Palisades in Action

Not content with merely earthquakes and swamp fires, Mother Nature has sent a hurricane to the William and Mary campus, so we had to evacuate. Fortunately, this means I can post the photos that my dad took at my brother's baby shower. It was a picnic at a park near their house - the perfect occasion to wear a 1940's summer dress! I missed the fact that it was a barbeque (one of the ultimate stainers), so I stuck to veggies, guacamole, and mac&cheese.

Toby, the future father:

Me with a friend of Toby and Sheela. Her mom has boxes and boxes of vintage pattern - a useful connection to have.

Here's Sheela and her sister-in-law who is also pregnant. There were at least 5 pregnant women at the baby shower.

My other brother, Steve, putting some much-needed bug spray on Sheela. Also Toby...

They had the great idea of having the guests design onesies for the baby. Here's mama (who is apparently trying to match me) drawing hers:

My onesie, yes I know, I should totally go into textile design

Some of my favorites:

Finished Outfit: 40s summer dress

Completely done with the yellow 40's summer dress. Here's the lowdown on this project:
Pattern: Palisades 1940s Wrap Dress from Wearing History

Adjustments: Taken in at the armpits, interfacing for the belt

I'm a fan of: The waistline! The bodice ends at my high waist but doesn't crush my ribs.

Change for next time: Use a different fabric. This cotton twill is too heavy. Unfortunately the only other fabric I could find in this color was so thin that I would have to line it with something thick in addition to wearing a slip.

On to the pictures! Ignore the slip sticking out of the back. I still need to experiment with bras to find one cut low enough. You'll also notice that my belt isn't tied in a bow. It always looks ugly when I do it (using the basic shoe-lace technique). Does anyone know how to tie a pretty looking bow?

Check those shoes

Here are the yellow 40s-style shoes (taken with the bad but functional camera). I love the embroidery:

I've finally stopped being lame!

And created a blog. I've been stalling, waiting for something really exciting to happen. I was going to start with a post full of pictures of Costume College 2011, but my camera didn't want to cooperate, so that plan was foiled.

As it is, I'm just going to start blogging in the middle of a project. So, I present: The 1940's Summer Dress.

This project started with a pair of yellow shoes that I got for $6 at Goodwill. As soon as I got home I realized "I don't own anything in yellow..." So off to my bookmarked pattern sites! After noodling around, I decided on Wearing History's "Palisades 1940s Wrap Dress). I picked up the pattern after Lauren's (who runs Wearing History) class at CosCol, and I am working on sewing rick rack to the bodice in between typing this. (Pictures when I stop being so lazy...)