Tiger Lily's Threads

I made this last year for a 40's Holiday party last year, and never got around to taking pictures.  The skirt was machine sewn, and pleated with the box pleat method. It was definitely a lot of fun creating something that looked as if it came out of a vintage clothing magazine.

I'm excited to say that I'm at the halfway point of finishing my day dress. Right now, the bodice is finished and fits perfectly. Aside from machine sewing the muslin lining to the dress, the sleeves, waistband, and arm bands are hand-sewn. Even though the challenge calls for stash-busthing, I resorted to buying a button mold from JoAnn Fabrics, and made a few buttons out of the remaining fabric I had left over from the bodice scraps. For the skirt, I have 3 yards of broadcloth fabric remaining, and sometime by the end of the weekend I'll have it ready for the Historical Sew Monthly challenge: Stash-busting.   full view The back view before the buttons hand sewn muslin to the fashion fabric Button, Button, who's got the button?

For the Historical Sew Monthly's March challenge, I've decided to pull out one of my most recent patterns that I bought last year from the Market Fair back in 2014. The 1809 day dress pattern from  Period Impressions.   This was my very first time using the pattern to make an entire dress (I had used it to only make an open robe jacket), so I had to really look at a lot of examples via Pinterest, and other costume blogs.  Anyway, using several yards of muslin lining and broadcloth fabric, I've cut out the mock and fashion patterns and pinned together the entire bodice of the dress. I had to make several adjustments to the bust and to the sleeves to make sure that they were set correctly as well as not fitting to the dress maker's dummy (since the dummy is from a clothing store and cannot be adjusted).  Over the next couple of days, I'll more than likely be doing a lot of hand sewing, in order to make sure that it looks as close to being a...

Ok, I really wanted to cut it short, so here we go…. In retrospect, like this take on Bram Stoker's Dracula. Compared to the other variations I have seen over the years, this is pretty spot on and yet at the same time, it had it's own take, as if there were some deleted parts that Stoker wrote up in a rough draft, but decided not to use in the final. For example, while Mina doesn't have a romantic relationship with the Count in the novel, the movie just took it to a whole new level and played with the characters as if to say "This is why Dracula decided to go to England in the first place." Also, in the novel, Mina is not the one who sets him free. In fact, it's Jonathan who lands the killing blow by slitting his throat and cutting his head off right while he's struggling to get out of the box of earth. Anyway, I really think the movie did a great job telling the story. Even the special effects were top notch and original. In fact, they didn't bo...

Going back a little further here on the movies that I feel are now 90's classics, I definitely want to review this movie that I felt had good acting, really good special effects, perfect actors that matched the characters in the novel, and of course the beautiful costumes that surprisingly carried cultural and religious symbolism. I'll also talk about the comparisons between the movie and the novel itself. While the movie is tightly based on the novel, there are some contrasts that I'm sure you will find just as surprising. (Spoiler: This is a synopsis) The movie opens up with Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker, a solicitor, embarking on a long and arduous journey into the Carpathian mountains of Transylvania to meet the elusive and mysterious Count Dracula. . . . I'm sorry, that's not how it began. That was in the book. The movie actually opens up with a viscous war going on in 15th century Transylvania, with Prince Vlad Tepes (played by Gary Oldman), killin...

 A couple of days ago, I was "stash busting". I searched though my yarn stash to see what I could still use or donate, when I came across a few skeins of burgundy Ella Rae yarn.  One skein out of 3 Knowing that I just couldn't part with it, I researched all over the web to see what pattern would best work for Ella's weight and lo and behold, I found this easy and simple caplet to knit up quick. And by simple, I mean that the pattern only called for knitting, purling, and yarning over. Simple as that! Granted, I won't be able to wear it this spring (unless the A/C is on blast at work), but it's definitely a great outfit to wear during this upcoming fall and winter. This beautiful caplet is brought to you by  Yarnspirations

Last night while browsing through Netflix, I came across a movie that I've somehow overlooked back in 2008; by then, a few historical genre movies came out. I believe Pirates of the Caribbean 1 or 2 was out around that time, because I was on my Johnny Depp kick and I just HAD to go see it. So that was the majority of my movie focus. Which brings me to Keira Knightly. While she did a fantastic job in POTC as Elizabeth Swan, she did a phenomenal job portraying the Lady Georgiana Cavendish: Duchess of Devonshire in the movie of the same name. The movie is based both on historical accounts of the real Georgiana, and on the biography  Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman        While I'm sure many history and historical fashion buffs have seen this movie at least 5 times, I won't have to go too much into detail about the movie's synopsis. I thought the movie was beautiful but sad, because of the movie's true depiction of life in high society ...