A little trip to the cats meow...

So today I took a little trip down the road and visited a vintage jewelry and clothing place called the cats meow....wow!

Let me share the wonderful with you.

Yes Gina...those are hats...lots of hats.

And they were everywhere

The cabinet is full of them!

There were feathers and 

And drawers full of lace

Drawers full of treasure

Boxes full of joy

There was green 

And more green - don't mind the yoga pants its been raining buckets here...which is good, but not worth ruining good shoes ect.

Some detail this coat was Devine!

Then in a corner I found the underpinnings! 

This beauty is a pair of very long 1860s drawers with this delicate hem stitch detail and lace and they are a very fine weight linen!

Did I mention the mind blowing drawers of lace yet?

So the hats made me call my friend Gina to squee loudly on the phone and share ( because squee worthy is share worthy) She virtually drooled on the hat. Then asked if I might find a lace collar for her mid-victorian mourning gown.

That would look something like this

Or perhaps this

So I looked and first I found this piece worked on a curve 

It's long but ohhhh so pretty

Perhaps cut it and make cuffs with the extra? 

No? Ok....well then how about this?

How long is it? Well let's see...

Yes? That will do nicely? Yes... I think so too! That's great because I had also found this beautiful set

Of a collar with a set of matched cuffs...and well I'm not sharing! ;) 

I really wanted this...and for $125.00 I thought it needed to come home with me, however it does not rise up from that position so I decided to leave it behind. Sigh....

So what did I get you ask? 

Red plaid silk taffeta 6 yards that meets the "silk less than $10 a yard is a must purchase" rule.

4.5 yards of vintage 1950s dress fabric

It is a lovely hand and very fine weight.

More vintage 50s fabric it is a fine shirt weight with a plaid on one side and a stripe on the other. 4.5 yards. Also for a summer dress. 

An Edwardian long petticoat, here you see the bottom ruffle and lace ( sorry no dress form in my moving house exile.) 

Some lilac tatting for an Edwardian corset project

Such a nice match!

With a little lace

Some truly amazing insertion...

It's "this" big!

So dear readers...I hope you enjoyed my little adventure! Now back to sewing since the mail lady brought me these today...

Sail on ....sail on.

Oh by the way...love what you see? Stop by the even bigger even better antique elegance show in Sept. in Dallas...I'm going, you?

"What arrrrrrrrrghhhh ya doin?", "No what are You doing!?"

One more post to bring the fair readers up to date with the sewings goings on around her. 

I won't be sharing too much of this one until after coco but here is a little peek of a project.

That's all...more later!

Save me! Girlfriend Sailor dress project

Here are the girlfriends in their sailors...Gina first in the cream and navy then Beth in the navy and silver. Mine will be red and white as you can see.

Well this is such a long story, but I have limited time to sew and Murphy dear evil Murphy has struck to the heart of my costuming life once again and my dear friend and co-sailor Gina will not be with me for Costume College this year. The other sailor (Beth) is taking a much needed summer with her family in between school. So this Sailor will be going to coco solo. Just to be clear for the readers, only Gina had made plans to go Beth however has the other sailor dress. I will share pictures of us all one of these eons.

Some progress...

I began with the underskirt, in red silk and hemmed. Then I spent some time making lots and lots and lots...(and lots) of white silk bias tape for the stripes.

Then began the marking and sewing on. The stripes are about 7/8 of an inch and the red gaps between are one inch.

I like a good gadget and decent tools always make a project go more smoothly. Here you see me favorite chalk marking pencil and a locking seam gauge by Nancy Zieman. 

Later we have many many stripes and the hat I hope to transform into something respectable.

Well I will be leaving you here... There are only a few more days until coco and I have much to pull together in between running from Midland TX to Houston to complete buying our house. Life is always exciting.

Electric blue and black and white check dess.

It has been a short while and I need to get back into the habit of blogging. So I have not too much to share but this is a dress I am working toward to wear to the wonderful mini-convention in DFW this June with the DFW costumes guild. 

I adore an electric blue black and white dress. This will be the third blue and black dress I have made, the first two however were sold so this one is extra exciting as it is mine...all mine...yes precious! 

I can also share that I seem to have gone through a costume slump this spring. It is so hard to concentrate on sewing when I want to garden, finish up school with the kids and yes dear ones spring clean. I think I am out of the funk of distraction now though so my little challenge-goal is to sew something each day even if only for 15 minutes and to blog.....something....each day. So day one challenge- check.

See you tomorrow!

* update on this post. 

Well blogging every day is still a challenge, we sold our home in Ok after the two big tornados and have been house hunting in the north Houston area since along with a few other summer advantures. There has been some progress on this dress which sadly did not go to Costumers Lost but will be attending a convention later this year.

Bodice construction is underway

Not much to look at yet but hey photo evidence of actual sewing taking place

Still loving the color combination, I decided to keep it simple and go with the side prices in the blue to both break up th check and remove the need to rupture a brain vessel trying to align the check perfectly. 

The hat I hope to make into something respectable

The hat I love but will probably not end up with 

The beginnings of the hat.