Loose threads

I won't be able to do all the challenges 2021 either, but in this sudden but inevitable burst of sewing frenzy that a deadline or two is bound to induce I might do more than I thought I would! That we are "allowed" to mix up the order helps a lot when syncing challenges to deadlines!

 

Challenge number 12 is "All the world's a stage". Fiction is sort of always an underlying theme of my sewing, since I do a lot of what I do because of larping, so that's almost a given. It's even more pronounced, however, when my next larp (hopefully, one never knows - the pandemic is not over yet) is one inspired by Downton Abbey. Or not exacly Downton Abbey, but that genre. A few years back I went to a big larp set in a big country house with all the Upstairs Downstairs features, had great fun and met great people. Some of them are now organising a pocket sized larp on the same theme much closer to where I live. I am looking forward to it, even if my larp skills feel really rusty after a two-year hiatus.

 

I have played a lot of early 20th century larps, and by now one would think that I could basically just pick out an outfit from my wardrobe. I have played both downstairs and upstairs. Sadly, neither the housekeeper outfit or my upstairs ones is really suited to play a lady's maid. I therefore decided to go for as basic a "black servant outfit" as possible. After a lot of frustrated googling and decision making later (there are sooo many extant Edwardian dresses out there. So very few of them look like they could have been worn by servants. And black and white photos of black dresses are only so helpful in guessing at construction), the fabric helped me come to a decision. The larp is in late autumn/early winter, we are to spend some time outside and (good) black cotton is impossible to find anyway, it seems. So wool it was, and the only wool(!) I could find that was not in the very high price range was only available as an end of roll piece of about 2.1 meters. Bye, bye to plans of a dress - skirt and blouse it is.

Short of time as usual, and my reference book has hidden somewhere, so rather than construct something from scratch I worked with what I have got. The larp is set in 1910, but I assume a servant's dress doesn't have to be exactly up to date, and to make my wardrobe as useful as possible I decided that I'd rather be a bit fuzzy on the dating details, here.