Riversdale Fancy Dress Ball

The lovely Riversdale House had a fancy dress regency ball in October, the weekend our friend Conley was in town, so we got tickets.

I didn’t have time to sew anything new, but since I did have a 1790s gown that was based on a fashion plate, I called it good enough!

Here’s the house:



This is the fashion plate:



My gown:



Conley borrowed a drawstring gown:

Poor Doug needs another waistcoat and another coat, but I just haven’t had time to do anything about it. :-( At least he has different colored socks that we picked up at Fort Fred.







They had a picture frame so you could get your portrait. That was kind of fun!





Jess:

Throwback Friday?

It's not Thursday, but here are two pics from the costume weekend I went to last year in Dallas! I think they might be either Merja's or Jen's pics. Or both. :-)

The top is of our regency dinner, the bottom from the Georgian revival house we toured.  I don't believe I'd seen either picture before!

Dallas Fort Worth - Regency Dinner

We had a fancy Regency dinner in Dallas at Pappadeauxs, as an early birthday celebration for Jen. It was SO fun. The food was great, we had a private room (though the restaurant had booked a party in that room not long after us, the service was slow - which was not an issue for us, only for the party after us, and we got hassled by the people waiting), and though there wasn't much room for pictures, we managed anyway.

We also just missed some bad weather. We managed to get there right before it hit and it was over by the time we got out of dinner. It did make it hard to get a group pic since the ground was wet, but that's ok.

I wore my 1790s fashion plate gown.

Jen handpainted the trim on her gown, which was amazing. It was so beautifully done with the design being shaded and I don't know how it's so perfect because the design is so small. I was a big fan!

Birthnight Ball

Gloria, Mike, Taylor, Isabella, Glynnis, Amber and I all attended Gatsby Tavern's 1790s Birthnight ball - a celebration of George Washington's birthday. It was super fun and for once there were worse dancers than us! Yay!

I wore my new gown based on a 1790 fashion plate, which I was able to finish thanks to a snow day. I did style a wig for this too - trying to make fluffy pinned rolls like in the fashion plates of the era. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Here's my gown and the fashion plate that inspired it. I made mine with an undergown that is fitted in the back and gathered with a drawstring in the front.

At dinner - Doug joined us for dinner. Photo courtesy of Gloria.


Photo by Gloria:


At the ball:




This ball seemed to have fewer dancers but the rest of the party was packed! I was able to get a shot of some of the food though:


The traditional hedgehog:


Shoeshot:

Miniature of me!

My mom painted this as a gift! It's me in my aqua 1790s gown! Didn't she do a great job? Especially since it's only 2" big!

1790s again

I'm thinking I made a good guess on making my version of this gown have a crossed over front:

This plate looks like a very similar gown - the sleeves are in the same style.  It's dated just one year before the teal one.  I like this gown too! Maybe I'll make in this color too? :-)

A few more Regency Card party pics

I pinched these from other people.

Nicole's photos:

(Love this pic!)

Regency Card Party

Here are a few pictures from the Regency card party I went to last night!

One more 1790s gown post

Here are a few pics of me at the party tonight. I have a bunch more pics of everyone else (and everyone looked so great!) which I'll post tomorrow because I'm really really tired after the long drive home. I had a great time though!

1790s gown finished!

Here it is with trim - I didn't have quite enough for what I wanted to do, but oh well. I also kind of want to redo the sleeves a bit to make them less poofy. They don't look poofy here, but they are a little bit poofy on.

My friend Amber just brought me back this shawl from Afghanistan, and it matches nicely I think!

1790s hair

I was inspired by these fashion plates, so I decide to try a hairdo like this for tonight's shindig, to go with the 1790s aqua gown:

Aqua 1790s gown - almost done!

I recently posted about this 1790s fashion plate that I fell in love with and two other inspiration images of a KCI collection gown:

http://costumersguide.blogspot.com/2011/06/1790s-gown.html

Well, my dress is finished - except for the trim.  I had a lot of trouble finding trim I liked, or that I had enough of.  I've since ordered some stuff that I think will work, but I'm not sure whether it will come in time for the party I'm intending on wearing this too.  I may baste some temp trim on, or just wait.

So, the finished gown doesn't look totally like the fashion plate yet!

Here's the fashion plate again:

And my gown! I modified the Sensibility pattern I used for my last regency dress, just making the bodice longer. The pattern came with a wrap front, which I modified slightly. I did use the under layer so that the pleats would work and the bodice would be fitted.

1790s gown

I have an other Regency event coming up in July, and I have the perfect thing to sew for it!

The moment I saw this fashion plate, I knew I had the perfect fabric for it - but I didn't have enough.  It was a 2 yd piece of gorgeous blue dupioni (yeah, I know, not period) from Joann Fabric that matched this perfectly.  I gave up on the idea because I couldn't find more of the fabric, until a friend let me know that there was a Joann that did have lots of colors of silk.  I checked it out and found the color I wanted! And they let me use a coupon on it - so I guess this dress is a go!

Of course the new silk doesn't quite match the old, it's a little greener. But it's close, and I think it will make a great version of this plate!

I don't know what the front looks like, but I'm going to use this 1795-1800 gown from the KCI collection.