!

Should've paid better attention, I guess. I don't have any more fabric to cut it out again! Maybe he won't notice, or maybe he'll like the shirt so much he won't care. Maybe he'll find a nice Bonnie Blue Flag pin to stick right in the middle of Grant's face (he doesn't like Grant, for no good reason other than his anti-Union bias... but if he was living up north instead of here in Texas, he'd probably like Grant).



UPDATE

I'm mostly done with the shirt now (just hemming and buttonholes/buttons left to do) and it looks both interesting and odd with Mr. Grant's face there on the corner of the collar. It looks deliberate!

Looking at silk fabrics

I'm not seriously thinking about buying any of these, as it'd be about $100 worth of silk for a dress, and I don't have a reason for a dress right now. But, they're fun to look at anyway, and I'm comparing them to original gowns.

First up, a gold and red "vintage" style plaid taffeta. Compare it to this original 1860's green plaid dress. Close-up view of the fabric is here.

Next is a beautiful gold plaid and satin stripe taffeta I found. Wow! Then I came across this this original blue and brown plaid/stripe dress... they're not the same, but I can see some similarities. Original fabric close-up is here. And here is another original dress that reminds me of this silk. Oh, here is another lovely silk. They're both gold, and I have no idea how that would look with my strawberry-blonde hair and ruddy complexion!!

One of my favorite silks so far is this red/brown/gray/black/white plaid taffeta I found, which sort of reminds me of this dress. View the close-up here.

I found a lot of checkered fabrics on the Pure Silks site, too, mostly in lighter shades of gold, green, blue, gray. Here is one, and it reminds me of this original dress, which looks more like a horizontal stripe until you see a closer view. I like the trim on the sleeves, it looks military-inspired.

They have a couple of pinstripe taffetas too, comparable to this original bodice. I wish more detailed pics were available of that dress.

I absolutely love this multi-colored plaid but I'm not sure if the plaid is too big... and I can't quite tell if that is green or gray. If it's green I might look very Christmas-y. I also love, love, love this black & white plaid from their eBay store, but it does seem a bit big. Or does it? This plaid dress and this one have very large patterns. Oh, why don't they make silks like that last one anymore? (DROOL!!!!)

Oh, and I just found one more, a that looks ever-so-slightly like this circa 1865 gown.

Maybe I can treat myself to a length or two of silk when I reach my weight-loss goal. 45 lbs down, only 60 more to go! (Sigh)

I wonder if this will make a good shirt?

My husband's birthday is coming up in a little over two weeks. I need to decide what to get for him. I've already bought him an 8G Sansa Clip MP3 player, which I plan to load up with Bobby Horton albumsI downloaded off Amazon.

My husband has really been focused heavily on Scouts lately, and I'm trying to remind him that Civil War reenacting is a whole lot more fun that Scouting. And involves the whole family. ☺

Anyway, I bought some Civil War "150th Anniversary" fabric online a few weeks ago. I didn't have a plan in mind when I ordered the fabric- impulse buy!- but I've been wondering if I could make two nice shirts with it. Somewhere in my pattern stash I have a copy of Simplicity 5581.

I don't know anything about quilting, so that's not much of an option with my time constraints. And if I had been planning to do a quilt, I would've gotten a couple more of the coordinating prints, which are now all sold out from the website I got them from.

Set of 1860's clothes

In the past 2.5 weeks I have made a chemise, a corset, a cage (hoopskirt), a petticoat, and a dress. I intended to make some drawers today but I totally messed up, and gave up on them. Maybe, maybe, maybe I'll get some made by the end of the week, but that's a big maybe.

So, here it is, photos of all the items one at a time. I laced the corset onto the dressform and I didn't want to remove it to photograph the chemise by itself. Sorry. And, once again, please excuse the messy room. That's one of my next projects, cleaning all that up...

• Chemise: free pattern drafting instructions from The Sewing Academy
  
• Corset: Simplicity 7215 (out of print, available on Etsy.com and eBay)
  
• Cage: Originals by Kay 7-bone cage kit (okay, I used some hoopsteel I already had, and the instructions from my old kit)
  
• Petticoat: free pattern drafting instructions from The Sewing Academy
  
• Dress: Past Patterns #812 Sheer Muslin Dress (added the ruffle myself)

Corset and chemise:


With the cage:


And the petticoat:


And the dress, with the corset peeking out:


And, finally, the dress. In person it's just possible to discern the slight shade of pink underneath the dress, but it doesn't really show in the photos. I didn't think it would show at all! Ah well.

Bubble-gum pink corset

I started this over a week ago, what a chore! The pink twill is a bit heavier and stiffer than what I'm used to using (even after I pre-washed it) so it took me longer to make than usual. I used the now out-of-print Simplicity 7215 corset pattern, which works best for those of us with curvy figures. You'll notice that I have a pink satin ribbon at the top of the corset... I drew it through the top binding, so I could pull the bust area of the corset in some (these hard plastic dressforms do not quite fill these corsets up properly. Ahem.)

It doesn't look as good as I'd hoped because needles that were sturdy enough to go through the fabric punched a hole in it, and I never could get the tension quite right (it's tough when you're going through 4-6 layers of this twill). I've used this pattern twice before, but with lighter and softer twills, and it works great for those.

And I had to use two pairs of shoelaces (tied at the top and bottom) because I did not have any corset lacing! And if I ever use this pattern again, I might put the eyelets 1" apart, instead of the 3/4" apart they currently are... 18 pairs seems a little excessive. To me, anyway (I also don't like placing the eyelets so it'll save me a few minutes of time).

Click for larger images.

Front view:


Side view:


Back view:


Full-length view. Chemise is made from Elizabeth Stewart Clark's free pattern.

The dress is finished! Kind of.

I must ask that you please ignore the messy room. :)

I finished the dress on Saturday evening. I was so happy to have it finished... until I realized that the skirt is lopsided! You can't really tell in the photos, but it is one inch longer on one side than it is on the other. D'oh! What happened was that I didn't fold over the top edge of the fabric on the left-hand side (the wearer's left side) before I gauged it. Grr. I'll fix it at some other time. It's a pattern size 12 (34" bust, 26" waist) and it's gonna be a while before I'm there, so I have time to get back to it later.

So... I paid $4.95/yd for this fabric. Took me 7 yards to make the dress. I thought I was getting a decent price. However... the fabric went on sale for $1.99/yd last week! Unbelievable! Just my luck. Of course, the lovely plaid wool I bought for my Halloween costume at $4.95/yd also went on sale for $1.99 three weeks ago. I can't win! (But that's okay, there isn't a lot I can use that wool fabric for anyway... too heavy for a dress...)

Here are some small pics, they're big files so they might take a few seconds to load. Click on the image for a larger view.

Front view:


Side view:


Closer view of the bodice:


Close-up view of the gauging (What is gauging?):

Cage and petticoat... finished.

I made a cage crinoline today... this type, 108". I used to have a 90" one but it wasn't quite big enough for nicer dresses... and, I threw it out when we moved. It had been misused and abused.

I made most of the petticoat last Wednesday, and needed to wait until the cage crinoline was done before I could set the petticoat on a waistband... so I could adjust it for length. This cage is 3" longer in the back than it is in the front. The petticoat originally had 7 half-inch tucks in it, but when I put it on the cage today I noticed it was too short! So, I took out the two bottom tucks, lengthening the petticoat by 2". I need to give it another good ironing to try and remove the evidence of the previous tucks, and give it a light starching.

Wow, do I need to clean my sewing room!! Or then den, I should say.

Front View, click for a larger image:


Side View:

Bodice construction nearly complete

Today I finished constructing the bodice. I'm really trying to get the hang of stitching down the gathered fronts, but I can't quite get it. Each attempt looks better than the first, but I'm not sure I discovered the trick to it yet.

I finished the sleeves day before yesterday. Tomorrow I just need to cut some bias strips, put them around the armscyes, neckline, and waistline, add piping, then sew the sleeves on, and stitch the piping/binding on the inside. I messed up on my first attempt (a plaid bodice) so hopefully I'll do better this time. The plaid bodice can be salvaged, but since this white one is for a talent show, I want it to look really good.

Click for a larger image.



I need to make a cage/hoopskirt before I can make the skirt! I'm still waiting for my husband to cut the hoopsteel for me. I'll have to work on the chemise and drawers in the meantime, and as far as I can get on a corset while waiting for the busk I ordered to arrive.

Oh, and the corset is going to be pink cotton twill. :)