A Regency Ball

In lieu of 1920's sewing content today, I'll leave you with a picture and a little write-up on a Eighteenth century/Regency ball I attended earlier this year.

I'm making a bit of a funny face, but this is the only
non-blurry picture I have.

I went to a ball in April held in Lancaster, PA. The gown I wore was the first of my "real" sewing adventures. It was completed last summer for another ball in Bowling Green, VA.

My mother and I arrived late, due to traffic and a late start. We rushed in to get dressed, some ten minutes after the official start of the ball. To our surprise, it hadn't yet begun. We found the restroom, got dressed, and were in the hall, pictured above, before any dancing had commenced. It couldn't have worked out better.

There were twelve dances: The Accomplished Maid, Mulberry Garden, Barbarini's Tambourine, Auretti's Dutch Skipper, Never Love Thee More, Fandango, Childgrove, The Duke of Kent's Waltz, The Lovely Nancy, Mrs. Savage's Whim, Dublin Bay, and Easter Thursday.

I danced all twelve. The majority were called, but there were two dances, Dublin Bay and Fandango, that weren't. Those two dances that were considered "expert" and so only experienced dancers could attempt them. Thankfully, each dance had the steps in a little booklet each participant was handed at the beginning of the night, so I was prepared.

The little booklet that contained dance steps.
This happened in 2013, not 2012, so ignore the date

Artsy shot.

It looked really nice.

Everyone was quite polite and very kind. There were three people there I already knew from Dover and one more I had met before when I was much younger.

Throughout the whole night, there were large breaks between each dance, which I hadn't experienced before. The way my group does it, is teach and dance in great quantities, take a short refreshment break, and finish out the night with more teaching and dancing. Each has pros and cons I suppose, because the by the end of the Lancaster ball, our callers rushed us back out onto the floor for the last two dances.

I spent most of the little breaks filling my tankard or playing dominoes. Oddly enough, no one at my table could remember all the rules. So we made it up as we went along. The ball was so fun, and the people wonderful.

It was a lovely time and, if you have the opportunity, I strongly suggest you attend.

The end, for now.

A 1920's Dress

Preparing for a party is never easy. For me, I always need the perfect dress, then everything else falls into place. This time, I'll be making that (hopefully) perfect dress.

I'm going to a graduation/birthday party in less than two weeks. It's Great Gatsby themed. The invitation said costumes are optional. Therefore, I'm venturing into a new time period to make a dress that looks somewhat like the dresses of the 1920's. If it doesn't turn out so hot, at least I can claim it was 1920's-inspired.

The pattern that needs to be heavily adjusted.

Some fantastic material found at JoAnn
Fabric's half-off clearance sale.

Hello and Welcome!

Greetings, salutations, and other forms of hello! Welcome to my blog. I'm eighteen years old and trying to navigate my way through life and through different eras of time. I intend to accomplish the latter by sewing outfits inspired by, or accurate to, certain periods of time.

I'm currently preparing for a Great Gasby-themed graduation/birthday party. I'm so excited! I think I bought perfect fabric and everything, I just need to adjust a pattern and figure out the skirting, then I'm golden.

At the moment, I'm in love with fashions from the end of the eighteenth century (about 1765-1799), the beginning of the nineteenth century (1800-1825-ish), the middle of the nineteenth century (1850-1869) \, the beginning of the twentieth century (1900-1919), the 1920's and the 1950's. I hope to be able to recreate or approximate fashion from all those time periods before I go to college at the end of the summer. In addition, I will also endeavor to create clothing that is wearable in my day-to-day life.

I'm planning for this to not only be a journal of my journey as a seamstress but also a journal of my journey as I grow as a person. Thank you for reading this far, and I hope you continue to.

Now, please enjoy a picspam of my and my dancing group at our last two events: Dover Days and the Chestertown Tea Party in Maryland.

I'm the one in the red petticoat and blue and white jacket on the
far left on the pictures above and below. At Dover Days

At Dover Days.

Certainly not my finest picture, but it was the end of
the day and I was exhausted. After Dover Days.

After Dover Days.

In this shot, I'm in the middle, with the same outfit both times.
Chestertown Tea Party.

Chestertown Tea Party.