There were special sleeve designs and carefully hand finished seams and button holes and pretty little mother of pearl buttons. Unfortunately we could not find any frog closures in town with which to finish the pelisse (sleeveless coat) so that has yet to be completed.
  

 

 

This used to be part of a skirt. A little while ago I spent some time sorting through my closet and pulling out the things I didn’t or couldn’t wear anymore. This skirt fell into the latter category. I think I must have boughtit in grade ten or so and it is hard to believe that I really used to fit inside. I still really liked the fabric though and I didn’t want to give it away so it spent some time shoved in the back of my fabric cupboard. Last Friday I decided that it would make a very pretty reticule for Regency dress up.
 
I decided to use a French seam for the outer layer since the skirt fabric looked like it would fray rather badly. This wasn’t ideal since the bottom of the purse is curved but it will help the seam last longer and the jogs in the curve aren’t noticeable once there is a bit of weight inside. I also lined the body with muslin so it would be a bit sturdier.

The fabric ‘beads’ were an after thought - I wanted to cover up the knots in the ribbons and there were some smallish pieces of material left over. They are just circles with running stitches around the edges. I stuffed some batting in around the knot to fill out the bead and pulled the running stitches in tightly. I made a back stitch to hold it and sewed through the edges right across through the ribbons to the other side a few times make sure everything would stay put.

 

... Or two.

I’ve added some new pictures to my photos page. All the pictures are from a couple of tea parties we had over the summer. We made all the dresses and I did my best to make sure each one would be a little different. It was a lot of fun to see everyone all dressed up at the parties. A few people even did up their hair in Recency-ish styles. After tea we walked down the street to a little park so we could take some nice pictures.


... some people were a little more shy than others about being seen outside in costume.


I am very proud of my spencer with its little skirt. It’s based on the one on the cover of Persuasion. I had to work out the pattern myself and it took a few tries before I had both the math and the style complimenting the rest of the jacket. I still haven’t attached any fastenings or trim but my broach worked well to hold the jacket closed.