An...Eventful Weekend...

Well, well, well, odd little things can have...interesting...consequences.

My younger son, AKA the Actor, although The Drummer would be a more accurate moniker these days, gave me a clamp-on LED desk lamp for my sewing space for Christmas.

Alas, when I clamped it on and plugged it in, I discovered that the switch would not turn the light off.  It dimmed it a bit...but it didn't turn off.

So, I got him to send me the invoce/ confirmation email and planned to make a jaunt over to the west side of the state to the retailer from which he ordered it and just do an exchange...easier than trying to finagle such a thing via email. 

And, it just so happened that My Sweet Babboo was wanting to attend a black powder rifle event at the State Park lodge that was over in that same direction.

So, we cashed in some Holiday Inn Club Points on a room in Florence (Alabama, lol) and made a little event of it, planning to hit the rifle show Friday afternoon, have a nice dinner someplace in Florence Friday night, swing by Ken's Sewing Center to exchange my lamp the next day and then head home.

I took a book; told him I'd do one loop through the vendors at the rifle show with him and then read whilst he went back through to get anything that caught his eye.  He was basically looking for a ball mold to put in his frontiersman's kit...not that he would actually use it, but it would get him points in outfit judging.

Going up and down the aisles, I spotted a table that had a couple of ladies dresses...period costumes...laid over a table with the unbelievable price tag of $50 on each of them.  They were gowns with petticoats...impossible to even buy the fabric to make them for that price.  When we got around to the table, the gentlemen there said that he was reducing his participation in the black powder rendezvous events, and his wife declared she was done.  He was just trying to get rid of the stuff. "I have a whole trunk if you'd like to see it...I'll make a deal for you for all of it".  There were a number of ladies' blouses and skirts, along with a cloak and a pair of buckle shoes, plus a bag of stockings and a few men's knee breeches.

The price for the trunk and the clothes was just too good to pass up; I told him he was taking my excuse for not accompanying my hubby to his annual Appalachian Trail outreach...that I didn't have any suitable clothes.

My Sweet Babbo picked up a couple of books and other small items, although he didn't find the ball mold, and we loaded the trunk into the van and headed off for the rest of our weekend.

Had dinner in an interesting restaurant...sorta like a fondue place only the meat is cooked on a superheated rock instead of a pot of oil.  Ken's was out of stock on the lamp so they will send a replacement.  And I dumped a Grande Americano coffee all over myself and the car when the lid popped off after my 'We're getting in the car and headed home' sip.

Here are the two dresses that caught my eye; wouldn't you do a double take if you saw a $50 price tag on these?

They were machine made, albeit reportedly by a seamstress who sews for a specific historical re-enactment event (he told us which one but I've forgotten.  It wasn't one I was familiar with).  They really are at least two sizes too small for me; the guy's wife must be a tiny lady.  But the print dress has been altered to be smaller; I think I can reverse it.  Those two dresses are really fancier than is needed for the AT Blessing event, though...so I'm not even sure I will keep them.  I may put them in the costume closet at church, should we need something for an 18th century lady or two.  They are clearly not period correct but are costumes; the petticoat of the pink dress actually is brocade only on the front.  The back is plain white cotton.  There are skirts and blouses in the trunk that would be better suited for wearing with my frontiersman hubby, for all I would still need a top layer and definitely some stays to support the skirts. And I will need to make a set of pockets, lol.

I didn't photograph most of what was in the trunk; white gathered edge blouses, and skirts that were two lengths of fabric seamed together with a drawstring at the top.  I was hoping for a set of pockets, but there were none.  But there was this fantastic cloak...lined wool...

and a pair of buckle shoes which, amazingly, actually fit my feet.  

There was also a pair of moccasins, but they are going to need quite a bit of conditioning before I can tell if they'll work...they were too stiff to get my feet into them.

Plus, as I said, some pieces that I think will work for My Sweet Babboo's outfit.

There was also a  (non-period) shooter's bag, which the cat LOVED for some reason.

And all that happened because I got a lamp that needed replacing.  Had I not needed to take the lamp back, he would have just done a day trip to the state park and back; he might have gotten himself a pair or two of the breeches.  But he certainly would not have considered the dresses or the trunk.  So you never know what tiny thing will trigger a whole thing you didn't expect...

TGBSB -- Season 3 Semifinals thoughts

(Hopefully not too much of a spoiler, but you never know... consider yourself warned if you haven't seen it yet)
Wow wow and wow.


Anything can happen in the semis...
This is a very evenly matched group.

Neil...breaking stereotypes left and right, he's done exceptionally well all along and is the discussion-board  favorite to take home the golden dress form.  But he's not immune to the misaligned pattern or the not perfect embellishment...or, in the walkaway dress challenge, the unfortunate slip of the scissors.

Lorna, the consistent second-placer, is, I think, someone who sews very well within her own comfort zone.  She's branching out, though..and that refashion challenge this week had to be a big step for her.
Still, she's not experienced in the new territory and she's not inclined to practice techniques because, as she says, 'I don't like to waste material.' So her sewing is not always dead on.

I can identify with that.

I think Matt has really good technical skills; he's just inexperienced, and it shows every now and then in his fearless beginner's optimism that an idea is just going to work (like the hardware on his peacock costume).  His fit problems on the jacket were all related to the fact that he used a pattern intended to be made from a jersey knit, so the close fit did not translate well to leather. He's going to be formidable behind a sewing machine by the time his kids get to high school and involved in theater.  And, seeing as how they seem to be excited about costumes and dress-up now, I would expect them to be inclined to that.

 Deborah has a good instinct of what will and will not work, and running the slider off the end of an altered zipper  is a mistake I bet every one of us has made at some point.  My heart broke for her at that moment.  Been there, done that...knew she didn't have time to fix it.  But zippers aside, her jacket was too small for the model.  It needed a FBA.  I'm not sure the model she had didn't put her at a bit of a disadvantage; the other models were a bit less, um, curvy, so who's to say if anyone of the others would've caught and allowed for that issue?  They were allowed to cut out the jackets before they came; bit late to adjust for something as baseline as a full bust after that.  Surely they had the model's measurements to go by when they were cutting....

Paul squeaked by last week; I think if Ryan had done just one point better on his kilt...having the right underlap or having it the right height or having it the right length...he would've gone on and Paul would've gone home.  Paul was on the bubble this week and I think he was aware of it.  But the bubble was not for sure...and Patrick even owned up that there just wasn't much difference amongst most of the lace skirts.

Anyone can mess up...and anyone can do something stellar.  And two of the three going into the finals are pretty much who I expected from the beginning.  That third slot...well, it could've been any of several.


And I'm kinda sad that next week is the end....

Still No Pictures :-(

I thought I 'd be able to share some photos of the trench coat progress...I really am making some!!...but, while the new computer is up and running, the Microsoft photo editor that I was using on the old machine apparently has not been part of the upgrade and I can't edit my photos to get them into what I consider 'post worthy' shape.

So I'll give a little report.  As of this morning, I'd gotten everything done I could possibly do before making buttonholes and I pulled out the Kenmore and made some keyhole buttonholes in the pocket flaps, the sleeve tabs and the shoulder tabs.

The pockets were then staring me in the face...I'll admit, I was really intimidated by those pockets, and the directions were, at best, sketchy.  I altered the recommended process a bit; I did NOT slash the dart open until after I was satisfied with the placement of the flap and pocket bags.  All in all, it was probably easier than doing a regular welt pocket with a flap, but, well, I'd be nervous doing that, too.  Cutting into the coat front is just scary, period.

Next up on the nervous-o-meter was the collar.  I already had the collar constructed and on the band, ready to be attached, so I gulped and kept going.  It gave me some aggravation; the band was a bit bigger than the neckline.  I'm not sure why, other than after all the wrasslin' I wondered if I put 5/8" seams on the ends of the band pattern (although I don't know why, unless I thought I had to match the front or something) and then sewed it w/ 3/8" seams, which would've made it about 1/2" too big...and that's about what it seemed to be.  I need to check the pattern tracing.

But, by clipping and stretching the coat neckline and the facing neckline and workin' it, I managed to get it on and, surprisingly, it's not too awful, once it's pressed out.

But, should I decide to make another coat from this pattern, I WILL be checking that.

Current status: pressing out the lapel points and the long facing seams and catchstitching the facing/inner band  coat/outerband seams.

My Sweet Babboo has been sewing a coat, too...something called a 'Hunter's Frock', made from unbleached canvas,  for his frontiersman group.  He's using a pattern from Missouri River Patterns -- and he's handsewing it.  With a needle and linen thread.  He's been toting it around with him for the last 6 weeks or so, working on it every chance he gets, and he's farther along on it than I am on my trench.

How embarrassing.  :-)  Fortunately, I'm in the rapid progress stage; even the lining is completed and ready to go in.  If I can manage to get into the sewing nook at all in the next few days, I should have something that looks like a coat.

'Course, the finish work is all hand sewing...hemming and lotsa buttons.  So he could still beat me.

Yikes.

Watching the 'Bee... (Spoiler Warning!)

It was semi-finals on The Great British Sewing Bee today.

Yes, I'm going to talk about what happened, so if you don't want to know yet, you are excused and encouraged to close the window and come back later. ;-)

Fair warning?

Ok.

I fully expected Lynda to be one of the last three standing.  She was off to a great start in the semifinals with her adorable draped-on-the-mannequin dress that, thanks to Patrick's word of advice, she did NOT overdo.  The sleeve challenge was not so good for her, but there was still no indication of what would happen to her on the second day of the no-pattern week sewing.

My heart broke for her.  I've been there...that odd garment that creeps up every once in a while that just seems to be doomed from the start, the one that seems to get in a bigger mess as more effort is put into making it right.

And of course it's something that  just can't be ditched.

Patrick and May said before their final discussion that Lynda was inconsistent.  Well, so am I.  I'll have something that turns out spectacularly, then a row of so-so garments, then the one dud that makes me wonder why I thought I could sew.   Her horror at realizing that she did not have enough fabric to cut her dress took me back to the recent realization that I'd cut the wrong piece out of the face fabric on the trench coat.

I'll even tell you a secret...despite my checking and rechecking, somehow the very first thing I did to that coat was fuse the front interfacing to what I intended to use as the right side.

I guess I'm glad it was the first thing; if I'd done the first side as intended and THEN messed it up there'd be no fixing it.  But the coat is now being constructed matte side out instead of the shinier twilled side out.  Because, well, that's what you do...make the best of it.

And I've watched Lynda make the best of it all the way through, not only with the garments that she's won individual challenges with, but also with the ones that just didn't work.  She hung in there and did great work, so-so work and had a couple of duds.  That's sewing for most of us.

I think that's why I have enjoyed The Great British Sewing Bee so much.  It really is real folks.

I think I could've more or less kept up with the challenges up to this point, although I'm not sure how well I would've handled the 'high street transformations'. I'd just have to hope that the costumer anointing would kick in.   But today's program's no-pattern week would've been over my head.  I don't sew that way...I don't even own a dress form.  I've drafted some skirts, but that's about it.  I don't think I could do a bodice or a sleeve.  My idea of copying a garment is finding a similar pattern and altering it up.  So I don't think I'd've made it through this week.  I'm really impressed with how well those ladies did, especially given the time constraints they had. 

Delighted to see the little bit on Madeleine Vionnet!

A little help from my friends...

Ok, I got the fabric and pattern for the trench coat ages ago.

Then Marji started a coat sew along.  I followed the details on an email list as the actual blog was limited to the ladies who were doing it...and I hadn't been brave enough to jump in.  After the sew along ended, Marji made the blog public.

So, now I'm ready to make the coat.  And I checked my bookmarks and didn't find the Sew Along Blog.
Bummer.

But then I remembered...the emails... And, lo and behold, I had saved all those emails in a folder.

Woot!

I will have some guidance. :-)

The Great Coat Sew Along

The Spirit of Christmas Past

Not too long after I got married, my maternal grandmother went through a doll making phase.  Among others, she made a Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy set that she kept.  After she died in 2001, Ann and Andy went to live with my aunt, who lives in a small house and she recently decided that the dolls needed to go to another home.  They were sitting on my mom's sun room sofa when we arrived, and before the evening was over, Mom asked if would like them.


With the traditional sentiment embroidered by my Grandma herself on both of the dolls...how could I not?

It was like bringing home hugs from Grandma. I'm not sure where I'll end up putting them, and the clothes could use a bit of freshening, but just seeing them makes me smile a sunshower sort of smile.

Were You Inspired?

I know I was.  Such a delightful series.  Not perfect, too short, but delightful just the same.

I know everyone has probably already encountered the links on the web, but I wanted to put it up so my mom could find it.

So...for Mom and the few others who may not have seen the Finale yet, here it is...watch now, we'll discuss later. ;-)

My Sweet Babboo Sews

The Flute Player left rehearsal last night feeling a little queasy.  Her brother had had a digestive bug over the weekend, but I hoped we were past the incubation period for that and she was just over tired.

No such luck; she got hit hard by the bug about 1:30 this morning.  So she stayed home today and, as she just has chorus parts, she was not absolutely necessary for rehearsal tonight so the director told me to keep her home in hopes of not infecting other cast members.   I haven't gotten sick (so far, anyway), but I hit a wall after pushing so hard to sew and get the data entry from Easter done; I picked up my stack of data entry at work and brought it home when I went out to restock the ginger ale, but I haven't touched it all day.  I'm going to head to bed before 10 PM tonight...and I honestly don't remember the last time I managed that.

So, some photos that have been waiting their turn for posting...that are not about ME sewing at all.  My Sweet Babboo is a recent inductee into Frontiersmen Camping Fellowship, the auxiliary service organization for Royal Rangers, the national boys ministry of the Assembly of God churches.  Our church is not AG, but we do use the curriculum and participate in the gatherings and so he found himself in need of period appropriate gear.

After his first  winter campout, one of the things that moved to the top of his 'need' list was a coat that would keep him warm and also be suitable for a  character from the late 1700's.  The garment of choice is a capote, a coat made from a wool blanket.  He managed to get a suitable blanket from ebay, a pattern from one of the other guys in FCF, and set about hand sewing it together.  I actually offered very little advice; he did this on his own over several weeks...



He used two sinew-threaded needles at a time, criss crossing the stitches on each seam.  Tedious, but correct.  He found that the sleeves were too short and had to improvise a solution  that lengthened them without being visually disruptive and figured out a way to add cuffs to the sleeves.He finished in time to use on last week's campout, which was chilly but not cold, and came back quite pleased.

I think he did well and I'm curious to see how much other sewing he's actually going to do...

Sa-LUTE!

I can't imagine that anyone who reads my sewing blog hasn't seen this, but just in case, you've GOT to check out Birgitte's Balmain knock-off.

I don't think I'll ever attempt such a feat; I'm still trying to get it together enough to make my very own plain Jane trench coat. But, oh, to dream of making something so completely jaw-dropping!

Birgitte at Bubblegum 4 Breakfast, I salute you!!! ;)

A Twinge of Guilt

But not for what you'd think.

Ya'll, I actually went out and bought a denim jacket today.

I don't think I've bought a jacket for myself since the Amazing Jacket and Dress Deal I found on the clearance rack at Dillards...6 years ago?

But I got an email advertisement from Coldwater Creek featuring a denim jacket that I had to go check out at the local CWC shop. The one that opened...a year and a half ago?...that I hadn't been in yet.

Anyway, I had an errand to do that was sort of near the fancy shopping center where CWC is located, so I went ahead and ran over while I was in that neck of the woods.
It took me a while to find the denim version of the jacket; they also had it in two jacquards (orange and purple), but denim was what I wanted.

A size 12P fit fairly well and looked good. Knowing how much I've worn my Vogue Denim Jacket, I figured I'd wear this one bunches and bunches, too. And, looking at all the details on it, I will tell you straight up that $40 is worth not sewing it myself. I didn't feel the least bit guilty over that. In fact, I was congratulating myself because my sewing abilities allowed me to recognize a great buy when I found it.

But after I got home with it, I looked at the care label and found that it was made in China. And I wondered...who made my lovely jacket? Did I just contribute to an abusive system?

I don't know...and I can't do much about it at this point. But I can, every time I put that jacket on, pray for the unknown sewing machine operator and his/her co-workers. It is the least I can do, when she/he made such a nice little jacket for me to run around in.

Lookit Him Sew...

I had to take pictures.

Last March, My Sweet Baboo went off for a long weekend and took a knife crafting class taught by a master craftsman in Missouri. He came home with a pretty fancy knife in a case, but he wanted to make a sheath for it.

Sir Senior Ranger Commander happened to have some leather scraps about, and, last weekend, MSB put it all together:


And here he is with the finished project:

Technically, he cheated by pre-drilling the holes for the needle in the leather before he started sewing it, if he really wanted it to be Authentic for the frontiersmen's fellowship group...but he's not that picky. There are three different pieces of leather involved, ranging from Stiff As a Board to Lovely and Soft in hand. It was interesting to see how he did it.

For being a relative novice at these things, I think he did pretty well!

Not For Cowards

I don't know how many of you folks have the comic strip Luann in your newspaper, but there was a series a few weeks back that made me smile; I thought I'd share the main smile...

There is a boy, Gunther, that kind of likes Luann, but she (and her friends) think he's a bit nerdy. He refuses to believe it's because he wears one of several identical shirts every day; could it be his hobbies? He does magic shows for little kids, draw cartoons, and sews costumes for Luann to wear while she's doing story time at the local library.

Check out his defense of his hobbies... sewing is not for cowards! ;)

No Pressure

At least compared to some folks, my costuming efforts are rather low-key.

Oldest DD read the following aloud to me from yesterday's Parade Magazine (Sunday paper insert), from the 'Personality Parade' (Q&A) page:

Q: I love the gorgeous clothes...the..women have worn this season on Dancing With the Stars. Where do they get them?

A: They're made from scratch. 'After Tuesday's eliminations, we spend just 15 minutes with each contestant to design new outfits,' says Randall Christensen, the show's head designer. 'We shop on Wednesday, sew on Thursday, fit on Friday, apply glitter on Saturday, do a final fit on Sunday, and dress the dancers two hours before airtime on Monday.'

Wow. That's pressure!! I wonder how many seamstresses/tailors he has working for him?

Maybe I should fire up the TV and watch at least one episode, just to see the costumes?

I am *Such* a Weenie

The next thing on the Queue is the Chopin Blouse. Another sort of Edwardian silhouette with high collar, full sleeves, long cuffs and peplum shaping. It's a fussy blouse, with shirred over panels on both the collar and cuffs. I've made it before, but I skipped the shirring, just cut the under collar/cuff pieces on the bias for the upper collar/cuff.

I'm still skipping the interesting horizontal pockets; I think they'd get lost on the striped fabric. But this blouse is going to have the shirred pieces...the upper collar/cuffs are cut on the bias, about twice the height of the under collar/cuffs, and shirred in three places to a paper template, then narrow strips of fabric (which have been folded in thirds to enclose the raw edges) are top stitched over the gathering. Finally, the paper template is removed and the upper collar/cuff is sewn RST to the under collar/cuff and turned right side out. Proceed as normal.

I've decided I'm going to tackle that bit of the blouse first...get the fussy stuff out of the way...and I'm dragging my feet. I'm not particularly patient w/fiddly stuff; as a Sanguine, I'm way more into fast-and-furious git 'r done sewing. But I *want* this blouse, it'll be fabulous. So I'm a little frustrated with my whiney foot dragging.

Especially after seeing Summerset's final 'Midnight Garden' photos (if you haven't seen them yet, click on that link. NOW. And click on her photos to enlarge them so you can see the details.) She imagined that outfit, then did all of that embellishment...from the silver quilting to the hand appliqued flowers to the individually stitched beading on all the edges. She embossed the velvet and created the little lace cricket. There are details on the lining you can't see. She started and stopped and rethought and redesigned elements more than once in the process. And she finished by her deadline. It's not garment sewing...it's art. And it's amazing.

So how can I fret about a little fiddly shirring in the face of such an epic of couture level sewing?

I will not have a car today, so I'm At Home until this evening. By golly, I'm going to get those shirred pieces done...

Wednesday Inspiration

It's Wednesday and I've got a really, really bad cold. Or sinus infection.
And there's a week and a half left before we head out of town; I've got a couple of Christmas gifts I've got to get cracking on and a white shirt that's only about 1/3 done (the collar's on it now); it had spent the last week lying on the sewing machine bed waiting on the final dart when I sat down to work on it yesterday.

So I'm not inspiring nobody this week; I'm just drinking liquids and taking decongestants and hoping this goes away without a trip to the doctor.

But that's not to say there isn't inspiring stuff going on. Go look at what Laura made last week (scroll down a bit; her week of sewing photos start with the coat). She didn't even take time off of work!

Amazing. If there was such a thing as a 'Fabulous Flying Needle' award, I'd give it to Laura this week! Go enjoy her work!

Fabulous Jackets

Time for a little click clicking, although I imagine most of you have already seen these...

I've just been blown away by the fabulous jackets that have been finished up and posted by a number of ladies who each qualify as a Sewing Enthusiast Extraordinaire. I'm feeling the urge to do something lovely and spectacular (keep in mind, that is a relative term) and I *really* just need to keep plugging away at the stash slashing.

Boy, have I learned a lesson about the impact of a single day of stashly indulgence. I am determined to sew up the fabric equivalent, but when I see wonderful creations like these it makes me want to chuck the whole Queue and do something tailored and gorgeous...or at least try.

Anyway, without further ado, if you haven't seen these jackets yet (they've all been finished within the past week!) go look:

Carolyn's Modified Simplicity Jacket
Erica B's Chanel-style Jacket
Lauralo's Chanel-style Jacket
Tany's Purple Jacket
Busy Mom's Brown Tweed Jacket

Kay doesn't blog (that I'm aware of, anyway), but she posted her photos in a Flickr album:
Kay's Ms Stylebook Jacket

This one's not quite as recent, but it's Fabulous all the same. Dawn was just ahead of the curve:
Dawn's Glen Plaid Jacket


So, yes, I will go back and work on the Queue; I will make a set of flannel sheets; and I will dream about the jacket I'll make when I've got that list done...

Time Warp: Ritual Cloth

Enter the Time Machine with me and travel back to June of '06, and heed the (then-on-Blogger) Sewing Divas' Call for Posts on Ritual Cloth. At that time, I scrounged around in boxes looking for a particular shirt that had been made by my grandmother and completely failed to find it. So, instead, I posted about my sewing grandmas,here and here, if you missed those posts. But, lo and behold, I did find the missing shirt and thought I would rather belatedly share it.





Grandma made shirts like this for almost all her grandchildren sometime in the 1975-1976 time frame. This shirt was meant for my sister and me to share, but it fit me better so I ended up with it. On looking at it more closely today, I can see that some of my assumptions about how she made it were not correct. I thought she'd done a variation of the stitch-and-flip crazy patch, but, since there's only one row of zig-zag stitching visible on the underlining, I believe she cut the shirt front and back pieces from the backing fabric (which, knowing Grandma, could've been old bedsheets...but the thread count looks pretty low for sheeting), then cut the scraps to size, pressed all the raw edges under, and zig-zagged them to to the underlining. The sleeves were not underlined; she cut rectangles of fabric and straight-seamed them together, then pressed the seam allowances to one side and topstitched it with a zig-zag stitch. I believe she did that to create the 'sleeve fabric', then cut the sleeves from the resulting yardage. (She may have sewn yards of that together and cut all the sleeves at once...hard to tell, now. I know she made somewhere in the vicinity of 10 shirts. It's a pity we never all wore the shirts to one of her regularly scheduled Sunday Family Dinners and took a picture.) The buttons are all the same half-ball shank style, but they are different colors.

I (and my sister...a time or two, anyway) really and truly wore that shirt in the late 70's...didn't get any strange looks, either. A few years later I used it as part of an outfit I wore as a clown for various church activities; it didn't get truly retired until the mid 90's when the preggy fluff I gained with baby #3 took up permanent residence on my body and the shirt no longer buttoned comfortably. So it could easily have been 15 years since this shirt was last actually worn on a body.

But, even though the underlining is shredding and disappearing, this is one garment that will likely hang around for a long, long time... ;)

Homage to an Unknown Seamstress

I've mentioned before that we received a number of boxes of Scrooge costumes from a church in Florida; some in '04 and the rest (the ones they couldn't find in '04) in '05. It's sort of a long story, but our senior co-pastors had been on staff at that church years ago when they did the production, and when the Florida church sold their old building they sent us the costumes. However, they didn't just send us their Dickens things...they sent EVERYTHING. Some of it was really...wow...not useable; some of it we still haven't quite figured out, but this jacket turned up apparently in those boxes and I would love to know who made it:



It's quite old; the lining used to be grey and it has multiple small places where the moths have chewed it, but it's an amazing jacket. Look at the collar detail...the tab pulled through the bias outer strip:



It also has pockets incorporated w/the shoulder princess seam:



There's also a small cuff (turn-back) on the sleeves. I'll guess it to be about a size 12-14 ...it's too big in the shoulders on me, but fits well everywhere else. Does anyone recognize the pattern? I expect it is a Vogue design, based on the tab and the details, but there's really no way to tell.

I've used it on stage once...on a manequin for one of the Uplink sets, over a lime green sheath dress (we do have some odd stuff in those costumes). It's not really useable, due to the moth holes, but I really don't know if I can put such a nicely made piece out in the trash...I'm far too impressed by the beautiful work someone did on it a long time ago.