Point Fermin Lighthouse

The weekend after Costume College, Michael and I attended a picnic with our friends out at the Pt. Fermin Lighthouse in Long Beach. 

The event is a regular one for us and a favorite due to the beautiful setting of the historic light house with its well maintained grounds. 

We set up our picnic spread inside the fenced off side yard of the property surrounded by the brightly colored flowering garden. 

This year i felt inspired and made my favorite lemon blueberry cream pie for a dessert, everyone else seemed to decide it was their favorite too as it practically vanished in moments of bringing it out. 

The weather was bright and sunny and warm to start, then toward the end of the afternoon the breeze comes up off the water and it cools down beautifully. 

Michael wore his summer whites for the Probyns Horse Regiment and looked very dashing :) 

and i wore an old dress with a few adjustments and remodels to make it work at a moments notice. I like the draped effect on the skirt but will likely do a very different bodice if i ever chose to wear it again. 

We were joined by a good gathering of friends in their summer best, that even included the dogs :)

Costume College 2013

was two weeks ago and while I think it was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back in terms of my recent burn out, it was so worth it!!!!!!!!

Last year i didn't attend Coco at all and just showed up for one afternoon of shopping and visiting with a few friends. Which was nice but i also missed being a part of all the fun and chaos, so this year i attended the whole weekend and was involved in four major costume meet ups/ groups.

The first group was Friday evening for the Ice Cream Social, we did 18th Century Disney Princesses.

I was Rapunzel and we also had present: Belle, Cinderella, Merida, Ariel, Tinkerbell, Nala, and two Snow Whites :) This was a blast of a group as we are all good friends!

My sister takes all the credit for the wig I'm wearing, she did an amazing job kluging two cheap Halloween wigs together!

And because it matched the movie and we were inside on carpet the whole time,i went barefoot! Silly i know

Saturday was breakfast and a few quick photos before classes as The Georgia Rockford Peaches. THis group was a blast and the costumes are so cute! I have a feeling we will be seeing this one again next year :)

Then i quickly switched over to the 18th Century Curtain Along dress for that groups meet up in the afternoon.

This had a great turn out and we had a nice range in dates of costumes as well as every color of the print represented! The best part was getting to meet so many of the other bloggers that i follow and had not yet met. We really do have a great community of wonderfully nice people who love to costume and any oppertunity to meet these people in person is great!

Later that evening for the Gala's red carpet walk in I had Michael come out and join me all dressed up in his 1730's Coldstream Guards uniform while i wore the Robe Battante. 

Even though we didn't attend the Gala i wanted to come out and see what everyone was wearing and to show off Michael's uniform to a bigger audience. That uniform was a HUGE undertaking and i am so proud of how it came out that i just couldn't resist another opportunity for it to be seen ;)

Sunday i went to a few morning classes in my Undies. I wore the new Dark Garden corset with the matching embroidered chemise. Then changed in to my Roman costume for the rest of the day as part of the "Bitchy Roman Lounge wear" group. The Roman robes were comfy and i was so proud of my hair (that i totally didn't get any pictures of!).

There were plenty of fun classes this year though nothing that really reached out and grabbed me as i didn't do any limited classes because i wasn't sure i could commit to the whole weekend till the last minute. As a result the whole weekend was really focused on meet ups and costume changes. Next year i like the theme better and therefore will likely like the classes more and so i want to try less dress up and more classes. (yes,please remind me of that last statement when next year rolls around and i am sewing like mad for multiple costume group meet ups!)

But my favorite part of Costume College regardless of what the theme is or what i or any one else wears, is the people. Those who come from near and far to share in the love of sewing. and every year i walk away with new friends :)

Burn Out . . .

Yes with all the sewing I have been doing in the last few months I'm sure many of you are not surprised but i have to admit I was :)

It struck me just after Costume College like a huge ball of molasses that i just couldn't find the energy to move through to reach my computer to blog or my sewing room to work on any number of pending projects.

I apologies for my absence the last few weeks and will start this week out fresh with my post on Costume college tomorrow and other recent going-ons.

Roman Loungewear

So Costume College is just a day away sooner for some people and I am still scrambling to complete some last minute sewing for a couple different groups. But one costume I have complete is my Roman loungewear outfit :) which by nature of design was the easiest of all my costumes this year to complete! 

There are 3 pieces that make up the outfit: the tunica, which sits next the skin, the stolla which is over the tunica and more decorative, and the last piece is the palla which is a wrap that covers the head and shoulders. All the pieces are rectangles :) 

This site is a great little resource and what I followed to make mine  http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chrisandpeter/radical_romans/female/female.htm

My plain tunica:

The stolla:

A close up of the waist ties:

And a close up of the buttons on the "sleeves"

I have a gold palla and gold sandals to complete the outfit :)

Central Coast Renaissance Fair

Was two weekends ago and what i did all that Elizabethan sewing for.
http://ccrenfaire.com/

It is a very small little fair but we were in a new venue this year that was next to a lake that helped make the fair very lovely and not too unbearable weather wise.

I was very bad and didn't take a single picture! not one! which is a whole new record of failure for me, even though i am bad about taking photos i usually remember to take at least one or two, usually of Michael. But i ended up being so busy both days that i don't think my Phone (camera) even made it out of my bag backstage.

The two photos below were taken by others, that Michael had from his Facebook, so that i could document our remodeled outfits in full on the bog :)

Michael is in the green in the center left, the group is the Privy Council:

HSF Challenge #15 - Elizabethan Coif

Challenge #15:  "is our first colour challenge* for the year, and I'm easing you into it slowly, picking a colour that has lots of options for really easy makes, and has appeared in every possible period." 

I made a simple Elizabethan Coif, out of the same fabric as my partlet and sleeves to cover up my hair and go under my velvet flat cap like in this portrait.

 

Fabric: I made this coif out of the cream colored embroidered silk chiffon that i used as my inner sleeve for the remodel of the Elizabethan dress and lined it with white cotton lawn. All of which came from the stash.

 

Pattern: I used a few different blog tutorials as my references for this but then when it came time to actually construct it just kinda winged it. . .

 

Year: Generic 16th Century

Notions: just a little thread to hold everything together :)

How Accurate: I give this a 7 out of 10. Detracting points for the machine sewing, the machine embroidery on the silk and the cotton lawn as the lining (should be linen). Other then that the shape and the size are correct.

Hours to Create: less then one all together. In all honesty the whole thing from cutting to finishing took about 15 mains :)

First Worn: Two weekends ago at the San Luis Obispo Renaissance Fair

Total Cost: nothing really as the fabric was all stash

Elizabethan Accessories

For this years Ren Fair, rather then making a whole new dress (just no time this year) i remodeled that old dress i wear with new sleeves and new trim and contrast fabric. In addition to those small changes i also wanted to add new accessories that would help the whole ensemble look more like the character I play (Katherine Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon).

The first thing i added was new shoes, not a something you see but i had finally worn out my old ones! I went with these

from this seller here in the US, they are well made, very nearly historically accurate. Also when you add in a nice gel insole they become very comfy like slippers :) next year i think i will make them silk ties rather then the leather ones they can with for lacing.

The next thing was jewelery. In the past i didn't have a whole lot to wear and my dress is rather plain and made of simple fabrics which is good in the sense that we are supposed to be out in the country, but not so good in that it was hard to tell my character was of a high station. So by adding a set of matching jewelry it really made it much clearer what my station was, not to mention it was all pretty and shiny :) I mixed and matched pieces from Sapphire and Sage, and chose metal color and jewel tones to make it a matched set, i also chose colors that i knew i could use with the new dress i am going to make for next year.

I got a girdle, necklace, ear rings, and ring:

The girdle came with a different medallion that i took off and turned into this over necklace and then used this pewter pomander to hang at the end of the girdle. The pomander came from this site:http://www.pewterreplicas.com/detail.asp?id=122&selcurrencies=GBP

The last piece i added to the ensemble was a book, Katherine was know for being very well educated and well read and for spending much of her marriage working with young women of all stations teaching them to read and write. While Katharine would have likely carried around a book of common prayer, i chose to carry around a black book, but one that looked a lot like examples of originals or those in portraits i have collected in my research. I found this seller on Etsy, via a general search for leather bound books: http://www.etsy.com/people/alexlibris?ref=owner_profile_leftnav

 I contacted him and asked if he could make me a book similar to one he was currently offering but just with a different closure. His response was prompt and perfect. He believed he could easily make me a custom book based on my descriptions and references and get it to me in time for my event just 3 short weeks away! And he did, he was incredible responsive to all my questions and requests and worked so quickly. The book arrived in time and exactly as i had imagined it would be, he is true artisan and i will definitely be doing more work with him in the future. 

The book was also not expensive considering it was custom made and it was well received by all who saw it and handled it at the fair :)

Old Fort Mac Days

Last weekend out in Long Beach CA was the event Old Fort Mac Days at Fort MacArthur. This is a long running and much loved event by locals and reenactors alike! This is the second year Michael and I have visited the event, while we have many friends in many different groups we have not participated and chose to just dress up and visit for one day and see all our friends and all the great camp set ups.

The event is funny in that it is a military reenactment for every military and engagement in history from the Roman Legion to the Vietnam War and everything in between. Its fun in that you can walk from one camp to the next and go from WWI trenches to an 18th Century cook tent.

Michael likes the event as it allows him to wear uniform that he doesn't have regular events for already (he has a lot of Uniforms from many different British regiments and a wide spread of years). Last year he wore his 13th Hussars full dress kit which is only ever worn when at the SF Dickens Fair so it was very neat to see it out in the bright light of day. And then i just wear a dress that is of the same era as the uniform he wears :) Last year that ended up being one of my many 1860s hoop skirt dresses.

This year Michael chose to wear the full dress uniform for a Victorian British Indian regiment called Probyn's Horse.

The regiment, though British, chose to adopt the Indian style for their full dress uniform when present in India. So the uniform is a long Kurta with very elaborate gold bullion embroidery worn over white riding breeches and tall black riding boots. The headdress is a turban tied Punjabi style and the uniform is worn with a cross belt, wide waist sash and waist belt for the sword.

The majority of Michael's uniform is a very well done reproduction with the exception of the cross belt and all of its silver fittings, the belt buckle and the sword which are originals from the 1870's.

Needless to say the uniform was very impressive and grabbed a lot of attention as it was the only one of its kind at the event and people were trying to figure out what is was, when it was, and where it was from :) It was fun to follow along in his wake and listen to him provide explanations and details, as he really is very knowledgeable about all the regiments and their history that he has uniforms for.

I wore the dress i posted about last week that i made the new petticoat for. With my favorite perchy black hat and white parasol i thought it gave a good impression of an 1870s lady in India :)

It's hard to really see in the pictures but I am wearing a sweetheart pin for the Probyn's Horse regiment! I now have a sweetheart badge for every major regiment Michael collects, it's a lot of fun :)

The weather was beautiful and we really enjoyed visiting all our friends in all the different camps and we had a very lovely picnic lunch in the afternoon sitting up on the upper lawn in the shade of a tree looking out over the ocean to Catalina Island!