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

Fitz&Starts and the Kinetic Edge

Fitz&Starts, you know that august establishment. Frustratingly closed all weekend and then inexplicably open at 2am on a Wednesday.
Don't shake your dainty fist and curse the Gods, that's time better spent sewing, any minute you can be called away. Progress is progress, a sleeve cut out or buttons sewn on, it all adds up and it will start to look like something.
Pinning counts.

Bobbles and jet.

This tie silk shows it origins when cut on the bias.

 I want this to have movement and gravitas, it IS for an audience with an Emperor.

The Kinetic Edge-
We are so used to seeing dresses from this era in photographs and museums we forget that they were meant to be seen moving. The sculpted silk gave way to the kinetic edges of fringe, tassels, bobbles and pleats. The close fit belies the movement, it sways, winks, pulses out with every step. Never static. Walking in them is a joy, dancing ecstatic.
Imagine going to an Automotive museum and thinking they never went fast because they are standing still.

They were never still, can you imagine it?

Circumscribed by satin and velvet, distended by armatures, but revenged by the kinetic edge.

Ever your Thimble Servant,
Miss Brilliantine

I Am Highly Distractible

January.
There is a reason Janus has two faces, the common wisdom is he looks to the past and the future. I think it's so he can talk about you when you're not in the room.
I'm partial to the 'ember months, but they must all be gotten through. I could burrow into the sofa so deep it becomes an intaglio of my ass.....mustn't give in.  Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you and sometimes you curl up beside him until Springtime.
BUT-
Why be gloomy when the sun is out, it's not like I have to shovel snow. And since I am highly distractible, I'll use that minor power to get some things done.
Hunting on the interwebs I found a page for the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco. On their calendar is a celebration of Emperor Norton's 200th birthday. Champagne and dress-up, I'm in.
https://www.milibrary.org/events/emperor-nortons-200th-birthday-bash-feb-07-2018

I have wanted to make a swiss waist from the 1870's/80's for a while, I've collected images and set up a Pinterest board. Maybe it's time I make one. I have scraps from a black satin underskirt and scraps are all you need.

This illustration is from 1890 and shows the pattern pieces. 

Not a corset, a "swiss waist" worn over a blouse or bodice.

Seen mostly with crinoline dresses this fashion lasted well into the 1890s and turned into those sweet shaped belts of the Edwardian era. No need to reinvent the wheel, I used Truly Victorian 416, 1875 evening bodice cut down.

Pinned together, it will button up the front.

It looks smoother IRL

Flirty tails

The underbodice will be the black stripe of the overskirt. Are you keeping score? 

 (Parenthetical aside- you know how I love them. None of my cutting tools have an edge, I might as well have gnawed on the fabric, I keep missing the scissor sharpener man. Why can't he go up and down the street like an ice cream truck, but more sinister?)
January and I started a thing, I call that progress.
Ever Your Thimble Servant,
Miss Brilliantine