Southern Belle wanna be : Hoop Skirt

So as I've said before we do Civil War reenacting. You can read about it here: Travel back in time. Well as part of this hobby I've wanted to start doing the female part some more than the soldier role, especially if we have reenactments where they're aren't that many other guys there, so that they get a shot at firing the gun. Also, most reenactments have balls to go to, one reason to dress up pretty! :)

My mother-in-law asked me if I wanted a gown and I said 'sure'. So she dug out her patterns and gave me what I wanted and some left over fabric she had for it. I was thinking she was going to make one but I know she's way busy and  I'm totally up for a challenge. Plus, I love sewing. My sewing machine was one thing we HAD to get with our gift cards from our wedding.

So about 3 weeks (give or take) I started the process of making my hoop skirt for under the dress. The hoop is probably one of the most important pieces of the dress, because it gives it it's shape and can help with length.

The pattern of my dress is Unique Patterns of Historical Fashion #863, the style is 1860's Crinoline Ballgown. This pattern contains both the dress pattern and the hoop pattern. The copyright of it is 1989 so I'm not sure where you can find it anymore but I'm sure a quick google search will point you in the right direction, you can pretty much find anything on ebay too. Reenactments are a great place too (obviously) for finding patterns and fabric.


The quick specs for this patterns hoop are: 9 yard of 45" wide fabric, 16 yards 1" wide flat lace, 4 packages of 2" twill tape (I ordered 12 of 1 1/2" Cotton Twill Tape and I'm pretty sure I had enough). You also need "strap steel" for the hoop parts. One roll was enough at 12 feet a roll.
I ordered my lace off ebay and twill tape off of amazon. The hoop bones and fabric I got from onlinefabricstore.com. 

This pattern was pretty easy to follow and understand. The hardest part is towards the end when you are sewing in the twill tape to make the casing for the hoop steel. It's difficult to keep the other layers out of the way to make sure you only sew to the one you need and not catch any of the ruffles in it.  It was also a little difficult to get the ruffles/flounces ruffled enough but not too much to fit with the layer. I know I have a few places I had to make it work by folding other pieces.

Looking underneath the hoop, you can see the casings for the hoops.

This has been my latest DIY project. I've been putting off starting the dress because I know it's going to be a huge project but maybe this will give me motivation to do it! I've been busy with getting things ready for school as well. I start Nursing school September 4 and am SOOO excited and ready to be back in school. This year off has been great and busy but I love school. :)

This is what happens when you are late for Drill.

Reenactment at Boscobel WI, 2012

Travel back in time

As I said before, R has done civil war reenacting for a while and I recently started tagging along with him. It's a lot of fun to get a way from everything for a while and what better way than jumping back to the 1860's for a while. The most recent one we went to was in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at Seminal Valley farm. 

It was HOT. Wearing wool in the summer is not my favorite part about them. 

It's a great time to sit around (sometimes around a fire) and bs with the guys. 

We fire an original piece, (the one on the bottom of the picture above). We also have another replica that we use when we have enough men, as we did this weekend. We represent Scott's Tennessee Battery, they were confederates. There are some battles that the guys do Yankee at but mostly they stick to being confeds if possible.

 It's actually a lot of fun even though I have never ever liked history. It's an experience not many people say that they do. 

I'm actually also in the process of making my own gown too. I just started today with cutting the pattern out so pictures and a blog about it will come at a much later date. :)

Short and sweet tonight. I plan on "gushy" love post sometime soon. It was our 1st anniversary on Monday so I can't help it. :] 

DIY: Bag for Reenacting.

What is this another post already!? I've been starting to get bored around the house during the day so I've been doing LOTS of research on outfits/bags/ ect for Civil War reenacting that R & I do.  He's been doing it for a long time and when we were engaged I started tagging along. I enjoy hanging out with the guys and camping, not so much the wearing wool in the summer. We are with a unit out of the quad cities so most of our battles are in Illinois and eastern Iowa. We were lucky enough to go to Shiloh TN, for the 150th battle. I actually got hives from something and was pretty miserable by the end of the week but it was still a good time.

I dress both parts, wearing dresses and as a soldier, depending on my mood and the weather and what the unit is doing. I don't have a musket yet so that limits me a little. We're an artillery unit though so most of our reenactments we shoot a cannon. I'll post another blog later about the details of a reenactment so this isn't super long. On to what this post is about!

I have been needing something to carry my "farby" (modern day) stuff and other clothes for the weekend so I did a little research but mostly used what I had seen someone else carry to make a bag that's more period correct than my backpack I have been using. Mine is not totally period correct but good enough for me. I'm not a "thread counter" or a hard core reenactor by any means. I don't know if I'll ever be there! This is the style of bag I was going for.

Image from http://www.thecarpetbagger.com/category/Knitting-6

It's a pretty simple design. I also used that site for the size. 18in. tall x 22in. wide x 8in. thick. It's made out of upholstery style fabric, why it's called a carpet bag.

I found some really cute fabric perfect for this project and got some muslin for other projects and to use as the liner. I started by drawing out my pattern and making a quick prototype.