Celebrating 20 Years of the Regency Gown Pattern!
21 years ago, two customers, harp-playing sisters who loved to wear beautiful gowns while they performed, dropped me a line to ask if I'd consider bringing out patterns for some of my designs. At that point, I'd been filling custom sewing orders for about 18 months, mainly catering to the Regency/Napoleonic groups in the D.C. area by making day dresses and ball gowns. I'd also fallen in love with Regency fashions for everyday wear, finding them an excellent match for my expectant silhouette in 1997! But, while I designed patterns for my customers and myself, I hadn't considered publishing any of them. After all, that was what Big Companies did, and how could I possibly compete in a market that was positively flooded with patterns? That's when the sisters gave me something to think about: "You need to design patterns that even beginners can sew," they said. "So many of the steps in the 'big' patterns are confusing or inadequately explained. Why not write instructions that make sense and have plenty of illustrations?" Well, that sounded like a wonderful challenge, so I jumped in, and the result was my
, inspired chiefly by the two extant gowns you see below, but also drawing on a few other gowns I'd seen in books from our local library (Google didn't exist in 1997, and the web was a tiny place without many resources for historical costumers!). And, yes, all those amazing Jane Austen film adaptations that came out between 1994 and 1997 certainly helped stoke the fire!
