Edwardian-inspired teal capelet

Hooded mantle or Capelet

When planning the Historical Sew Monthly challenges for 2022 I mentioned wanting to do an Edwardian-inspired capelet, inspired by Bernadette Banner’s Edwardian Mantle.

However, I didn’t want to just do a mantle; I wanted a garment with a hood. I had some teal satin suiting from my former teacher’s destash, as well as some mostly coordinating velour from her as well, and thought these would make an excellent start on this garment (I also have a different idea in mind with some black coat-weight wool and burgundy satin lining.)

Glow in the dark spider/web print circle skirt

Glow in the dark spider and spiderweb cotton circle skirt

In August 2022 I headed to the fabric store while my Fabricland membership was still active, and checked out their Hallowe’en fabrics…

I was kind of disappointed in the selection this year – a few things from last year brought back out, but most of the new stuff was kind of… blah.

I ended up picking up a glow in the dark black and white spider and spiderweb print cotton. It was 32$/meter (CAD) before the 30% off discount with the membership. Since I was curious about other Hallowe’en prints, I looked it up on Fabric.com (which I’m now even more disappointed to find out it’s owned by (sc)amazon… so I won’t be shopping there anymore most likely…) and it’s “Henry Glass Glow In The Dark Olde Salem’s Black Hat Society Spiderweb Black” sold there for $12.38/yard (US)

Embroidered witchy hat

Black wool embroidered deerstalker witch hat

A while ago I made two witchy deerstalker hats – both out of brown plaids that I didn’t have a lot of fabric. I really loved them, but decided what I really wanted was a black one instead – going more “witch” and less “sherlock”.

Of course, with all of the time that I’ve been spending (hyperfixating) on the Maker Space’s embroidery machine, this meant that I also wanted to find a way to embellish it a little more – and make it a little more personal.

Historical Sew Monthly – 2023

Jupe Courtisane skirt pattern

It’s been many years since I started participating in the Historical Sew Monthly projects, and as years have gone on, I’ve been able to participate less and less. For 2022, I only completed ONE of the twelve suggested themes, though given my mood, budget, Covid, and lack of participation in my local reenactment group (largely due to Covid, amoung other factors) I wasn’t really surprised to do so little towards the challenges.

However, each year I DO find the themes inspiring, so once again I’m making my “wish list” post, for the challenges for 2023.

Purple bikini top/ bralette

Purple bikini top / bralette

This summer, before a camping event, I decided to make myself another bikini top/bralette like the ones I made the previous summer.

Unfortunately (?) I got on a roll, having bought a bunch of cute swimwear fabrics at the Grandmother’s Fabric Sale in the spring, and cut out a BUNCH of them. The purple in this photo is the closest to the actual colour – a bunch of my work-in-progress photos were with different lighting.