Sleepy Hollow Dress: 1790's Corset

Unfortunately or fortunately, gowns of the past have rarely ever been one-piece affairs.  A certain silhouette was desired depending on the era (I'll do more on this later).  The 18th-century silhouette was a conical torso with full hips and fitted, streamlined sleeves:

In order to achieve this cone shape, women wore corsets.  By this time, corsets had been well-developed and almost always contained boned tabs at the waist to reduce pinching, and laced up in the back, front, or both.  In order to achieve the stiffness required for a corset, the corset consisted of at least two layers of fabric with stitched channels for boning (basically any strip of stiff material used for supportive garments).  They were historically boned with either baleine (whalebone) or reeds.  Since I would probably be arrested for using baleine, I chose reeds.  They're quite nice!  Though I wish I'd used steel bones for the tabs... they sort of bent out of shape after some wear.
Anyway, PICTURES!

Sorry about this obvious mirror pic.

The back...

Sorry there weren't any in-progress pictures!  I made this out of a peach silk/linen/cotton blend for the outside, corset coutil for the inside, and some silk to line, with reed boning and bias tape binding.

Ah, enough vanity for now!  I wish that my figure could look this great every day... alas.

Making Danish Kringle

My relatives on my dad's side of the family all live around the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.  About twice a year, I visit my aunt's house in Minnesota and get to see my aunt, four "boy cousins" and Beste (short for bestemor, the Danish word for "grandmother").
So Beste's really into teaching everybody about our Scandinavian heritage, through her various photo albums, books, and especially her cooking.  At Christmas we make Swedish meatballs, "snow pudding" (or rombudding in Danish), and lefse, which are delicious Norwegian potato pancakes, rolled very thin, grilled, and eaten with plenty of butter.

But my favorite Danish treat is kringle.
The horrible cheese "danishes" from Tim Hortons don't hold a candle to this.  It's basically a flaky croissant-like dough with an apricot filling and almonds on top.  Some people make it with pecans as a filling but I prefer fruit.  The best part of it is the cardamom in the filling.  This gives it a great scent!

Here's a copy of the recipe:

First you've gotta make the yeasted dough and roll it out into a big rectangle...

And then you've gotta add the frozen butter block (butter + a bit of flour), folding one third of the yeasted dough on top...

And then the other side on top, like a business letter.

After repeating this process three times, you'll get lovely, flaky layers of the butter laminated inside the dough (during baking, the butter melts and releases steam, causing the flakiness of many pastries).

Just LOOK at all that butter!

Meanwhile, soak 2 packages of dried apricot halves (the more tart, California kind, not Turkish) in 1 1/2 cups of boiling water.  I added a little vanilla bean too.  Soak them until they're plump and then drain off the excess liquid.

Now you're going to cream butter, confectioner's sugar, cardamom, and a bit of cream to a frosting-like consistency...

...and then add it to the apricots and mix thoroughly.  It'll look weird.

Roll out half of your pastry dough into a very long rectangle.

Then add the apricot mixture.

Close it all up, using water to help keep the seams shut.

Put it on the baking tray into a pretzel-like shape (for some reason this reminds me of ram's horns)...

And top with beaten egg, sugar, almonds, and more sugar.

Bake for 25 minutes, and VOILA!  Isn't it pretty?

Just perfect with a glass of milk.  Enjoy!

The Sleepy Hollow Dress: Inspiration

This was my first earnest attempt at creating an authentic 18th century outfit, with all of its proper components: the chemise, the underskirt, the corset, and the bodice.
If you guys have not seen Tim Burton's Version of Sleepy Hollow, it is a gorgeous film and if that doesn't convince you enough, Johnny Depp stars in it.  He looks QUITE handsome with long hair dressed in a peacoat!
But what I loved most of all was Christina Ricci's striped gown...

So pretty!

And then I was off ordering a pattern for a robe à l’anglaise (which would be pulled up like a polonaise) from J.P. Ryan and looking up luscious striped silk fabrics.
I also got a lot of help from The Costumer's Guide to Movie Costumes (SO GREAT), since its author had also recreated this gown.  Here's the link:
http://www.costumersguide.com/sleepy2.shtml
First step: make a decent period corset to go underneath.

Past Project #2: RenFaire Gowns for Me and Aubrey

My best friend Aubrey and I go to the Renaissance Faire almost every year (except not last year... *tear tear*).  She and I have shared the same love of dress-up ever since third grade when we first met.  Thankfully, our dress-up has evolved from tacky ready-made '80's tube dresses and bad hair to period clothing and Lucille Ball hairstyles (you might see those later).
These are some basic peasant gowns I made for us.  Aubrey's consists of a chemise, a skirt (natural linen cotton dyed yellow), and a bodice.  Mine is loosely based off of an Irish gown (except I didn't wear a leine underneath), with a regular chemise, a skirt (dyed olive green), and a bodice with an attached skirt.

On the way to the RenFaire, Aubrey unfortunately lost her navy green snood (hair net-type thing i'm wearing).  We never found it!

With Don Juan and Miguel!  These guys were hilarious.  And great at snapping whips!

Tevas?  Totally historically accurate!  

I look goofy but look at our matching trims!

Past Project #1: The "Marie Antoinette" Gown

I took AP European History as a sophomore (this was 2010).  What a labor-intensive class that was!  During the middle of the year we were assigned a singular creative project on the French Revolution.  I decided to go ahead and make an 18th-century costume that I could wear for the class and teach everybody about the basic articles of clothing: the chemise, the pocket hoops, the stockings, shoes, underskirt, overgown, etc.  Everybody was amused at the fact that I walked around school all day dressed like this (it was too labor-intensive to change out of).
I definitely took some liberties with this, as this was my first attempt at making a costume that needed boning.  it laces up in the back, and doesn't have watteau pleats in the back that would have been characteristic of many robes à la françaises at the time.  But this was a 10th grade class... they wouldn't know the difference!  ;)

You'll see a painting based off of this photo later...

I'm sorry there aren't any decent views of the dress in full (after being hemmed, that first picture looks like I'm drowning in moiré).

And wouldn't ya know it, I painted it for an art project!  Two-in-one, sophomore year!  It got the Teacher's Choice Award, that's the little purple ribbon.

First Blog Post!

Actually, this is my first experience with blogging... ever.
My name is Veronica.  I live in upstate New York, and I'm a senior in high school, but will graduate in a mere four months from now!  Next year, I'm headed off to Northwestern University, slated to be a Theatre major (with a possible minor in Art History or... GASP!... Chemistry).
My favorite subjects in school are French, Art, English, and Biology.  The only classes that leave a bad taste in my mouth are ones that involve trigonometry and/or linear programming (MATH, eep).
Besides creating art in my spare time, I love to travel when I can, and I ADORE cooking and baking.  I possess all of the skills of the ideal housewife, despite being a hardcore feminist (isn't it ironic?).
That's all I can think of right now.  You'll learn more about me the more I post, hopefully.
This is me:

I have a difficult time making a straight face in any photo taken of me.  So get used to that.

Anyway,  whilst blogging, I want to focus on my hobby for artwork, including costuming, dollin' up, painting, drawing, and all that jazz.  It will be nice to finally organize my thoughts for my own benefit as well as everyone else's!