This Brave New World

I have been prevailed upon to join Instagram, where you shall indubitably find that other people do a far superior job of remembering to take photographs of me than I do myself.  As you may have noticed, I am rather horrid at keeping things up to date.  Blogs, projects, my wardrobe... ;)

But!  I am determined to become a more regular, accountable sort of person, so hopefully having such a platform will inspire me to share the travails of this project more often.

So, pray, follow away!
The Baroness on Instagram

The Lady of Economy

I've been working, I swear!

I know I've been horrid at updating, but perhaps that is a part of what comes with being comfortable in any century but this one!

But, to make up for it, I have a project, and I even took progress pictures!  People who know me will be aghast.

I must give credit where credit is due- to Heather McNaughton of Truly Victorian for this brilliant idea.  It is she who came up with the brilliance of getting a shirtwaist from a tablecloth, not I.

The project itself is a c. 1902-4 shirtwaist.  You can tell the specific year because of the sleeves, which pouch down at the back of the cuff but not the front:

It is nearly impossible to find good quantities of good lace these days, so the idea is to save both money and fabric and use a battenberg lace tablecloth instead.  

The tablecloth itself was 54" in diameter.  Heather's called for 72", but I figured I was small and I could make it since I was drafting the pattern myself off of an extant I have.  Famous last words.

It actually did all fit, but that center piece, the sleeve, was about five inches too short.  I managed to have extra lace at the border so I cut it off and added the lace from the border to the lace on the sleeve and extended it.  I also had to add some fabric to the armscye to get it to ease in well.

Heather's originally had fabric binding the neckline, but I wanted mine to have a proper high lace collar, and since there was enough lace left over, I added that, too.

The finished waist next to the October 1903 edition of the Ladies' Home Journal:

I finally got a few pictures of it at an event last weekend, which is why I was so long in posting.  The only thing I think I would change is that most waists have pin tucks in the front to prevent tugging on the low, pigeon bust.  The tablecloth didn't have this, and it does tug a little, but not too badly.

Forgive the pictures- it was at the end of a very long day out in the heat, so my hair has rather given in haha!  The zig-zag wires to keep my collar up were not yet in at this point, so it too is a little saggy.