Venetian in a week...or two

Did I ever tell you that I like to make historical costumes? I first attended the Minnesota Renaissance Festival when I was 19 and I knew that first day, even before I had made a costume, that I was a costumer at heart. I made two Elizabethan dresses and started (and never finished) a few more. Two years ago, my friend Laura and I made Venetian dresses for Italian Carnival weekend:



I'm in blue, Laura in pink. We stayed up nearly all night finishing our dresses and had a blast at the renaissance festival the next day.

My blue dress doesn't fit anymore (it barely fit when I made it...oops) so I'm making a new dress for this year. Actually, I'm making a new dress for opening weekend, which is less than two weeks away. And I bought the fabric three days ago. Yikes!

This means no studio move yet, no social life (other than celebrating Ian's b-day on Friday and Saturday) and one frustrated costumer (since half of my craft supplies are already at the new house).

I'm going to do a mini dress diary and I hope to have a finished dress to show you by Monday. And if I have time I'm going to make sleeves next week and then I can show you a proper photo of Laura and me out at fest next weekend. She's re-working her Venetian dress right now so there will be lots of fun stuff to show you.

Click here for the next installment of the dress diary.

Are any of you Renaissance Festival goers? Did you ever make a costume to wear to fest? If so, do you have a picture? I'm sure we'd all love to see!