So Crewel

I’ve been thinking about embroidery quite a bit lately – my Mum’s been talking about it, the pocket books I want to make one day require it, a present I plan to make for a certain someone involves it – so I thought I’d have a look at the different forms to help me decide [...]

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Mrs B’s Needlework

My Mum went for a walk today and happened to pop into a little charity shop. They happened to have a certain needlework book I’ve blogged about before for a couple of pounds. Apparently it’s rather nice with all those pretty diagrams – I’ll have to have a looksee when she comes to visit next [...]

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Sewing at Project Gutenberg (ist sehr gut!)

Whilst looking for something else, I stumbled across a real gem originally published in 1870 containing instructions for tatting, embroidery, crochet, knitting, netting, point lace, Berlin work and guipure d’art: the Project Gutenberg eBook version of Beeton’s Book of Needlework.  I’m sure many of you have already seen this and absorbed it and used the [...]

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Q: What’s it got in its pocketses, precious?

A: Pretty things, of course! Specifically, I’ve found two lovely things from the 18th Century which a Person of Quality might keep in their pockets… The first, is bringing me out in ‘I Want’ sweats… When you see it, you’ll understand why… Isn’t this all kinds of gorgeous???  Yes, it is three questionmarks’ worth of [...]

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Marie Antoinette, Queen of the Zombies

While trying to work out how much fabric I needed, I decided to sketch up my costume to show the changes I’m making to the trims of the original pattern.  Mostly I’m just changing attached lace and floral trim for self-trims and making the flounces more accurate – in the pattern they’re the same length [...]

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18th Century Clothing Lust – A List

Having a magpie eye makes looking at 18th Century clothes a dangerous task… I’ve fallen in clothing lust many a time and have several projects in my mind that I’d love to make.  Here’s my list of things I’d like to make one day: 1. Chemise a la Reine.  This one shouldn’t be so far [...]

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Something for the Gentlemen – Waistcoaty Goodness

When looking through my file of 18th Century clothes, I redisovered these lovely waistcoat fronts – I don’t normally look at men’s clothing that much when I’m researching the 18th Century, but these really stood out to me: They’re enough to make me want to spend hours and hours embroidering!  Sooo swoon-worthy.  And they’re for [...]

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The Master Plan (or, how to sew in 7 ‘easy’ steps…)

I’ve finally got round to writing up my Master Plan of how I’m going to learn to sew, and here it is: Take up linen work trousers – practice hemming and hand-sewing (backstitch). Sew silk cuff from Sew It Up book. Make a shift from cotton lawn, using a combination of Marquise.de’s instructions and those [...]

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Silk Cuff – Finished!

I have just finished making the cuff!  Huzzah! Sorry the photos are a bit blurred – I didn’t realise until I put them on my computer. The buttonholes look pretty neat, considering their my first non-practice ones, though I did have a bit of a nightmare with the dupion fraying almost as soon as I [...]

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Silk Cuff Progress, Fiction & a Visitor

Just a quick post with a pic of my cuff progress: As you can see, I’ve done allthe Suffolk puffs.  What you can’t see is that I’ve finished the cuff all nice and neatly and have started the two buttonholes.  The black rectangle at the top is a practice buttonhole on a piece of linen [...]

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