I've been a busy bee

For the last few weeks I have been working on a few projects. Most of the projects are for my vacation and a birthday costume for my nephew. I going to Atlanta tomorrow to visit my mom and my sisters for two birthdays, a graduation, and just fun family time.
Last month my mom called me and told me her plans for her birthday, she want to go to the Renaissance Festival.  I love a Renaissance Festival so I was excited, then she asked if I could make something for her to wear. Now she didn't want a whole costume so that was good. I also made two new dresses to wear, one that will be great for my nephew's birthday party theme. Pictures of the two dress when I wear them.

  anyway I'm glad I'll have this week plus + break cause I got my first costume commission. Yay!


I have to pack and get some sleep. I have to prep for the long trip.

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New member of the family

MY SEWING FAMILY THAT IS!

I finally bought a new sewing machine. My first  brand new sewing machine since I got my little blue soldier(a Kenmore) for a Christmas present 10 years ago. so now that will make me a mother of three now, and I am just beaming with joy. Joining my two Kenmores is a beautiful  Brother CS6000i, yes I did a brand change.

I wasn't looking for anything fancy right now just a machine that did the basics and if it had some cool feature, cherry on top. I was also on a very tight budget since buying a machine wasn't apart of the plan for another couple of months. But sadly my two Kenmores aren't working like they used too and I just don't have time to go get them fix and wait for them to get better.
After doing some research on sewing machines, this is the first one I ever bought on my own, I settled on the Brother CS6000i. This machine had great reviews and seem to be on top of every best sewing machine list i came across. BUt beside all the postive I read about the machine the price really is want won me over. I was not only within my budget it was 57 dollars less then my budget.

So far I have been working on a few projects with my new baby. I completed the Oz skirt, the Barbie dress, a under skirt and my nephew's birthday costumes. Pretty easy projects to break her in before my next costume project.

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Drum Roll...........Finally the dress

After months of hard work I present to you my first historical costume an Eggplant and Champagne Robe a L'anglaise / a la polonaise. My little cousin was kind of enough to snap a few pictures of the dress yesterday. We took a few outside and some inside. The fabric looks different in natural light, it's not as shiny as it looks in the pictures taken inside. ANYWAY ON TO THE DRESS.


After planing and making all my undergarments it was time to start on my dress. I chose the colors Eggplant and Champagne  because my bedding colors are similar, the eggplant color is a darker purple but the champagne is the same. I love my bed so I went for those colors. This dress was a pain in the butt to make. I was crawling the floor, on top of tables, and standing on chairs to get things done. But in the end it was worth it. Of course it's not prefect, there are thing that need to be fixed, changed and adjusted. A lot of those problem might be fabric related because I didn't have them when I did my muslin. I have some gaps at my closure I think I might need to add more hook & eyes or maybe adjust my breast and stays for less pull. I also had  problem with the sleeves but I rather not revisited that nightmare.I'm happy with how well the dress look even with some minor issues. It's my first 18th century dress and I have made all the notes about pattern changes and adjustments.  Whatever stresses and roadblocks came my way I worked through them and kept going.
 I wasn't shooting for the greatest dress ever made I was just hoping for my best and that's what I did.

 robe a la polonaise version. my loops are a little uneven cause I could seen behind myself. And no matter how long I ironed the wrinkles just keep coming back.(I need to get a steamer) 

Decided to wear the bum pad instead of the hoops. Going to save the hoops for the next dress.

robe a l'anglaise version. I love having the train.

My dress looks so shiny and  I look  like i have so much powder on  under this lighting.

peek of my clocked stockings and shoes

For my hair I decided just to do a simple pouf, nothing special and it's all my hair. I really didn't feel like working with the wig at the moment. And with Belle coming out in a day and seeing Gugu Mbatha-Raw's natural hair 18th century pouf I decided to wear my own natural hair. I've had some hair growth in the past months so I was amazed with how high my pouf got with no teasing.

BELLE out May 2nd

I'm excited to see this movie for a lot of reasons. Maybe I'll wear my dress. do you think I can wear stays while I eat nachos.

  

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