Ladies and gentlemen,
an afternoon well spent at the Technisches Museum Wien.






A reproduction of Babbage's difference engine, air ships



and gears



Needless to say I'll be there again soon.

We've planned to go for a walk in the rose garden in Baden near Vienna, and I'm not yet sure which outfit I should finish for this occasion - the striped dress or the linen dress.

The historical soirée (February 7 2009) is over and the bodice wasn't finished in time, so I had to borrow a dress from Mme. Kupferfeuer. This dress here will be finished somewhen this year when the red silk finally arrives and my frustration subsides.

The other ladies looked fantastic!

In Victorian Fashions I've seen a wonderful evening outfit described as velvet and lace, with a particularly nice overskirt: pouffed in the back and two separate gores in the front (here is a picture I took from p.188 of Victorian Fashions by Stella Blum, Taschen Verlag).

The underskirt will be TV261, made from red silk instead of lace because it's cheaper. The silk has arrived and I've bought cotton yarn to match the colour.

The overskirt's pattern is self-made - the picture does not show the backside, so I was free to use my imagination. The particular velvet I used seems to be not too bad - it has "Niedieck" printed on the seams and from some googling I concluded that this is not the worst of brands. Besides, on the picture it looks like the back is not draped overly elaborated. I've cut two rectangular pieces (40x120cm) for the skirt front and one rectangular piece (120x150cm) for the back. After some calculations and lacing of the corset I made the front pieces smaller (24cm, without seam allowance), lined the pieces, gathered the 120cm of the back piece and made about 5 meters of silk piping. I've cut a 25'' waistband and sew three silk bands with which to drape the back. And I've spent an hour at Mme. Kupferfeuer's brooding over how to actually drape the thing. <pic to come> And I've bricked my sewing machine with all the layers of velvet so I had to resume to hand sewing some parts.

TV416 for the bodice. It's the wrong period, but some of the outfits shown in Victorian Fashions have the same low neckline, so I'm going to use it, period. And it's all about the waistline anyway, isn't it? Early bustle had a higher waist than late bustle, if I am not mistaken.

Dress decoration: I was thinking red flowers and pearls. The silk flower shop (yes, Vienna has such a thing) is closed during February, but I'll look around online for silk roses.

Jewellery: bohemian garnet necklace and ring. Now I only need to find some I can afford which is nearly impossible.

Hm - oh, yes, and I need a fan and a small bag.

As mentioned before, this is going to be my first outfit and there is a deadline... It requires some purchases as well as DIY pieces, and I'd like to trace my progress here in this post. ( Details? This way please... )