First off I want to apologize for a lack of bloggage these last couple weeks...What with the holidays, and starting a new job, and well I was waiting to gather the needed materials for my next project, there hasn't been much to blog about.

After finishing the niece's dress I decided I wanted to do something more fancier for myself. I am currently still deciding my persona but am leaning towards an early tudor persona...So having looked up various sites with pictures and patterns and well a whole lotta everything I came across the Mary of Hapsburg dress. Now this dress struck my intrest at first for only one reason...She was the Queen of Hungary...Yeah I know, what is the significance of that you ask...Well my husband was born in Budapest so I thought something from his history would be fitting...After looking at the pictures and pattern layout for the dress, I contacted my Shire's bestest sewer to ask her opinion...Could I as a beginner sewer pull this off...She said yes! and she would help if I needed it! WOOT!!

I then started to think about what fabric I wanted to go with. I played around with color combinations and looked at many fabric retail sites before setting my sights on a beautiful bolt of Champagne colored Jaquard...Hmm what to pair it with...Oh lookie! Some real pretty royal blue damask...Ok so I whipped out the plastic and ordered the fabric...

Oh snap, forgot to get some fabric for the shirt piece...I go to Walmart with my sister and she grabs my arm to pull me away mumbling something about $5 5 yd material bolts...So I do a spin and head to the table picking through the white fabric till I find one I like...Yes! Got it all..I get home and realize crap I forgot the linen material for the hem duster...Oh well I can get that at a later date.

So I go back to looking at the pictures and the pattern thinking to myself "how the heck do I do this". Then I realize that I have no clue who Mary of Hapsburg is. I know she got married in 1526 but that was all...

So I bust out the Google search engine and punch in her name and Wahla! thank you wikipedia...I spend the next few hours reading up on who the lady was....The more I read the more excited I got. Married to King Louis II but only married a short time and childess, when he died she became the regent of Hungary appointed by her brother The Holy Emporer. She was then later Govenor of the Netherlands and of her niece's though did not enjoy the role of power having asked her brother repeatly to withdraw from the position but was denied...Yes soo much more to this lady's story, but that is for another blog and well for my documentation for this dress should it come out well enough to enter into a competion.

So back to the dress....I also learned that she lacked the Burgundian charm possessed by her grandmother, Duchess Mary of Burgandy and her aunt Margaret. So this led me to believe that this dress was most likely a variation of the Burgundian style dress that was popular in the late 1400's early 1500's...So I ordered the Burgundian dress pattern from Reconstructing History to help with the construction of the dress. I plan on making alterations in the right areas so that my dress will resemble more of her wedding dress (well as best as I can hope to). So now I have everything I need including my recently fixed sewing machine and I believe I may be ready to go...

Now as you know this dress may take me a while so forgive me if the blogs are spaced...I will keep you posted on the process so stay tuned!!