Ancient times...

So, the next event that I am planning to attend is a Roman feast. And of course it is held by a bunch of re-enactors, so our costumes must be historically accurate.

After research upon research, I have decided to do an Ancient Egyptian costume. Idiot that I am, I purchased several metres of muslin thinking that I could just wrap myself up in it and call that an outfit. No such luck. The effect was terrible and really didn't work on me. So instead, I am going to go for the very simple tunic - which is a piece of fabric twice my height with a hole in the middle for my head and a belt to tie it up. Real technical stuff, but is probably the best and most flattering Egyptian costume I am going to have.

I probably could go with a Greek or Roman costume, but I have always adored the idea of an Egyptian wig and am vastly drawn to the makeup as well. So after a trip to Lincraft at lunchtime (again), I picked up some white linen for my robe. It has a bit of stretch to it, but it is the best I could do and lets face it, it look like regular linen. Tonight I am planning to do the hemming on the fabric for my tunic, and start the wig.

For the wig, I will basically be sewing together a couple of black wigs that I own so that I have a super full wig. I am not going for the regular braids look, but instead I am intending to crimp the hair to the shoulders and then dreadlock the ends. Cross fingers that the crimping works, because I will be using synthetic wig hair. It may come back to me doing the braids.

Vintage goodies

During my lunch time today, I made my way over to David Jones, so that I could pick up a couple pairs of stockings (I recently butchered a pair of mine while wearing them). I drooled over the very expensive but no less gorgeous hats. But, I did get some of the most amazing vintage dress up items.

Seamed stockings. In both black and flesh toned. They are Leona Edmiston, so not cheap, but when have fancy stockings ever been cheap? I intend to save them for special vintage outings and not my regular trips to work. Which reminds me, I must get myself a new garter belt. The stupid one that I have now is too big and slides down off my waist onto my hips, making my stockings slide down my legs. Not comfortable in the slightest.

And the other are leather driving gloves. Something that I have been obsessed with for quite a long time and have hunted around for. I could have bought online in the past but it is nice to be able to try the gloves on to make sure that they fit. I got a pair of full gloves in black and the fingerless ones in pink and purple. I now have a full contingent of driving gloves. Now I just need the car to match the gloves. :P They are by dents www.dents.co.uk. And for those out there looking for vintage inspired new gloves, this would be the place to go.

Heritage Ball

I thought that I had better get around to posting photos of my Victorian ballgowns sooner rather than later, as I have really been harping on about it all lately. I managed to finish everything in time, even finding the time on Saturday morning to whip up a new pair of Natural Form drawers. You will have to take my word on the fact that they are made and are rather pretty, as they are open crutch, there was no way on earth that I would be taking a photo of me wearing them. They do have lovely knee bands on the bottom with lace. I am very pleased with them. Maybe a photo will follow next time.

But onto the evening itself. It started off with me setting and putting up my mum's hair. I am so unbelievably pleased with how her hairdo turned out. (She is the one in pink and maroon) In fact I was a little jealous as it turned out better than my own hair. I added in our pretty little hairpieces with flowers and feathers on them. Dressing took quite some time, especially my own with all it's pinned-on decorative trims and layers. The ball was lovely too, not too many stuff-ups in the dances, some lovely suppers (I took along macarons and fruit cake) and a very late night. I was pooped by the time I got home. And more than ready to pull all the pins out of my hair.

Aha!

And my ballgown is now done as well. Phew! I am so happy that I have managed to get it done with a couple of days to spare. Really, the only things that I have been doing this week is hand sewing on trims. Lots of trims. But I can now relax as I am ready for the ball on Saturday night. When I promise I will be taking photos.

So last night, after I was done, I got stuck into my sewing room and started cleaning up. It's a bit of a slow process but it is already starting to look good after months of piles of patterns and fabric laying around on the bed and floor (yes, it is our spare bedroom as well). I will have a few more hours of clean up in there to get it to point where I am happy it is clean, but at least now, it is organised and I know where I can find stuff without having to hunt high and low.

On the other hand, I had thought that this ballgown would sign the last of my projects for while, but alas, no such luck. I have suddenly been inundated with invitations to events in August that I am desperate to go to. We are talking, Ancients, Bustle and Vintage. It's a good thing that I don't have to make anything new for the ACG ball at the end of the month. But more on all that later. For the moment I am just enjoying a sense of accomplishment at having my ballgown ready to go.

Milk!

As a final catchup and goodbye to Miss Abi, (up from Adelaide for the wedding last weekend), Donna, Abi and I went out for tea in Vintage. We first made our way to West End to the "Marky Markets" but it turned out to be only a couple of stores. Very disappointing, but the next place more than made up for it. We headed over to Ashgrove to a lovely little place called "Milk". It is a milk bar done up in 1950s style with a yellow and white decor. I was just amazed at how lovely it was inside and the menu was a modern uptake on 1950s food. Of course they had the original style beverages of milkshakes, thickshakes and spiders on offer. It ended up that I took quite a few photos, just because it is so pretty inside. I think I will definitely have to make a trip back there sometime.

And we have progress...

Well, mum's ballgown is officially complete. Hair accessories and all. But you will have to wait until next weekend for photos.

Now I just need to get my own done.

Abbey Medieval Fair 2010

And then came the Abbey Medieval Fair. I attended on Sunday with Dance Kaleidoscope, where at 1pm we performed a number of dances. This year the Fair was on their new site. It's a great place, but I think that they need to organise a little better for next year. Everything was a little higgledy piggledy and it was rather dirty out there. When I got home, from the knee down of my chemise (under 2 layers of dress) was grey instead of white and when I took my tights off, my legs were dirty underneath. It was pretty gross, but I still had a great time and I was so pleased with how my dress turned out.

A Victorian Wedding

Well, it was a busy weekend. It started off with my innate clumsiness on Friday afternoon as I fell down the stairs at work. Consequently, I went home early to lay down with a heat pack. And yes, I have a massive purple and black bruise on my butt. Not to mention the other ones that have popped up all over the place. I suspect that I will be aching for quite some time.

But the real event of the weekend was the wedding of Rhys and the lovely Cat. She has been planning her wedding for quite some time, and as a costumer, it was bound to be exception. She chose to go with a Victorian theme and the wedding party wore 1870s bustle gowns and suits. It started off with the bride and bridesmaids arriving in a horse drawn carriage. We then all made our way into the church for the ceremony. Followed by a lovely afternoon tea. Overall it was a beautiful wedding and I was so glad to be able to be there. I did manage to take a few photos, so you too can drool over Cat's magnificent gown. And the food, the lovely cakes....

Cupcake Kitchen Tea

Sunday saw me heading on out to Ipswich for a Kitchen Tea. It was in honour of a friend's wedding (coming up this weekend), so the theme of the day was love and romance, and we each had to bring along a small batch of decorated cupcakes. Mine were a chocolate sponge with chocolate icing, topped with pink iced love heart cookies and sprinkles. And since I was making the cookies, I also pulled out the teapot cookie cutter for the rest of the batch. And then there were the macarons. You may know that I have been dabbling with a few different macaron recipes. Sometimes the fail utterly, and other times they work out rather well. The first batch I made were strawberry. They were a little disappointing as they turned golden instead of staying pink but they did taste rather nice. The other batch I whipped up were my pistachio ones, and I have to say that they are the best batch I have ever made. The were all round, rose correctly and only 4 halves out of the whole batch cracked on top. I was so proud of myself. (And they tasted good too).

Everyone brought along their pretty cupcakes (hence the mass amounts of cupcake photos) and some regular eating food. Some were just too pretty to eat, but I think that we all went home with a sugar overdose. And of course there Elle brought along some shaped chocolates, because it would not be a pre-wedding party without something obscene. We did play one game though, in the we made our bride-to-be a wedding gown out of toilet paper. Now it is really a bad idea when you put a bunch of costumers in a room and tell them to make something to wear. In the end though, it ended up being the four of us costumers dressing her, while everyone sat back and watched. She had a homage to Japan with large bell sleeves, beautiful TP roses on her bodice and her dress came complete with a bustle and a matching veil.