December 24, 2011 1910's Corset Pattern

In 2010, I wrote 2 articles for the online magazine Foundations Revealed about how I created a recreation of an antique corset from the mid-1910's. After a year on that site, I regained the rights to republish that article for free on my own website, so I thought I would share that with you all as a little holiday present from me! The original articles had more information about the research, pattern cloning techniques, and comparisons with the original garment, but I figured that people would be the most interested in the pattern and construction instructions, so this is a condensed version. This corset is a very easy garment to make up, and I hope this helps some of you with your 100 year Titanic anniversary and Downton Abbey costumes in 2012. Merry Christmas to you all!

July 6, 2011 Please excuse my dust

I ran out of room with my previous web host (hence, no updates for the past few months), so I decided to switch to a new one with unlimited space. I'm having some hiccups getting everything transferred, but I am hoping it will be worked out soon. If you can't see any of the pages on my site, the support person recommended clearing your cache - this seems to work. Also, if you see any broken images or other weird stuff going on, you are welcome to email me and let me know at jen(at)festiveattyre.com. Sorry for the annoyance.

P.S. Are you getting excited about the final Harry Potter movie? I am! My beloved Professor Trelawney costume will get another wearing at the DFWCG movie party next week. Woohoo!

March 20, 2011 1918 dress

My first costume project of 2011 was to make a dress inspired by one of the fashion plates in my 1918 New Idea Quarterly. It's nothing fancy, but it was a really fun project to work on, and I loved having the chance to try something different. You can read all about it here.

February 2, 2011 1868 Ballgown Bodice

So I made a my first Victorian evening gown for a Christmas ball in December. Yay! I should have posted this months ago, but I kept thinking that I would get all dressed up again and take some better pictures. Hmmm... or not. I finally gave up and just decided that some pictures are better than no pictures at all. Check it out here. Merry very-late Christmas! ;)

November 25, 2010 Regency Spencer

So here's my Regency dress v.2.0! I liked my jumper, but I love this spencer! I never thought I'd say it, but I think I'm a complete convert to this whole Regency fashion thing now. You can see my new dress here.

September 26, 2010 Regency Jumper

For my next over-due update, I thought I'd share some pics of my first Regency dress. There was a time when I swore that I would never do Regency because I thought it was ugly, but it's amazing how your tastes change and your eyes adjust to different silhouettes the more you are exposed to them. I ended up having a blast making this outfit, and I'm already halfway done with Regency dress v.2.0!

September 24, 2010 1911 Day Dress

Once again, I have gone AWOL from site updates, which I apologize for, but I have been trying to stay off the computer as much as possible to give myself more time for sewing. But the good news is that my plan worked pretty well, and I finished several new projects this summer - hooray! Now that the craziness from work is easing up a little, I'm going to try and get my summer projects webbed. First up is an Edwardian day dress. I hope to have more to share soon.

April 25, 2010 Blogging, boy clothes, and 20th c. pattern goodies

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I've grown to hate Dreamweaver and dealing with website stuff, so I've been slowly working on starting a Festive Attyre blog, which will hopefully get seamlessly integrated into this site eventually so that I can update more easily... and more frequently! But I'm having to learn everything from scratch yet again, so that probably won't happen until this summer when I have more time to mess with it. I've made a few new costume pieces that are posted on my blog that I haven't posted over here yet, but I'm going to try and catch up whenever I have some spare time.

But I just finished a new outfit for Mike, so I decided that it was a good time to get back on the horse and add it to my site before I got lazy and forgot all about it. I also wanted to mention that I've started a new archive of my vintage pattern collection. Flickr is SO much easier for archiving than what I was doing in the past, so hopefully, I'll be adding more of my Victorian fashion plates there too eventually. I'm all about the easy, baby!

December 13, 2009 Venturing into a new era

It has taken me a month to get this one webbed, but I made 1792 zone gown for the costume guild's 18th c. picnic in November. I had a blast making this thing, and I look forward to many more fabulous Georgian costumes in years to come!

October 2, 2009 Getting back to work, 1860's style

I've finally gotten another new costume posted - a Civil War era work dress. It's nothing fancy, but it'll be very useful for reenactment events. Every wardrobe needs a few good work dresses.

March 19, 2009 Adventures in Steampunk Costuming

Hey everybody! Sorry for the long hiatus, but I've been sucked into a mommy black hole since having my baby in 2007. I had a healthy and happy boy, and he is the absolute joy of my life! I've made a few baby costumes during the past year and a half, but I decided that I'm not going to post them on my website until my boy is old enough to give me permission to do so. Maybe when he's a teenager he'll let me have a retrospective showcase of all his silly baby costumes.

I've been waiting until I had something new of my own to post, and I finally finished my first new costume last week. I made a zouave-inspired steampunk outfit to wear to a local con. (don't know what steampunk is? try googling it!) I had a blast making it, and I'm already scheming about another steampunk costume for next year.

July 24, 2007 Harry Potter Madness

I decided that it would be an absolute crime to miss dressing up for the very last Harry Potter book, so I whipped up a quick Professor Trelawney costume last week to wear to a midnight release party. You can see pictures and read more about it here. This outfit was so much fun to make, and I really enjoyed taking a break from the serious historical stuff for a change. I have a feeling that you'll be seeing more fantasy and movie costumes from me in the future.

May 30, 2007 New Victorian Fashion Plates

A friend of mine from the DFW costume guild let me borrow one of her Demorest's pattern catalogues from 1880 to web. It has some really cool garments in it, and best of all, there is a front and back view for everything. That is so helpful! I hope some of you find it to be useful.