The Industrious Lady

This lovely Satin Material is the Park Square in Adobe from the Allen Park collection, sadly no longer available. Good thing I had seven yards of it, enough for a dress for me and vest for the hubby. The bodice had to be cut twice, the first time the lines were offset, oops.  Ah the bretelles. 19th century ladies liked their french fou fou names. Any ordinary style instantly becomes 10x fancier with a french name attached.  Few, the bodice fit. Which was great since I like to live dangerously and skip the mock-up step.  Alright Bretelles, I see you there. LOOKING ALL FINE.... buttt it didn't match quite right, time to recut.  That's better on matching. The bretelles and hook and eyes were completely handsewn in. Poor middle finger had worn through, snd the unfortunate old curse from the sewing shop returned. If I wear my middle finger skin through too much, and needles are dull, the back of the needle will start going into my finger instead of the material. This is why thimbles

 Octagon Dress with Bretelles Guys, I'm in  love... in love with a new pattern company!  Truly Victorian is Great, past patterns is definitely a step into the past, but they seem to do a very certain look of the era and a very similar look. In the years encompassing the civil war era so many new looks and styles were coming out, so many that the big historical pattern companies didn't have. Which to be fair they can't carry every single style for the entire era, they only have so many people to draft so many patterns. But after pp and tv for so long, this girl needed a change, a Change the Octagon Ladies Repository brought. A good basquine bodice... she got it Need outerwear for winter... they have 9, yes 9 outerwear patterns. A wateau wrapper, Godey's 1863 shows a wateau back dress and been obsessed ever since  and so much more! And a link to the website h ere So many pretties to make, good thing I have that weird obsession with hoarding silk. For the first project we&