Monday, January 27, 2020

Hussar-y Now

According to the internets this is my 100th post!
And as we all know, the internets are never wrong.
Well, well, one hundred. I can barely feel it, except maybe when it rains.

I've dusted off the old girl and replenished her supply of coal and whale oil for a cracking dive into actual sewing. I know! I found some tweed in the stash that I never thought I could wear in So Cal. but up here it's nice and temperate, for now. As I want to go a-travelling on a train in March, I though to cobble a suit from the stash. The red tweed was just enough for a skirt, I needed to find coordinating wool for a bodice. I tried all the usual places and found mostly coat weight wool, I even bought a yard which was much too dark and much too heavy (it makes a nice under-pad for the ironing board).  I thought I might have luck at a thrift store...and DID!

A light weight wool suit with a matching skirt that will live again as an 1880's bodice
.

Someone had a red power suit in the 90's that will live again. I unpicked the skirt and used the panels for the front and sides, the jacket back became the center back and the sides came from the unpicked sleeves. The wool is a perfect light weight and a lovely deep red perfection.
There is just enough,  the sleeves will be in black velvet, a nice contrast.  I wanted to incorporate the red in the skirt somehow and since I only had scraps left, it needed to be an accessory with a bit of pop, I though of the dashing sabretache that Hussars wear.
 With pants so tight where does one keep ones phone?

Waxed mustache, sabretache, cut a dash...Vogue.
Pockets, the harbingers of civilization. Some say it was the button or beer, we may never know.
I'm calling it a Hussar pocket. Not a thing, don't do an exhaustive search and come a-quizzing. It's just barely period in that there was a vogue for pockets and some did suspend from the waist, other than that, lets stay friends and call it fanciful. It COULD have happened.
It will keep all my important dispatches, a pinch of snuff, dueling scar paste and a phone.

Since the tweed was so heavy I didn't flat line the skirt but made a cotton flannel petticoat to go under it with another thing I had in the stash that was too hot to use. Snugly.
 

Cheers to 100!

Ever Your Thimble Servant,
Miss Brilliantine