In late summer 2016 Lauren Stowell, creator of American Duchess, announced that plans were in the works for her and her new assistant, Abby Cox, to publish a book on sewing 18th century garments. Whoo-hoo!! The shouts were audible from her friends and followers. Since I focus primarily on 19th century sewing but have wanted Read More...
Category: Jen’s Musings
Hey, You Have Farm Animals on Your 1880s Dress!
We have a lot of options for fabric selections when sewing up our Victorian ensembles. I personally like to use cotton and silk (taffeta) for most of mine. Apparently, our ancestors had some varied choices, too….. Read More...
Attending Costume College 2017 (Sort of)
(Note: Photo heavy post.) Well, the biggest event of the year (for me) is over. Actually, I wasn’t even planning to attend Costume College this year due to having a one year-old at home and being now out of state from the event. Then at the very end of June, a friend kindly welcomed us Read More...
Sewing Room Tasks NOT To Do When Angry
We all have those – I’ll call them moments – when our blood boils and we escape to the sewing room to blow off some steam. (That, or we have a pressing deadline so move to the sewing room because we have to.) When this happens it’s a good idea to know what you shouldn’t Read More...
The Magic of a Drool-Worthy Costume
Most often people come into making historical costumes because they love a particular antique garment they saw in a museum or book, or because they fell in love with some fabulous costuming in a film or TV show. I like to think that we are all striving (at least in some aspects) to make that Read More...
Dispelling the Myth of the Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Waist
It’s true when you look at photographs from the 1800s or observe antique dresses on custom-made mannequins it’s not hard to envy those petite waistlines. Do you do this? This perception usually leads to the generic thought: “Teeny, tiny waists are what women strived for back then. Everyone wanted an 18″ waist!” But did they?… Read More...
A Controversial Red Dress
Last month there was all of this kerfuffle going on about the new Simplicity pattern released, designed by American Duchess, and inspiration taken from “The Red Dress” seen in Outlander, Season 2 designed by Terry Dresbach. I thought I’d share my rambling ideas on this [apparently] controversial sewing pattern. Read More...
30 Days of Sharing Historical Costuming
Happy Happy New Year!! May it bring many blessings and new challenges in your creative projects. As a way to get our creative imaginations flowing, I’ve made a list of concepts relating to historical fashion and sewing to prompt the sharing of ideas we can use to spur on our projects for this new year. Yay! 🙂 Read More...