The Crafty Side of Life: Spencer

Saturday, December 20, 2025

Spencer

A regency/Napoleonic era, that is.

For the longest time, something to wear over these dresses, was missing from my historical wardrobe.

In August, feeling that I finally broke through the block I was struggling with at the first half of this year, and I actually I felt like "I WANT TO sew".

Not that I had much time, as I had (paying) work and other things gnawing on my time, but when the muse hits, you just need to obey, otherwise she might leave you again.

So I needed a piece of clothing, and I felt the urge to sew, now I needed fabric. I know, I know, it is pretty unlikely, that there is a piece of clothing I do not have at least three fabric ready, but th ething is, what I had was eaither too much... or too little. See, I wrote about the fact that since I started to do historical dresses, I buy fabric differently, especially, in different amounts. Okay, I buy more of it. And yes, I have a big piece, several meters of embroidered microcord, but what if I cut off the 1,8 meters I need, and then that will be the amount missing if I want to do a bigger piece? I was going around in the fabric stores to look for something special, but there wasn't anything catching my fancy. So, the purple courdory it is, and I went over the haberdashery, bought a bunch of decorations, went home, and then I found the perfect length of a taffeta, in a totally different color. Okay, but that would need different decorations, and it was the weekend, and the haberdashery was closed for the weekend.

I was munching on what to do for literally two days, even whined about (late at night over messenger) to my friend... but then, after much deliberatuon, I stayed with the purple stuff, as the fabric for the dress I wanted to use with the spencer was purple patterned anyway (see the dress HERE).

Fortunately, I found a piece of taffeta in my stash in the same color, which I used as a "contrast" fabric for the collar, the cuffs and the peplum.

I used the pattern I bought from the Black Snail company.

I added some decorations, mainly soutache (I love soutaches, ever since I made my Hungarian dress), though I could not find real soutache cord in purple, but this twisted one, and sateen and velvet ribbons.

There was one bigger change: I made different oversleeves. You all probably know by now, that renaissance slashed sleeves are my weaknesses, and I try to incorporate them whenever I can. fortunately, many later periods reach back for that style, the regency included.