Slow Progress

It's been a busy week, but little progress has been made on any of my sewing. Last weekend I started my Peasants and Pioneers project and got most of the skirt done, but it sat untouched the rest of the week. All it needs is a waistband and to be hemmed though, so not that much work left. Unfortunately I used a pattern that was once my mother's and the waistband piece has gone missing, but from the diagrams it looks like it's just a rectangular strip and very easy to remake.

The almost finished skirt

I'm afraid it is going to be too short but we'll see what happens when I put the waistband on. Luckily because of the nature of this challenge I feel like I could easily just add a strip of fabric at the bottom to lengthen it until there's time to make a new one. A lower class working girl might have to patch old clothes or fix a hand-me-down to make them fit right if she couldn't afford a new one, and this challenge is all about the lower class.

One big errand that did get done this past week was a trip to a new fabric store a customer had tipped me off about. There's a store about 45 minutes away from me that sells mostly interior design fabric, and up on the third floor attic of the place they have stacks and stacks of old remnants all priced at $9 a yard. That's a steal for a lot of the fabric buried up there. I went there to try and find striped fabric for a dress I wanted to make for the next challenge. I failed at that task but did get some striped fabric that I might use for a different project and some fabric I intend to use for challenge #11 squares, rectangles and triangles.

Gorgeous Ginkgo leaf patterns

I really want to make a kimono out of this fabric. The pattern is nice and large and loose and I love the little background swirls. The interior of this fabric is very metallic and scratchy though so I'll have to line it most likely. I'll decide what specific style of kimono I want to make when the challenge is a little closer. I'm leaning toward a shorter version of a kimono that would be worn as a coat so that I could use it in everyday wear. I just don't see myself ever having a place to wear a full kimono to.

I also grabbed this stunning wide striped fabric while I was going through the discount racks. It's a pale blue and gold striped fabric, but there was only two yards left. That's not really much to work with considering I had wanted to make a full dress for the stripes challenge. 

From the book Fashion The Definitive History of Costuming and Style

I recently bought a Smithsonian fashion history book and found this gorgeous striped frock in it. I've been looking absolutely everywhere for an appropriate fabric to recreate it with but can't find one anywhere. At this point there's not really enough time or money to get the fabric for it and figure out a pattern so the idea will probably have to be scrapped until later. I do however have the gold and blue fabric and a pattern for a 1903 Edwardian corset that my wardrobe desperately needs, so I might just settle for a striped corset. 

Tonight I start on the blousewaist for my Peasants and Pioneers outfit. I'm hoping it goes together fairly easily but we'll see. I bought a pattern for it from Truly Victorian but I've never used their patterns before so this will be a bit of a learning experience. Tomorrow I'll finish the blousewaist and skirt off and hopefully be able to post about it.