18th Century Project

Sooo, yeeeeeeah, I'm an idiot. I gave myself another project. To be finished in a week.

Here in St. Louis, we have a pirate fest for 3 weekends in September. I've never bothered to make anything specifically for it, mostly because I never budgetted for historical shoes nor have I figured out the hair. I've been wearing my crappy ren faire garb that's 7 years old and has freakin POLY BONING in it. It was in such bad shape I decided to at least whip up a new bodice. Then I started agonizing over the fact that it's still a horrible outfit. Then I remembered Maggie at Costumer's Guide managed to make an 18th century jacket out of one yard of fabric and thought, well hell! I can do that! (Thanks Maggie ;) )

I've made an 18th century gown previously:

It wasn't perfect, a little bright. I simply took the bodice pattern for the above dress and altered it a bit. I decided to make the jacket boned and will try to forgo a corset (the one I made is fully boned with steel bones. Yeah, I can't drive in that) The box pleated hem on the petticoat, which was pinked and took foreeeeeeeever to pleat, got completely shredded at D*Con 2009 and that year's pirate fest, plus I had to wear tennies. I'm going to re-pink the trim and raise it to ankle height to show off my gorgeous American Duchess shoes (which will hopefully stay clean). The jacket will have a button front stomacher with brass buttons. I don't know what if any trim I'll add. I have to trim out my hat a little, and make a cap so I don't have to fuss with hair. Hopefully it won't be too hard to do all that by Friday night :) Sorry for the rambling post, I do that when I post late at night ;) Here's what I have so far. Things are just pinned on now. I have NO clue if any of this is period accurate, but it's good enough for pirate fest.