Due to the particularly fine weather (and the fact that we had all our plant pots and a very dirty barbeque in our dinning room because our landlord wanted to paint the balcony) our tea party became a picnic. We packed up a couple of blankets, napkins, sandwiches, cookies and juice and headed down to the park by the lake.

It was a hot day but the breeze off the lake was lovely - both for cooling us off and you showing off the wonderfully billowy dresses everyone was wearing. I would like to speak to the wonder that is cotton and say that, despite my several layers of chemise, stays, petticoat and gown, I didn’t seem to feel the heat any more than anyone else.

We got a few looks from people going by the park but by far the best reaction was someone out in her garden along our walk home. She was standing in the middle of the yard, hose in hand, starting at our little procession up the road. I nearly called out a ‘hello’ but wasn’t quite sure what reaction I’d get. We got out my collection of Chinese fans when we got back to the apartment (no wind inside) and everyone sat down to watch Emma and have a cool glass of water.

I’ve set up a photo gallery showing our afternoon in the park.

This is the gown (and under-things though you can’t see them) than I made for myself for this year’s tea party. I’ll put up a post for the under-things as soon as I’m finished the embroidery on my stays; right now they look a little too ‘half finished’ to be shownoff.
 
The fabric for my gown was ordered from Moda Fabrics and is a light weight seersucker with thin yarn dyed stripes. The seersucker turned out to be a good choice as it hides a lot of little puckers that showed up while I was sewing. Being so light weight meant that it flowed beautifully when I was outside and was very comfortable to wear.

Since I wanted my gown to fit over Regency under-things (chemise, stays and petticoat) I had to get those finished first and put them all on for each fitting. They are not the most comfortable things to be machine sewing in (especially since I have to crawl under the table to plug in my iron) but the result was a bodice that fitted really well .
 
I wanted something I could do up myself so I modified the pattern to make a cross over bodice front and removed the button overlap in the back. I added the voile ruffle to hide any little bits of my under-things that peeked out beyond my neckline and because I think it looks nice and delicate.
 
I also added small gussets to the underarms for some added comfort and mobility.  They were pretty easy to set in but flat felling the seams was a bit daunting and I’m not sure they are done quite right; there are no raw edges showing on my dress however, except for the inner edge of the skirt placket which is just too skinny to do anything about.

My gown closes with two covered buttons and hand sewn button holes in the front.  I have to say I was very pleased with myself for getting the placket in exactly the right place in the front skirt piece and working out the pleats to accommodate the extra fabric I had added in for ‘designer’s comfort’.
 
The picnic was also the debut event for my Mesh Triangle shawl and I think it performed very well.  Katy got some lovely pictures of it catching the wind and the sun really brings out the colours.

I’ve been working on my Regency under-things. It took me ages to get all the materials and then get around to making up the toile for the stays. According to this pattern I’m a whole lot smaller than I thought I was.  It took me three tries to get the right size and shape.
 
It turned out that I didn’t need any gussets or extra boning in my stays and when I put them together they just looked a little plain so I decided to dress them up with a some embroidery. The design is loosely borrowed from some scrapbook rub-ons I like - all scrolly with little hearts. I haven’t dug out my needlework supplies in a while and it was really fun to be working on a simple, follow-the-lines, pattern - though sewing through the coutile (stiff corseting fabric) was a little hard on the hands.
 
This project defiantly has a learning curve: I had to make a few quick fixes when I was learning to do the flat-felled seams for the chemise - they don’t work out if you go the wrong way. I’ve sewed the drawstring casing on the outside of the neckline instead of the inside too. Unprinted fabric looks the same on both sides and the flat felled seems don’t help. I haven’t decided if it matters enough to fix yet.