Draped to the Ankles

The Gray Lady

I recently purchased a dressmaker's dummy. My mother had one we called "the gray lady," but when she died, I sold it because I had no use for it. I have been regretting that decision for a while now. It is impossible to create the sort of complex draperies common to 1870s and 1880s dresses without one. I have had to resort to "borrowing" my friend's teenage daughter to play dress dummy for me. It worked, but really, how often can you do that, even when the girl is very interested in costuming herself?

So I gave in and bought it online. I am SOOOO happy I did. I have been playing with my current creation for over a week. I only have time to do real sewing on the weekends, and sometimes not even then. I also have to admit to rushing through things in order to get them finished. But with the Gray Lady, I now have the leisure to play with all sorts of ideas, pinning and unpinning, trying several different things before I actually commit to sewing. Below is the result.

This is a basic underskirt with a cotton fork-pleated ruffle under a draped overskirt of lightweight cotton plaid. Normally by now I would have just put the fringe on and moved on, but with the Gray Lady's help, I discovered that the way the pattern was sewn made the front all wrong - the plaid was too obviously pieced together. So I turned it around and started messing with the back. What you see is the result of several different permutations and combinations of ruffles, fringe, lace and a variety of pinning techniques. It isn't finished yet, but I'm pretty sure this is what it will be. I won't complete the sewing until I have finished the bodice and I know what the whole outfit will look like. I will keep you updated.

Patterns:
Skirt: Truly Victorian, TV 201 1870s Underskirt
Overskirt: TV324
1878 Long Draped Overskirt

Manifesto

So it's been over a year since I posted to my blog. I had considered just deleting it, but I kept getting this urge to post my new projects and fascinations somewhere online. Why waste a perfectly good blog, especially when one is paying for the space?

Out of Lascaux has gone through a metamorphosis, much like the one I go through when I lace up my corset and wriggle into my petticoats and head out, derringer tucked into my bodice. I become Nellie Boyd, the 19th century actress/manager who traveled the west, playing every place from canvas-tented mining camps to San Francisco opera houses. Hers was the first professional theater company to play El Paso in 1881, the year the railroad came to town. I'll tell you more about her later.

I am a stickler for accuracy, so I have become - IMHO - an expert in costuming and fashion of the 1870s-1900s. It's not far from researching paintings by Caravaggio to researching fashion or finding the biography of a relatively obscure 19th century actress. I plan to show you everything that has excited me in the past past year or so, and will continue to do so, because I have found that I REALLY like creating historical costumes.

So I will be spending some time taking pictures and scanning others. Until later!

Big Changes Ahead

For those stumbling onto this blog because I have just linked to you, it's because I am re-vamping the blog. Out of Lascaux is no more. Soon it will be "Draped to the Ankles," a blog dedicated to 19th century costuming, photography, re-enacting and anything else to do with the Victorian Era.