Regency Dance Dress and Turban Finally Finished! - Robin

 Here's the final product of my first Regency foray. After making the stays and the dress last year, I had yet to finish the closings and the hat. Such a procrastinator! But as we have a Regency Ball coming up at the end of February, I got myself in gear and finished.

The dress is from Simplicity Costumes 4055, unmodified except for fit. The back is not historically accurate as I was only interested in getting something together to dance in. I ended up with too much back and overlapped it with double buttons.  Originally I had used hooks and eyes, but they popped open the minute I moved. The bow closes with hook and eye so it will hang correctly while dancing.

Now that my hair is l-o-o-ng, I really don't want to style it because all the curls will fall out the minute I sweat, so a turban was the answer.  But which one?? The answer came from a Costume College class Lisa took - Easy Regency Turban. However, mine was NOT that easy.  Here's why......

The back of the non-historic dress

The not-so-easy Regency Turban

starting the weave

the body of the hat

laying out the stripes

 I made the material for the turban out of ribbon bonded on to Pellon. The stuff I had was a bit stiff but I did it anyway. For the band,  I did it in stripes and machine embroidered the edge lines.  For the body of the turban, I wove the ribbon into a plaid that Lisa called "Sort of a Space Invader Plaid". This was a technique I saw in Threads Magazine a while ago and had wanted to try on something.  Evidently this should NOT have been the project to try it on.  This turban is supposed to be soft, malleable.  Mine is decidedly NOT. At first, all I could think of was "OMG, I look like a deranged Baker!", but as I sewed on the feathers and the jewel (from a hair scrunchie), I began to feel kinder towards it.  I will get some fake hair to make into tendrils to attach to the inside of the hat to frame my face, but as of now, it is wearable.  And by the way, the dog did not eat the pattern until after I had finished the turban. C'est la vie!

embroidery on the stripes