The Choice - Ophelia Waterhouse Gown

And the winner is:

Stylish Fabric with their Teal 52" pleated poly cotton voile, upper left corner. As you can see, the Crushed Taffeta in Teal by Big Z Fabric (upper right) is too blue, and too shiny. The selection by Mood Fabric has a good Accordian Pleated Teal Chiffon, but I feel it is too thin and the pleats too big for Ophelia's dress.

More about the dress, as well. The designer for Ophelia's costumes is Massimo Cantini Parrini, an Italian "Fashion Archaeologist". You can read an article Vogue did about him: Vogue on Ophelia's Costumer.

He was drawn to Waterhouse and other Pre- Raphaelite artist, jewel tones and inspired by the famous Delphos style dresses by Mariano Fortuny. It was so ironic when I read that in the article, I went and dug out one of my MANY costume resource books and thumped it open to the page on the Delphos dress. Here is an example of one such Fortuny Delphos:

These dresses are gorgeous, I recommend checking out another Vogue article on Fortuny: From Invention to Eternity You can see how the pleated underdress and side laced overdress inspired Parrini!

There was one other possibility for my rendition of Ophelia's dress, and that was an Accordian Pleated Teal velvet. I felt this would be too heavy and I was unable to acquire a swatch beforehand. So I guess cotton voile it is!

Greetings, wanderer!

Me, from like, a bajillion years ago. 

(actually only three)

“Change is painful, but nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.” - Mandy Hale

I have no idea who Mandy Hale is, but I feel like that quote has been my life for years now. Who am I? Not a clue. I like to sew, and have a regular 40hr a week job, and I am learning Swedish...which is relevant to nobody, and I have fabric stashes, and I love fantasy.

And no, I've never gated for the Renaissance Festival. But what a cool job that would be!

I HAVE been in the SCA, but not lately. I mean, not for two years, at least. And I really loved my wimple, miss you wimple, dear!

Mostly, I am a not quite young woman who loves costumes and is currently so stressed out that I cannot see the forest for all the trees. I have fabric goals, and dress goals, and want to develop some skills. But sometimes I get blue, and withdrawn, and lonely and I eat chocolate pudding (again, not relevant) and I stop sewing. Except face coverings. There has to be more to life than sewing those. So this journal journey is going to be my accountability to me, to follow through on what I want to sew, darn it!

Feel free to join me, or not, as I embark on this path that hopefully leads to some sanity, and beauty, and dare I say, fun?