A Little More Of A Summer’s Day At Roseland Cottage

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There were a few more lovely photos from my day at Roseland Cottage wearing my 1794 dress and playing croquet that didn’t really fit into the other posts I’ve written recently. So here is a short post focused on just a few more moments that are fun for me to pause and remember. I hope you enjoy them, too!

First, setting the scene for croquet on the lawn at Roseland Cottage! You can see more views of the actual house in this past post.

Next, it was lunch time! I arrived ready to go from the neck up, but with modern clothes below. It was silly. I was, and am still, amused! We set up a picnic lunch on the edge of the woodshed.

The other side of the woodshed is very picturesque as it stands amongst the grass and even has a dovecote included!

Not far from croquet, I took this close-up of one of the pine trees along the entry walk, which enticed me with its shade. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the adorable little pinecones starting to form like little teardrops. I love the blue-green color, the overlapping shapes, and the tiny size!

Beautiful foliage was everywhere one looked! It was simply impossible to resist encouraging a friend in a beautiful pink flowered gown to pose with the carpet of pink blossoms under what I think is a rhododendron bush. The breeze fluttered her bonnet ribbons in just the right way!

Moving farther along the property, I was drawn in by the architectural shapes and vibrant pinks in this planter. The trailing white blossoms remind me of strawberry flowers and leaves. And I am always intrigued by plants with interesting and unusual upright shapes.

Finally, there was a another stand of pine trees creating an area both quiet underfoot and also a bit playful. It was just the thing to wander amongst for photos!

There aren’t too many days of summer left here, so I am doing my best to enjoy them while they last and relish the summer memories. I hope you are able to do the same!

1794 Windowpane Ruffled Dress Outing

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Back in October 2024, I posted about the inspiration and construction details of a freshly completed 1794 dress (you can view that past post here). At the time, I promised myself that I would figure out how to get my hair to look vaguely 1790s and find a fun opportunity to wear the dress and get photos!

Every few months after finishing the dress, I found the inspiration needed for a trial to figure out how to get my small-diameter-curly hair to look remotely like the billowing-larger-scale curls found in 1790s fashion plates. Of course, one could wear a wig… but I really enjoy using my own hair for these things! It’s a fun challenge, I think.

My first trial attempt was unsuccessful in the overall look, but I learned that curling iron curls didn’t look so far off as to be implausible. My second trial attempt taught me that the 1790s organza cap I made (finished even earlier, in 2023, and which you can read all about here, in a past post) that was intended for this outfit looked silly when perched directly on my head. It really, really needed volume so it appeared to be floating on my hair. Enter, a giant bun form. (The same bun form, in fact, that makes up the biggest part of my hair support for giant 1770s hair in this past post.)

See? The cap isn’t really on my head at all. It’s just floating on my hair. Aside from curling all of my hair, the only other part of creating this hairstyle was to artfully pin the curls up to make them elegantly descend from the cap on every side.

With this dress, I wore the foundations of the 1790s ensemble I’ve been putting together for the last few years. This included my entirely hand sewn c. 1785 Stays of Success and 1790s Petticoat & Bum Pad. Also finished in 2023 and 2024, this was the first real outing for the stays, which you can read all about in this past post, and for the petticoat and bum pad, which you can read all about in this past post.

The whole ensembles is super comfortable! The stays are, in fact, a success! And the layers, with their generously gathered skirts, are full of movement. The ruffles add a bit of fun. And the front closures on the petticoat and dress are definitely easy to use!

The only difficulty of wearing this dress came from the hem that just brushes the ground. Wearing it outside meant that it collected twigs, pine needs, and leaves that I was constantly removing. Not to mention the fact that the layers attracted multiple stinging bee-like creatures to get stuck between them! Ack! Luckily, kind people around me helped me separate the layers enough to let the winged creatures free, and not a single person was stung! Whew!

Perhaps this ensemble is better suited to a marble-floored walkway, but… it was breezy, and cool, and elegant to wear outside (when one ignored the bits of nature stuck in the hem ruffle!).

A Mysterious Domino, Part II: Making & Wearing

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This is a continuation of my last post, which shared the background of why I created this black domino cape as well as research about what a domino is and its history.

Making My Mysterious Domino

Having decided on an idea, and probably conducted more research into its history than was strictly necessary for this purpose, I proceeded to figure out how to bring my idea to life. I had the additional goal of not wanting to spend money and therefore restricted my domino-endeavors to the stash.

I started by looking through my stash binder (I posted about my stash organization in this past post) to see what fabrics I had on hand that might be able to be made into a quick and easy domino. I came up with just one — a gifted-to-me three yard piece of a black synthetic sheer, with alternating satin and sheer narrow stripes and a bit of metallic thread woven in between each stripe. I liked the drape of the fabric, as I thought it would move nicely while dancing, and I liked that while being black, it was also interesting and had more to look at than a plain solid. Three yards was plenty of fabric to allow for a large hood and plenty of length!

I think this fabric might be fun to use for something else someday, so I was loathe to actually cut it to make a domino cape. From past experience (and my patterning books), I was aware of the general shape and construction of the hoods of 18th century capes, which I was more excited by than the shape of the main body portion of capes from this period. The hoods often have quite a bit of fabric pleated into a central spot on the back of the hood and the bases are often pleated into the neck area, as well.

I started experimenting with my fabric and safety pinned a central pleated area in the center of my three yard piece. Then, I safety pinned a center back seam in the two ends of the piece, which hung down below the ‘hood.’ The next step was to safety pin a row of large pleats around what would be the ‘neck’ area, to draw in the width of the fabric around the shoulders. And… I basically had a cape!

A bit rough and ready, but my safety pinning did create a cape with a hood!

I fiddled a bit, by turning under some of the depth of the hood (and pinning it back near the central pleats) as well as pinning up swags at the front shoulder areas. I agreed with Erté (in the quote in my previous post)– that my domino should have a distinguished cut to keep me from looking like a shapeless bundle!

At that point, I realized that most of my pinned areas really didn’t need to be sewn… I could just leave in the safety pins, making it much faster to take apart if I wanted to do that someday! In the end, the only two things I sewed were the center back seam (with basting stitches by hand) and the hem (again, with basting stitches by hand). Calling it a ‘hem’ is generous, I think! I really just turned it up once with the raw edge left visible.

Wearing My Mysterious Domino

My historically plausible, mysterious looking domino cape was ready to go. I was all prepared for The Footwork and Frolick Society’s early 19th century themed Masquerade Ball!

I chose to pin the cape to my dress rather than having it closed at my neck. It made the hood pretty long in the back, but it kept the cape from pulling backwards and feeling claustrophobic, while also opening up the front view and not covering my entire dress.

And, since I felt like black mask, dark hair, and black hood was all a bit much around my face, I put my hair up around a huge bun form to raise the hood and added white flowers in front to add some contrast and a relief for the eyes.

Paired with white, gold, and pearl accessories, I created a fun new variation on an old dress!

A Mysterious Domino, Part I: Background & Research

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Earlier this year, The Footwork and Frolick Society hosted an early 19th century themed Masquerade Ball. I enjoy fancy dress themes, and so the idea of a masquerade (which takes the idea of a costume to another level by adding a mask) seemed like a lot of fun. But what was I to do to about a costume?

The dress: I had already decided that I wanted to wear an oldie-but-goodie dress to the ball — my ivory 1819 ruffle dress, finished in 2012 (and resized at some point, though I don’t seem to have a post about that on the blog).

The mask: I don’t really enjoy wearing masks (unless they are on a stick, like this, but that’s not good for a ball when you need your hands!). I find that masks irritate my face, but at some point I did buy a black lace mask for a fantasy masquerade that is very malleable and irritates me less. So I knew that I wanted to incorporate that mask into my outfit.

The costume: I wasn’t sure… my creative problem was to figure out what kind of costume would unite an ivory dress and a black mask!

I liked the idea of choosing something historically plausible and I know that themes like flowers, seasons, and historical periods were all popular for Fancy Dress costumes (and therefore, I figured, for masquerades), but I couldn’t think of a good theme that made sense with my color choices.

So I started doing some research, and came across the idea of a domino. Not a numbered playing piece from a game… but a mysterious, historical domino!

What Is A Domino?

What is that, then? A mysterious, historical domino?

A domino is traditionally a voluminous black robe-like hooded cape worn with a black half mask as a disguise during Venetian Carnival. Dominos were popular during the 18th century at masquerades and it seems that hooded capes in this century were sometimes just generally called dominos (such as this one, perhaps, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art). By the 19th century, dominos were occasionally seen at masquerades, and even less often at fancy dress events (a costume party without masks).

Examples Of Dominos

Below is an example of an 18th century domino in the collection of the Victoria and Albert museum. In this case, the idea has been reimagined in pink, rather than the usual black. The museum gives this information regarding a date: 1765 – 1770 (sewing), ca. 1775 (altered) (accession number T.195-1968).

Below is another example, from the late 18th or early 19th century, also pink. This domino still shows evidence of 18th century construction styles — particularly the large gathered hood and what appear to be rectangle shaped sleeves. The extant example below is from Augusta Auctions. They labeled it as a Two Piece Shot Silk Domino, c.1800.

Below is an example of a mid-19th century take on a domino. This is a costume idea for a masked ball (or masquerade). This plate is from Thomas Hailes Lacy’s “Female Costumes Historical, National and Dramatic in 200 Plates,” London, 1865 (from Getty Images).

Susan de Guardiola has collected later 19th century descriptions of dominos that are available here, as well.

Though less common, dominos were still in use for masquerades even in the early 20th century. While looking for other unrelated research, I came across a mention of them from January 1920, when the accomplished fashion designer Erté wrote in a letter he was asked to write from Monte Carlo to the editor of Harper’s Bazar:

This winter will mark the first organized effort at gaiety since the dark night of war… Already we are planning to revive the masked ball in all its mad gaiety…

The domino–aha! … In Venice until the fall of the Republic, it was commonly worn in the streets. There reigned in the enchanted city at this decadent epoch a strange corruption of manners, and the mask was a necessity. At every entrance hung the black domino. Rich and poor alike donned it, in order that they might sally forth enveloped in anonymity…

“But,” argue some, “the domino gives to the fête an air of mystery.” I reply, “Then one may attain this illusion by means of a domino of distinguished cut, a domino which shall not make one’s figure look like a shapeless bundle.”

(From Designs By Erté: Fashion Drawings & Illustrations From ‘Harper’s Bazar’ Including 8 Covers In Full Color By Stella Blum)

I think this is a great place to pause. I’ll continue sharing in my next post, which will focus on how I whipped up a quick domino and what it looked like when worn!

A Windy Summer Adventure

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I am super belated in posting about this event, but the one benefit of being so slow is that we’ve come full circle back to the appropriate season for these photos! I hope you enjoy recalling this lovely walk with me.

In June of 2024, I attended a 1920s themed Gala Day celebration at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead in Danvers, MA. (More about Gala Day can be read here, on the Rebecca Nurse Homestead site.) It was a beautiful day with sun and blue skies. Not hot, but pleasantly comfortable. And windy!

Hang on to your hats!

One of the parts of the event I enjoyed most was exploring the grounds, which afforded a number of lovely vistas for photos.

I wore my 1919 Ivory Dress, due to its incredibly comfortable nature and a 1920s wide brim hat that I made back in 2014.

And I had a bright pink paper parasol as an accessory! I love the pop of color against the blue and green enveloping swathe of nature.

I also enjoyed looking at the details of the cars on display. The paint choices for this one, with the grass green wheels, really caught my eye!

All that was left was to imagine was rolling away in a car like this. What fun!

Re-Imagined 1885 Fancy Dress (HSM #9)

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The Backstory

In 2016, I made a dress for a Fancy Dress Ball inspired by a dress worn by Alice Gwynn Vanderbilt in 1883. Alice’s now-famous dress, made by The House Of Worth, celebrated Electric Light as its theme. The dress uses beading and metallic elements (as well as an electric torch, for the original wearing!) to visually reflect light as well as communicate the electric light theme via decorative motifs. I posted an image of the inspiration gown and a link to more information about it in my original post about my dress in 2016, which you can view here.

I was inspired by the trimmings on the gown, but needed to create a dress with little expenditure (much different than the budget for a Worth dress!). To achieve this, the goal when I made my dress in 2016 was to use as many materials as I could that I already owned. The main dress fabrics were already in the stash from old projects and the silver net was leftover from trimming the Versailles sacque I posted about wearing recently.

Below, a photo of the dress in 2016, with a lantern standing in for “electric light.”

There were a few small changes I wanted to make after the first wearing of the dress, but I didn’t have a need to wear it again for years. Fancy Dress events are not all that common even within the already limited realm of historically clothed events! And with the original trimmings I didn’t like the dress for regular wear. Plus, for a number of years after making the dress the events I was attending did not encompass the 1880s.

More recently, however, I have had more opportunities to wear clothing from this period, as The Footwork and Frolick Society has hosted a few events with themes that can include the 1880s. Therefore, I decided to re-trim the Fancy Dress dress into a more regular, less Fancy Dress, ballgown style for the Yuletide Ball in 2024.

Inspiration

This time, my inspiration was a mashup of ideas from a variety of images.

From the fashion plate below, published in the Revue de la Mode in February 1886, I pulled information from the gown on the right, with the pleated fabric along the v-shaped neckline and asymmetrical decorations (which I guess are feathers) on the shoulder and skirt.

From the photo below of British actress Lillie Langtry (Original Publication: People Disc – HU0206. Photo by Downey/Getty Images), I pulled inspiration for the “sleeve” idea I wanted to incorporate. The pattern of the fabric used for the bodice in this photo was also reminiscent of one of the fabrics I used to update my dress.

And finally, I was also inspired by the beaded swags (and chiffon “sleeves”) on the c. 1887 dress in the collection of the Kent State University Museum in the photo below.

Dress Update Overview

For the re-make of the dress, I wanted to maintain my goal of using materials already on hand. I still had small scraps of the navy blue satin in my stash as well as the silver net. I also went through my fabric stash binder to see what other fabrics and trimmings might work and found that the best bets were a piece of polyester velvet flocked with silver swirls that I’d purchased at Joann Fabrics probably twenty years ago when I had just started sewing and loads of silver ribbon that I had been gifted to me. The blue and silver colors fit the colors of the existing dress perfectly and I thought there was a sort of New Year’s aspect to the color scheme, as well. (I also purchased the Joann fabric in burgundy and green (both with gold swirls) and had made Christmas decorations out those, but I don’t think I ever used the piece of blue, so this was a great opportunity!)

With my materials decided, I moved on to the sewing part of the project, starting with unpicking the original trim from the dress. I had made it knowing I might someday want to change the trimmings, so they were not sewn into seams and were pretty easy to remove. That left me with an almost entirely navy blue dress, relieved only by the silver pleats at the bottom of the skirt.

Then I went back and considered my original list of changes, which included:

  • Boning the center back edges so they would lie flat when laced closed
  • Adding a matching piece of satin behind the lacing holes to hide any white fabric of undergarments
  • Making sure that my chemise wouldn’t poke out of the armholes

Quoting myself, from 2016… “these are minor changes and I’m not sure when I’ll have the opportunity to wear this again so it might be awhile before they happen.” I’ll say! It only took 9 years!

Historical Sew Monthly

My goal of using stash-only materials for this dress re-do makes it fit into the Historical Sew Monthly 2025 Challenge #9 Blue:

Make an item that features blue, in any shade from azure to zaffre.

Just the facts:

Fabric/Materials: Approximately ¾ yard silver net, just over 1 yard of navy velvet with silver motifs, and scraps of navy polyester satin.

Pattern: My own.

Year: c. 1885.

Notions: Approximately 23.5 yards of ¼” silver ribbon.

How historically accurate is it?: 90%. Polyester and modern synthetic ribbon do not have accurate fiber content. And my patterning is conjecture. But the overall idea is pretty good.

Hours to complete: I didn’t keep track.

First worn: December 7, 2024.

Total cost: Free, since everything came from the stash and was either gifted to me or purchased ages ago!

Dress Update: Back Closure

Following the original list of changes, I added a placket behind the lacing holes and added plastic bones along the very back edges, to help hide undergarments (the white color really does pop against the navy blue of the dress!) and keep the back laying flat when laced closed.

Dress Update: Sleeves

When re-examining the dress in 2024 with fresh eyes, one of my biggest desires for change was to better fill in the armholes of the dress and provide a decorative element. Yes, evening dresses in the 1880s were often sleeveless, but when really looking closely at them again, I found that while not having sleeves, they do almost always have something that obscures the armhole and even the upper arm. I am more likely to call these styles swags or drapes of fabric, as they aren’t really proper sleeves, but they are certainly set into the armhole in some way. I wanted something like that for the re-do of this dress.

I haven’t had a need to pattern something like this for this period before, so I looked through my historical pattern books for places to start. Interestingly, I didn’t find much. There was one sleeve that seemed like a possible starting place, but when I mocked it up it didn’t really do what I was hoping for at all!

So that left me with the decision to create a pattern from scratch. Thinking about what didn’t work in the mockup and my inspiration image, I proceeded to drape a mockup that achieved what I was hoping for. I didn’t have my dress form handy, so it required a fair bit of going back and forth between pinning and trying on the bodice to get the right shape. But I did! It’s a strange shape, for any sort of sleeve pattern. But that makes sense, since the sleeve drape is a not-really-sleeve!

Dress Update: Apron, Sleeve Swags, and Ribbon Flowers

I pondered creating some sort of beaded fringe for the armhole (and maybe even the waist, as can be seen in the third inspiration photo, above), but decided against it for time and material reasons. I really did want to stick to the stash!

Even if the beaded fringe wasn’t going to happen, I liked the idea of something to set off the wonderfully pointed bodice so that it would show up and not blend into the skirt. So in the end I decided to use some of the velvet from the stash to make an apron layer for the skirt, as was very common on dresses from the 1880s.

I started with making the pleated neck swag, so I wouldn’t run out of fabric, and then used all of the leftover fabric to make the apron. Due to this fabric restriction, I patterned the apron based on what was possible with my fabric, using a general understanding of the how these skirt elements were patterned in this period. The front of the apron is a curved piece that is pleated into the back on each side. The back piece is a bit scant, but has a few pleats along the top to give volume and descends to a point at the center back, since that was the shape of the fabric that was available! I used up pretty much all of the blue velvet!

For the sleeves, I made flower shaped sprays from lengths of ribbon that were tied into loose knots close to each end and then folded into quarters to make one loop and two ends. These individual elements were then combined and sewn together to make the flower-like formations, with larger scale ones on the skirt and smaller ones on the bodice.

The sleeve dangles were made from the same ribbon, knotted in the same way, that was folded to make a longer and shorter side and then tucked under the sprays on the shoulders.

Below, you can see the individual spray elements and a length of ribbon ready to be added as a sleeve dangle.

Finished Updates

Here is the updated dress! The blue velvet pleated v-shaped neck swag completely ignores the neck shape of the bodice underneath, which is more of a square shape. The same fabric is used again to create an apron, stitched to the outside of the waistband of the skirt to reduce bulk.

The silver net is used over the blue satin scraps to create “sleeves” that are pleated into the armhole and decorated with sprays and dangles of silver ribbon.

The “sleeves” wound up looking a little odd where the meet the back of the bodice, but that’s more due to my original patterning of a very inset armhole in the back than it is the sleeve pattern. It’s a lesson/change for the next bustle period evening gown I make, whenever that is!

I didn’t know what to do with the back of the velvet swag, because I wanted it to be easily adjustable depending on how tightly the back was laced. I ended up with this pointed arrangement that accomplished the goal of flexibility.

The armholes, left side front of the bodice, and right side front of the skirt are decorated with the sprays of looped silver ribbon. I used x4 — 4 yard spools of ribbon and half each of x3 more spools that were 5 yards each.

I calculated how many sprays and dangles I wanted for each section, but in the end I was running out of ribbon and started to just combine and move things around until they looked reasonable. Sadly, that means I don’t have a good record of how much ribbon went into each element or how long each piece of ribbon ended up being. I think that the smaller sprays were made of piece of ribbon that were 10″, the larger sprays on the skirt were made of pieces of ribbon that were 16″, and the arm dangles were 11″ before being folded.

Wearing

I wanted to find a simple but still 1880s hair style for this wearing, so I was pleased when I came across a photo of women in 1880s evening dresses with their hair drawn back and pulled up into simple large chignons on the backs of their heads. I wore that style with the addition of a few silver hair pins to tie everything together.

I also reused some of the star brooches from the first iteration of this dress, adding one at the center from of the bodice, two on the left side of the skirt, and some on the left side of my hair. They stand out well in the photo below, in which the two of us are bobbling about, making the ribbons on my dress and beaded trim on the dress on the left shimmer, sparkle, and sway.

Other Photos From The Event

This was a ball for bustles! There were multiple people wearing dresses with this feature, including the dress above, as well as the burgundy velvet dress below.

Finally, a cheerful holiday view into the ballroom. I wasn’t feeling my best at this event and therefore didn’t dance, but everyone else had a grand time! I look forward to the next event in which I can participate in dancing with the bustle! It’s really quite fun to experience the movement of dancing with all of your dress behind you!

1838 Yellow Print Dress At Tea

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One of the fun features of The Footwork & Frolick Society’s annual fundraiser tea event is that F&F members and volunteers wear clothing representing the span of the Victorian period. (I recently posted a behind the scenes look at the tea that you can read here, if you are interested.) If you read this blog often, you likely know that I love pulling different historical outfits out of my closet for things like this!

Last year, I wore the 1884 Plaid Wool Dress in the photo below (which you can read more about here, in a detailed post about this garment). This made sense as Boutwell House, where we host the tea, starts out at a pretty cool temperature. I hadn’t worn this outfit in awhile, so that was fun, too! However, after brewing tea for hours and the warmth of everyone’s body heat (and the fact that the heating system finally kicked in), I was pretty warm in my wool outfit by the end of the day!

So this year, I decided to wear cotton! I landed on my 1838 yellow print dress because I hadn’t worn it in awhile, I wasn’t worried about it being in the kitchen (in terms of space and fabric type), and the sleeves are just plain silly! Below, this year’s 1838 yellow print dress in the dining room with the fabulous honeycomb wallpaper!

Looking at the photos, I realized I forgot to put on (or didn’t think I’d need, perhaps) my 1830s skirt puffer. You can read more about what that is in this past post, but essentially it’s a stiff ruffle that helps hold out the skirt at the top. This works in tandem with a corded petticoat to help hold the skirt out throughout the rest of the length. You can read all about the corded petticoat I made in this past post. What I’ve realized is that I DO need the skirt puffer! Always!

Despite this oversight, I was excited to try out a new ribbon belt color for this wearing. The last time I wore this bodice, in 2021, I chose not to wear a belt at all. Details about that wearing are in this past post and below is a photo of what this dressed looked like in that iteration.

I’m not sure which version I like better! I think no belt helps make the pleats on the bodice stand out more, but I also like that the belt helps break up the print. What do you think?

In case anyone is curious, I’ll share my sources for these accessories. I share because I think the items are great, not because I earn a commission or anything of that sort.

The yellow fabric of the dress is a Marcus Brothers Old Sturbridge Village Print that I acquired in 2013. I remember that detail because I posted about the fabric back then! You can read that past post here. In addition to my yellow fabric, reproduction floral stripes were a theme in other outfits at this year’s tea, as well, as you can see below!

Below, floral stripes consulting about… who knows!?! But it was a lovely opportunity to catch a photo.

Not only did I really enjoy the shapes of the flowers in this bouquet (rounded flowers always appeal to me!), but I also enjoy the yellow flowers and yellow dress in the whimsical atmosphere created by the wallpaper in this room.

In the midst of the busyness of hosting, F&F members did take a few moments to gather and have a brief sit. I love how the outfits in this photo complement each other and the room! And I always appreciate good company and hearty laughter. This was a wonderful start to spring!

Behind The Scenes At The Footwork And Frolick Society’s Fundraising Tea

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In March, we of The Footwork And Frolick Society hosted an annual fundraising tea at Boutwell House, which owned by the Groton History Center and located in Groton, MA. I thought it would be fun to share some photos from the day, as well as a few behind the scenes shots of our preparation!

To start, a closeup of the wonderful honeycomb wallpaper in the main dining room, which is a lovely backdrop for the cross-stitch that one of our kind and enthusiastic volunteers gifted to the organization. We love to showcase it at our events!

Preparation for the tea included many things: a menu, tea flavors, logistical setup details, place settings, and… beautiful flowers! This vibrant yellow and green bouquet graced the dining table in the room with the honeycomb wallpaper. I think the bees, if they could jump off of the paper, would have enjoyed the arrangement just as much as I did!

During preparation, the public facing areas of Boutwell House were set up with tables, chairs, tablecloths, plates, teacups, flowers, and more, while in the kitchen tasty snacks and sweets were plated.

And there was tea, of course! Our “tea roulette” as I’ve fondly named it, was all set up and ready to go when the guests arrived. We offered four flavors of tea: a traditional black tea, a flavored black tea, a green tea, and an herbal tea.

In the parlor, which you might recognize from views of F&F playing parlor games last year, we placed charming visual accents, such as this color coordinated bouquet.

Below, a closeup of this tone-on-tone mix of reds (and a little purple, for an accent).

After the guests were seated and consuming a first round of the delicious teas, the scrumptious treats were brought out.

Back in the kitchen, the teapots were in rotation, as fresh tea was delivered to guests while more tea was brewing. Timers were set, dregs were rinsed, and the tea-making stayed orderly and composed. Success!

Below are the remains of the brewed tea leaves. I think it’s an artful conclusion to the event! The tea leaves almost look like a salad!

After two seatings, we were grateful to tidy up and head for a place to sit down and rest our feet, with thanks to everyone who attended the fundraiser!

Finishing My Grandmother’s Quilted Wall Hangings

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My grandmother Betty was an avid quilter. She was well supported by my grandfather, who greatly enjoyed road trips and would happily stop at all the fabric stores along the way to collect interesting fabrics. Betty was always on the hunt for solid fabrics in unusual colors as well as eye-catching prints that were different than anything else she already had in her stash.

Betty was, in fact, the person who taught me how to sew, to hand quilt, and to cross stitch when I was quite young. Not only was she passing her passion along to me, but I think she was also trying to keep me occupied on those long road trips…

After Betty passed away, my grandfather (on another road trip) brought me all of her fabrics, her quilting books, some partially cut projects, and even her notebook of notes on her quilting projects. It was boxes and boxes of things! Amongst those many boxes, I found these three square quilted panels.

They were clearly intended for some purpose and had been mostly completed in terms of the piecing and quilting, but they lacked backings and/or bindings.

I pulled them out about 7 years ago and thought “it might be nice to finish these and hang them in my sewing room” in recognition of Betty. Fast forward those 7 years and the quilted panels were still in that unfinished state. But last summer I put it on my to-do list to go through the fabrics I inherited and find backing and binding fabrics, so that when I had time I would at least be ready to think about finishing the panels.

I took an inventory of the panels in their inherited state:

  • The red was basically done and just in need of binding. (The quilting had been done along with the appliqué hearts.)
  • The green was also basically done and only in need of binding. (The quilting had been completed in a leafy motif.)
  • The star was all pieced, but not quilted onto a backing yet. Also, before coming to me, it had gained age stains on the ivory backing, which isn’t ideal. I didn’t want to unpick all of the edges… (I don’t find it to be fun and I wanted to keep my grandmother’s sewing intact) so my plan was to use the ivory to make a border around the star and re-appliqué it onto a blue patterned background. I felt this would tie it in with the other two pieces and help the three panels feel like an intentional set. Then the star also needed to be quilted to a backing and bound.

Below, photos of the backs of the panels before I started working on them.

I went through all of the green and blue (and ivory, but that’s not the most exciting!) quilting fabric I had inherited to pick out suitable backing and binding options for each panel. Below are just a sample of the many solids and prints I had to choose from!

I chose a dark green binding for the red panel, a lighter green binding for the green panel, and a blue small print for the new background for the star, as well as ivory binding and backing.

And here is an individual photo of each completed panel, front and back.

I used a mixture of beautiful shades of green and blue (and ivory) thread to match the different colors use for the bindings and quilting.

It was fun figuring out what pattern I wanted to use to quilt the star, so that it would have dimension and seem in keeping with the other panels. I’m pleased with the pattern that is visible on the back!

Each panel also has a channel sewn along the top edge on the back, so that I can easily hang them on the wall. I puzzled about the best way to do this. I wanted a dowel of some sort to run through the channel to keep the panels from sagging. And I wanted to be able to balance the dowel on something that would be easy to put up and not put holes in my wall. I settled on Command hooks, and found very small ones that would fit a wooden skewer. It turns out that the panels don’t weigh much and I had skewers around the house… plus they were easy to cut to just the right length!

Now I have a lovely tribute to grandmother Betty hanging above my sewing machine!

Two Sacques At ‘The Salon at Palais-Royal’

~ TheQuintessentialClothesPen ~ 2 Comments

I am finally ready to share a full set of photos of the new Yellow Sacque and its friend, my older Versailles sacque (all of the construction details for these dresses can be found by clicking the links)! The two dresses had a joyful outing together at an event last year. This post is going to share about the event itself as well as photos and recollections.

Below, a photo of the Versailles Sacque and new Yellow Sacque next to each other!

Photo courtesy of Aleks Vu

About The Event

In October 2024, I had the great joy of attending the ‘Salon at Palais-Royal: An 18th-Century Chevalier Experience’ weekend hosted by Costumers of Color. The program included educational lectures, a violin concert, historical activity discussions and demonstrations, dancing, and more, with the goal of providing an inclusive environment for people of color both in terms of attendance and in terms of the educational theme of the event.

It was a success! Costumers of Color shared on the page for the event that “over 40 of the 140 attendees were POC (people of color).” That’s pretty amazing, and special! (If you go to the linked page, you can see group photos, one of which is of all the people at the event who identify as people of color.) I enjoyed that aspect of the event, as well as the educational theme that centered Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint Georges, an 18th century Black “scholar, a fencer, a virtuoso violinist and a famous and sought-after composer.” (This quote is from the Costumers of Color blog post about Joseph Bologne. Please go give it a read if you would like to learn more! Bologne’s achievements are impressive!) In addition to these elements, I also enjoyed the combination of learning and participating that was incorporated into the weekend.

What Was Worn

For the formal evening part of the event, I chose to wear my Versailles Sacque (made and last worn in 2016, which I posted about here)! For this wearing, I updated the ensemble with a lace tucker around the neckline of the dress. This small new accessory helps complete the full look. It took a little bit of referencing my old blog posts to reconstruct my hair form and remind myself what accessories to wear, but I was successful. I was very grateful to myself for documenting things so well!

I also had the pleasure of seeing the new Yellow Sacque and all of the new accessories I’ve been making being elegantly worn by a friend!

Below, showing off both the front and back of the sacque (or Robe à la Française) style of dress.

Photo courtesy of Aleks Vu

More Photos

I was so pleased that my American Duchess Kensingtons were still in good shape after the immense amount of rain they endured in 2016. It was really exciting to break them out again with this dress! I’m still chuffed with the metallic lace I added. For Versailles, more bling was the thing! And in this photo, you can see how the light turquoise paint color picks up on the hints of turquoise in the dress fabric!

One of the things that I’d struggled to capture in photos for the Versailles dress’s first wearing was the changeable nature of the silk fabric. It is a ‘shot’ fabric, meaning that it uses two different colors woven in opposite directions: a vibrant turquoise and a deep red. This means that fabric appears to be both colors, or a mixture that looks a bit purple, depending on how the light hits it.

Most of my photos from the first wearing of the dress show the purple color, but the lighting at this event captured the many colors of the fabric much more clearly! Below is one example. Most of the dress appears in the red tone, but the shadows of the dress in the back look like the green color.

As I mentioned earlier, I had to reconstruct my hair style for this wearing. In 2016, I cobbled together a large form from many hair supports on hand (you can read about that in this past post). After that event, I deconstructed the large form in order to be able to use the individual parts again. So for this, re-forming the large form was necessary.

Below, you can see the final result of the style. This is the same style I created in 2016. (You can read more about it in this past post.)

My friend wearing the Yellow Sacque also had a fabulously large hairstyle! Her style uses elements from the book The American Duchess Guide To 18th Century Beauty, including the ‘Ski Slope Hair Cushion’ and ‘1770s Pouf’ on pages 119 and 127. She also created her own buckles (those pre-made rolls of hair on the sides). And I had fun helping her place them the day of. It was fun to make two styles that are similar, but different in shape and details!

Recollections

I had a fantastic time traveling with friends to this event. We all enjoyed the content of the weekend as well as the opportunity to make or refresh our clothing and accessories.

In fact, we had such a lovely time we felt the need to take a break in the ladies dressing room! How could we not, with such an elegant day bed and foot stool to lounge on?

It was also a special experience to have the opportunity to meet other bloggers and costumers I don’t often (or ever) get to see in person! We might exchange comments and be inspired by each other’s creations, but to meet people and have a conversation is extra wonderful. I’m so grateful that Cindy, of Cation Designs (who is in the photo with me, below), took the time to chat with me and express her appreciation for how this blog has made costuming feel approachable for her!

After a lovely evening, it was time to head out. It wasn’t particularly warm outside, so an extra layer was much appreciated!

But a pause was necessary… I love my silly moose poses! Thanks for enjoying this outing with me!