Jane Austen Ball - and new dress!

A few weeks ago I went to the Jane Austen Ball at Gadsby's Tavern in Alexandria with a bunch of lovely friends.  The ball was so fun as always.  And I was really glad that some of our NJ/Philly crowd could come down for it!  After the ball, the ladies that stayed at my house watched Austenland to cap off our Regency experience.

I debuted my new peach gown (sari bought from Julia Bennett), my new teens tiara, necklace by Dames a la Mode, and new hairpieces.

So the link doesn't get lost, I wanted to note that Gloria has a blog on how she made her hairpieces - and it was from her that I got the idea for mine. In short, she bought a braided hairband which she sewed together, and a curly hairpiece from which she clipped curls from, hot glued the ends to seal them, and then sewed them to the braided hairband. She made hers more like bangs, I made mine more like side curls. I also hot glued them to the band.  I need to sew in wig clips so they'll stay better.  But overall I was really happy with how it turned out. And I was happy with the quality of the hairpieces, which are from Vogue Wigs.  Links to the relevant hairpieces are in Gloria's blog too: http://inthelongrun.wordpress.com/2014/01/25/2061/







Regency Wedgie shot for Jen Thompson!

Regency Ball costume painting

So I went to a Jane Austen ball and I have not yet had time to post pictures - but my Mom did a little painting of me, which is so cool!  I love it!

Orange Sari gown

I bought this gorgeous tangerine colored sari from Julia Bennett and finally finished a drawstring dress out of it. It's my favorite style of regency dress (though to be fair, I've only made one dropfront), and with time at a premium, I just went with what I knew.  I think the embroidery is so pretty and somehow I lucked out and the front and back skirt embroidery lined up perfectly. I totally planned it that way. Yup. ;))

Excused my stays showing through the back. As you may or may not recall, I commissioned stays because I couldn't deal with cup gussets and I bought a pair that backlaced with a metal busk in front.  They actually did have such things in the late late 20s.  I won't claim these are totally period accurate for all regency, but they are comfy and easy to get into.

Now for the pictures!