lady susan

Phew! It's been forever since I posted! My sister has been on break from college, and we've really enjoyed just kicking back, seeing the city, and watching old movies. Before I go into any of that these dress pictures are long overdue! Here at last is the Jane Austen bridesmaid dress, a private commission I took on during December, using red velvet and Jenny Chancey's Simplicity 4055.

My client has almost the same measurements as me, so I took the liberty of taking some pictures before I handed it off. Thanks so much to Tracey for helping with the photography! Incidentally, all of the pictures were taken at my sister's dorm - pretty fly for college housing, no? Anyway, the lighting/camera weren't the best, so a majority of the indoor pics didn't turn out. It's just as well, I suppose, as we did tend to get carried away . . .

A lot of my interest in sewing stems from the costume world. As a young literary-minded girl I swooned over the romantic fashions of costume dramas, and for some years in junior high, I wanted to be Kate Beckinsale's Emma. Besides, all of us like to play dress-up every once and a while, no? So it was really fun to revisit that fascination with this dress.

Overall, it came together nicely, but the dress certainly has left its mark - literally. Not only is the studio filled with red velvet fuzzies, but my poor machine bed is now stained pink! I tried using rubbing alchohol which helped, but the plastic seems to have absorbed some color. Moo.

(Btw, kudos to anyone who recognizes the novel this post is named after! I thought the dress's crimson color was well suited to the brazen lady.)