Retro Dress Diary: Butterick 6018

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New dress and new video!

If you don’t have time/sound for a video right now, here’s the transcript!

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Laurel Gown

Posted on by Morgan Donner — 3 Comments ↓
I joined the Order of the Laurel this past May, and made a new 1590’s Venetian dress for the occasion!

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Polka Dot Farthingale: Part Three

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Making a Polka Dot Farthingale: Part Three at MorganDonner.com.

The farthingale is completely done!  Wooo!  Here’s the final video showing how I put the skirt together: Read more ›

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Polka Dot Farthingale: Part Two

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Here’s part two for the farthingale!  It shows how I constructed the bodice :D

Just like in part one, here’s a transcript of the video for those that would prefer non-moving dress diaries!

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Polka Dot Farthingale: Part One

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I have never made or even worn a hoop skirt, but after seeing how underwhelming my skirt volume was in pictures, I decided that it was time to poof things up! Read more ›

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Allegory of the Dagged Dress

Posted on by Morgan Donner — 9 Comments ↓

Several years ago, I was taking a class about 14th and 15th century clothing.  During the class, the teacher brought out her own dresses and gowns, showing how she made them, including lots of nifty modern shortcuts.  One of her dresses was a neat shorter dress, about mid-thigh in length, and meant to be worn over one of the floor length gowns.  She mentioned while showing it that it was based off of a period image, but she had a feeling that it wasn’t really all that historically accurate as normal everyday wear.  I don’t remember much else about the short dress, but I found it an interesting idea!  I have seen it crop up on a couple other medieval reenactors since then, which helped keep it fresh in my mind. Read more ›

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Mystery Skirt Tuck

Posted on by Morgan Donner — 2 Comments ↓

Have you ever experienced the phenomenon where you learn a new word, and suddenly it seems like you see it everywhere?  Apparently this is a cognitive bias called Frequency Illusion, and it happens to me all the time when browsing medieval paintings.  One day you see a cool picture of a dude carrying some wares on a stick over his shoulder, then next day you see three more, and realize you need to make new Pinterest board.  Or a friend shares a neat hat they made, and you soon realize that there’s tons of period depictions of them, you just never noticed until now.

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Tutorial: Supportive Kirtle

Posted on by Morgan Donner — 7 Comments ↓

Want to make a pretty and supportive kirtle for your reenactment needs? Look no further, I have what you need here!

(Actually, please do further, multiple sources for information is totally a thing.)

My first step for any project is to go look up what the original version looked like.  In this instance, I wanted a close fitting, long sleeved gown, from somewhere in the 1300 to 1500 range.  That is a huge span of time, so lets start narrowing it down by looking at pictures from those dates. Read more ›

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Antwerpen’ Around

Posted on by Morgan Donner — 3 Comments ↓

This outfit is based on the information gathering I did for the Antwerp Women’s Dress post.  My dress is a little on the later end with it’s conical stiff bodice shape, so I’d put the date around 1575.

This post is really low on dress-diary content, as I can’t seem to find my process photos.  Instead, it will be a ‘Hey, look at this thing I made!’ post.  Cool?  Cool. Read more ›

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Mrs. Frizzle and the Dress Diary

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I hope folks don’t mind this break from my usual historical clothing!  I don’t make very many modern dresses.  I think that this is because if I want a cute dress for daily life, I can buy it for far less effort and money than it would take for me to create the same dress myself.  Occasionally I make exception if I can’t find the particular cute dress I need.  Last Halloween, I needed a special dress that I couldn’t find anywhere!

If you are not familiar with The Magic School Bus, it is a fun educational show from the 90’s.  The main character is a teacher with fantastic dresses that fit the theme of whatever she is teaching that episode.  I needed to make a dress like hers for a TV show themed Halloween party.

Morgan Donner's Mrs. Frizzle style dress! Check out the detailed tutorial/dress diary! MorganDonner.com

I particularly like the ‘objects strewn randomly about’ quality some of her dresses have.  I went to a few local fabric stores, and the closest I could find was this beaker fabric below. Read more ›

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