Lady Sybil Crawley

At last, here are the pictures of my "Lady Sybil" dress! I have had it done for about 2 weeks, but didn't want to post about it until after it's "debut" at our Titanic Ball this past Saturday! 

Enjoy the photos!

Wearing a dress like this makes me feel very elegant. It's quite fun! :)

My reproduction shoes from American Duchess!!! They were fantastic and very comfortable! I wore them almost all night dancing (4 1/2 hours of dancing, plus 1 hour of set-up/tear down). I highly recommend American Duchess shoes!

Beaded trim! Oh how I love this era!

Antique gloves from Ebay. Heeeeeeeee!

The back closure

Shall we dance?

Photo Credit: Laura LaPrise

The dance was called by Tom Senior, who did a fantastic job teaching us new dances and keeping us on time with the music. The location was a beautiful old house that was converted into a banquet hall called "Park Place". We were so blessed to find such a great facility and wonderful caller for this event!

Dancing "The Physical Snob"

Photo Credit: Elizabeth Beatty

Grace and me. She made her dress to look like one of Lady Mary's dresses (look at the beautiful beading on the sleeve!!).

Photo Credit: Elizabeth Beatty

This was either "I Care Not For These Ladies" or "The Waltz Mixer". 

Dances sometimes have very odd names!

Photo Credit: Laura LaPrise

I based my hairstyle on Lady Sybil's hair when she comes of age (when she starts putting it up, about half-way through Season 1). And my sister let me borrow one of her antique hair combs for the occasion. :)

Maybe I'll get a tutorial for this hairstyle up, if anyone is interested.

Left to Right: Laura, Jessica, Gretel, Lily, Grace, Me, Kristen, Kathryn. All the dresses were either handmade, or thrift store combinations. Doesn't everyone look amazing??

Photo Credit: Ashton Bandy

"The Crawley Sisters"

Sybil, Edith and Mary

Lily stayed with us for a week after the ball, so we all did a photo shoot of our dresses. It was fun to get all dressed up again! :) Click HERE Lily's post about her dress!

Kathryn and me with our handsome daddy! 

Photo Credit: Laura LaPrise

Thanks to my dad, we managed to video one of the dances from the evening! Here is "Sprigs of Laurel"

And finally to close this post out, my three "Sybilish" poses:

:)

1912 Dinner Gown | Progress

Almost done!!!! All that is left is the hem. It gave me quite a headache though, since I last posted. I got all the silk cut out, and began sewing happily, and then tried on the bodice. And something was wrong. It was huge, fell off the shoulders completely, the back draped into a V shape, rather than a nice scoop, and it was just terrible. I have no idea what went wrong. So I cut new pieces out of muslin and did a 3rd mock-up, which I ended up using for an interlining. Since I have the corset, I wasn't originally planning to bone the bodice, but after trying it on, I decided that it really did need a few bones. So I put two in the front (as seen below), one on either side of the side seam, and two on the back by the darts.

'

The muslin interlining

While I was stressing over the problematic bodice, I turned my attention to the easy lace jacket/overlay. It only gave me one problem, which was putting the sleeves in twice because the first time they were too long. Above is the front, below is the back. It just slips over the head, so there is no opening. I really wanted to do a curved seam in the back, like Lady Sybil's dress, but decided I'd spare myself the extra work. :)

Here is the side seam of the skirt. The pins are markings for the hooks and eyes.

That was today's job. 17 hooks and eyes. Blah. I don't enjoy sewing hooks and eyes, especially when I accidentally put 7 of them on backwards.

Let's hope the hem goes well, and then the petticoat gets whipped up really fast! Perhaps (if I have time) I'll get some pictures up of the accessories - jewelry, gloves, and shoes, sometime next week. 

P.S. The pictures make my fabric look gray. It is more blue in real life.