Again it's gonna be a 1630s gown, this time extra-long as you see in the paintings. No lace this time but the typical english ruff for the sleeves and a very fine but plain white collar. The truth is that I was unable to find perfectly matching lace despite my considerable collection. So I'm planning something like this only in a warm grey.
In the meantime I also decided that I would wear this dress to a small historic ball come week. Self-motivation and all... The skirt turned out a little much too long, at least for a ball, and only while putting the bodice together I realized that I had forgotten to make the required changes to the pattern after I had discovered a couple of small faults in it already while making the last 1630s dress. So no new underdress for the upcoming ball, only for the one in spring where I'm planning to wear the same dress only with different decoration. So many balls this season, the comtesse's seamstress is a little stressed! :D
Compared to the light-blue 1630s, I shortened the flaps and the stomacher a bit. Next time I'll try one without any flaps at all and a laced front closing, like in this picture. But this will involve some more research, so the grey one just has my trusty hook-and-eye closing over a stomach piece. Plus a couple of ribbons for later, maybe, whatever I'll find in my boxes. As it was actually meant as a day dress, not as a ball gown, there's not much decoration. The motto of the ball was "cabinet of wonder" and we were asked to have some interesting decoration, so I took some inspiration from the palaces I visited this summer. Due to time's fast pace (damn, I'll never get used to that!) I threw all plans overboard to make some shell decoration in mute colour for the first (small) ball and some bright red-coral decoration for the next, bigger one. (And there's people who say I wear my dresses just once, tsktsktsk... ;) ) Anyhow, I was unable to find my collection of shells so I decided to do some pearl decoration. The irregularly shaped ones for the tiara were surprisingly expensive so I switched to faux corals already for the small ball (which was good because I realized I'm already tied up for the grand one anyway) and had a splendid micture of red and white corals with shell jewelry borrowed from my flatmate. Sometimes it's great not to live alone, against my usual disposition :D
Despite me looking surprisingly great that evening the camera didn't like me and the pics turned out horrid, so I'll add decent pictures later that I don't have to be ashamed of...
