This week's sewing challenge was a big one for me. Not just in level of difficulty but also in keeping with the theme. You see, the ladies over at
Sew Weekly (in particular Mena and Debi) were going to be attending the Art
Deco Society of California's big Gatsby Picnic. While I'm a fan of the era, my sewing creations usually have a later influence by a couple of decades. Not only that, but I'm not normally so confined by specifics when making a garment. The Gatsby picnic had rules. Those rules mainly consisted of the terrifying (to me) line:
Afternoon attire from 1920-1940 (or reasonable fascimile) is required. Just that one line was enough to make me so 'no way!'
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People setting up and mingling. |
After a couple of weeks of being content with that decision, I started to see more and more posts on the Sew Weekly circle about going to the event. What dress to wear, who's going, how much fun it's going to be. Slowly these posts were chipping away at my resolve.
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Great view of Dunsmuir house. |
Over the course of a day I think I said 'maybe I'll try it' to 'what am I thinking' half a dozen times. I finally made the ultimatum... if I can find a dress either in my pattern stash, or a currently available dress at my local fabric store, then I'm in. I was originally going to use my Highland dance Sailor's hornpipe blouse paired with a white skirt for a nautical look. That fell through when I was indecisive over what skirt to wear. I then went through a few other patterns including
Vogue 8241 and Mena's
Society Sorbetto as choices. Finally inspiration struck, spurred by fellow Sew Weekly member, Stacey who posted about
Butterick 5417. I was excited to find that the pattern was currently in stores, and ran out to find the pattern and some suitable fabric.
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The final dress. I'm really please with how it turned out. |
Don't get me started on the challenge of finding the fabric, which is a whole 'nother story. Let's just say that in order to keep it period appropriate, there were
a lot of rules about what you could or could not use. In the end I found some basic white satin and a lovely sea-foam green chiffon. I've never made anything with the latter but I thought I'd just wing it.
Working with the chiffon wasn't too painful, but being serger-less, I didn't know what to do with the hems. Ultimately I did the same as I would with any other fabric and folded them under or pressed them flat.
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With one of the amazing vintage cars. Or should I say, horseless carriage. |
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The back of my dress, hair and a parasol. |
The day of the event, I was only alone for a short period of time which led to some good people watching. The event was so well put together and felt so authentic. Mena and Debi arrived just half an hour after I had, so we met up and setup the fantastic picnic that Mena had put together.
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Mena's fantastic picnic. This was up in under 5 minutes. She's pro. |
I had a great time with them and learned so much about their blogging experiences. And now I know the secret of their fantastic blog outfit photos. My 2-3 pictures takes just don't cut it.
I'm came home so excited about the whole thing. It was a great activity to do at my one year blogiversary, and I'm inspired for the year ahead. I also warned my husband that he would be attending the event next year. I think he'd get a kick out of everything. The picnics people setup were so fantastic to see, as well as all of the old cars, the dancing, and music... I'm excited about it already!
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Doesn't this look straight out of a painting? |
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The DecoBelle's put together a fun dance routine. |
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They arrived to the stage in this great 'bus' |
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My awesome instrument sensors were going off. A banjo! I wonder if he teaches? |
I hope you enjoy the photos. I took some with
Debi and
Mena, but I don't want to spoil their outfit posts for this week. But do check in at Sew Weekly to see what they made.