My Monte Carlo Dress - Adventures in beading

By the pricking of my thumbs, something blingy this way comes.

I've done a bit more work on my Folkwear Monte Carlo dress, adding a little more beading to the shoulder area, making the matching tunic with tassels (and hand beading a bit of sparkle into said tassels) and finally making a very darkly glittering bandeau using both the dress and tunic materials.

There hasn't been much on telly this week so I've been sitting after dinner with bowls of beads and cursing the lousy energy saver lightbulbs we have throughout the house.

The tunic was really easy to make; I used my overlocker (not traditional I know but it gave a nice edge to the garment) around the edges and sewed two of the three pieces together, stabilising it with a bit of jersey mesh I had left over from another top I'd made ages ago. Then I beaded the tassels and sewed them firmly on. They are heavy compared to the filigree texture of the fabric, a metallic lace. The tunic is supposed to cross over in front but when I tried that I looked like battleship full steam ahead. Curse these big boobs! It looks pretty good unfastened though.

My hand beaded tassels

Classic 20s pose!

Now for a look at the bit of extra beading I did around the shoulders - and this pic shows off the bandeau pretty well too!  The extra shoulder beading is discreet - more beads scattered in between the three original rows, sort of like a little spray of beads, a light shower rather than a thunderstorm.

Shoulder beading and bandeau

That bandeau took about four hours to bead. It's not beaded all the way around; there's a section right in the middle, then scattered beads out to where I have three rows of beads hanging freely at the sides. This 'Facebook' shot probably shows it better:

Vampish Facebook profile pic - one day I will give Jimmy Durante his nose back

Speaking of Facebook, those of you who read this and know me on Facebook too may wonder why I don't publicise this blog on Facebook. This blog is more of a personal thought dump; me being me and occasionally saying things about myself I wouldn't say to most people I know. There is a certain cathartic pleasure in being a blogger and having a name not my own. Aside from which I've grumbled about a couple of people on here who are actually friends of mine and Facebook friends too. Don't want them to read this blog! Only a few people I know on FB know that I'm Carinthia too.

Anyway, I think I have finished my dress, the tunic and the bandeau. I have really enjoyed the beading process and was getting quite quick by the end of the bandeau, so will look for more items I can bling up within the bounds of good taste. Or make another 20s dress :-)

My Monte Carlo dress

OK, I'm a nostalgia buff. I've often lamented here about the busyness of life these days and sighed over less frenetic times. I do have to pull myself up at some point and thank modern living for pain free dentistry etc and remember that the good old days are usually viewed through rose-coloured glasses and period tv shows which can't port into your living room the smell of living in an era sans deodorant.

That being said the 1920s is my nostalgia decade of choice. Women wore short skirts and short hair and had more control over their life (and finances) than their mothers did at the same age. It was an exciting time of jazz, aeroplanes, fast cars (that couldn't brake or handle but oh my those Bugattis were elegant!), cocktails and gorgeous dresses.

Even though I don't have the skinny bod for 20s fashions, I love them.

Six months ago I bought a dress pattern I'd been sighing over for ages - the Monte Carlo Dress, by Folkwear. It's a 1990s pattern based on a 1925 Poiret gown. With a skirt cut on the bias, it's a luxurious construction requiring around 5 metres of fabric. Given that I have been sewing barely a year, I quailed at the thought of making a mistake and buggering up those five metres. It's not like I would be making it in plain cotton; oh no, not this little black duck for whom ignorance can be bliss when it comes to working with fabric. Nope, I was going to do it in something gorgeous, something worthy of a 1920s woman out for a night on the razz at the best speakeasy in town.

In those six months I've made quite a lot of clothes, mostly tops, and a skirt suit, mainly out of knitted fabric. Understanding the directions on the pattern has become easier (except for Burda. Jeez. The translation from German into English is strictly double Deutsch. I'm sure they leave directions out just to confuse the English speakers. Revenge for WWII or something). I read through the Monte Carlo directions last week and they made a lot more sense than they did when I bought the pattern.

So I decided it was time to make the Monte Carlo dress last weekend. My local Sewright shop had the ideal fabric, a burnout velvet in deep midnight blue. I had some paler blue fabric I could use as lining for the bodice, even though the pattern doesn't call for a full lining. I decided the moderately sheer velvet needed lining to cover my knickers and provide some stability for the slightly stretchy velvet itself. I lashed out on metallic lace to make the cape thing that goes with the dress, but haven't made that yet. That's next weekend. It looks very simple.

To my delight making the dress was a breeze compared to some of the things I've over-ambitiously tried to make in the last year. The swear factor was zero.

My Monte Carlo dress

I've mentioned my ignorance and over-ambition, and put both of them to good use by doing some hand-beading on the front of the bodice. This had to be done before the garment was stitched together. Now, I've never beaded anything in my life, so I blithely went out to Lincraft and bought some bugle beads and seed beads and embroidery needles and set to it. Thankfully my slightly wavy, ever so slightly crooked lines of beads are disguised by the fabric, which is a bit wavy itself. You don't notice the lines aren't completely straight. Phew! I have found one little error I'll have to fix though and I'm not saying what it is :-)

I decided to do something really simple in the way of beading as you can add impatience to the list of my foibles as well and I desperately wanted to get my dress done over the weekend. I hate having to interrupt something I'm doing and put it aside for another week.

hand beading

I sewed all day Saturday. I sewed all day Sunday. By Sunday night the bodice was ready for the skirt, and I'd hemmed half the skirt. This morning I worked until 11 then thought, sod it! I HAD to finish this dress!! So I did. I took my time lining the skirt up with the bodice and tacked it all in place before sewing it with the machine. I did quite a bit of hand finishing here and there too.

The end result is pretty stunning, even if I say so myself. I'm astonished that I made it. It fits like a dream and my seams aren't too untidy on the inside :-).

I'll have to make a proper beaded bandeau to match it - I've tied a bit of fabric around my head here - and of course the cape thingy.

Without the bandeau and with different jewellery it's timeless enough to wear to a posh night out without feeling I'm wearing a costume - with my husband's new job I may get the opportunity to wear it out a few times! But with the 20s trimmings I'm all set for a 20s themed event when I hear of one that sounds like fun.

I couldn't wait to try it on once it was complete (how nice to try it on without pins digging into me!) and then decided on makeup and a photo or two. I'd told a friend about it and she wanted to see a piccy. All tarted up with the appropriate accessories, I felt like a different person - that same feeling I had at the Paragon cafe in February.

So here I am, 20s woman in my 20s bedroom, complete with cat and the lamp that cat broke. Cocktails, anyone?

An afternoon out of time

The good old days weren't always the good old days. Think about what we have now - particularly health care and most particularly pain-free dentistry! The good old days - in any era - were undoubtedly much better if you were well-heeled; that's true of this very moment. We romanticise the past in tv shows and movies, and I'm as susceptible to longing sighs for a world before the intrusions of mobile phones, the internet and speed cameras as the next person.

My chosen era to sigh over is the 1920s. This was an exciting time per se, but a very exciting time for women as they shrugged themselves out of long skirts and corsets and into comfortable clothes, low-maintenance bobbed hair and a sense of power. The Great War had changed everything; women had a taste of independence as they took on roles left by men who'd gone to fight, and had no intention of going back to being subservient little creatures. They smoked in the street, they wore makeup, they defiantly wore dresses that showed their knees - or to the horror of their mothers, trousers -  and thanks to Marie Stopes had a lot more control over when they intended to have children. (Sadly however equal pay for women was a loooong way off!)

That's just the tip of the iceberg. I could rant on, but this post takes a delicate sidestep, a slight Charleston if you will or perhaps a Black Bottom, into the realms of 1920s fashion.

I'm a sucker for 20s fashion. Unfortunately I have a curvy 1950s body which means that the slimline boyish dresses of the period don't fit me as well as they should, but this was a period of real glamour. Again, particularly if you were well off. Sequins, beading, luxurious materials, floating panels that swirled out when you danced, feathers and filets... glorious glamorous stuff.

Three years ago I went to a vintage fashion fair and bought a reproduction 20s dress made in India of modern materials - knitted cotton lining, net over the top embellished with heaven knows how many sequins and beads. I'd get dizzy if I tried to count them. The dress was less than $100 which was great for me but probably not so good for the poor little bugger in India who'd hand beaded it.

Anyhow, there I was with this heavenly dress in deep purple and nowhere to wear it. Until I discovered the Roaring 20s festival at the Blue Mountains. Apparently it runs every February and there are plenty of events you're invited to frock up for.

So I frocked up and dragged my long-suffering husband along yesterday to the Jazz Afternoon Tea at the beautiful Paragon Cafe in Katoomba. The Paragon was built in 1916 and has recently changed hands, with the new owner slowly restoring it to its gracious original beauty. Luckily there is a wealth of original features untouched for nearly 100 years, including art deco mirrors and panelling.

Armed with champagne cocktails we both had a fantastic time, got chatting with the German jazz singer who, when she is at home in Hamburg, is a family court judge, explored the Paragon, danced the Charleston (Yesss!!! Another thing ticked off the bucket list), ate too many delicious Paragon chocolates and generally had an afternoon out of time.

What I loved most was how different I felt, dressed in this sparkly purple dress, with my home-made satin bandeau and the purple kimono-type jacket I'd finished the week before. I moved differently from head to toe. I walked differently. I caught sight of myself in one of the Paragon's old bevelled mirrors and in the dim lighting I was someone I didn't quite know; not the dag who spends most days in jeans and a t shirt or bizarre tops and leggings, but an elegant creature from an earlier time.

Yes, I dress well when the occasion demands it, usually business suits or smart modern clothes for business meetings. But this was different. Now I understand why people - adults - play dress up. Why period costume conventions are growing in popularity. The good old days weren't always the good old days but the glamorous bits, in a throwaway world whose pace is far too swift, are worth recreating.