seeing red

I have never been one to like bright colors in my clothes. A little is ok...but a bright red dress...a whole dress, that is way overboard.  But as I've worked on it, it's grown on me and I am confident I won't feel too out of place in it.  

Anyway, so far as the sewing goes, work had slowed a bit because all of the work left for the last few days has been handsewing.  Yep, no more machine work.  The shirt gets attached by hand and all the hemming and the hooks and eye...that's all that's left!  It's hard for me to believe that I am actually pulling this off.  

Each little pleat gets its own stitch to the bodice...well, two stitches, one on top, one at the piping.  I have the top row done and maybe 1/5 of the bottom row.  

Back detail

Front detail

I used to absolutely hate clothes!  When I got married, I really hated trying wedding dresses on.  All I knew was that clothes didn't fit right and I had no idea what I liked, what would flatter my body type or anything like that...so I just hated all clothes.  But now that I know what I like, I can see the appeal of buying such a special dress.  Though this dress looks nothing like a wedding dress, it reminds me of one.  Probably because it's so thick and doesn't fall flat.  

It will still take a lot of work, but I will have it done by the time trek rolls around.  I can't believe it!

Getting so close!

The bodice is done enough to look done.  Still needs hooks and eyes in the back, the sleeves need hemming and a little touch up hand sewing.  

+

The skirt in front is one that fits me...the skirt in back is 144" around and needs to be brought in to the skirt size.  The pattern taught me how to cartridge pleat to accomplish that goal.  It told me to measure and mark  1/4" all the way around and to draw a line 1/5" down and again 1/2" down from that.  Then on the top line, to hand sew in one hole, out the next, in one, out one and so on until I went all the way around...and then do it again on the lower line.  Then you just pull and it folds like an accordian.  

Pleated with 576 tiny pleats.  Amazing!

Only about 4 steps left!But they make take a while.

Handcarts (and a sleeve)

My husband is also involved in the trek I'm going on and making the dress for.  When I got home from work last night, there were some handcarts in my driveway.  I was so excited that I flew down there to try one out.  My husband caught me playing. You can actually see my smile in this one.  I'm such a geek. lol

The other three that were in the driveway were just wheels on bare metal frames.  Adam and the person in charge of Trek were going to build the boxes for those.  They worked all evening on it.

They finished all three boxes but none are attached yet as they didn't have the right kind of metal tapping screw.

They actually bought the wheels from a company who makes them for covered wagons and are very good quality.

And while they worked on those, I worked on my dress.  The three sleeve pieces are finally finished (except the hemming of the sleeve edge...I'm waiting until it's attached to the dress so I get it right).

I tried it on!

I hope you had a great Memorial Day.  We had a very busy, tiring but good day.  We woke up early and with the help of 8 or 9 church friends, we were able to saw down our neighbor's tree.  A giant chunk of it had fallen in a very bad storm we had last week.  She's a single mother of 5 and couldn't afford to do anything about it.  We mulched what we could and cut the branches into firewood.  The trunk is still in her yard (we can't do anything about that but at least she and we don't have to worry about the damage the rest of the tree falling would have.  Took 5 hours.  Well, actually, it's not done as there is a large pile of branches sitting in our yard but people were too exhausted to continue.  We finished at 12:45.  We had a gang of people coming over at 1 for a bbq lunch.  We were planning on eating outside under that giant tree and its shade...but there was no shade anymore.  So we just ate inside.  

My mother-in-law, brother-in-law and his family, neighbors who are like grandparents to my husband and his siblings and a family of family friends came.  Their 16 year old daughter was in a serious car accident 3 months ago.  The doctors didn't think she'd make it.  She had a broken eye socket, brain injury, broken ankle, broken back and lost several feet of her intestines.  She was in a coma for 5 days.  But she is recovering quite nicely. She's fairly traumatized from her experience and is finding it difficult to cope with her new reality but was in good spirits during the visit at least.  They are a neat family.  

After the visit I managed to get my house back in order, go weed in the garden a little and then work on the sleeves of my dress a bit.  

The bodice is not finished yet.  It still needs piping around the waist and the arm holes, the back needs to be hemmed and have the hooks and eyes added, the side/front panel seams need to be handstitched in the ditch to the lining, and the neckline will need hemming.  It is done enough that I was able to finally try it on though and to my relief, it does fit!

The unfinished back

I love these lines!

Finally, it's on!  (It was midninght and I was falling asleep but had to finish it enough to get it tried on.)

So now I am moving on to the sleeves even though I'm not quite finished with the bodice.  The sleeves, while they don't have lining, will be thick since there are three sleeves stacked on top of each other in varying lengths.  

This is the macheron (the cap sleeve).  It gets three deep tucks and each tuck will have piping on the bottom of each tuck. So I'm doing basting stitches to make the folding easier.

Since the pattern has dropped sleeves and I had no idea how low the drop was, I couldn't tell if I would need to add length to the sleeve or not.  So now that I was able to try on the bodice, we pinned the sleeve to it to check.  I added 4 inches which will give me the length I need plus hemming room.  The black piping is where it ended before my addition.  The piping will make it appear intentional, I hope. ;o)  And the oversleeve is in place.  Just need a mancheron.  

more of the bodice

So work continues on the dress.  I recently had to unpick a lot of work because I did it wrong.  So I am finally back to where I feel like I'm making a bit of progress.  

Here are all the gathers at the bottom of the front.  I hand stitched the gathers even though it wasn't in the instructions because if one of them broke, it would ruin the whole look.  It went pretty quickly. I did it through the backside so you can't see it on the front side.

The shoulders called for gathers but I toyed with pleats and eventually went back to the gathers because they're easier.  As of right now, this piece is waiting to be sewn to the lining.

The back pieces have gathers at top and bottom as well.  They got resewn to the lining last night.  This dress has the closures in the back so I will definitely need help getting dressed.  

Finally touched the sleeves last night.  There are 6 seperate sleeve pieces (3 for each side).  A sleeve (full length), an oversleeve (like a 3/4 sleeve) and a mancheron (a cap sleeve of sorts).  Each starts at the shoulder seam so that's gonna be a heavy sleeve! lol  Guess what...there are more gathers in the sleeves!  They sure liked their gathers!  I got the gather stitches in both sleeves and over sleeves last night but haven't gathered them as of yet.  The mancheron is kind of fancy...no gathers, just a few tucks and lace.  I sewed one of the sleeves up to try it on last night.  I have big hands so I wanted to make sure my hand could fit through the opening.  It did.  I need to lengthen the sleeves as my arms are also longer than the average women's apparently.   The other area of concern for me is the area in front of my armpit.  I feel like the incredible hulk in a lot of women's shirts because it's so tight at the armpit that I can't move very well.  It felt like it would be ok...but once it's attached to the bodice (which I haven't been able to try on yet) will be the true test.  

Pioneer dress - working on the bodice front

I sure picked a complicated dress after having not sewn a piece of clothing in coming up on 20 years now. My MIL is helping me translate the instructions which the company who made the pattern stated up front that they would be confusing for anyone not familiar with historic clothing construction...yeah, that'd be me!  I will be making the corset too but I don't have enough time before this dress is needed next month.  The dress I am making is the top one on the right.  The bodice is just amazing to me!  

You can see the bodice much better in the illustration below. Lots and lots of gathering in this one.

Here's the front bodice lining.  I've never done darts before and I was so proud of these.  They have channels sewn into them for the boning that wasn't added yet when I took this picture but has since been added.

The actually bodice is four pieces not counting the lining.  This is two pieces sewn together and there are two small side pieces not sewn in yet in this picture.  If you look closely, you can see my silhouette.  This thing is huge...but it won't be for long.  This is going to be getting the gathers. (It was midnight and I was exhausted, excuse the blank stare.)

They have you sew in the gather stitches but before you gather, they have you sew on the side panels.  That was a little frustrating because I managed to catch the gathering threads in the stitches.  But after taping the threads to the fabric, all went well.  7 gather stitches across the bottom.  

So with that sewed, I had to pin the bodice to the lining.  As you can see, it's a poor fit. This is where I stopped tonight.  Now the fun begins...gathering everything until the bodice is the same size as the lining.  The shoulders have gathers across the top as well.

My MIL leaves me with homework to do before she comes over next.  My homework this time is to do all the gathering, unpin the bodice and lining, pin them back together with wrong sides together and sew everything together except for at the bottom.

I'm thinking 4 weeks will be pushing it!  My MIL says we can do it...I have to have faith in her experience since mine is lacking.  But once this dress is done, I really need to come up with a costume for Adam.  He's not at all interested in historical correctness though so I am not either, for his costume.  We're doing trek next month, in case I didn't mention it.

It's been a little frustrating, a lot confusing but overall, a great experience.  I am learning a lot and I am so excite for this dress!  It's going to put my other pioneer costumes to shame.  I will be the most accurately dressed on trek, I am sure of that.

American West Heritage Center

I had such a good time yesterday! We finally made it to the American West Heritage Center. It's up in Logan. I found it on the internet while still living in Atlanta. They use volunteers for all the demonstrations and the tour guides. They all have volunteer researchers. I contacted them because we thought we'd be living in Logan. They told me that volunteers got a big book of all kinds of information about how people back then lived nd how to do things. I want to get ahold of that book so bad!! Saturday is the last day they have everything open for the season so I am SO glad that we made it when we did. Now I just need to make it to Antelope Island and This Is the Plack Heritage Village before they close most things down for the season. I hate it when I procrastinate!! There were only a few volunteers there and only two other visitors. In my opinion, that's the best way to go. You get to take your time looking at everything and ask as many questions as you want. Also, it had a very peaceful feeling that probably wouldn't have been there had there been a lot of people there.



We started out with the mountain men. They shoed us a bunch of furs and told us what some of them were used for. They showed us some tools they carried with them, including some black powder guns. He showed us how they mesaured the black powder grains to get the right accuracy and filled up his gun, minus the ball and shot off the black powder. I think Adam wants one now. He really liked it.



Then we moved on to Patch's workshop. They make everything out of wood there. They had carvings, butter molds, spoons, rolling pins, various cooking utensils, jewelry boxes and chairs. Patch was not in to give us a demonstration though so we didn't stay too long.


Then, we made our way to the pioneer settlement. There was a large windmill in the center. The Opera House and the General Store were closed but there were a few ladies at the bowery. There were a couple of ladies setting up a small loom. Another lady showed us around the bowery and then the dugout. It was so short that you can't stand straight up...well, I think Adam could. It was just a tad too short for me. They got the description of it from a sick boy. He was stuck in bed for a while so he wrote in his journal about the size of the dugout and described everything inside and daily life inside one. There wasn't much room in it at all and a family of 8 lived in it!!


Next, me moved to the cabin. It fit the minimum requirements (12' x 12' with one window, glass is optional, and one door) for the homestead act. Again, I'm not sure how a family could all fit in it to sleep. This was even smaller than the dugout.

Outside the cabin door was a barrel with some metal hoops and wooden sticks. We found out these were for a game called graces. Each person gets two sticks. One person puts a hoop on their sticks, crosses them and pulls the sticks apart to lauch the hoop toward the other person. If you catch it on two sticks, you get two points. A one stick catch gets you 1 point. And if you drop it, you don't get any points. This was a game that was supposed to teach the girls to be as graceful as swans but as Adam and I found out, it's just really fun!!

From there, we stopped at the Shoshone encampment. A woman was there and she told us just a little about some of the things there. Then we went inside the teepee. It is surprisingly big inside one of those, especially compared to the dugout and cabin. They had seats made out of red willow that sat on the ground. It was actually not too bad for comfort...of course not the most comfy I've ever been on.


Now, the most awaited part of the trip. The 1917 farm house. First, we came across two small outbuildings. One was a smokehouse. I opened it up and the smell of smoke came right out. There were meat hooks across the top of it. The other building was a root cellar. I think it wsa only about 6-7 stairs down but the temperature was so cool inside, I was amazed at the difference! It was pitch black inside so I was surprised to see, when the flash went off, that the shelves had some home canned goods on them...and they looked really good! The outhouse was across the path. I opened it up. They nailed boards over the two holes so no one would use it. (They have another outhouse by the barn that is actually a portapotty with a wooden exterior instead of the bright blue plastic normally on them.)


There were a number of other outbuildings...a blacksmith shop, a storage shed for the horse drawn equipment, a large barn for th milk cows and horses and a chicken coop.


While we were sitting near the chicken coop, there were al kinds of birds wandering around, peacocks, chickens, turkeys, a little duck and then came along a couple of kittens. One was so boney! I handed her to Adam and she instantly laid down in his lap and fell asleep. He held her while I went inside the summer kitchen and looked around. This had been their home until they built the larger cabin. Once they moved into the larger cabin, this becane the place where all the laundry was done, baths were taken, cooking an canning were also done in here. They only used it when it was hot outside and the extra heat from the stove inside the main house would have been unbearble.


Adam put the small kitten down and we explored the main house. The guide, Pam, showed us around and then answered all my questions. It only has electricity to the kitchen and no running water at all. She cooks on the stove there everyday for whoever it is she cooks for. She was washing the dishes in some enamel pots out on the back porch when we showed up.


Back outside, Adam picked up the little kitten while Pam told us that someone had just dropped her off there a couple of days ago and she was going to take her home to see if she could bring her back to life. We explored the garden. I will have something like it someday! While we were exploring the garden, a turkey came out of the plants chomping on an egg shell that was dripping with egg yolk.


The little cat tugged at Adam's heart strings and decided he wanted to take her home and nurse her back to health. He'll take her back to Boise with him and she'll keep him company in the evenings and on weekends. Then, when she's healthy enough, he'll find her another home, a farm he hopes. We talked to Pam again and offered to take her home. She was greatful and agreed. So we left with her.


We went and saw the temple...very pretty!! Then headed back toward home. We finally made it home, after a couple of longer than shold have been stops, at 11:30. We put her in her new kennel with the heating pad turned on under her blanket. She's got absolutely no fat on her so she needs the extra warmth. She slept above Jack...her kennel on top of his. The dogs smelled something in the air but they never figured it out. So, just so everybody knows, as cute and sweet as she is, we will not be keeping her because of our dogs.

The pictures above are:
1. Me showing how low the dugour ceiling is.
2. Tom, the turkey, getting ready for Thanksgiving.
3. Logan Temple.
4. New little kitty.
5 & 6. Inside the dugout.
7. Adam with graces sticks and hoop.
8. Inside the root cellar.
9. The coolest picture I took.