A Re Do-Over

Why Hello!
My apologies to all six of you.
I have been scrabbling over scraps of time and fabric. The result is that I have built very little but did do a do-over. It satisfies in its own way and is a very historical practice. Like re-trimming a hat to the current fashion or turning a dress to get more wear. I wanted something festive for the Great Dickens Christmas Fair and decided to tear through the closet. Because taking apart can be as fulfilling as stitching together. I took a dislike to a particular ball gown through no fault of it's own. And since I had a day vest to go with it, just needed to add sleeves and some fripperies and done! Easy-peasy, just like that, two hours max.
How we self-delude.

Ball gown bodice, day vest, day vest with harvested shirred front.

It seemed like a quick re-fashion, remove the shirred front from the bodice and add it to the vest front, but honestly the design stalled me. Sometimes the creative process takes as much time as the actual stitching. You'd think I would know that by now.
I stared at the thing for weeks, weeks. It did look nice on the dress form. I finally just got to it. It needed a little more adjusting since the front piece was higher on the day bodice, duh. With the addition of vexatious sleeves (that hardly ever happens to me-one fits with more ease in the armscye. See how I care) I was done.

With dear friends Todi and Sheila

I see the VCL, it's period. I like a close fit.

The Dickens Fair was as much fun as one can have in plaid pants, real or metaphorical.

These young men were spot on in their impression
and so happy to talk about the process, such dandies.

And the happy convocation of the Hatefish crew! In memory of a dear, genius friend.

I should also mention the splendid 1830's contingent with Lauren and Abby from  American Duchess.

1830's! Bonnets, gigot sleeves, ankle length skirts!
 I may be converted to this silliness.

 This was only a part of the 1830's group which seemed to expand and contract at will, part of the delightful effect. Were there 50 or 15? We may never know.

Ever Your Thimble Servant,
Miss Brilliantine

A Little Desultory Progress

You know how you stare at the blank canvas or blank page or try to move the line by inches, cuz inches is all you have in you? Half Hearted Or a Meh-Summers Night Dream.

Yup, I know this isn't the get-up and go that crossed the prairie and built the Hoover dammit.
 Modern grit-less, moon launch  much?
I did have a plan, and have wandered over and sewn a bit. I made a 30's frock for the Gatsby Summer Afternoon. Which looks decidedly frumpy, it's not helping. Could be the frock, could be me,  I even made a belt....
Had a zesty plan to start my fancy dress for our ball in November. Yes, November, I like to be done with time to spare (unlike book reports of yore).
These are the dogs days, I guess, why be so sirius.

A little from the stash and the corselet returns and returns again.

All held together by pins and good intentions.

This will be my Thpanish costume, I was considering "The last Rose of Summer" all green and pink and brown around  the edges. Fitting, but it would require too much explanation.
Maybe I'll post the 30's frock after I've worn it. Could always be worse.

Ever Your Thimble Servant
Miss Brilliantine

Round up the Eulogy Suspects

I bid farewell to my armless comrade in arms.
She was a stalwart if tipsy helper. Padded out, squeezed in, a little janky in the understructure. At the end she needed a lot of ballast, in the form of sandbags, just to keep upright.
But didn't she see a historical timeline!
Bustles, day and evening, corselets and petticoats, Turque(ish) jackets, Art Deco frocks and a few Gent's vests. She helped franken-pattern and was stuck with pins innumerable (which revenge was enacted by falling over on me). If I could, I'd set her alight in a boat, or give her coins for the ferryman. I'd array her with goods for the afterlife and mix up more funerary practices (maybe bury her in a large earthenware jug).
Now it's for the trash day recycle. 

Amid the triumphs, whisper softly "Remember you are metal".

Ever Your Thimble Servant,
Miss Brilliantine

A Sublime and Silly Compact

 When everyone agrees, to be Hussars, Medieval Pikemen, Rococo Courtesans, Renaissance Washerwomen, Hollywood Pirates, Art Deco Swells, Civil War Surgeons, Victorian Doyens of the ballroom, Queens, Knaves, Necromancers, Roman Legionaries and Regency Heroines.  We agree to the collusion, fierce, frequent, friendly, we nod and suit up.
I Am In!

Delightfully silly, we sew it, are shod in evocative footwear, with hats and stays or boots and spurs (for the imaginary horsemen).  Unshaken in the playful delusion.

The Wonder of It!

Impressionist picnic, yes Ma'am

And

The singing "ladies" of the House of the Rising Sun, at Nor Cal Pirate Fest

Pi-curious and windblown

The Lanterman House Summer Whites Picnic, choose your era.

Our resident plein air painter, he makes us respectable.

The wonder of it.

Ever Your Thimble Servant,

Miss Brilliantine

Jump(s) Cut to the 1780's

"Where are my neoclassical buttons"?
"Rare are my neoclassical buttons!"

Actual 18thc. buttons and my neoclassical hoard. 

Here are my neoclassical buttons! If I had a nickel....
(If you know what jumps are and what a jump cut is, I will give you that nickle. I know there are a few of you, you will have to share.)

I'm going up to the Pirate Festival in Vallejo /https://www.norcalpiratefestival.com/ and thought since I already had the silk stripe out (left over from the 1880's) and it was just enough and I do love a scrapy project. I made a little Pierrot jacket, it beats having to put it way.

A flirty tail to tell the tale of the tell tale... oh never mind

Yoyo is optional.

Never in the course of dress-up events have jackets had a bias front opening....https://www.vintagetextile.com/new_page_431.htm

I used to know why they were called "Pierrot" but can't recall, I'll leave it to the Historians or make up something totally feasible. The yellow stripe is actually the bodice of a polonaise, but I hold it up as documentation of the bias front opening. I used the J.P. Ryan Robe a l' Anglaise bodice and just grafted on a little tail. Like a modern meddling Mendel.
I got really crafty and printed the bottom of the skirt with a stamp that looks like a block print (to me). 

Soft cotton vole printed with roses. See if you already have all the supplies...
It came from the stash, which is always a good thing.

I will add a pretty shoe and a wide hat, "Properly warned be ye says I". 

Ever Your Thimble Servant,
Miss Brilliantine

I Contemplate VCL

Visible Corset Line

We know the ideal smooth, round and without a visible break. It should be a cinch (cinch!), but it's more a struggle, fit and fashion v. restriction or as I like to think of it T.Rex arms.  Modern recreators dispute, condemn, rework, let out a seam. Sometimes to effect, but not always.
I present an assuaging collage, 'cause they didn't always get it right either.

A small and easily gathered sample, if you look you can see it everywhere.

Would I like creaseless perfection?  Yes. I would also like penny whistles and pony rides.  I know an extra layer would relieve most of the line, but I just don't wanna. It's one more layer- not gonna do it. So in solidarity with my sinuous sisters, you're going to see my corset.

There it is front and back, I like to think the multi-directional stripes hide it cleverly- but it don't.
I'm pretty happy with it's first run, I may tweak it a bit, the tail needs a weight to keep it from flipping and I forgot to add the stays to the channels in front (I only ever bone the front). It was light and crisp and really fun to wear. And that's the goal.

Children of nature....... and taffeta

The entire point of this dress was a GBACG outing to Roaring Camp. Steam train, BBQ and nature. So. Much. Fun. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, the day was perfection, the weather was fine and everyone looked primped and polished. All in all about 80 attendees, including your thimble servant and my dear friend Todi. 

Lovely Cynthia, one of the organizers and her not so little man.

Afterwards we rambled in the redwoods, the Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park  to be exact. 

I contemplate Rousseau and his natural man. Uh-huh.

Heaven in every particular. 

In Super-Blurification! (But you can still see the corset line)

Ah well, I am content.

Ever Your Thimble Servant,
Miss Brilliantine

I Go to ALL the Things

April may be cruel but it's also busy.
Since all the things are happening at once I'll not squander them. Opportunity is fickle, who knows when it'll come round again. To that end I'll gather as much joy as I can, while I can and maybe put some aside for a leaner time when joy isn't so thick on the ground. A sort of joy jerky, dried and put by for when I need it.
I heard you, "I'd never partake of desiccated joy". But you would in a hungry time, I know you would.
"Got any of that dried joy left...?"

Thing the First-
Last Saturday was our Spring ball given by the Social Daunce Irregulars in Pasadena. I wore the return of the Swiss Waist and a fine thing it turned out to be, the lace did not shred as I feared. Stalwart yet elegant. Why, I could jump out of a fox hole bayonets fixed and still look elegant. Maybe I exaggerate, a little.

A little repurposed and made over, but serviceable.

Thing the Second-
This Saturday is GBACG "Train Ride into the West". Steam train, 1880's period attire and BBQ, where do I sign? http://www.gbacg.org/current/western-train_2018.php

A re-blocked straw and inspiration ( Antonio Mancini)

I do love to re-block hats, sooo much easier that making them from scratch and very satisfying. ( I fear I may be losing brain cells to the vapor, though.)
I did make a dress from scratch, using a lovely silk stripe given to me by Loren Dearborn of "The Costumer's Closet" blog. Dearborn is the most apt name.

I'll post action shots from the day.

Thing the Third-
Then there is the Art Deco Society's Preservation ball, http://www.artdecopreservationball.com/
Wherein I'll be wearing a "this old thing", but the shoes are pretty.

The right tool for the job, says I.

I think that's enough, I will squeeze in a ramble because it won't stay green forever.
May is starting to look lonely by comparison.

Ever Your Thimble Servant,
Miss Brilliantine

Not Florence and a Little from Column B

Pastiche is a lovely word which has always sounded like something delicious to me. (Pastiche for dessert? It must be my birthday!) Since it's a celebration, or say a collaboration with the past, nobody's the wiser and we have fun. I finally took my thrifted linen duster out for a ramble in not Florence and not 1905.
With a nod to Eleanor Lavish without her baedeker.

Green, green, green Fernandez Ranch in Martinez Ca. part of the John Muir Land Trust

The cows had churned up the paths so thoroughly, that I couldn't get very far. But the rain is sorely needed and I had boots on. Not pretty American Duchess lace-up oxfords, boots.
Since I had brought all this up with me, and I don't pack light, I was undeterred.

Craftily blurred out hiking boots

"O mio babbino caro"

If the cows stop giving milk, it's none of my doing.....

Column B
The return of the Swiss Waist, or Corselete's revenge.
My brother always asks rhetorically, "Is it a sin to like your own cooking?" No, nor is it to be pleased with an object sewn and labored over.  Since I have only worn the Swiss waist once and it needed another outing, I'm giving it the fancy treatment as a ball gown.

Overskirt of turn-of -the-century satin Ikat, liberated from another ball gown

Corselete's Revenge

OG (original gown) with the unsuspecting Lynne B.

The lace overlay is a silk chantilly so old and fine, I fear it may be a one off. I'm trying not to get too attached and enjoy the impermanence, a few waltzes and it may shatter. I can live with that, it was worth the round and round on the dance floor.
See how we all grow.

Ever Your Thimble Servant,
Miss Brilliantine

In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

Mid-March can purr.
Mostly it roars, don't count on the fickle feline to give you fine days. She giveth and taketh away.
Buffeting your fine silk and new shoes, making you put a coat over it (nerve).
Then you find just the thing, waiting for you all along...... Roses!

She followed me home, and I kept her.

 Spring is coming when flowered hats fall into your hands unbidden. Then all you can think of is chiffon and the kind of mid-30's frocks and hats that go with champagne and French 75s. Swell strappy shoes with or without peep toes.

Dame Fashion proclaims that Spring is made for saucy hats that peep.

 In fairness I have to admit I live in a particularly benign climate. Not Narnia, not Narnia at all.
Enough with the Winter wonderland, if four adorable English school children come to your door, don't answer it.

My friend's backdoor in upstate New York. 1886location.com. Chantal, I grant you a Pimm's Cup.

I know "Some nerve!" also "Well, I never!"

Story with a moral-
When my mother was a girl she was sick with an anemia that would keep her in bed for weeks. Because it was the olden days and you could have your shoes made to order, her father would have them made for her. She would lie in bed with them on her feet and admire.
If you are snowy or icy or wet, wear those new shoes. If not outside, then in and wait for the lamby days.

My new American Duchess Tissots

Ever Your Thimble Servant,
Miss Brilliantine

Emperor Norton and the Rest

I packed up, bags and baggage. All the hats, boots, petticoats, chignons and everything needed, or perceived to be needed for an audience with an Emperor. Let me tell you, that's a lot of stuff, my perception is keen.

 Held in the library of the classical stone and steel Mechanic's Institute, we arrived and I was immediately asked if I was wearing American Duchess boots. Funny kindred spirits.   

On my way up, in my American Duchess "Colette" boots.

 The Emperor was there in splendor, greeting subjects, he was everything affable and condescending.

All gussied up in epaulets and orders.

Waltzes and quadrilles played in the background, champagne and absinthe were there for the asking with a lovely spread of tasty things, all cheesy and sausagey. We mingled and when the toasts were held, they were (wisely) brief, the Emperor was invoked and we went back to imbibing.

The picture is slightly out of focus, I leave you to your own conclusions.

 In honor of the Emperor, a local distiller had made a gin called "Bummer and Lazarus" after his dogs. They may be apocryphal, but the gin was delicious. It was so smooth it rolled like round vowels, the beginging of a new Romance language.

My dear friend Todi happily joined us. She always makes it more fun.

How far would you trust them?

And the rest-
People are always giving me things. It's a generous if random impulse, it can be an attic full of turn-of-the-century clothing and mementos (I still have a box full of WWI postcards) which delighted my treasure hunting heart. Or the occasional discarded, unloved and unwanted wedding dress. (I don't want to know the backstory.) I accept them, they way you do when your dog brings you something she caught. "You like it, don't you?"  I do.
I was given a giant bright blight a week ago. The thing was huge and needed to be carved up and rendered down. like this-

It might be time for new proverb-

"Marry in polyester, repent in linen".

Ever Your Thimble Servant,
Miss Brilliantine

January Austen, Gaul-ic Fringe and Buttons

 January you've done your worst, but like an Austen character dear reader-let me persuade you to follow my example, and take a turn about the year. -- I assure you it is very refreshing after sitting so long in one attitude.
I did go to the annual Jane Austen Ball in Pasadena, dressed in my slightly out of fashion Turq(ish) jacket and "Italianate rump". Not cork, but padded and definitely not wearing mouse brows. I painted them on with burned cloves as fashion dictates. I should have stuffed by cheeks with wool and been a la mode 1789.....  We all re-live our youth.

Giving good Goya

Gaul-ic Fringe
Why Gaul-ic? Because it's divided in three parts. 

Individual drops, bobble trim and fringe. I added the cut down fringe, sewed on the bobble trim and added the drops between every other bobble.

That's going to kick up something fierce, all my edges tremble.

These have to be sewn on individually, a bead, a drop, another bead and home again. Repetitive work is kind of soothing.

See, three parts.

Buttons
Last month (was it only last month) my brother lost a button from a vest I made and became unaccountably sad. At the loss of a button. He is not sentimental, but he is effusive and grateful for a new bit of sartorial splendor. But buttons spill from my pockets, I leave them in my wake. I cry button tears and comb them out of my hair. I have them in pseudo-military metal and fragile tissue wrapped glass, with "made in Czechoslovakia" on the label. I have candy colored plastic ones from the Sixties ready for a knock-off A-line dress. I have Art Deco and Nouveau. I would never make a garment that didn't have extras, am I mad? I think ultimately I am made of buttons, buttons and clay like a sewing golem (I always knew). Animated by singular sentimental buttons.

Ever Your Thimble Servant,
Miss Brilliantine