After a lot of sewing for other people, I wanted to sew for me. I *needed* to sew for me. I'd been wearing the same dress most of the season. It was driving me buggy. I'd started a new set of pretty undies a while back, started a diary for them, and gotten no where. In sort of a fit, I finished the corset and corded petticoat -- badly. In another sort of fit, I tore all the cording out of the corded petticoat, which makes it a, well, petticoat. 'Nuff Said. I also found out that things had grown, and my corset no longer fit as designed. (It wasn't my waist this time, which I suppose is good.) I made up a nice, simple black kirtle (more or less from my own draping instructions -- I really do things that way). The whole skirt is pleated onto the bodice with knife pleats -- singles in front, progressively more stacked on top of each other as they approach the center back. It's worn over my old corded petticoat, and the newly uncorded one. I think the silhouette, especially at the sides, turned out quite nicely.
The sleeves are actually the legs of a pair if ludicrously small pants I bought forever ago (I really liked the silk jacquard, and they were all of 5$). They're caught with buttons and handstitched button-loops (all bar-tacked -- ain't that fancy?). I swear I had a close-up of the sleeves taken, but I can't find it. That's what happens when you let your web updates sit for several months.
