A Bustle-y, Ruffle-y, Dragon-y Ball Gown

 We decided to host a dragon themed ball, my friend and I. This of course left me with a burning question, what would a historical dragon ball gown look like??

Now, to be clear, the ball was pure fantasy. I just like to take any excuse to make, or wear, a historical gown so I wanted to add some history to my fantasy and make a fantastical historical dragon ball gown. But where to begin???

Red and Gold. Those seemed like good dragon-y colors. An excellent starting point! 

Especially considering I already had both red and gold silk on hand.

Now why Red and Gold you ask? Because I'm a Gryffindor of course!

About 10 years ago, give or take a couple years, there was a trend going around the historical sewing community of making bustle dresses to correspond with one's Hogwarts house. At that time, I began gathering silk to make my own Gryffindor bustle dress. A silk plaid drapery remnant of 3ish yards featuring some red and gold, a gold crinkled taffeta remnant of 3ish yards from Fabric Mart, and 7ish yards of a red silk from Fabric Guru. 

I gathered these silks slowly, one length every couple years as I came across good deals on the colors I had in mind. I paid less than $10 per yard for each piece. As I gathered my materials, I daydreamed about and a designed my 1870's Gryffindor Gown between other projects. Finally, in 2024, I had all my materials, I'd picked a fashion plate from 1874 I wanted to re-create, and the red and gold gown was at the top of my project list. Of course, by this point Hogwarts themed historical clothing had fallen out of favor online, but I'd spent so long dreaming of this gown I was going to make it!

I figured out my base patterns from the Truly Victorian patterns I'd been given over the years and began cutting strips of red and gold silk to make the magnificently ruffle-y skirt from my inspiration fashion plate. And then. . .

And then, in a single afternoon almost two years ago, my life drastically changed. One morning I went to visit my parents and sister with my rolls of silk for this project hanging out in the back seat, and that afternoon I came home with three children in the backseat instead and the rolls of silk had been unceremoniously booted to the very back. 

Two months after being licensed as foster parents we had our first kiddos to parent, and love, and provide a safe and stable home for, and sewing fancy historical dresses was quite literally taking the back seat. The very back seat. The trunk actually, seeing as my seats were suddenly full of living, breathing, very active human kids.

Ok, yes, this picture has nothing to do with the subject at hand, but my brother took it at the dragon ball, and the colors are perfect! Thus, here it is.

Soooo, fast forward a year and a half, and my red and gold silk is sitting stuffed in a box somewhere. Somehow, we have learned how to be parents, added an additional child to the mix, and I have occasionally found time to sew. Wild.

And I need a dragon ball gown. Preferably historical. After brainstorming a few ideas I thought of my red and gold silk bustle skirt I'd had pretty much cut out before the kids arrived and I shelved the project. Red and gold were good dragon-y colors. What if I pivoted on that project and instead of making a Gryffindor Quidditch robe inspired day bodice to go with that fantastically ruffled skirt, I made a dragon inspired evening bodice?

The gold and red ruffles down the back of the skirt that I'd intended to represent the Gryffindor Lion could just as easily represent a dragon's tail. I just needed to pick the right bodice design to go with it.

The diagonal folds on this 1874 evening bodice made me think of  the texture of a dragon's belly. That was it! I'd finish the skirt I'd started, and make a bodice inspired by this one to go with it. I might be over dressed for a 2026 dragon ball, but it was going to be fun!

I ordered some dragon buttons for the bodice off Etsy, and I got started!

At long last, it was time to actually sew this red and gold silk gown. It was going to be different than I originally planned, but my entire life is different than originally planned, so that seems to be fitting.

  

The Green Taffeta "OOPS" Off-the-Shoulder Christmas Dress

 "On the Twelfth Day of Christmas my true love gave to me Twelve Drummers Drumming. . ."

Ok, I think I'd rather pass on that particular gift. I'll take the 3 french hens, the 5 golden rings,  the 6 geese a-laying (my chickens are on their winter strike right now, so any laying birds would be useful), or even the 8 maids a-milking (Although since all of my goats are currently dried off and pregnant, and even when they are in milk I rarely have 8 needing to be milked at the same time, 8 milk maids *might* be over kill.), but please - not the 12 drummers drumming. That sounds rather loud, and I have enough noise in my life right now, thank you very much!

It's been 5 months of silence on this blog however, so on this twelfth day of Christmas I have come to finally do some "drumming" so to speak and share about. . . Christmas? My Christmas Dress this year? Life? Maybe all three? I honestly can't tell you where this blog post is going to go (the intro has already gone very differently to what I've been rehearsing in my head the past week), so I suppose I'd better just start writing and we'll see where this goes.

I did make myself a Christmas dress this year. I finished it at about midnight, or a little after, the night before our first family Christmas gathering of the year. I made no Christmas gifts this year - but I did make Christmas outfits! Boy did I make Christmas outfits! 

After more Christmases than I had wanted where it was just my husband and I, this year that all changed. Our house is now much fuller and much more noisy than it used to be - and Christmas was much more exciting! 

This year there was a massive pile of toys under the Christmas tree to be unwrapped Christmas morning. 

This year we had kids (or atleast one kid. . .) singing "Joy to the World" in the kids Church Christmas Program.

This year there were more than two stockings hanging from the mantle (though the kids didn't know about their stockings until Christmas morning, because, ummmm, I didn't finish sewing those until Christmas eve - just in time for Santa Clause to fill them)

This year was a whole lot more hectic than last year - and contained a whole lot of answered prayers.

We don't know how long these kiddos will be with us, but we love them - and as I regularly tell our eldest whenever he asks - they'll have a home here as long as they need it. Be that only a little while, or forever.

This year the kids Christmas outfits were all done with days (or even a whole week in one instance!) to spare before they were needed, it was only mine that was done truly last minute - and my incredibly sloppy back zipper application is a testament to that.

Of course, the Christmas outfits were all planned months in advance! I started day dreaming about them probably in September or October (once I'd wrapped my head around the "instant family" situation in our lives and started thinking about the months to come).

I quickly decided that the dresses would be green - because our little lady would look darling in green - and they would be accented with some sort of festive plaid - so the boys could have matching plaid shirts. 

With that in mind, I picked up 4 yards of a Christmas-y cotton and metallic plaid from Hobby Lobby. Then I went to my fabric stash to pick out a solid green green fancy dress fabric to pair it with. After considering multiple options, I finally settled on the remainder of the green taffeta I thrifted years ago and used for the vests my brothers wore in my wedding and one of my sister's prom dresses. It was about time I used this beautiful fabric to make something for myself! 

Now all that was left was to pick a design!

As far as that went, lots of different ideas flitted around in my mind, but I wasn't in love with any of them until I noticed a 1950's style dress on the cover of an audiobook I was listening to.

That wide band framing a bateau neckline, the 3/4 length sleeves, and full skirt - yes! That was exactly what my Christmas dress should be! And I had the perfect pattern for it already in my stash - Butterick 6129.

View C looked like it would be exactly what I was wanting if I made a couple small adjustments.

Slightly longer sleeves, slightly fuller skirt, and slightly lower neckline. Totally doable!

I cut the dress out of green taffeta being careful to add my sleeve length and skirt fullness. Then I used an old flannel sheet to line the whole thing - my flannel house dresses (and this Christmas dress from a couple years ago) are my very favorite things to wear in the winter, so I decided to incorporate that coziness into this year's fancier Christmas Dress. (Honestly, I was tempted to skip the fancy dress this year and make my Christmas Dress out of the green herringbone flannel in the fabric photo a few pictures back, but alas, Joann's did not have enough yardage for me to be able to do that - probably a good thing since using what I already had saved me money.)

I used the thinner, more worn sections of this worn-out flannel sheet to line the parts of the dress that I specifically did not want to be bulky - such as the sleeves.

As for that neckline I wanted to lower, well I made that cut late one night as I was sewing the dress - and I think I was a little over-zealous.

This was not supposed to be an off-the-shoulder dress. Ooops.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I finished my Christmas dress some time after midnight, the night before I had planned to wear it. (And these days with little ones in the house who get up first thing in the morning, me staying up past 10 pm - or even until 10 pm - is quite a feat!) I tried it on. And I hated the neckline. Oh well, too late to fix it now. I hung the dress up and went to bed.

I put on the dress the next morning, and paired it with the red bow belt I made to go with my red scalloped dress a few years back (I'd intended to make a matching plaid belt, but I ran out of time and wanted sleep, lol) I didn't hate it as much as I had the night before (Amazing what a few hours of sleep can do!), but I was still rather insecure about my bare shoulders. So I threw on a black cardigan to wear over it for church. 

That afternoon at our family Christmas gathering however, I decided to remove the cardigan and see what happened - and you know what? The more I wore the dress, the more I liked it!

Off-the-shoulder still wouldn't be my first choice, but I love how elegant this dress feels! 

Honestly, I'm just happy I managed to make myself a Christmas Dress this year - off-the-shoulder neckline, recycled belt, sloppy zipper, and all!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I will try not to let another 5 months pass before I post again, but no promises. My life certainly got busier in 2024, and I can't wait to see what 2025 brings!

The Goat Dresses

 Who wouldn't want a goat dress?

No, No, No. I don't mean a dress for the goat to wear! I mean a human dress, with a goat print on it!

Despite my years and years of raising goats, and my (slightly fewer) years of making myself what ever dress struck my fancy, I actually never considered making myself a goat dress, until The Dreamstress shared this Gilbert Adrian dress on Facebook last year.

It has Sheep on it! (Ok, lambs to be precise.) If a fashion designer in the 1940 could make a sheep dress, why the heck hadn't I made a goat dress yet???

All I had to do was find some goat fabric - and for some reason goats are just about the most under represented farm animals when it comes to animal prints. There are goat prints out there, but they're generally something I have to actually order, verses something I can just go into a local fabric store and buy (after a good half hour of feeling it, considering it, staring longingly at it, and carrying it around the store while admiring other fabrics. I have my method.)

Well, back in January I found a goat print at my favorite place for novelty print cottons - the Mennonite fabric store out in the middle of nowhere. It was blue, with cartoon goats all over it - quite different from the realistic looking lambs frolicking on a green background of my inspiration dress - but it was a goat fabric! So I bought 3 yards of it. 

 

I decided I could use the cartoon goat fabric to make goat dresses for my two favorite preschool-age girls. I'd already made both of these girls chicken dresses, and they both love my goats, so obviously they needed goat dresses!

For two months I intended to just make the little girls dresses out of this goat fabric, and I'd keep my eyes open for just the right goat print for a dress for me. Then it came time to cut the dresses out, and I couldn't do it - I wanted a goat dress right now too! So I shifted plans. All three of us would get matching goat dresses.

To make my three yards of goat fabric stretch I decided to take inspiration from the Gilbert Adrian dress and make the bottom section of the skirt green, just using my blue fabric for the bodice and upper section of the skirt. I found a 2 yard cut of a lovely green swirly fabric at the City Sewing Room for this purpose. And to make sure I'd have plenty of my goat fabric, I also bought 1 yard of a solid pale blue cotton for the collars, cuffs, and waist bands.

Next up, figuring out a pattern! In homage to the inspiration dress, I wanted something vintage(ish atleast), with cut on sleeves and some sort of a collar. To make things slightly complicated, said pattern also needed to come in both adult and children's sizes. Thankfully, I had something that would work in my stash!

 McCall's 7184 - it met all the requirements! This is one of my favorite blouse patterns (you can see my previous versions here and here), and thankfully it comes in both children's and adult sizes - and I own a copy of each! All I had to do was trace off the blouse pattern in the girls' size, shorten the sleeves, shorten the blouse length to the waistline, ignore the darts, add a waist band, sleeve bands, and a skirt, and I'd be set to go! That might sound like a lot, but it was really quite easy. I decided to make the dresses button all the way down the front, as that's been a favorite style of mine lately. 

Not wanting to distract from the design of the dress, and especially the goat print, I decided to use clear buttons on the dresses. I had a nice set of large transparent buttons off of a duvet cover (the duvet cover that became this skirt) for my dress, but finding crystal clear buttons for the girls' dresses proved slightly more challenging. I had one card of clear vintage patterns just the right size - but there were only enough for one dress. Neither Hobby Lobby nor Wal-Mart had any clear buttons, and I didn't have time to go check Joann's that week. So, in the end I I had to settle for a card of clear-ish buttons from my stash for the second little dress. Those worked fine, they just weren't my first choice.

Once the dresses were done, I needed an occasion to give the girls their dresses - and neither one had a birthday any time soon. So I decided to make an occasion, an occasion where we could all three wear our dresses together.

A tea party!! 

I fixed a tea tray with all the most kid-approved foods - chicken nuggets, cookies, and berries. After asking each girl individually ahead of time if they preferred hot of cold tea, the vote was unanimous and I made some iced tea to fill the little tea pot with.

 When the girls arrived for the tea party I gave them each a gift bag. They unwrapped their new dresses, and were both very excited to put on the goat dresses right away!

After they finished their tea, we went outside to find the goats.

Because, if you have a goat dress, obviously, you must wear it to play with goats!!

Anne's Hat of Buttercups and Roses

 "Her hat was a little, flat, glossy, new sailor, the extreme plainness of  which had likewise much disappointed Anne, who had permitted herself secret visions of ribbons and flowers. The latter, however, were supplied before Anne reached the main road, for being confronted halfway down the lane with a golden frenzy of wind-stirred buttercups and a glory of wild roses, Anne promptly and liberally garlanded her hat with a heavy wreath of them."

~Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery

Most of my ensemble for our Anne of Green Gables picnic last month was modeled after what the grown-up Anne would have worn, but my hat? That was straight out of Anne's childhood fancies.

Photo by @samithefae

As I listened through Anne of Green Gables to get myself in the mood for the picnic I heard the passage above and went "That's it! That's what I'm doing for my hat! Garlanding it with a heavy wreath of buttercups and roses!"

A quick glance through Edwardian fashion plates on Pinterest showed a hat trimmed thusly, was indeed right on point for the era. So I went to my stash of thrifted straw hats, picked one that would work for a base (a rather flat straw hat with a wide brim), and got started!

The hat I'd chosen unfortunately had some damage to the underside, so the first order of business was to either fix or hide that issue.

Back to Pinterest for inspiration, I came across this hat from the 1910's, held at the MET Museum, with a band of velvet around the underside of the brim.

Ah-ha! I could do that!!

Pink velvet ribbon was unearthed in my stash and sewn on - this was honestly the most tedious and time consuming part of the hat trimming process.

Photo by @samithefae

Once that ribbon was securely in place (and looking fantastic if I do say so myself!) the fun part could happen!

At a local farmers market/craft fair I picked up two pink, soft, hand made, and dyed, wooden roses. They were absolutely lovely, but it would have been cost prohibitive to do the whole hat in these. So, to supplement, I picked up some fake roses and buttercups at the craft store. Flowers obtained, there was still the question of what other trimming would go on the hat. Anne's fancied ribbons, or something else?

I pulled several options from my stash, and returned to Pinterest to settle the matter. 

I decided I really liked the look of the tulle on this hat (sold on Etsy several years ago apparently), so I decided to do something similar.

Funnily enough, I happened to have a piece of tulle, just about the right size, hanging out on my dining room table. A gift had come to me wrapped in it the week before. (Free trimmings!! Who could complain!?) I arranged said gift-wrap tulle around the brim of my hat, and it was perfect!

 Next up, the flowers! I gave the two wooden roses stems of floral wire, disassembled the store-bought floral bunches to give myself individual flowers to work with, and set about arranging.

Once I was pleased with the wreath of flowers I hand-sewed them in place.

The final touch was a green ribbon bow on the back of the hat - then it was done and ready to wear!

Photo by @samithefae

The perfect topper for my Anne Edwardian outfit!

Photo by @samithefae

I believe Anne Shirley would approve whole-heartedly!