At Her Leisure

I did a lot of needlework this year, but I didn’t make a lot of things. I liked the things I did make, but they were generally lengthier projects.

It was a much better year for events. There were several DFWCG events, and I went to Costume College. A friend and I even made our own mini-event where three of us dressed up, ate out, and went to a play.

( This year’s projects behind the cut )

One of my goals for this year was to work from my stash. I was not nearly as successful as I was last year. The 1908 eyelet dress was all stash, but then the 1805 embroidered dress was all new materials. The 1876 dress was all stash, but the three bathing suits were all new materials except for a couple of balls of yarn. “Winter Lace” was stash, but “Street Scene” was new materials except for a few skeins of embroidery floss. The 1916 dress was stash, but the 1940’s dress was new materials. The stays, the nightcap, the vest, the Eleonora stockings, scarf, kerchief, skating cap, and flute décor were all from stash. The 1910’s purse materials were a combination of stash fabric and new threads. I bought wool fabrics for three dresses, wool yarns for two sweaters, and cotton yarn for a quilt that I haven’t started yet. I bought fabric and embroidery wools for an 18th century wallet. I bought some miscellaneous embroidery threads that don’t necessarily have a project planned. On the balance, I think that means that I had no net change to the fabric stash but increased the yarn and embroidery supplies I have. I shall have to try harder not to buy things in 2024.

I weighed the leftover crewel wools from my dress, and I really over-bought. Most of the colors had 17g or 18g left out of the 25g. I could have bought two 5g skeins instead of the 25g hanks. Only one of them only had 14g left and would have needed three skeins. That being said, three skeins cost the same as one hank so it's not a huge extra expenditure. And there I thought I'd be buying enough to get me started and would order more as needed.

All that remains on the 1805 dress is to set the waist. It’s exciting.

I'm halfway up the skirt.



Three motifs to go.

I finished embroidering the hem of my 1805 dress last night. Now to do another row of blocks on my cross-stitching before I start the motifs up the front of the skirt.

I was walking to put away the pattern I had been tracing for my 1805 dress and was holding it sideways. I suddenly realized that the motifs that go up the skirt are just a portion of the band of embroidery around the hem rotated through ninety degrees. I had never looked at it from that perspective. That saves me having to scale and print and trace a separate pattern for the motifs.

I finished embroidering the back of the skirt to a couple of inches short of the edge. Now a row of blocks on my cross-stitching, and then it will be time to seam the skirt front to the back. There will be actual sewing on the dress.

I finished the first half of the back of the skirt for the c. 1805 embroidered dress on Sunday and then decided I should do a row of blocks on my cross-stitching before I continued with the second half of the back. I finished that row of blocks this morning so I get to go back to the crewel wool this evening. After I finish the second half of the skirt back, I'll do another row of blocks on the cross-stitching. Maybe at that point there will be something in the picture to be worth showing.

The wool embroidery is fun. The threads are quite fluffy so they fill the space well for satin stitch or long and short stitch. I guess that's why crewel embroidery is what it is. It's good for other stitches too, but the full coverage stitches go much faster than I would have expected after having mostly (solely? have I actually embroidered with silk threads before or just knit?) worked with cotton threads. I'll try to remember to post a picture later.

I've started the c. 1805 embroidered Regency dress in parallel with the "Street Scene" cross-stitching. I finished up the sleeve bands last night and traced the pattern on the waistband. It took four days to do the sleeve bands, which is better than I had expected.



Now I'll spend a few days on the cross-stitching.

I have been really good about sewing from the stash for the last year, and I want to continue to be good about it. However, I succumbed to temptation and bought materials to make a c. 1805 Regency dress with lots of embroidery. I'm going to use the ramie voile from Burnley and Trowbridge and Appleton crewel wools. I bought one hank of each color because I had no real way to estimate what I would need. I'll do what I can with what I've got, and when I start running out, I should have a basis for how much more I need to order.





I also bought a bunch of embroidery thread (standard DMC cotton) and a big piece of Aida for my next cross-stitching project. And nuranar bought a bunch of silk embroidery thread on my account at an estate sale. In my year in review, I neglected to mention that I bought some clearance silk embroidery threads in Williamsburg. It seems that I have embroidery in my future.

Speaking of the future, I finished the 1908 eyelet dress on Thursday and started a pair of the Bernhardt stays yesterday. I am planning to do a few days of knitting on the Eleonora stockings between each project (three pattern repeats last night!), but once the stays are finished, I'm going to start this Regency dress.