Costume Blogger American Duchess is doing a Giveaway! also a Grilled Cheese Skirt.

Costume Blogger  American Duchess is doing a giveaway. She is giving away a pair of  "Nankeen" Regency half-boots

Nankeen Regency half boot

The Nankeen boots are a late Regency Era fabric boot. The boot has a leather sole, lacing closure, and a round toe. These boots are also dye-able. For more info about Nankeen head over to the Nankeen Regency Boot page at the American Duchess shop. 

Enter her Giveaway for a chance to win HERE!

IN other news 

Well another skirt for a costumer done. This time the fabric had a grilled cheese print on it. YUM! I made this skirt pretty fast compared to taking two days on other skirts. I usually make the skirt and then I work on the hem the next day.

Anyway this fabric is pretty cool and I might have to make myself a skirt.

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Bum Pads and Pocket Hoops

The Bum Shop

Bum Pad
After a week, I was slowly getting the energy to get back to work. I pretty much knocked out my skirt supports in three days. Since I hadn't decide at the time which style of dress I was going to make at the time I made the choice to just make a bum pad and a pair of pocket hoops.
The bum pad was pretty easy and only took an hour to finish. I couldn't find a pattern or any real instructions on how to make one, so I just kind of worked with pictures I saw. The first step was to measure the width of my, well my own bum. I knew I wanted more support in the back then on the sides, so I just measured from one side to the other. I made a quick paper pattern, trying my best to make it crescent shape as I could. I pretty much free hand it.

After I made the sides even I had a pretty decent shape.

I decided to move on to cutting out my fabric. Nothing fancy, I use some unbleached muslin I had at home. Cutting two, pinning  and sewing. I had an 1 inch seam allowance. I stitched along the bottom, leaving the top open.

When I had sewn the bottom up I turned the bum right side out. I split the pad into three sections, marking my stitch line from top to bottom. I tried to make each section equal and even before stitching. I used a simple top stitch from top to bottom, reinforcing the ends. After stitching, I started stuffing my pad. I used cluster poly-fill to stuff my pad.

After stuffing I pinned the the top and based stitched it close before I pinned the twill tape onto the pad.

Twill tape pinned tape before stitching.

I forgot to get a picture of the finished bum pad on Lillian (dressform). I have the hoops on her right now working on the petticoats and I didn't feel like taking all the stuff off for a picture.

Pocket Hoops

  The next day I decide to get started on my pocket hoops. I used the pocket hoop pattern from JP Ryan.

I found the pattern to be easy to read and follow. After reading the instructions I was ready to start cutting out my fabric. Again nothing fancy, I used the same unbleached muslin as the bum pad. As much I wanted to get pictures of my progress I totally forgot. I was to busy rereading the instructions whenever I moved to the next step. I made the pocket hoops slightly smaller then they are meant to be. My own hips are pretty wide on their own and I didn't want to have them too wide. It's just my preference not to have them to wide. It took me two days to finish them. Cutting on the first day and all the sewing on the second. 

crappy picture of the me wearing the hoops.

After finishing the hoops I put on my chemise and my stays just to see the whole look together. I kept everything on for a few hours I couldn't bring myself to take anything off. I was having too much fun. I pretty much have all my undergarments done, next step the petticoats.

Also after finishing both the the bum pad and the pocket hoops I decided on the dress. I decided on, robe a la polonaise. I can wear my hoops cause I worked hard on them and I like wearing them.

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My 25th Birthday~New dress and a little Tea party

Yesterday was my 25th birthday and I spent the day just lay in bed watching movies cause we celebrated on the 13th. We did it a day early cause my sister had to work on the 14th and we wanted her to be included.

 In my last post I wrote about my dress inspiration and fabric. Well after that I had to get to work on a bodice for the dress. After choosing how I wanted the bodice to look it only took me a few hours to finish the dress. I pretty happy with how it came out.

                                      
I kept twirling around the house in it. I felt like a Disney Princess.

the bodice draping. it was quick and I'm pleased with it.

The Tea Party.

My birthday celebration were small but I'm happy with them. Since my mom and three of my sisters, and my Grandmother couldn't make it we had a small little tea party here at home. We had mini foods and a I decided on Lady Grey tea. It wasn't much but it was what I wanted.

Pink Velvet cupcakes with white chocolate frosting

Tea Time bunting. made from dress fabric scrapes.

Cupcake stand before the cupcakes. I forgot to take a picture of the cupcake on the stand, I just wanted to eat them.

The birthday presents

Three Books: Sense and Sensibility, Anna Karenina, and The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After

I got the tea cup! the tea cup I based my dress on.

 Movies: Confessions of a Shopaholic, Austenland, and Ever After
Two BBW candles in my favorite scents: London calling and Paris Daydreams

My mom called to tell me that she has ordered my gifts and they will arrive next month. Excited to see what my mother got me.

Overall I had a really great 25th birthday.

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My Birthday~ Tea cups and Roses

My birthday is just around the corner. On February 14th  I'll be turning 25 years old and I'm finally having a tea party. Yes a tea party. I have been begging everyone to join me for tea but they just don't want to, so when asked what I want to do for my birthday I knew I had them.

I love to plan parties, I love every detail of planning the party just as much as the party itself. Last year  made my own cake just cause I found a new cake I wanted to try both for baking and eating reasons. I started getting everything together last month, plates, planning a menu, picking a cake, picking the tea, and the other options for non tea drinkers, and anything else I needed to have for my perfect tea part. But The most important thing to me was to have the best birthday outfit. I love having something fun or theme related to wear on my birthday so when It came time to plan my outfit I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

For a while now I have had my heart set on an Royal Albert tea set. I'm just too poor to get the whole set at one time so I have to get it piece by piece. Well the first this I would love to get is a tea cup from the Country Rose Collection

my favorite one is this one

Royal Albert tea cup and saucer set in Polka dot blue.

I just fell in love with the design. I wish I could find it for my birthday but everywhere I looked they were sold out of this style. Anyway I had decided to base the theme for both the tea party and my birthday outfit on that cup. I prepared myself to have to search for a similar fabric, but it only took me two hours to find fabric. Fabric that was both very close to the tea cup and that I loved. When I saw it I knew it was my birthday dress.

So far I have cut the skirt out. I used my go to full circle skirt pattern.

skirt pinned to the dress-form

I plan on draping a new bodice this weekend. I'm not sure how I want the bodice to look so I putting it off for a few days.

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