Tiffin in the Park

Morning All you internet lovelies.

Today finds me a little hyper with excitement. Tomorrow is my first stall at a full on steampunk affair. Tiffin in the Park, run by Steampunk Doncaster. Well my first steampunk fair full stop, but this is a full weekend do with fashion shows and gun fights and beer. So I'm excited.

Now I have always loved the look of steampunk but never had any real chance to wear it anywhere, so I wasn't going to miss this chance.  I found some marvelous material real cheap down the 'rag' market. Black and green stripes and it just called to me, so at that price I couldn't resist. I decided to go for a bustle outfit with an underbust corset and nice white blouse. Obviously a hat would be needed to match.

I spent quite a while draping and playing with the material trying to get a bustle looking right and not quite achieving it, when I decided to have a quick look on ebay and found this Simplicity pattern almost at once.  Well having made a real saving on the material, I thought why not, it would cut out all the guess work and give me a much better understanding of how a bustle works, which it has and now I have this one under my belt, pardon the pun, I feel much more able to go about drafting the one I'm thinking of for another important outfit, but I can't say more on that yet.


 Once I had cut out the pattern for the bustle I began to regret the material type though. It's heavy, real heavy and stretchy and due to the design needed lining which added to the weight even more. And you need quite a bit more material for a full bustle than I anticipated, so it's real heavy, did I mention that. I decided to go for the 'bustle pillow' to give me extra out in the back, if you see what I mean, cause the weight was pulling the folds down a bit.

 And the dog seems to like it.

On the whole though for a first attempt I am pleased and just hope that it won't be too hot tomorrow, although I will have a fan hanging on my utility belt, along with a couple of other items that I created just for the fair and I hope will go done well on the day; a phone case and a coin purse,

 but as usual it is mainly about the hats. Wish me luck and see you on the other side.

Hugs and Kisses

Ally