1910 Pink Evening Gown with Black Lace and Cream Sash and Gloves based on The Intrusion of Jimmy by P.G. Wodehouse

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I just finished listening to The Intrusion of Jimmy by P.G. Wodehouse. I’ve mentioned it before on this blog, but I love listening to Wodehouse, because his stories are light and simple enough that I can miss parts if I get distracted by housework or chatter, but engaging enough that they keep my mind from dwelling on the dullness of dishwashing. Anyways, I’m always up for a story where boy meets girl, everything that can possibly cause boy maximum humiliation and trouble happens, but all comes right in the end.

The thing I liked best about this book was Jimmy’s character, because although a lot of Wodehouse’s heroes are rather more like Jimmy’s friend, Lord Dreever – the kind of laid-back fellow who pre-empts criticism by describing himself as “a bit of an ass” – Jimmy himself was curious, capable and generous. Now, the first two of those are rare enough, but he also seemed to have a darker side than any of the other Wodehouse heroes I can recall. At the beginning of the book, Jimmy makes a bet that he can break into someone’s house, and later that night a burglar happens to break into his own apartment; Jimmy disarms him, convinces him that he’s an infamous European jewel thief and gets the man to take him along on a burglary, all without turning a hair. It’s not like he views it as a lark; rather, he takes the whole thing quite seriously, breaking into someone else’s house almost as much out of curiosity as he did from the desire to win the bet. I guess his background as a reporter made his ability to keep so calm plausible, but still, that’s all pretty cold-blooded. Things like that made me feel that, as much as I liked him for his curiosity and wit, there was something about him that wasn’t quite right, and even though he never expressed the desire to steal so much as a rhinestone brooch, there was something about him that gave me the feeling that he very well could go in for a life of crime if it was interesting enough. It turns out that in the original story that the book was based on, Jimmy really had been a jewel thief! I somehow feel like he makes more sense to me now, although I can’t really hold his past incarnation against him.

Jimmy falls for a lovely girl named Molly, and taking the standard meet-cute love-at-first-sight Wodehouse pattern to new heights, he doesn’t ever actually talk to her during this process, but just admires her over the course of a five-day trans-Atlantic trip. I always figure that the Wodehouse heroines have the most marvelous, flattering, feminine clothes possibly available to humans, because eligible young men are always falling instantly in love with them, so it’s a disappointment for me that Wodehouse seldom describes dresses in detail. The book is from 1910, so here we have a 1910-style gown, with black lace over a pink dress. I do like the dresses I’ve seen from this year – the shape seems like a nice balance between the Edwardian shape and the straight-up-and-down lines that are coming.

By the way, I’ve never thought to look up what P.G. stood for; it turns out to be “Pelham Grenville.” Might have to swipe that one for our firstborn.

Prismacolors used: Kelp Green, Pale Sage, White, French Grey 10%, 20%, 50%, 70%, Light Umber, Dark Umber, Tuscan Red, Black, Cream, Pink Rose, Clay Rose

1863 Ball Gown in Yellow with Green Ribbons over White Lace Skirt with Harvest Trimmings for Thanksgiving

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Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who are celebrating it today! Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, and I’m really happy to be celebrating it with my family this year, now that we’re all in the same state again. Most of my extended family is in the Pacific Northwest, but when I was young my mom, dad, brother and I moved around the country on account of my dad’s job, and so for me Thanksgiving dinners remind me of a very small group around the table, stuffing in the crock-pot and Alice’s Restaurant on the radio. This year, as I understand it, there’ll be a bit of a crowd, but that’s fine too — it means more people to admire my baklava, for one thing. (A friend of mine from Turkey taught me to make exquisite baklava, but my baklava-related self-esteem has taken a bit of a hit since my husband took pictures of it after it came out of the oven. Somehow, the pictures turned out rather alien due to the way the phyllo dough crinkles up and his penchant for close-ups — and then he adjusted them to look vaguely green and called it “Night of the Living Baklava.” I am not so sure I will let him have any.)

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day, so for today’s dress I have an 1860s-style ball gown with harvest motifs. I hope you like it, even if you’re not celebrating Thanksgiving today!

Why not — silly poll time!

1882 Wedding Dress with White Flowers and Train

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So remember I have three types of grey pencils: French Grey, which is what I usually use, Cool Grey, which has a bit more bite to it and is what I used for the wicked queen, and Warm Grey, which I usually ignore. Now, when I was sketching out this dress, my Warm Grey pencils called to me, and they said “What about us? It’s been a whole week of white wedding dresses, won’t you use us this time?”

Do me a favor and remind me not to anthropomorphize my colored pencils. There’s a reason I never use my Warm Grey set, and it’s that they’re just too darn dark! I’m under no obligation to be fair to my Prismacolors, otherwise you would see a lot more Salmon Pink and Muted Turquoise. So I’m sorry that this wedding dress is a touch too grey, even though I started it fairly early in the day I didn’t have enough time to redo it by the time I realized it wasn’t quite what I wanted. Also, I didn’t have enough time to do the veil and bouquet either, and now I am rushing to post at least the dress before we possibly lose power. I will do them tomorrow.

Anyways, this is an 1882 gown, and I like it despite the fact that it’s a little bit too grey… I’m quite fond of Gilded Era gowns, even if it’s unwise to try to finish one in a single day.

Pink 1860s Ball Gown with White Scroll Pattern

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Well, today’s dress wasn’t quite what I wanted. I was planning on trying to draw lace with the white gel pen, but I ended up doing it all in pencil instead, and then I picked up the wrong pencil while doing the bodice and colored for a while before I realized my mistake. What I have here is totally different from what I wanted, because after my mistake the only thing I could do was to make it as dark as possible and draw something distracting on top of it. I probably wouldn’t quite so annoyed about my bodice mistake if that skirt hadn’t taken so long!

Anyways, I just thought I hadn’t done a hoop skirt for a while, and it would offer a lot of opportunities to practice drawing lace with the gel pen, which I didn’t even do…

… I’m just going to post this and be done with it!

Belated Black and White Valentine's Day Gown

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Unsurprisingly, I’m late for Valentine’s Day, but I had to do a Valentine’s Day gown for two reasons. One, Valentine’s Day is the perfect occasion for the type of ridiculousness I do best. Although I appreciate the simplicity of the re-branded Valentine’s Day, I’m having none of it. (Pass the lace.) Two, I love all of you for not forgetting me like I so richly deserve. I’m sorry.

The truth is, for the last few months I’ve been devoting myself to my other great interest, which is studying Japanese, and for some reason, when I’m really devoting myself to one thing, my interest in everything else is non-existent, and I am lucky if I can start work on time and make dinner in a consistent fashion. I really miss drawing, though. I’m going to take a stab at doing both. As a matter of fact, I was thinking, if I could combine my Japanese studies and my paperdolls somehow, I would never get tired of either of them! I’m seriously open to suggestions on this point. If you were me, what would you do with these two incongruous, underdeveloped skills?

In the meantime… well, we’ll see. I really miss paperdolling. But even if you don’t see me again for another month (and I really will try not to be that flaky this time!) at least now you have a new dress to color. This one could keep you busy for a while, too…

Doris Day's White Evening Gown from Pillow Talk

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I got an e-mail from one of my readers, Kim, a while back, talking about the designs of Irene Lentz, a costume designer who worked on some Doris Day movies that she recommended to me, one of which was Pillow Talk. I have to do further viewing before I can be familiar with her work, though — it looks like Pillow Talk was costumed by Jean Louis (who, credited for “gowns,” probably designed this costume) and Bill Thomas. Anyways, whoever designed them, I love Doris Day’s outfits in the movie. Her character is an interior designer, and she always looks fabulous: the movie was released in 1959, and her clothes are right there between smart 1950s femininity and 1960s clean style. The movie itself was something I had to kind of turn off the overly serious and feminist parts of my brain to enjoy: I know it’s supposed to be a light-hearted sex comedy, and the way the guy manipulated the girl (and her revenge) was really quite amusing. Still, when viewers are supposed to take the baby at the end as proof that our hero and heroine achieved ‘happily ever after’, it signified to me “she’s got three, four years tops before he gets bored of her.” Yeah, call me a cynic but I can’t watch a movie like that without scripting out a few months worth of premarital counseling for the dysfunctional couple in my head. Doesn’t mean I don’t have the other Day/Hudson movies on reserve at the library…

Wiki Dress #2: Gold Harvest Gown with Green Peplum and Celtic Patterns

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Now, I happen to know my mom edited this revision of this dress, and therefore it had to be drawn, because my mom’s awesome. I think I ought to ask her to design me dresses more often when I’m feeling unimaginative! She’s also more dangerous with the Prismacolors than I am – she does absolutely gorgeous drawings of flowers and plants on cards, then sends them to people. She jokes that you only get to come to her funeral if you got a drawing from her. Here was her description of the dress:

A sunflower yellow bodice,green peplum with a beyond floor-length skirt done in blended colors of harvest. The hem is heavily decorated with a matching line of Celtic designs in dark blue, with golden accents.

She also has a pair of long dark green gloves that reach halfway up. The back of each hand is embroidered with harvest and Celtic designs. On her feet are soft blue satin slippers.She also has a subtle webbed crystal frill tiara (worn front-to-back)with dripping tiny blue seed pearls. Around her neck is a matching crystal and single pearl necklace.

I guess you have to imagine the satin slippers, and there wasn’t enough space on the glove for a harvest design, but I think this came out really nicely and hopefully close to what Mom was imagining. This is one where I wish I could show you all the original — the harvest colors on the skirt are a lot prettier on the real thing. It made me decidedly twitchy to finish coloring the skirt, then draw patterns all over the hem, but it worked, I think!

Blue Watery Masquerade Ball Gown with Satin Blue Underskirt and Crystals

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So recently, I got an e-mail from Diana asking if I could draw a dress for a roleplay she was taking part in. I went through and read the scenario, and Diana’s character Leslie is a human spy in a magical world who has to infiltrate a masquerade ball attended by aristocrats. So I thought this was a fun challenge: what sort of thing might a spy wear to such a ball? It’s dead easy to make a gown that says “hey everyone, look at me!” or one that says “I am a Woman of Mystery” but one that looks expensive and magical enough that no one questions its wearer’s right to be there, yet isn’t so noticeable that everyone winds up talking about her… fun. I ended up going with blue, a rich but soothing color, and an overskirt with fabric like shimmering water and seafoam, studded with crystals — although I don’t really think the crystals worked out too well. Oh well. Diana, I hope you like it anyways, and I look forward to seeing where the story goes!

The poll is yet ongoing…

Black and Pink Lacy Babydoll Dress with Black Gloves and Striped Stockings inspired by Misa Amane from Death Note

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Brian and I are watching Death Note on Hulu these days. I watch some anime, but mostly only when I’m intensely studying Japanese, so it’s been a while since I’ve watched any just for the sake of watching it. I think Misa is the first “bubbly moron” type of anime character that I’ve ever liked, although goodness knows I’ve seen enough of them. There’s just something about the way she so blithely screws up Light’s game that I enjoy, and I really do feel sorry for her because the way he deals with her must be painful on some level, so she can talk about herself in the third person all she wants and I don’t mind.

This isn’t directly from any of the outfits that she wears, but since she has a sort of sexy goth style (I’m sure there’s a name and a subculture for it) I thought this would be the kind of outfit she would like. My shipment of new colored pencils came today — a couple of the pink ones make an appearance in this outfit, and the lace is thanks to Verithin Cool Grey 70%. The gloves aren’t proper gloves, but come to a point over the hand, so take care when cutting them out.

One more day for this poll…

1814 White Lace Trimmed Regency Gown with Sheer Overskirt and Pink Shawl from Persuasion by Jane Austen

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Persuasion was one of the audiobooks I listened to earlier this year (again, from Librivox); it’s set starting in 1814, but the time, rather than the book, influenced this dress. Since it’s white, it’s probably considered too young a color for the book’s heroine, but I don’t think I’ve ever done a pure white Regency gown and it sure was fun to draw. This one might as well be titled “Liana Has A New Pencil Sharpener,” really. My old one was probably around eight years old, no wonder it took about two minutes and lots of coaxing to get a point inferior to the ones my new sharpener produces in seconds. It shows, too. Look forwards to a lot of lace in whatever I do next.

I looked at so many sites when thinking about how this dress should be, I can’t list them all, but pemberley.com, the Regency Fashion Page and Jessamyn’s Regency Costume Companion are the ones I noted down for later, so if you have any interest in Regency fashion please take a look at them.

We’re reaching the end of the Halloween costume polls. You haven’t forgotten about them already, have you?