A Fractured Fairytale

This jacket started its life in the Burnley & Trowbridge workshop I attended last year. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I had a hard time conceptualizing the design for my jacket on the fly, and while I liked the finished jacket, I didn’t love it. It didn’t match the image in by brain, even if I couldn’t quite articulate what that image was. So I let it sit half-finished for a couple of months before I attempted to rework the jacket using the existing base. I managed to get something a little closer to the picture in my mind; still it wasn’t quite right. Back to the UFO pile, where it marinated for a good 6 months before I was ready to tackle it again.
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My obsession with the 1790s and transitional drawstring dresses continues! It’s my go-to style when I need something comfortable, quick to make, and easy to wear, so of course it’s what I made this summer for the Louisville Jane Austen Festival. I shared photos of the finished dress in my early post on the 2017 Jane Austen Festival, but I wanted to talk more about the actual construction process. Read more...

And now for what I wore! Read more...

I’m home from a wonderful weekend attending the Jane Austen Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. I recently wrote about my experiences last year, and what a great event it is, but I must say this year was even better. Read more...

My latest white 1790s dress (worn to a ball in Bath and at the 2016 Jane Austen Festival) was a bit of an experiment. I had been planning to make a new late 1790s white dress for some time. I wanted a gathered front for adjustability, but I didn’t want to do the exact same construction as my green sarcenet gown. You see so many different ways of constructing front gathered gowns in this transitional period, and I wanted to explore more with this style. Read more...