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1912 Egyptian Revival Gown with Scarab Belt and Pith Helmet

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A 1912-style gown. The underdress is a sandy golden yellow color, with an Egyptian geometrical pattern on the fabric. It has a shallow scoop neck, short sleeves and a long, tube-shaped skirt that falls to the floor. It is gathered slightly above the waist with a wide gold sash, decorated at the front with a large brooch depicting a jeweled blue scarab holding an orange sun and adorned on both sides with a multi-colored wing pattern. At the bodice and at the hem are an Egyptian fan pattern done in small rhinestones. Over this is an overdress made of white lace patterned with Egyptian geometrical patterns and lotuses. The overdress is like a shawl over the bodice, opening at the front to show the fan pattern at the neckline, and going under the belt. It covers most of the underskirt, and opens in the front to show the fan pattern and the drape of the underskirt. There is a pith helmet to go with it, which is about the same color as the dress, but slightly darker and with a more utilitarian texture. Around the crown of the hat is a line of rhinestones.So, this one requires an explanation. A 1912 gown won my poll handily, and then I did a contest to determine who would direct its coloring and patterning. 13 people entered, including my husband Brian, who posted the first comment. Brian is a big Animal Crossing fan, and one of the things you can do in that game is catch different kinds of bugs. He caught a wharf roach, which he warns me, and I will pass the warning on to you, not to google it unless you like really ugly looking bugs. Then one of the animals who lives in his village said “So I’m thinkin’ of basing a design on a wharf roach.” This tickled his fancy, and he produced this image. He also gleefully informed me that, should he win, he wanted a wharf roach themed dress.

I chose the winner by random number using random.org. I just made a list of everyone in the order they’d posted, assigned them a number and hit the button. Brian was #1, and as I hit the button, I thought “Not 1, not 1, not 1.”

He was kind to me, though. He didn’t actually order me to make wharf-roach themed lace. Instead, what he said he wanted was an Egyptian-themed dress with a scarab beetle on it. I was actually happy about this, because as it happened, I had seen some lovely Egyptian Revival 1912 gowns when drawing the sketch for this one. He left it mostly up to me, but said that he wanted it to be a sand color, and he specifically wanted a pith helmet. In his imagination, this dress belongs to the least practical Egyptologist in the world. She’s spending her inheritance looking for lost tombs. That’s right — she got her money from her mummy! (Blame Brian for that one.)

Now that this contest is over, let’s move on to the next one!

poll by twiigs.com

Next week, you can look forward to a mermaid tail! Until then, follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest for site updates, previews and thoughts on what I’m doing lately. If you enjoy my work, I’d also appreciate your support through Patreon.

1912 Dress Contest

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A dress with a lace overskirt and bodice over an embroidered underdress. It is gathered slightly above the waist with a wide sash and a large rose at the front.The bad news is that I put off this Friday’s dress too long, intending to work on it on Thursday, and then didn’t have the time on Thursday that I thought I would. I should be able to post it tomorrow, and I’m sorry for the wait.

The good news is that I’m going to start the contest anyway! In my poll earlier this month, 1910s dresses trounced the competition. Since I added the detail that these were Titanic-era dresses, I looked to 1912 fashions for inspiration. As always, the winner of this contest will get to tell me how to color this gown. This is just a sketch, meaning that the decorations are just placeholders: my intention is that the part bordered with the scalloped edge will be a very detailed lace pattern, and the scroll designs are also subject to change. If the contest winner likes, I’m open to suggestions for what the patterns and lace should look like.

The contest will run until noon on Thursday, March 27, and the winner will be picked by a random number generator. If you’ve won one of my contests this year, please don’t enter this one.

To enter, please post one comment answering this question: Between the cast of Titanic and the cast of Downton Abbey, who would win in a fight? You can define “fight” however you like, if you’re so inclined: the old-fashioned criteria of “no weapons, knee deep in mud, last one standing,” or perhaps the battles would involve snarky quips, salad forks, dance prowess, making the other side cry with tragic love stories — you tell me which story set in 1912 reigns supreme and, if you like, why.

White Regency Gown with Blue Wrap, Red Roses and Forget Me Nots for Valentine’s Day

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A white regency gown trimmed with white lace at the neck and sleeves. The sleeves are gently puffed and the bodice is ruched, trimmed on the right side with red roses and blue forget-me-nots. Under the bust is a pink ribbon sash decorated with a scroll pattern. The dress fabric is decorated with small embroidered white flowers, then at the edge of the skirt are pink swags, trimmed with lace, with pink hearts, red roses and blue forget-me-nots at the top of each swag. Intricate white embroidery surrounds the flowers. Under the swags are pleated frills that fan out to the ground and are trimmed with white lace. Long white gloves are attached to the outfit, and there is a blue wrap over the arms that is decorated with a shiny gold paisley pattern. At the neck is a thin gold chain and a pearl pendant.Happy Valentine’s Day! Here is my gift to all my beloved readers, whether you’ve just found my page recently or have been following me for a while. I’ve been drawing on and off for a long time now, but it’s been off a lot more than it’s been on. That means I have very patient fans, so I wanted to do something extra pretty for all of you!

This gown is not based on any particular Regency style, so it is more of a costume than a historically accurate dress. I also tried some new coloring tricks with this one. I use Photoshop’s paths tool to make the lines so nice and clean, but it doesn’t really lend itself to details, so the roses and a lot of other details were drawn in Procreate, my iPad drawing app.

The medieval dress I posted last week was the result of January’s contest — want to help decide what the next theme will be, and maybe get the chance to pick out the coloring yourself? I’m currently running February’s poll over Twitter! I’ve tweeted three categories to choose from, so if you’re using Twitter just follow me and tweet your favorite category. (Don’t forget to include my username, @LianaPaperDolls, so I can see it.) I’ll draw a gown from the winning category and start the contest over Twitter next week!

Come back next week for a outfit based on one of the most popular dramas on Japanese TV! As always, you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest for update notifications, peeks into how I work, thoughts about designing paper dolls and pretty pictures of jewelry. If you enjoy my work, I’d also appreciate your support through Patreon. If I can rustle up a few more patrons, I’ll be able to post a bonus dress!

Ivory Lace Dress

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A sleeveless ivory dress with a lace peplum and a ruffle around the knees. It's covered in ivory lace with a butterfly pattern.Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Note to self: don’t leave planning until 8:30 PM. To try to ease the pain of using this dress once more, I shortened the skirt a bit. I wanted to try making it look like white lace over an ivory background, and I don’t think I quite succeeded, but I’m glad I had a chance to practice. It’s new territory for me, after all.