Francaise Dinner 2017

The Francaise Dinner this year was just as much fun as last year!  I had never been to Annapolis before, so I enjoyed the novelty of a very interesting and beautiful city.  Brian the Engineer and I drove up Friday night and stayed with a group at an Air B&B close to the venue.  This proved to be perfect because we could walk there once we were all ready!

I was, of course, sewing up until the last minute.  I think I left myself barely and hour and a half to get ready.  Here I am in my (still only halfway-bound) maternity stays:

That bump just keeps getting bigger!

Once I had gotten all of my petticoats on, I needed a bit of assistance with my hair.  Fortunately I had help/moral support from Jessica, Stephanie, and Gloria!  Here is what I ended up doing, after a bit of experimenting/trial & error:

Divide the hair front & back, wind the back hair into a high bun, attach hair rats

I think Brian enjoyed taking photos of this process.

Pull the front hair up and over the hair rats, secure to back hair bun

Comb/smooth front hair

Powder well

Have a friend help attach ornaments to cover the join (Thanks Gloria!)

Once my hair was done, I finished getting dressed.  Putting on my Francaise was such a happy moment for me!

Lacing the under-stomacher:

As it was a chilly March evening, I donned my pink mantle and muff:

And as a group we all walked over to O'Brien's Steakhouse.  On the way a pretty gray cat happened across our path, and naturally I attempted to make friends:

Photo courtesy of Maggie

The cat was not interested, however.  :p  Moving on...

We had the entire upstairs room to ourselves:

It was a lovely venue, although not the greatest for picture-taking.  The lights all had red shades, which gave everything quite a rosy-orange glow.  My photos ended up turning out better with the flash on, so that's mostly what you'll see in this post.

The raffle prize table:

So many awesome prizes!  

I donated the yellow brocade workbag, which I had a lot of fun making.  It has tassels - a new technique for me! - on the drawstrings.  Here is a better photo of it:  

Gloria was kind enough to take these photos of my gown for me:

This was before I turned the flash on, so you can see the interesting color effects of the red lampshades.

Those pleats make me so happy.  I am just in love with this gown!

Some candid shots of my tablemates:

Maggie and Doug

Kristin and Matt

Rebecca and Maggie

Delicious food!  I didn't take a picture of the salad, but it was quite good.  I opted for the steak option, although the crab cakes sounded delicious, too!  At the time when I made my reservation, I wasn't sure how well my pregnant stomach would be doing with seafood.  :p

More candid shots of the group at large:

Ashley, Stephanie, Michael, Kristin, Gloria, Rebecca

I love the back of Stephanie's ensemble!  That bow is everything.  

Judy, Maggie, Gloria

Jessica and Kat

Stephanie was showing Ashley something cool. 

Stephanie giving a toast to our hostesses...

...Jessica and Isabella:

They did a wonderful job organizing this event!  

Some final shots - Gloria with her awesome spangled fan:

Kristin with my workbag that she won in the raffle:

Ashley with her awesome mantle and muff matching her awesome gown:

And of course, the obligatory group photo:

Photo courtesy of Gloria

Much too soon it was time to leave.  It was starting to rain, so many of us turned our capes inside out so as not to ruin the pretty fabrics we had made them with!  I draped my train over my arm so it wouldn't drag on the wet ground.  Sadly there are no pictures of this, but I'm sure we were a spectacle!  :p

I'll end with a few photos of me taken by others:

Photo by Gloria

Did I mention my jewelry?  Brian bought the necklace, earrings, and bracelet set for me in Japan!  They are jade, and so lovely.

Photo by Gloria

Of course I must have a sonic screwdriver shot:

Photo by Maggie

I have a few more photos on Instagram under #francaisedinner2017.  Oh, and I won this awesome cap pattern in the raffle:

I can't wait to make it!

1940s Floral Dress

For my next 1940s dress, I chose this lovely pattern:

I had some very odd pieces of my floral fabric, because I had originally used it to make a mock-up of one of the bridesmaid dresses for my wedding, and it was cut on the bias.  So I had about a yard and a half of yardage left, plus scraps like this:

I needed to use these odd scraps to cut out some of the bodice pieces:

It was a little funky cutting them out, especially since so many of the pieces needed to be cut on the fold:

I used the thread-pulling method to determine the straight of grain:

I cut out the bodice using my new multi-size cutting method - size 12 at the shoulders, 14 at the bust, and 16 at the waist.

To help me remember all this, I like to highlight the size I'm cutting at each juncture:

This pattern only went up to size 14, so I had to improvise slightly:

You'll see I also wrote some instructions on the pattern piece for making it into a blouse, which I actually did before making the dress, as a sort of test-run for my modifications.  The blouse is halfway done, but that's another post.

Construction was fairly straightforward, just following the pattern instructions for once (although I accidentally installed the invisible zipper on the opposite side seam as directed).  The only issue I had was with attaching the skirt front to the yoke:

It may be hard to see in the pictures, but the center of the gathered skirt section formed an odd little bump which would be decidedly unattractive on the finished dress.

I solved this by pulling that center section upwards until the excess fabric was eliminated:

This is how the revised stitching line looked on the inside:

Other than that, the pattern and instructions were excellent.  I had one more small issue, but this I blame on my fabric:

Kind of hard to see, but the bottom point of the back neck slit frayed out.  I doubt I would have this problem with a sturdier fabric.  I had chosen a rather cheap polyester satin.

To solve the problem, I hand-stitched around the edge of the point with a buttonhole stitch, just as I would do with petticoat pocket slits in my 18th Century costuming.

I hemmed the dress with lace seam/hem tape from my stash, sewing the top edge by hand:

I like the extra weight and stability it gives to the hem.

I actually finished the dress in early August, and wore it for the first time when I was still in Iowa visiting my parents and sisters.  I got a couple pictures of it then, but didn't do a proper photo shoot until just over a week ago, after Brian the Engineer and I got home and had settled back in.

I love this dress!

I set my hair in pin-curls the night before, and did my best to wrangle them into a passable 1940s style:

It's a learning process.

I of course accessorized with my red sunhat and Loraine 1940s sandals from Royal Vintage Shoes.  

You may notice one thing missing from the 1940s silhouette - shoulder pads.  I haven't decided yet if I want to add them and make the dress more authentic, or keep it as-is - 1940s inspired.  I worry that shoulder pads would look wrong on me.  I do not have 1940s shoulders.

I have 1840s shoulders.  

Nonetheless, the dress is comfortable and incredibly fun to wear.

Especially with awesome accessories!

After the photo shoot, I played some more with my hair and came up with a more formal updo:

If it weren't for my aversion to shoulder pads and lipstick, I think I could be quite at home in the 40s!