Things I learned from making my first Victorian dress...

Over the course of the last *cough* year and a half *cough* I ventured into a new area of costuming for me, the Victorian era. More precisely the early bustle era: the 1870's. Before this I had read a bit about the era (though more about the 1860's) and had seen countless other costumers works on the era. But this was my first time trying to do something this big. And I learned a lot from it.

This post is going to be a compilation of a bunch of things I learned from this journey/things I would do differently next time.

• The Victorian era, particularly the 1870's, is great for beginners because they can easily cover up their mistakes with lots of trim. I made so many mistakes with this dress. Like a lot. Some of which were not able to be recovered and had to be scrapped completely, such as my first bodice. But due to the fact that the Victorian's loved their trims, I was able to hide a few of my bigger, armature mistakes such as my un-even dress hem. Yep. That black ruffle along the bottom of my skirt was a backup plan because I accidentally cut some of the panels to short.
• Start with printed patterns. Don't try to scale up patterns from a book if this is your first time venturing to this era. That ended up giving me a ton of trouble on the skirt and bodice, which is why I ultimately had to re-make the bodice.
• Do not underestimate the power of having a lot of trim on your dress. The biggest thing I see looking at this dress now is the severe lack of trims. I put what I thought was a lot at the time, but it seriously needs a lot more.

• You can hem your skirt up higher than you think. I hemmed this dress so it was barely off the ground at the front (maybe an inch off the ground). After talking with my friend Michaela, who has a bit more experience with historical costuming that I do, I learned that I would have been good with 2-3 inches off the ground. It ended up working out okay for me this time, but in the future I'll be hemming just a little bit higher.
• Don't stress about being perfectly historically accurate. When I set out to make this dress I wanted it to be as accurate as possible, which ended up putting a lot of pressure on myself and I ended up procrastinating a lot. I lost motivation for the dress about half way through because of this. At that point I decided that I wasn't going to stress about it being perfect (at that point I knew it wouldn't be) and I told myself that I just needed to finish it. I had period appropriate material, the right underpinnings, and to the best of my ability the right silhouette for it (although not perfect). It's okay to not be perfect as long as you finish and learn from it. Costuming to me is about learning and having fun either while making and/or (though hopefully both) wearing the costume, and once I remembered that I was more motivated and actually finished the thing!
• Having cute shoes that match the era (even if they aren't entirely historically accurate due to budget limitations) will make you feel like your outfit is complete. I purchased a pair of Funtasma lace up boots to go with this since I couldn't afford the American Duchess shoes (and because I wanted lace up boots), and putting them on made the whole thing feel so much more real. It's amazing what a pair of shoes can do!

Michaela and I at Costume College

And I have to add, wearing a bustle with a train is one of the funnest things I've ever worn.

The Great Costume College Adventure

As you are aware, I attended Costume College for the first time this year and I wanted to make a quick post about it. I wish I had more pictures, but I was so busy with the classes and looking at everyone's costumes that I wasn't even thinking about taking pictures.

The event was SO fun and it was so awesome to get to meet a bunch of costumers I've been following for a long time, as well as meet a lot of new people. I learned a lot of awesome stuff from the classes but my favorite part were the social events.

Friday night I wore my green Regency dress. Regency isn't necessarily a favorite era of mine, but it's so easy to make and wear! It's just so simple compared to other eras.

Saturday night was the big event of the weekend, the Gala! I finally got to wear my finished 1871 dress that I had been working on for far too long. Michaela wore her 1860's plaid dress, which was so pretty. We took a couple photo's together and are still waiting for the photographer to post them so we can share.

The only part that wasn't fun was that I got sick on the way to California. During the drive down I started getting sick and for most of the weekend I could hardly speak because my throat was swollen. I was still able to have fun, but speaking was difficult.

I really hope to go again next year and already have so many costume idea's.

I don't remember exactly how this came about, but somewhere along the weekend I got it into my head to make a 1840's dress. I've recently become obsessed with Jane Eyre after watching the movie and reading the book. So on Monday at the fabric district I picked up some plaid linen for a dress along with 10 yards of white cotton for petticoats. I'll be posting about that soon.

I'm going to Costume College!

After years of seeing other costumer's share their experiences of Costume College I'm finally getting to go! And I'm so excited! I've purchased my tickets and been figuring out the details. I'll be going with my friend Michaela, who's also going for the first time, and it's going to be awesome!

A few months ago I started a GoFunMe to help me go to Costume College. If you haven't seen it yet you can get to it HERE. I'm so thankful for everyone who has donated so far, and I would appreciate anyone sharing it to help get it around.

I've been figuring out what costumes I want to bring with me to CoCo. From what I've seen people mostly seem to wear historical costumes but other costumes are allowed and encouraged. But I've decided to only bring historical garments since I literally have no events that I get to wear them.

I'm planning on making/finishing several costumes to wear to the events at CoCo. Here's what I'm planning...

First up is finishing my 1871 day dress. This dress has seriously been in the works for a year now and I just want to get it done. It's actually fairly close, but still needs a lot of work. At least it looks like a dress now...

Actually, there's several things that I thought were done on it that I'm going to have to take the seam ripper to and re-stitch. And they're all things that have to be sewn by hand. Ugh. Anyways...

The next thing is my Regency dress. I've actually almost finished sewing the dress, just have to hem it and add a few details but otherwise the actual dress is pretty much done. I still have to make a chemise, the spencer jacket, and find shoes for it. But other than that it's almost done!

Lastly I'm planning to finally make the Wearing History Sailor Play Suite (which I bough the patter and material for last summer). I wanted to make this for VAW last year but just didn't get around to it.

The only other things I really have to figureout is what to do with my hair for the Regency and Victorian era costumes. If you follow me on Instagram then you already know that I just got a major haircut (15 inches cut off leaving me with a bob perfect for the 1920's!).

I'm not so worried about the Regency hair because I'm planning on doing a turban. As for the 1870's... I have no idea's at the moment. I'm contemplating getting some hair extensions but I really don't want to spend the money on it right now.

Well, that's all for now. I'll do my best to keep things updated!