Dress

The last couple of days have been dedicated to dressmaking and French Canadian ancestry researching. The dress is growing quickly and I shall hand stitch the zipper this evening. Just waiting for the children for Halloween - I think I will be glad that I only bought one box of candy since it is now 6:49 p.m. and not one child yet. We didn't decorate our house though and perhaps they are passing us by thinking we might not have candy. I can remember being a child and not going to houses with older people in them! Hopefully I will find someone to eat all the candy!

The dress is looking like a velvet dress and will be warm - that was my criteria actually. It is flowing nicely and will be quite suitable for the wedding and I probably could wear it again in the evenings sometimes. We are really enjoying dancing and are thinking of taking the next nine sets of courses over the next few years. Both being loners it is nice to have an activity like dancing that we can do together and even go out dancing if we want to do that. We tend to get very busy though and going out is something that we seldom do do.

I have been looking at tartan material as I would like to make a kilt (full length) and I will smock a top to represent my first ancestors to Canada - Routledge. The Sutherland tartan is used by the Routledge family now unless you are so lucky to find the Routledge tartan. The Routledge family were Highlanders but came down to Cumberland in the 1300s - 1400s. A very very long time ago - I suspect they were probably a very small clan and as the clans merged together they didn't fit in and they moved south. My own section of the Routledge family is mainly the socalled Oakshaw Routledge family. They tended to marry Routledge and usually a first, second, third, etc. cousin. Hence I have seven Routledge lines that have not yet come back together but I suspect they eventually will do so just from family lore. My 2x great grandmother had five of her eight grandparents (and likely six actually) known to have the Routledge surname at birth. One wonders if I will discover a Routledge in the two lines that are not - Tweddle and Robson!

Tomorrow I need to finish the dress - I still need to hang the skirt lining in and will do that after I have hand stitched the invisible zipper. Then just hemming the dress with my new shoes on and I will have completed it. However, I have enough velvet material to make a matching shawl so will do that (line it with the lining and trim it with fur - my daughter's suggestion and I rather think it is a good idea. It will certainly be different.