Potato Salad!

I love potato salad but I've never made it for myself. So, I looked up a lot of recipes and figured out the basics. I had a bag of multi colored potatoes and boiled them for a half hour because my stove is an evil contraption that does not listen. Once they were finally cooked well enough, I put them into a container, cut them up, and started on the eggs. The big thing I learned about potato salad is do not use too much mayo. I did and it tastes okay but I did over do it.

So, Isabella's Potato Salad:

1 small sack of the multicolored potatoes, chopped
3 eggs, chopped
1/3 cup of mustard
2/3 cup of mayo
3 dill pickle spears, chopped
Salt and Pepper
a few pinches of paprika

It could have used celery as well but I didn't have that on hand. As I keep eating it, I realize that I miss the celery. Something to note for next time!

In other cooking news, I started my new starter finally! I think I started it this past Sunday. It's been bubbly the past couple of days which is awesome. I'm going to use it to make some bread in a couple of weeks. I'm entering into an SCA A&S competition regarding religious practices and how they impacted daily lives. Lent very much impacted daily life! I'm thinking of entering some apple pie as well and have that be my entry. I don't want anything that will taste bad cold - apple pie doesn't- but I want something that explains how food was in the 16th C during lent as well.

Ever After Gold Court Dress

Over all, I'm happy with the way the dress looks. However, there are some things I need to change on it. The bodice is too long and too loose. I need to add just a thin couple of pieces of boning to the back closure. Really, that's it.

This dress was a learning experience but not in the normal sense of the phrase. I bought nearly all the material to make this dress five plus years ago. I kept putting the dress off for another time. What shocked me now when I got all the material together is how my perception on what an appropriate fabric is has completely changed. The yellow damask I might still use but not the white jacquard. It was heavy drapery/light weight upholstery grade fabric. It doesn't move but does have enough stiffness on it's own that it was useful in the bodice area.

The gauntlets would never be made of panne velvet now. I would have gone with silk velvet. The sleeves would never be poly organza - silk organza only. My choice of fabric and what I look at to buy is completely different now. It was odd to work with the older materials and see what I used to think was perfectly fine.

The colors were perfect in each of the materials, however, and that's probably what my main focus was. The dress itself is great for Renn Faire and that's probably where I'll end up wearing it.

The other learning experience with this dress was turning my historical brain off so I could match it to the movie gown. Thanks to the Ever After costumes website run by a dear friend, I was able to do a lot of research on the gown I wanted to recreate pretty easily. The gown in Ever After laces up the back and it's just one gown - not an undergown with a front snapping overgown. This made the dress WAY more complicated that really was necessary. I had to make the front flaps to the bodice over a bodice front with a faux chemise front. It meant a lot of very interesting sewing and making sure everything got placed correctly. Seriously, Hollywood? Period is WAY easier.

EDIT:: This painting probably inspired the original movie dress.

You can easily see the color scheme and some of the lines in the portrait dress recreated in the movie dress. Maybe I should make a historically accurate portrait dress based off of this to show the differences?

So much to post, so little time!

I'm going to try and work backwards. I have a ton of projects I've been working on but just haven't had the time to post them.



This is my 1560's Middle Class Italian dress. It's actually a remake of an earlier dress that died a horrible death. I unpicked the trim and reused it for this dress. Like the dead dress, this one is bright pink; however, this one is also a nice tight weave wool and not a loose weave linen. I also changed up how to lace it up in the front. The pink wool is just a cover over a linen and duck cloth bodice that I made many years earlier. The pink wool is hand sewn to the bodice, creating a nice cover.



Not really the best side view, but you get a good idea of the trim placement. The trim is some deadstock from the 1970's (as you can see by the colors). However, I loved the look of it even if I wasn't thrilled with the colors. For fun, I decided to create the most hideous color combo I could for the 16th C and...it actually came out really well. The browns, mustard yellows, and oranges actually look good against the hot pink wool. Which is sad.



The back of the dress. I hand tacked the trim down so it wouldn't curl.



With the Dutch Cloak I made for the dead dress. Notice the mustard yellow woven trim on the hanging sleeves! :-)

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this dress. It fits, it feels nice on, and its mostly hand sewn. It is coming with me to Pennsic!

Historical Fortnightly: #10: Literature

The Challenge: Literature - I decided to be a lemming and do the Great Gatsby like everyone else
Fabric: Silk!
Pattern: My own!

A few weeks ago, this dress came up on ebay and I HAD to have it. I LOVE it. It's now in my collection and it truly is stunning in person.

The extant dress is very interesting in terms of shapes. I took a lot of detailed measurements and examined the seamlines. The front of the skirt is a normal circle skirt front. It measures 42" from end to end. The back of the skirt has a "pedal" hem. There are four pedals, each are 16" from high amp to high amp, 6" vertical, and have 9" of null space between them at the widest point.

I didn't bother with the silk tulle much because it is mostly gone. There were probably 8 triangles hanging down at one point but not anymore.

The front of the skirt is lightly gathered.

The cummerbund waist is 9 1/4" long on the angled sides, 7" down the center where the flowers are. Across the top of the cummerbund waist is 16", the middle is 17", and the lower edge is 18 1/4".

The back of the cummerbund waist is straight across at the top but curved at the bottom edges; the front of the cummerbund waist is "bow tied" shape.

The top on the extant looks to be a straight tank top style top. The front of the top is straight across the bottom edge, which helps to give the bodice area shaping. It's only 9" from the underarm to the top of the cummerbund waist.

I'm still working on the tank top top for my dress because I haven't perfected it yet, but I think the issue I'm having with it isn't "pattern" as much as I need to move the gathers to the edges and not the center bottom of the top.
Year: Probably about 1927.
Notions:Thread. I do have some flowers for the center of the dress but I got mad at the flowers (I had put them on slightly off center) and they are sitting in the bad craft pile for now.
How historically accurate is it? Very. Dupioni silk was popular in the 1920's and they had sewing machines!
Hours to complete: Roughly five?
First worn: May 18th. It was too cold to wear by itself so I had a long white sweater over it. Still, it looked cute and the skirt is completely awesome on this dress.
Total cost: Mom bought the silk as a birthday present so none!

I know the pictures aren't the best but this really is a fun dress. I think I might tweek it a bit more and wear it to opening reception at Dress U.

Food!

I've been playing with my food again. :-)

Lemon Pepper and Chives Chicken

I had fun with this one and I'm still experimenting with the recipe. It tasted fine but I accidentally burnt some of the chives so...I need to rework my timing next time.

1 tablespoon Olive Oil
2 tablespoons white cooking wine
3 fresh chives - chopped
1 tablespoon of lemon pepper
1/2 tablespoon of lemon juice
2 boneless chicken breasts

I fried up the chicken in the olive oil. All the measurements are relative since I just poured the olive oil in the pan for cooking. Once one side was cooked, I should have only added the cooking wine, lemon pepper, and lemon juice but I also added the chives. Do not do this. I lightly coated the chicken in lemon pepper. Once the other side is almost done, I should have added the chives. The chives are from my garden and some of them have onion pearls. I crushed those using a garlic press and put the pressed pearls on the chicken. Once it was full cooked and I put some salt on it (probably something else I should have added to the list), it tasted wonderful. I didn't take pictures because it was slightly ugly with the burnt chives but, eh, whatever. It was very yummy.

Another thing I've made is my version of study food:



Deviled Eggs! It's just boiled egg yolks, a small amount of the real dijon mustard, a large amount of mayo, and chives. I then mashed it together, sprinkled paprika on the eggs after filling them with the mix, and put green olives on top. Awesome and tasty study food!

Checkered Wool Regency Dress

I'm the one down in front with the purple ribbon in my pink and black hair. The dress is an Apron Front Regency styled dress. It's handsewn with cotton thread. The lining is cotton and the dress itself is 100% checked blue wool. I bought the wool at the fabric.com sale and it is stunning stuff. It moves wonderfully and plays nicely.



Side view of the dress. I did long sleeves since this was originally meant to be a fall dress. However, it works wonderfully for Spring as well!


Ignore the odd wrinkles at the shoulders - that's from wearing the improper chemise and not having the apron front tight enough in the front. Simple issues that I'll fix next wearing. :-) The back of the dress is very full. I probably could have added even more fabric but I was going for an every day somewhat rustic look.

I'll post more pictures when I can finally transfer them from my camera to my computer in a couple of weeks. Thank you to Gloria for taking such wonderful pictures!

Historical Fortnightly #9: Flora and Fauna

The Challenge: Flora and Fauna
Fabric: Poly taffeta I think
Pattern:  Flora!
Year:  mid 18th Century
Notions:Just the fabric and the thread
How historically accurate is it? The cut and the pattern of the fabric are both accurate but I machine sewed the entire thing and it is 100% dead dino
Hours to complete:one!
First worn:Fort Fred, April 27th
Total cost: Maybe $10? I don't remember. I bought the fabric at Jomars a couple of years ago.

Here is my inspiration image (aka, the extant garment I based my jacket off of):


I did the cuffs differently simply because the fabric I had refused to behave.