Month: June 2012

Bodice in Progress

On By kittycalashIn Clothing1 Comment

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Pleated back: of course, I managed to pleat in the opposite direction of most gowns, though there is one extant pleated this way (towards center back, not away from center back).

What to do? Mr. S says, It’s pretty.
I say, there’s only one gown pleated like this.
He says, You’re one of them.

The problem is, I have always been one of them, but I’m also a woman who wants a dress to wear and spent some time pleating already. So I think I will. Baste the pleats and try this one, and see what I think. If the back doesn’t behave properly, then I’ll re do it. What better way to spend a vacation day at home than sewing and annoying the lad on his first day home from school?

Looks like Chaos, but It’s Not

On By kittycalashIn Clothing1 Comment

Pattern and re-pattern, trying to get a robe a l’anglaise to fit properly. After I made new stays at Christmas, the brown dress that sort of fit really no longer fit.

Eventually, cutting muslins and re-stitching and pinning and undoing and redoing will get you to this.

I used a mirror and my husband took photos of the back, since I couldn’t manage that. Then I borrowed a friend from work to help with the sleeves, since the pin-behind-you method wasn’t working well. After I re-cut the sleeve head and found that a better fit, both sleeve heads are re-cut and seem to be working, so I’ll stitch them in by hand at work.

The goal, from patterning on Sunday, is a finished dress by Saturday afternoon’s tea for Rochambeau. Depends on when the tea starts, I think.

Partners in Crime

On By kittycalashIn Events
Mr. S in his 6-hour coat

Ah, partnerships. They don’t always work the way either partner thinks they will, and one always has more power than the other. Suffice it to say that my partner, who is also my husband, did me a solid and came down to Water Fire’s Gaspee Project last night. The Regimental Captain and his family did, too, and for that I am truly grateful.

The Gaspee affair really was a crime: it was an act of revolt by Rhode Island citizens against the Crown, but Lieutenant Dudingston saw the evasion by the Hannah as a crime, and it was—her captain was supposed to submit to boarding and inspection. The raid on the grounded Gaspee and the wounding of Dudingston was also certainly a crime.

I didn’t take any photos at Water Fire last night, but plenty of people wanted their photo taken with me in my crazy bonnet.

People love that bonnet

One man confessed to me that I reminded him of his childhood trips to Steppingstone Stables [sic] and the two white-footed Clydesdales, Big Tom and Big Jerry, that pulled the wagon.  I didn’t think I was that big…but what he meant was that seeing me dressed up “old-timey” reminded him of other times and of the past, and helped him connect to something beyond his immediate moment. I think he’d had a good time down at the new Sabin’s Tavern, but he had a moment that made him reflect on something that gave him pleasure, and that’s a good thing.