I am a huge Jackie admirer, and am always interested in First Ladies (Abigail Adams and I have a com

As soon as I learned I was traveling to Washington, D.C., my thoughts instantly turned to what I would wear!  And since I love to reproduce costumes carnival cruise line home page when I'm visiting carnival cruise line home page historic landmarks, I definitely knew I just had to recreate a First Lady's dress for the occasion!  The first criteria carnival cruise line home page for this project was, "What is a famous dress that people will instantly recognize as a First Lady's outfit?"  Secondly, I asked myself, "How in the world will I fit a First Lady's dress in my suitcase?"  Thankfully there was an easy answer to both these questions!
The most famous First Lady s dress  ever worn was Jacqueline Kennedy's pink Chanel/Chez Ninon suit which is now stored carnival cruise line home page in a vault in the National Archives.  While she wore this dress for numerous occasions carnival cruise line home page during her husband's administration, it is best remembered for the fateful day in Dallas when his presidency came to an unexpected end.
This suit is so famous, in fact, that it has an entire Wikipedia page devoted carnival cruise line home page entirely to its history!  There's also an excellent website ( www.pinkpillbox.com ) which contains fascinating information about the details of this outfit.  I do wish this costume carnival cruise line home page was associated with a happier event, but I hope you'll understand that I am sewing this as a tribute to First Lady's history in general, and not as a remembrance of a president's funeral.
I ll talk all about the dress in a minute, but first I wanted to mention how I was able to have the pictures taken on the South Lawn of the White House!  Immediately upon planning carnival cruise line home page our trip, I had applied with our Congressman to take a tour of the White House and get all the necessary preparations done for the visit (background checks, etc.).  We were all squared away to go when, (just a few weeks before our trip), all White House tours were canceled!  Oh, I was so utterly disappointed!  After all, I ve been to Washington, D.C. something like twenty times, but never once in all my years have I been able to actually go inside this historic carnival cruise line home page building.  Each time I d been in D.C. I d peered through the iron gates and dreamed of going inside, but never once set foot in America s most famous house.
Instead, I had to content myself with studying every White House DVD and book I could get my hands on by the time I was in high school I had the entire White House layout memorized and could tell you which presidential paintings hung in which reception carnival cruise line home page rooms.  I knew that the Red Room was Nancy Reagan s favorite location to entertain guests, while Dolly Madison had been partial to the Blue Room except that back then it was actually a yellow room!  So as you can imagine, I was positively heartbroken when I found out that America could no longer afford to let its citizens inside this home!  Nevertheless, I continued to sew my Jacqueline Kennedy suit in hopes that I could at least have it photographed at the Capitol building while in D.C.
While in the Denver airport on our first layover, I just happened carnival cruise line home page to check my emails carnival cruise line home page and saw the most unexpected message!  It was from our Congressman s office and read, Hey Katrina, I know it may not be what you're looking for, but I can offer you tickets to Spring Garden Event this weekend.  The White House Gardens and Grounds will be open Saturday, April 13 th and Sunday, April 14 th during which time guests will have the opportunity to view firsthand the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, the Rose Garden, and the South Lawn of the White House.  Additionally, the First Lady's Kitchen Garden and Apiary will be accessible to guests. I know it's short notice, but our office will be distributing tickets tomorrow in our suite if you're interested.  Let me know! ~Paul
This design is straightforward enough, but since the lapels of the 1960s were different than women's suits of today I absolutely could not find a replica pattern that is currently carnival cruise line home page in print.  I finally carnival cruise line home page found a vintage 1960s suit pattern on www.etsy.com that had just what I was looking for – double-breasted jacket, boxy cut, three-quarter length sleeves, and a fitted, knee-length skirt.  This particular pattern I used is Advance carnival cruise line home page 2858 , and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.  I will say that the jacket has a lot more room than the pattern illustration showed (and consequently more than Jackie s suit, too).  The skirt, as well, looked much slimmer and more tapered on the pattern cover, but of course pattern drawings are just the artist carnival cruise line home page s rendition of a design and don t necessarily reflect the real fit.
I should say that I generally dislike everything about the 1960s just as much as I adore the styles of the 1950s!  After all, why in the world should you make a jacket ten inches bigger than your waist measurement when a fitted jacket would look much more becoming?  I think it is quite sad that the 1960s styles tended towards unfeminine, almost harsh cuts of dresses and suits when the hourglassy "New Look" from a decade before made women look soooo much prettier!  However, carnival cruise line home page I do understand that Jackie Kennedy was either pregnant or post-partum for a large portion of her time in the White House, so it would have been much easier to conceal the "expectant mother" look in a more non-descript sort of jacket.
What she lacked in ruffles and frills, she made up for in fabulous pillbox hats!  Oh, but her hats were gorgeous!  No one knows what happened to the particular pink hat she was wearing on that fateful day in Dallas, but we do have some excellent photos of it.  I whipped this hat out at 4:00 am the same morning that I flew out of town, so I had to just go with my first draft of the pattern!  I ran out of navy trim to wrap around the top of the hat, but I think it still has that definitive "Jackie" look to it!
Jacqueline Kennedy's original suit was made of a pink wool boucle.  First Lady Jackie described this shade of pink as " raspberry".  Honestly, carnival cruise line home page it has been hard for me to determine carnival cruise line home page exactly what shade the dress would have been in real life, because various pictures of this outfit can look fuschia pink, baby pink, or almost coral pink depending on the lighting and setting the photos were taken in.  When it came to finding the fabric, I had a remarkably challenging time!  I looked online and in a local fabric store for literally months, but I never did find something which seemed the exact same color of pink.  In the end, I had to settle for something which was fairly carnival cruise line home page close but not exact.  I was able to find nearly exact replicas of the buttons, though!  They are gold in the center with a narrow rim of navy blue along the outside.
The only downside of the White House Spring Garden tour was that somewhere carnival cruise line home page along the way people started asking to get their pictures taken with me.  Of course I was very polite about it and posed for lots of photos with a variety of tourists, but it was kind of strange to be in pictures with people you d never met before!  One of the White House park rangers asked to take my picture, and a number of people thought I was a hostess on hand to greet the guests.    On my way out of the White House and through D.C. one woman came dashing out of her vehicle saying, I know who you are!  You re Jackie!  I need to get my picture with you!   Needless to say, I promptly changed back into a normal dress back at my hotel!
But I was, I ll admit, very excited when people instantly recognized the outfit and hairdo.  As soon as I was going through security to enter the White House premises, one of the guards said, You re Jackie, right?   For months carnival cruise line home page I d had no worries about the outcome of the dress, but the real victory of the day was pulling off a Jacqueline Kennedy hairstyle.  It was well worth getting several inches cut off and using half the hairspray in Washington, D.C.!  My hair still smelled like mousse for a few days afterwards, but I will always have fond memories of that Jackie hairdo and the remarkable time at the White House.
I would like to end this post with a tribute to the brave men who have fought for our country over the years.  Since I have relatives carnival cruise line home page in the military myself, it means so much more when I see the Iwo Jima memorial and the Arlington Cemetery.  To all the men who have served America and fought to defend our freedoms, I would like to give the greatest thanks!  May we live lives worthy of the sacrifices they ve made .
What a wonderful adventure, Katrina! Your whole ensemble (down to the gloves and hat) is beautiful, and I know people loved seeing carnival cruise line home page you all dressed up. So sorry you couldn t tour the inside of the house, but how special to get the special tickets for the garden and grounds!
My friend and I wore colonial carnival cruise line home page gowns to visit Williamsburg and we were mobbed by people wanting photographs with us! It was exhausting but a lot of fun. I guess when you dress up you kind of have to expect that I m sure the White House tourists thought they were in for a real treat!
carnival cruise line home page Thank you so much, Ladies! It was so surreal to wear it at the White House. Emily, in response to your question, carnival cruise line home page I don t know! I worked on it for several weeks (at a few hours at a time), but I think it s safe to say that the project took at least twelve hours or so.
What an amazing story. My novel THE PINK SUIT comes out in April 2014, Little, Brown (US) and Virago (UK). You should come join us on facebook and bring your friends. Would love to interview you about this! Best Nicole Love the Pink Pillbox hat guys, btw!
Oh, Katrina! I have been a devoted fan of yours for quite a while now. You are so creative and have such energy and enthusiasm in everything you do. I love to see someone dream a dream, and then pursue it with constancy and vigor it is so inspiring!
I am a huge Jackie admirer, and am always interested in First Ladies (Abigail Adams and I have a common ancestor). I have never been to Washington D.C., but it is a dream of mine to go and see everything.
Your iconic suit is *amazing*. I am not in the least surprised that it affected people the way it did. You might be interested in checking out the reproduction li