Here is a peak at my new play suit, aka me being goofy in the living room ;-) . I plan to wear it for our Fourth of July Party next weekend. Of course, I will have victory rolls and the whole nine yards. But for quick picks, slightly messy hair and red lipstick will do. God Bless!
Dear Friends and Readers,
I hope you all are having a wonderful summer so far. We have a lot of changes coming down the road for us. We have been so blessed with the opportunity to rent an amazing 1932 Portland Bungalow. It has been updated and is much, much larger than the space we are currently living in. Plus, it has a large backyard, yeah! So, we are in the process of packing, packing, packing. We have a whole month to get settled, which is a huge blessing. Last time we moved, we packed out lives into a truck and drove for three days. This time, we have a little more time to pack and move and get our current house ready to return to our landlords. The most exciting thing for me is that I'm finally going to be living in an older home. Also, it's has the 1930's English Cottage style, complete with dark wood molding, plastered walls, hardwood floors, and leaded glass windows. I promise to post lots of pictures once we get settled and I get everything decorated.
As for sewing... Well, I finished my 1920's dress and have officially decided that I do not look good in 1920's styles. I kind of look like a stuffed sausage in a bag. So, we won't be showing pictures of my 20's dress. I can't decide if I want to keep it in case we have a 20's event or sell it. So, I'm back to the 1940's and loving it. I'm currently working on a 1940's play suit and I can't wait to wear it. It's super, duper cute and very flattering, according to hubby. As he says, "I need to show off my curves" and the 1920's does not do that for me. Anyway, we are having an Independence Day/ Happy Graduation party on the 4th and I'm going to wear it then. So you will just have to wait a little while for pictures.
This will be my last sewing project until we move and get settled. Also, I might not be posting as often for the next few weeks. I do plan to post as much as I can, especially since reenacting season is kicking into high gear. Have a wonderful day, everyone. Here's a pic of the house from Google Maps. Again, I'll post real pictures as soon as we get settled. God Bless!!!
Love Lauren
Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, the Doctor :-)
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Aaron with his mentor, Dr. Taylor.
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Hubby and Me (I wore my 40’s dress for the occasion and loved it!)
Last night was the much anticipated Graduation Party for Aaron’s class. It was held at the Portland Art Museum and was quite the evening. I think the best thing was our attire. You see, Aaron’s classmates love the fact that we reenact and were asking, well kind of begging, Aaron to go 18th century for the party. Well, never wanting to disappoint, we happily obliged. It was a blast. Here are a few pics!
%5B7%5D.jpg "Grad Party (2)")
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%5B5%5D.jpg "Grad Party (38)")
%5B4%5D.jpg "Grad Party (12)")
%5B4%5D.jpg "Grad Party (47)")
%5B5%5D.jpg "Grad Party (10)")
All in all it was a great evening. Aaron was runner up for the best kept hair due to his sideburns :-D
Have a great weekend everyone! God Bless!
Love Lauren
Dear Friends and Readers,
I just received word that hubby passed his board examinations. He can now finish his license application and start working as soon as his license arrives. I am so grateful to God for His provisions and seeing us through these past four years.
Dear Friends and Readers,
I hope you all had a wonderful and blessed week. Aaron finished his board exams last weekend and is finally in the last phase of school. We now wait for his board exams, his graduation, and his transcripts so he can get his license and start working. We’re praying that he can start mid-July, but we’re thinking it’s probably going to be the first of August before all of the paper-work is finalized.
I finally had some good, quiet pattern drafting time this week. I scaled up the Patterns of Fashion 1921 pattern, made a muslin and decided I don’t like the bodice of the original pattern on my body. So, as usual, I redrafted it. I’m making the bodice more of a sheath. I am also adding a curved sash to mount the bodice and the skirt to, thus eliminating the triangles. They just looked to fussy on my frame. Anyway, here is the mock-up. The fashion fabric should has a much better drape than muslin, but you at least get the idea. I hope to start cutting my fashion fabric today and get this thing finished soon :-)
Have a great weekend!!!
Love Lauren
Hello All,
I hope you are having a wonderful weekend so far. Aaron has been taking his Western Regional Boards this weekend. It’s one of the last hoops he has to jump through to be a dentist. He’ll find out in 4-6 weeks if he passed and if he can then get a license. It’s pretty exciting.
All’s well and sporadic on the sewing front. I finally have my stays completed to a point where I can wear them. I plan to try them out for at least one event before I finish them. I want to make sure there aren’t any adjustments needed before I bind them and put the lining in. I also still haven’t decided if I am going to add straps or leave them strapless. So, I’m going to try them both ways. I’ll let you know what I decide. As they are now, they are very comfortable and I love the shape they give me. We’ll see how they feel after hours of wearing them. Anyway, here is what is done thus far.
Oh, and as you can see, I decided to go white with a blue binding.
Ok, on to the ‘20’s. We are having a Diesel Punk party on the 4th of July for Aaron’s graduation. Now, Diesel Punk spans from WWI to WWII. So, I decided I needed to make a 1920’s dress. I also fell in love with the 1921 Vionnet dress in Patterns of Fashion II. I’ve seen a reproduction of the gown, by Katherine, and it is just gorgeous. Anyway, I started enlarging and drafting the pattern last night. So far it’s proving to be a bit frustrating scaling it up from the original size. I tried my scaled up version in muslin and it was waaaay too big. So, I’m going to try a muslin of the original size and then drape it to my dress form. Hopefully that will work better. It’s very strange working with such a loose pattern design. I’m used to fitting everything very tightly around stays. This time things are meant to be billowy and loose. Anyway, here are the pictures of the concept.
The dress… I just love the petal skirt.
The pattern. It’s not too complicated once you figure out how the pieces fit together. The hard part is scaling the triangular points.
The fabric… It’s a blue cotton voile that I’ve had in my stash for over a year. I hope I have enough to make it. Luckily, it’s still a good fabric so I can get more if I need to.
Here is the original dress. It is the orange gown on the left.
Well, I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your weekend. God Bless!
Love Lauren
Today Aaron and I have been married for five years. So much has happened in our life together. We have been very blessed and God has carried us through so many things. Through it all, we have gown closure to each other and closer to God. I pray that our future years together will be just as wonderful.
Babe, I love you and I’m so happy that I married you…
We were quite fortunate to have two events this weekend. Our first was the one in the previous post and our second was a combined event between Le Bon Ton and the Oregon Regency society. We had a wonderful stroll through the Portland Japanese Gardens. What a lovely, serene, and fun walk that was. The gardens are beautifully manicured and there are so many little treasures hidden throughout the place. We also made quite the spectacle of ourselves. There were numerous professional photographers wandering around and many of them took lots of pictures of us. We kind of felt like celebrities for the day. It was a blast. Without further adieu, here are the pictures….
Angel and me on the footbridge.
You know who…
Angel and me…. Our husbands keep teasing us about our similar attire.
M’Lord in is new period glasses…
Brad and Aaron “fighting” on the Bridge. I think the parasol just might win. Tee Hee…
Tara and Xian at the rock gardens. 
More Tara and Xian
The whole gang…
The three musketeers…
And finally, Angel and me “imitating rocks” in front of the rock garden. LOL!
Have a wonderful week everyone. God Bless!!!
Love Lauren
Wow! What a wild week we have been having here at Portland House. After missing almost a week of work, I am finally almost back to normal.
Today, we joined our friends at the Willamette Lock Festival. We donned our Dieselpunk gharb and made quite the spectacle. Also, I was able to take my new ‘40’s dress on it’s maiden voyage. Almost everyone went as military personnel and I went as the civilian. It was a great day! Here are the pics….
Guess who!
Xian, Brad, Angel, Tara, Ryan, Me, and Jackson (aka Aaron)
And another…. With the Addition of Maggie and David, dressed in Steampunk
Watching the Locks
At the pub afterwards
Well, that’s all for now folks! Tomorrow we are hitting the Portland Japanese Gardens in Regency and 18th Century gharb. I will have more to share soon. God Bless!
Love Lauren
Hi all,
Just popping in really quick. I hope your week is going well. Mine, frankly, is not going very well. As you know, I had all four wisdom teeth pulled on Thursday. Today was supposed to be my first day back at work. Well, it lasted all of 2 hours. I ended up having to leave due to my lovely recovery. I had really hoped this would go faster than it is. However, Aaron assures me that I'm healing just fine and it takes time to get better. I'm hoping tomorrow will go better and I plan to try to work again.The hardest part of all of this is the dizziness and the weird emotions. I have been forgetful and crying at the strangest things. I'm more that ready to be back to normal. The pain has been weird too. It's usually pretty severe in the morning and at nights. It tends to taper off in the afternoons. I am glad that I will never have to have my wisdom teeth pulled again. Aaron and I have been joking that we have no wisdom left :-D Well, I have done nothing but sleep, take meds, and eat soft foods the past few days. I hope I can start sewing again someday soon. God Bless!
Love Lauren
Hello dear friends and readers. I hope you are all having a wonderful week so far. Well, I have become very quickly obsessed with the late 20’s, 30’s, and early 40’s. As much as I adore the 18th century, it will always be my first love, I'm ready to experiment with another era. My 18th century wardrobe is quite full, as soon as I finish my new stays it will be more than full. So, I’m going to dive head first into making some vintage frocks. I’m thinking I might have to don some lovely vintage clothing more often and maybe wear more in real life. Here are some pictures that are inspiring me today.
I think her dress is just too cute.
Again, I just love it!
Well, that’s all for now folks. Stay tuned for more :-D
I picked up these lovelies at a couple of local antique stores recently. I absolutely love them. Enjoy!
Can one have too many fashion plates?
On another note I am having my wisdom teeth pulled on Thursday, and I’m not looking forward to it. I’m a big baby when it comes to pain of any kind. I am, however, looking forward to having a little down time. SO, I may not be online for a day or two.
Oh, and i finished my 40’s dress this evening. You’ll have to wait until next weekend to see pics! I’m thinking vintage style clothing is going to become part of my daily wardrobe.
God Bless!
Love Lauren
We had a lovely Saturday evening with our dear friends. We started the evening with good food and libations at the Stillhouse Pub. Then we went over to our friend’s historical home for games. Here are a few pictures of the evening. I hope to have a group shot soon.
Angel in her new ensemble 
Angel and Me
I will post more as soon as I get the rest of the pictures. Have a wonderful week.
Love Lauren
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