The hat of a queen

I had my birthday back in June and there was a distinct historical theme in the presents that I got, but that's a subject for another post. Here I want to talk about the hat I got from my parents when became the hat for my Marie Antoinette costume.

I'm sure you are all very familiar with the portrait I was copying but in case you aren't here it is again.

The hat that I received was 'Straw Hat late 18th-19th century' from Nehelenia Patterns, I then decorated it with the powder blue ostrich feathers and satin ribbon that I bought from Barnett Lawson way back in January.

Sorry for the strange colours. My mother took this and didn't realise I had a filter on.

 Because the feathers I bought were spads (AKA the slightly less awesome ones), not primes I had to do some stuff to them to make them prettier. I didn't mind this because instead of spending £17 on each other I spent £3.
The first thing I did was curl the feathers in with my curling iron, this in itself made them look fuller. Then I curled the shaft or spine of the feather by digging my thumbnail in and bending the feather over it at intervals. This is how I got them from practically straight to the lovely curl you can see beneath.

This hat is made large so that it will fit over the large hairstyles of the 1780s and 90s so I couldn't take a photo of it on my head when I'd just finished it but I promise you that I have photos of it on and they are wonderful!

18th century underwear

As promised, a little bit about the underwear that I made to go underneath my chemise a la reine.

I never got quite as far as making stays but since it seems that you don't necessarily need to wear them underneath that style of gown I didn't worry about it too much.

Here you can see a linen chemise and a poly-organza petticoat.
All the seams on the chemise are flat felled, the hem is just a simple (but rather broad) double turned hem and the neckline is gathered on the front half with a thin satin ribbon that I fixed at each shoulder. Unfortunately everything but the neckline and eyelets the for the ribbon to go through is machine sewn, I was in a mood to get it done quickly and didn't feel like hand sewing it. I used about two metres of linen, following instructions that I found here. In retrospect I should have made the gores for the sides a lot wider, it's comfortable and easy to walk in but I'd prefer if it flared a little more.

Both petticoats - I made another cotton one after this photo was taken - are also entirely machine sewn. I used (I think, this was a while ago now) four metres of poly-organza for the one pictured and four metres of white polycotton for the other. My mother was out at a gallery and passed a market where they were selling the cotton for £1 a metre so I asked her to buy six for me.
I used the same method of pleating as on the petticoat I made at university except I did mine the proper way, in two halves, the top edges bound with cotton tape. I left the sides open for 9" for the pocket slits.

Underwear wise on the day I wore; my chemise/shift, a bumroll that I originally made as a bustle pad (stuffed with fabric scraps), the two petticoats I mentioned above and some cotton knit stockings from Nehelenia Patterns. 

Normal posting schedule to resume...

... Soon-ish...

I've been seriously lax in keeping this blog updated. It's been over a month since I wrote anything on here but I've not been idle so I'll post with some new projects as soon as I've dug myself out from underneath what feels like a mountain of leather working and sewing.