What I love most

New period, new display. Queensland Suffragettes. You can read about the Queensland Suffragette movement here . For our display we set up a stall as it could have been in 1895 to raise funds for the cause and get signatures for the petition. Our members from left to right Mel, Christine, Me and Kerry.   Special mention to Mel for organising most of the stall including baking goods for sale, creating flyers, organising pins and making the banners and the petitions.   We made sure we did a march through the site, gaining support for the cause.   My outfit was based on the masculine look of the mid 1890s   Photos Lynne C, Conrad L and myself

Victorian!!! 1885 to be precise. This is what I wore.... My favourite for the day. The skirt was made for my mum a few years before (posts in my lj about it). More than likely she wouldn't wear it again so I made it my own. The biggest job was having to take in the waist - simple? nope it took a lot more adjusting than I thought with all those pleats etc. My mum wore it with a blouse and belt, wasn't good enough for me, really though I wanted a new jacket. This one was made out of chocolate velveteen (pain to sew - lovely to look at). This became my archery dress. My new group thought it would be a wonderful idea to go for a river bathe and most of us created a bathing outfit. This one is based on the pattern from the book Vintage Swimwear Patterns by Jill Salen. Easy to make but I made a big mistake and the front button opening overlap is the "wrong way". Also I should have been wearing a cap of some sort - for shame being out in public with my hea...

History Alive was the first re-enactment event I attended and up until 2015 I had attended with just the one group and displayed the Regency period. 2015 brought some changes: I joined a Victorian group (my favourite time period). My original group decided on splitting the weekend into 2 periods - Regency (Saturday) and Queensland Suffragettes (Sunday)   I had some decisions to make: Was I going to spend the weekend with just one group or Split my weekend up between the 2 groups and/or Do I re-enact 1 or 2 periods depend on what I decide at 1 and 2. The end decision was Victorian for the Saturday and Queensland Suffragettes for the Sunday. Photos by Beth A and Lynne C resp. I will post a separate entry with details of each day.

Trivia night with friends - disney theme? Make a Mickey Mouse costume that day! Pics: Mickey aka Me (Photos Mel aka Tinkerbell)

Just for my future reference, I'll be posting regularly to try and catch up on my costuming journal starting from where I left off 5 years ago. SO ..... In 1915 the Queensland 2nd Light Horse Regiment was deployed to Gallipoli (they were stationed in Egypt at the time).  https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/U51036/ In 2015 Brisbane's historical site Fort Lytton held a 100th commemoration with a re-enactment. https://fortlytton.org.au/?page_id=200 I needed an appropriate 1915 costume. After some extensive research and looking at lots of images, these ones spoke to me. In my stash I had some embroidered linen that I earmarked for a skirt and some blue linen for trimming.  I found the perfect teens blouse from Wearing History but nothing in my stash was appropriate so I did end up buying some light pokadot muslin. http://wearinghistory.clothing/   The ensemble came together well. The skirt and vest I drafted on my dummy and the blouse was easy to make. ...

Once upon a time. Another cosplay gold mine for ideas.  I love all of the ensembles that Ragina aka Evil Queen wears and I wanted to make one for the Sunday at Gold Coast Supanova. In particular this one:   Unfortunately no progress shots because by the time I finished Effie I was running out of time. This is my version from the Sunday. I need an excuse to wear this again.

I needed some inspiration for a cosplay (about 5 years ago).  I was making my first trip to the Gold Coast Supanova and wanted something relevant and new. Thank the stars for the Hungergames trilogy and the splendid character of Effie Trinket. FIRST I had to decide which costume to make and the decision changed a number of times due to fabric sourcing before I settled on this one:   Hence my excitement of the shoe purchase in a previous post. The top I drafted to myself. The skirt fabric I dyed maybe 3 times to get close to the colour I wanted: The flower spray I was created using some scrap fabric and basic flower gathering construction.  I made 3 and mounted them on some felt which was pinned to the top. I made the belt myself and covered a buckle. Finally the wig.  I started with a standard Marilyn Monro blond wig. I styled it and sprayed it with green hairspray.  That was TOOO green so tempered it with some white hairspray and added the de...

What does it take for me to create a journal entry? World wide pandemic with isolations ...... well that and me scrolling through and sorting photos from the past 12 years. So I have been fairly busy over the past 5 years. Personally: I have myself a new partner who will let me dress him up in ANYTHING I want (woo hoo). A lot more fitness and dance. Nerding it out with "gaming" like Pokemon. A few more OS trips. I turned a HUGE age milestone - half century. New Costuming: Bustle dresses. Italian 15th Century kit. Victorian re-enacting group. Cosplays Early 20th century kit. Suffragettes kit (QLD Australia era 1895). Viking kit. Next post will be some pics and recaps.

I was a beautiful day, nothing went wrong (I was prepared with a sewing kit in the car but thankfully I didn't need it)  So here is the finished dress:  

  I'm all done!!! The wedding dress is finished, only a week later than I planned, but we will put that down to my very poor time management skills. So a few things I learnt: Lesson 1 although I do this routinely for my historical costumes, apparently it is couture to interline even heavy weight satin. Lesson 2 do not use pressing cloths on satin with a black (or I would imagine any strong coloured) ironing board cover, disaster. The black marked the satin, HOWEVER with a little product called stain go, all marks are gone and disaster avoided. Lesson 3 don't underestimate how long things can take, it will usually take longer. Lesson 4 tea can dye polyester  So venture if you may some sneak peeks - full dress will be revealed after Saturday (or when the bride allows) So on to the next project:  improving my natural form bustle. This will entail making a bustle cage (from Francis Grimble), adding extra trim and maybe some embroidery and raising the skirt a tad. This will be...

  Or shop with girlfriends that encourage you to buy awesome things like .... Awesome 40s suit cheap as chips at $80 Au. 

All of my attention at the moment is on completing my friends wedding dress. Everything has been going along well and I was just bragging about that until...... *back story* my friend fell in love with a designer dress she tried on with me, it was a slight mermaid style with keyhole back and covered with the most devine lace. Now finding a lace that was not going to cost an arm and a leg but still has the desired effect was proving difficult. So we ended up with this embroidered organza the problem being there was only 5 yards and that's all folks. The final design will be an under dress with straps with the organza over dress that has the keyhole. Mock up So continuing on I had all my patterns set and juuust cut out the fancy fabric, then while contemplating seam finishes etc on my way down to meet some gal pals it suddenly dawned on me that I cut the organza out the same as the underdress without extending up for the keyhole. Argh how cou...

I was showing a friend my LJ (which also means my blog as I keep both in sync) yesterday and I noticed that it has been (nearly) 2 years since my last post.  Well there are a few fairly good reasons.... marriage separation.... new house.... grown children graduating.... 2 overseas trips to the UK.... loss of my beloved dad and of course LOTS of costuming. So life has been busy.  In my costuming world it has been pretty full on, too many to post photos so here is a quickie movie snapshot of most of the costuming I have done over the past 2 years.

This is starting to be my new habit ... posting 6 monthly ... and just playing catch up too. Here is the last 6 months since the last post (most of theses photos are curtesy of my friends) ...  Re-wears ... Teens at the Marburg Festival:  Georgian to the QLD Art Museum:  Georgian in Steampunk mode for the ACG Christmas breakup:  Egyptian for the RIFF Christmas breakup:  50s cocktail dress for a QLD museum exhibition: Re-wears but altered. Crinoline with new evening bodice for Proclamation Day:  20s lace dress with skirt panel inserts and vintage lace added for Art Deco High Tea: New: Vintage early 60s dress for Afternoon Tea for M & C: Egyptian for the SCA Roman feast:  1885 Bustle dress yet to be worn at an event (I was supposed to wear it that day to a picnic but you can see that it was wet):  So that wraps up the last 6 very full months.  Hopefully I will try to be more motivated to post more ofte...