2019 Costume Year in Review

(I'm behind on updating events for the second half of the year, but you'll get some of that within.)

I… pretty much did nothing this year. Ok, that’s not totally true, but going through year two of motherhood + working full time leaves not enough time for me for sewing. At least, not enough big, contiguous chunks of time. I used to take a whole free weekend (when I had them) and spend all day on a project. I don’t have that anymore. And my evenings are for relaxing and recovering, and they are just enough time to take stuff out before having to go to bed. It’s just not working for me now, but I know that will change. And someday she will want to do her own thing, and I’m going to wonder what to do with my time!

Knowing all this, last year I said, “ Since my sewing time/drive has been so low, I think my main goal for 2019 will be to have as many of my older costumes photographed as possible. At least I’ll have a good record of them that way! So it’s accomplishing something.” and “ So next year, I’d like to finish the mending pile, to include actually assembling that new regency dress. Trimming the francaise would be good. As would doing literally anything else. I clearly need a bustle gown. Other than that, I think I’ll just try to rewear stuff that never was well-photographed, and get as many pics as I can.”

Since I set the bar so very low, I can say that yes! I accomplished this! I rewore stuff, I had photographs taken of old stuff. I did not trim the francaise, though that’s not because I didn’t try. The trim I had envisioned just didn’t look right with the fabric I had, so after trying a couple different ways to pleat the fabric, I put it away for another time. So I did at least try. And I did finish my mending pile!! I did not assemble the regency dress. I took it out a few times and just wasn’t into it. And since the Pumpkin Tea this year was bustle era and not regency, I figured I can do it next time I need a new regency day dress. So I deprioritized it.

I did go to quite a few costume events, which was nice. And I bought two Victorian gowns on FB, so I finally have things to fill in the gaps where I have not had time to sew. One of them still needs hemming, though I hemmed the first one I bought.

So here was my year.

February: Victorian Tea at Dupont Hotel



The lighting was terrible but Mike and Gloria did do some pics. I wore my old 1840s watered silk gown with an antique pelerine over it just to do something new. Here’s their pic of me:



I participated in In the Long Run Designs New Kit-Cat Club photo project. Here was my photo from that project. I wore an older gown, but one of my favs. Red and white striped silk and a take on the famous gown from the KCI collection. I got some nice photos of it from that shoot!



More below the cut!

AwesomeCon 2018

AwesomeCon was in late March this year. I decided to just do one day, and meet Gloria for Outlander costuming, and check out the Artist Alley since I had a couple of friends with tables there. We decided not to bring Elena since it was the tail end of flu season, which wasn’t great this year.





The most surreal part was this - we apparently passed right by the actor who plays Finn in Star Wars - but didn’t realize til right after he went past, because he had a hoard of people following him, apparently at least one of them live casting on his Instagram, which we were on.





We also met up briefly with Janine and Ron - Jyn Erso and gender bent Rey:

I saw this lovely Padme Lake dress:



This costume was awesome. The Swedish Chef (Viking style)



Bob Ross:



The littlest Ewok:



We had a small Outlander meet-up and Mike took some great pics!

These are credit In the Long Run Designs:

My mom painted this!

Outlander "The Gathering" gown

Note: All wearings of this gown have been labeled "the gatherings pics" so as not to bury this page.
http://costumersguide.blogspot.com/search/label/the%20gathering%20pics

Claire's gown from the Outlander episode "The Gathering" was one of my favorite looks from Season 1.   I really wanted to make it,  but where to find the fabrics? Because the fabrics are what make the gown so unusual.

I had thought maybe Spoonflower?  But then my friend Natasha spotted a very very close, if not exact tartan. And she did find the exact flowered brocade.

Prepare for some sticker shock.

The final result:

Much much more below the cut:

Outlander painting

Here's my mom's little painting of Doug and I from the Outlander tea from earlier this month. Keep in mind this is done in a book that isn't made of watercolor paper and it's really small!

Outlander Holiday Tea

So our holiday tea ended up being Outlander themed - we thought it would be fun to have a time-travel theme and have everyone come in either 1740s or 1940s because those are the two period in the show. We opened it up to 1840s too - and we had a lot of really fun costumes. We ended up at an Irish pub (not quite Scottish) for late lunch/early dinner and they restaurant was nice and empty and we had the place to ourselves. It was a really fun afternoon!

(I posted about my outfit here: http://costumersguide.blogspot.com/2015/01/outlander-inspired-outfit.html)













Gloria and I were twinsies! Even our shoes!






























Kat's pic:


Gloria's pics:

Outlander-inspired outfit

Like many these days, I am really enjoying the show Outlander.  The costumes are really pretty - and even though they're not period, the chunky knits are really cute.

Our holiday tea had an Outlander theme (1940s and 1740s) so I decided to make something Outlander inspired.  It's not a replica of any of the costumes - I didn't have a lot of time so I went with patterns I was familiar with and fabric from the stash. I was thinking wools and plaids.

I had some blue wool in the stash, and a brown plaid left-over from my faux Victorian coat and went from there.

I've used the JP Ryan jacket pattern a number of times so I went with that - even though it didn't have a waist seam. I think a waist seam is more appropriate for 1740s - this jacket is more 1760s. I do love this jacket pattern though - it's really straight-forward and easy to use.

http://www.jpryan.com/details/jacket.html

For the stomacher, I wanted to do something embroidered with thistles. So I looked on etsy to see if I could find something good, and then I remembered that I had impulse bought these vintage embroidered sleeves (and sort of regretted it later) - but then I realized that one of them would be perfect for a rustic looking stomacher.  And it worked!

Here are pics of the costume on my dress form and on me - I'll have more coming from the actual tea.

A big thanks to my friend Gloria, who knits. She made an extra cowl which she gave me. And then she put up pretty brown wool mitts in her etsy store, which I snapped up.

Here are what a few of what Claire's outfits look like: