My Baroque 1630's-1660's Cavalier Dresses

I know it's March, way past Halloween, and to tell you the truth, the only thing I had to finish was the collar on my dress.  Yep, everything else was done back in October.  But then after Halloween, it's hard to feel pressured to finish it.  Originally, my three boys (Sebastian, Nicolas, and Leo--Ana refused to participate in any way) were going to be the Three Musketeers and we three girls were going to be Cavalier ladies.  Only the fabric I bought online was hardly the "cobalt" blue of the Musketeers, and was instead navy.  So Nicolas and Sebastian were WWI pilots instead.  Not only that, but the cost of the trim for the Musketeer tabards would have been astronomical and it wouldn't have looked good without trim. (Come on, would I settle for inferior costumes???!!)  

 Elena did NOT want to be a princess, so my work-around was that her, Isabel and I were the BARBIE Three Musketeers.  She was okay with that.  And then once she received so many compliments wearing it, she changed her mind altogether and loves being a princess again.  Her school has a Halloween parade but they make the kids dress up in something vocabulary related.  (Blah!) So Elena was Anne of Austria, since she was supposed to be something that started with vowels. 

  
I love the pouffy skirts, even from the back.  :)

I used Simplicity 4764 for the girls' dress patterns and then just made a bunch of changes, like drafting my own sleeves etc.  You can read my review here if you're really interested. Review of Simplicity 4764 I liked the pattern, and it was actually quite easy to make. And the dresses were actually extremely inexpensive: Elena's dress was a duvet cover and satin sheet from a thrift store, (I still have lots left of the gold duvet if anyone wants it) and Isabel's was curtains and a tablecloth from the same thrift store.  (I miss you, DI. Goodwill is just not the same.)  The trim came almost completely from my stash, mostly ribbon from my wedding decorations.  I used Reconstructing History 101 for my dress, and I wouldn't highly recommend that pattern.  Although you can make it work with revisions like I did.  Here's the review of that one.  Review of Reconstructing History 101
  My dress is made with upholstery fabric that I bought to make stockings out of, but I never really liked the fabric that much.  I did make some stockings, but eventually threw them out last year.  So why not a dress?  I've always wanted to make a historical outfit for me, but I don't think I'll make any more.  It was fun, but now I know I can, and I just won't wear it enough to make it worth it--plus the space to store it. 

 The dramatic poses in the last post was all my girls--I had a hard time getting them to look or act normally.  Instead they were lost and cursed princesses and doing their best impression of the princess from Frozen singing Let it Go.  Sigh.  Silly monkeys. 

 Ha. Ha.  I was tickling the girls' on their legs. 

 Here's the back of my dress.  And my fake hair.  Same wig/clip-on as my wedding.  Hee. Hee.

 Here's the dresses I based the girls' dresses on.  Well, a lot more than these actually.  My pinterest board was overflowing with 1630s, 1640s, 1650s, and 1660s paintings.  I've deleted almost all of them now. 

 

And this is the dress mine is loosely based on.  Again, I looked at a bunch of paintings and took pieces from all over. Plus, I started running out of fabric which kind of limits your choices anyway.  And even though I made my dress when I wasn't pregnant, it fits fine even though I'm now 6 months pregnant.  So hurrah for that.  Good times.  The girls love dressing up in their costumes!  Success!  And yes, I still have MORE pictures of our trip to the Mercer Arboretum, but mostly of the boys.  So stay tuned.