Sabrina

It was the Lady Detalle's birthday, so we had an 18th century chemise gown tea at Green Spring Gardens. It was a lovely venue in a historic building. I didn't want to have to deal with making a chemise gown, so I did a white voile round gown, which I figured was appropriately pastoral. So many gorgeous ladies in their many variations of the gown! It was really interesting to see the different takes of what is essentially the same thing.

I loved all the sashes! This is just walking to the building from the parking lot.


My gown ended up being just a touch too scooped out in the neckline, so I kept having to pull it up in the centre front. Wearing a fichu or having a tucker would totally fix this and I do plan on making a suit of ruffles in the future to avoid this problem. I wore my Dames a la Mode necklace and earrings plus a beautiful sash and buckle borrowed from the Lady Detalle. The sash was really the perfect shade of pink. Reminded me of the portraits of children from the end of the 18th century like this and this.


The back of my dress is cut en fourreau. Here's a picture by In the Long Run Designs, who was nice enough to do some mini photo shoots of people when we were wandering about the grounds after the tea. :)


There were some great flowers and they really attracted the butterflies. I saw this little guy and managed to get a couple of shots before he flew away.


And here you can see us milling about on the lawn with the historic building in the background:


After this, we headed back to the Lady Detalle's house and hung out, ate more food, drank champagne, and watched a couple of movies. It was great! The next day we had a photoshoot with the Lady Detalle's jewelry and then went out for a bit of shopping and then I headed home.

( The costuming loot I brought home with me )

I don't have any real pictures from Monday other than two hazy ones taken of the Hollywood sign on the way to the Garment District. I was too busy shopping! starlightmasque, cavaliermom, and I joined two other ladies, Elizabeth and Jonalyn (sp?). First we went to breakfast at Ruby's diner, where I had a nice waffle with bacon and fruit, in order to prepare for the long day of shopping ahead. We had a few errands to run before hitting the Garment District, but our first real stop was the FIDM Scholarship Store.

The FIDM store is a really interesting place. It's filled with clothes, of varying degrees of funkiness (I mean in terms of style, not smell). There's also a section in the back with sewing stuff, mostly trims and fabrics. Nothing really caught our eye, but I've heard of some great deals from online friends who are locals.

But NOTHING can prepare you for the magical, fabric-filled world that is the LA Garment District! I've been to Goldhawk Road in London, which has a block of stores on both sides crammed with rolls of fabric, but this place was like Goldhawk Road times 50! It's blocks of stores that are chock full of fabric and trims; a thing of beauty, for sure. The fabric is just falling all over itself trying to come home with you, tempting you and your wallet to be generous. I bought some nice stuff and am still regretting that I didn't just give all of my money to the Garment District in exchange for copious amounts of silk.

I've fabric shopped in a number of places in North America and a couple in the UK for historical costuming fabrics and they have their different specialities. In LA, it's definitely silk. You can get some nice linens and wools and I'm sure there are cottons too, but this is the best place I have ever seen to get silks at a low price. So, of course, I bought silk. :)

My two favourite stores were Home Fabrics and Memo Fabric.

Home Fabrics was having some awesome sales. There were silks at different price points and the lower ones that I considered good deals were $8.95, $12.50, $15, and $20 per yard. I got 6 yards of two different $8.95 ones, a stripe that will probably become a gauze-trimmed 18th century polonaise and a luscious plaid that I have no idea what I'll do with (maybe 1875, 1830s, or 1850s):


Home Fabrics also has a bargain wall at the back of the main floor. The deal with that is that you buy whatever is left on the roll for $2 per yard. Angela scored some awesome deals there that we were squee-ing over.

About 3 or 4 doors to the right of Home Fabrics is a place called Memo Fabric. It looks like it sells rugs and drapery rods, but do not be fooled; there is silk to be had there, in the back right corner of the store. The first quoted price is pretty on par with the prices in other places, but the great thing about Memo is that they will bargain with you and you can get a sweet deal. I got this lavender taffeta for $12 per yard:

It was the only thing that I was determined to get and is going to become a super froofy early bustle dress. If I hadn't been so stupid, I would also have bought the roll of 6 yards of shot silk taffeta that the guy was trying to sell me. First he said he'd do $12/yard if I bought the roll, then he said he'd give me the 6 yards for the price of 4. Eventually he said he'd sell me the 6 yards for $40. That is a stunning deal. And, idiot that I am, I didn't buy it because it was the wrong colour. DYE! If I hadn't been exhausted and sweating and barely functioning, I would have realized that I could dye it the right colour, that, even though I was scared of dyeing silk because I'd ruined my fabric last time, I'd have to dye my other yellow silk that I already have at home, so I'd be dyeing silk anyways. So yeah, I'm stupid. Anyways, go there, bargain, get a great deal on silk and then enjoy it!

The last place I bought fabric was Tex Carmel. They didn't have any great bargains, but they do have a large selection of linen (as well as some silk and cotton). I bought some pretty pale pink for $8.99 to make some new 18th century stays with. It doesn't look like much in the picture, but it's cute.


After the exhausting shopping, we went for a lovely dinner at Lala's Argentine Grill. There was tasty chimichurri and I had some yummy zucchini quiche and a breaded skirt steak topped with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese with salad and mashed potatoes. Then I was stuffed. The evening was spent hanging out with the ladies from Texas who were roomies with m_of_disguise. I learned all sorts of things about silk from Catherine, like it makes a huge stink when you burn test it. ;p We had lots of fun and lots of laughs, which was a lovely way to end such a fantastic weekend. The next day was all travel and I was so tired I slept during both plane rides home.

Last picture! These were some of my other purchases. I got French valenciennes lace from the Marketplace at CoCo (90% cotton, 10% nylon). The stunning ribbon is from jubilima. The earrings are the ones I bought from tayloropolis and they beautifully match my lavender silk and the plaid. The comb was a gift from my dear roomie, along with some See's chocolates, which I just finished eating yesterday.