Wheat: Gold on Gold

Thought I'd try monochromatic for a change.
Put the last tack stitch in the last leaf this morning!

I really REALLY like the golden wheat ears.  They came out beautifully!

The Straw Basket Bonnet: Version Two

A couple of years ago I split a small straw craft-store hat in half, lined it in cotton, and covered it with some wired gift-ribbon left over from Christmas celebrations, and tacked a row of pleated orange ribbon to the edge of the brim.  And did nothing else with it whatsoever except stick it in the back of my parents closet.

After the fiasco of the Halloween hat, this bonnet came to mind as a suitable vehicle for my orange roses - they're made of the same orange ribbon as the trim on this bonnet.
At Christmas I collected the bonnet from my parents place and last week, I buckled down and finished trimming it.

I had no more of the ribbon I'd used to cover the base, so to make the curtain - or whatever the technical term is for the fiddly bit at the back of the bonnet that kept Victorian ladies' necks modest - I went to Sckafs Fabrics in Indroopilly and found something that more or less matched.

I spent a little time playing and thinking up a design for the flowered trim:

To coordinate with my new bonnet, I dug into the stash and pulled out a much-loved and never-used remnant of sunset-colored rayon chiffon, and while I was still in my happy hemming place, hand rolled a hem around the edges for a matching shawl.

This is a historical piece and we're just going to pretend that synthetic dye technology was a few decades in advance of reality, okay?

I added a pair of orange ribbon ties:

And - voila! One entirely passable 1860's bonnet!  In technicolor.

Rococo Fichu

One  antique lace-trimmed handkerchief, sliced in two,  one hand rolled hem and- voila!  One dolly fichu!

(I'm declaring it eighteenth century.  Yup.)

Winterhalter Eugenie Gardums!

 Mum and I went to Gardums- a very good Brisbane-based fabric store, on a lace-and-trim trawl. Gardums is a lovely upscale fabric store with three locations across the city - it deals mostly with high-end fabrics and believes in getting good money for the value of it's stuff - the fabrics are lovely but the prices are heartbreaking. No bargains here - not even in the remnant bin - you'll be charged as close to market value for that 20 cm scrap of lace or 40cm of sun-faded silk taffeta as the market will bear!

But the fabrics are exquisite and the laces and trims are the real thing, and once in a while, there's a lovely fabric on sale.

 

 

I bought four meters of this to make myself a dress - Vogue 1102 - one of my favorites. I'm hemming a version of it in black and white linen right now.

I bought yards of gorgeous lace at AG doll scale!!!!  I can stop hoarding my slender supply - at home I have very little and consequently never use it - I'm always save for the next thing!
And in the remnant bin I found a lovely stretch of silk chiffon and some gorgeous apricot-y silk charemeuse and on the trim shelf I found a fabulous ribbon-flower trim -

And naturally one thinks of this painting - Empress Eugenie and her Ladies by Winterhalter:

So…..
Introducing: The Gardums Remnant Ballgown!

The flowered trim will be a wrap - of course - something like this, lined with matching silk satin so that it drapes…

As for the dress - there's enough apricot satin for a skirt and a bodice. An over skirt of chiffon, looped up with ribbons and roses, and a chiffon bertha - pleated or draped -

I'm thinking very classical - something you could have worn from the 1840s until the very end of the 60s - suitable for passing down through a row of children.

(this image from the V&A is from the 1840s, but the look stays remarkably consistent through the period)

Vintage Victorian has a fabulous page with lots of 1860s fashion plates of evening dress.

Inspirations for the skirt:

Love the sleeves and bertha on this one as well!

And the apricot one on the left with the bows and streamers -

Inspirations for the bertha:

I rather like this one, on the blue ballgown - I'm trying to imagine how layered lace sleeves would look underneath it:

But I think that I rather prefer something along these lines:

The sleeves will have to evolve a bit, I think. My original idea called for puff sleeves in the satin layered with tubes of chiffon, but this will be completely lost under the bertha, I think. Longer and larger puffs? Layered with lace, possibly.

Reckon I'll start by hand-hemming the skirt layers and see what bubbles up.

Silk gift bag

This embroidered bag was a bachelorette gift for an artist friend (Zoe) who was married last month - I sewed the outer bag of green silk and lined it with calico - so that it would be strong enough to hold a large bottle of chocolate body paint and a paintbrush!

The Straw Basket Bonnet

How to make an 1860's doll bonnet from a craft-store straw basket:

Take one small straw basket from Lincraft. (Home furnishings section)
Slice in half, bind the raw edge with cotton bias, line the shell with silk taffeta and lace, attach a silk curtain round the bottom edge, and go wild with feather biots and fabric flowers and white taffeta!

Random ribbon embroidery