Very Overdue Post

I have no real excuse for my prolonged silence. I have been busy, but who hasn't? I also haven't been sewing as much lately, but I do have some things to post about, some more complete than others.

First, I will show you the current status of my Elizabethan gown. (Yes, I still very much plan to finish it in all its intended glory, but no, I haven't worked on it much since the ACC ended because I've needed to focus on other things...and I needed a break.)




Obviously, my progress since last post is making the bodice, attaching it to the skirt, and putting on the trim. It is not modeled on my dummy because she just doesn't squish the right way to fit into this. Besides, I have not sewn the rings with which this will lace up to the inside of the bodice yet. I believe the neckline needs work, but won't know for sure until I can lace it tightly onto my body because it will squish me into a rather unnatural shape. (The things we do for beauty.) And (also obviously), I need to finish the arm holes. I intend those loopy things whose name I don't know (if any of my readers would like to enlighten me, feel free) and a detachable sleeve. The jury's out whether it should be slashed and show my lovely floaty undersleeve or whether it should be a fairly tight sleeve. Either way, it will be made from the gold brocade of the underskirt.

The other thing left to do to this gown is to sew thousands (I don't think I'm exaggerating) of tiny artificial pearls all over the trim, but I will probably wear it before I manage that. Let's be honest--it will most likely take several months for me to sew on all those pearls.

By the way, my girdle belt is partly made and promises to be quite lovely (in my biased opinion), but there's a little work I need my husband to do before I can put it the rest of the way together. That could be a little while because he has a ton of stuff on his plate including putting up a fence to protect the honeybees we'll be bringing home next week.

But I digress. Next, we have the Regency gown I made for the Regency Romance Ball, put on by the Old Glory Vintage Dancers, Mask Costumes, and the Jane Austen Society (you can learn more about them on the Regency Romance Ball website). I ended up being in a huge hurry, so I mostly made it in a matter of two days. This is how it looked the first night of the ball:





I was rather pleased with it for being made in such a hurry, but I had a few neckline issues. Also, I was planning on 3 or so horizontal pleats encircling the skirt 2-3 inches above the hem, but I didn't have time for that before the ball, effectively making my skirt too long. So that I would be able to dance, I safety-pinned it up in the tucks you see. They were hastily and unevenly done, but people liked the general look, so I decided to change my plan for the skirt.

Before the second night of the ball, I pinned some lace in the bodice, measured the tucks much more carefully, and sewed them in. I don't have pictures of that, but after the ball was completely over, I added some very simple hand embroidery to the neckline, waist, and hem, and I sewed a few pearls on at the tucks in the skirt and sleeves. I did not sew the lace in more permanently because I would prefer to be able to remove it when I launder the dress. Here are the pictures of all those changes together.






As I said, I'm fairly pleased with this gown, but I have to admit that, due to time constraints at the time, I used the bodice from a completely modern pattern I have that was roughly the right shape. And I'm completely pleased with the front. Necklines were usually lower at that time, but I'm just not going to wear it that way, so I wouldn't change that. But at some future time, when I make another Regency gown much more carefully, I will make a new pattern for the back to get the seam lines right and to raise the back waist. It's okay that it's lower than the front, but it's a little too low.

On a side note, I was broke at the time that I needed this dress (yes, needed because I was committed to help teach dance at the ball), so I used fabric I happened to have. I was actually rather lucky that I had anything of a good weight and hand for this type of dress. Silk would have been better for evening wear than this cotton blend, but I really couldn't afford that. And the fabric I used really did look quite nice and was very comfortable to dance in. I also used fake pearls I had on hand already and stole some of the lace I intended for the partlet of my Elizabethan gown.

Jon's costume for the ball was okay, but left something to be desired. We had to do the best we could with costume pieces we had on hand. Someday, I am quite determined to make him an accurate Regency coat, waistcoat, fall-front breeches, shirt--the works. I think he would look pretty hot in that.

In the coming months, anyone who is still reading this can look forward to my Civil War ballgown finally being made (I am quite determined to stop wearing the one that was not made for me and, therefore, does not fit very well), a somewhat elaborate steampunk costume for Salt City Steam Fest (you know you want to come!), and eventually conquering my Elizabethan nemesis. Oh, and even farther in the future, I will make the purple velveteen doublet gown I had planned as my outer layer for the ACC. As things turned out, it's just going to be a completely separate project and will probably never be worn with the black and gold brocade gown. Although I do intend to wear it with the same chemise, farthingale, and underskirt.

But next up: cage crinolline!

More Fun Accessories

I made my mask to attend a masquerade where Jon and I would be helping teach Victorian dance. He made himself one at the same time, and I think it looks pretty cool.



And here are the steampunk earrings I just made yesterday from gears, wire, and earring hooks.



And I made a necklace to go with my Elizabethan gown. There will be a matching belt, but it's not done yet. I have created all the components of it, but they are not connected to each other yet.

Head Gear (thankfully not the orthodontic kind!)

Well, this will be a short post, but I wanted to share some fun things I made toward the end of last year--my first ever mask and my first Victorian bonnet.



This didn't take too terribly long--mainly it took time for the glue to dry. Jon had the idea for the black eye rings and made and put them on for me. I like the effect. I do wish I had put a few more of the magenta feathers on. I may try to rectify that situation.



The base of this hat is just a straw gardening hat--the kind with a wide brim all the way around, but I cut it apart, cut bits off and sewed it back together a different way. (Sorry no progress photos of that, but I'm still getting used to doing that.) I then covered it in fabrics as you see. I covered a piece of buckram and sewed that onto the back to cover the edges of the pleats.



Most of this doesn't really show when I'm wearing it, but as I said in my last post, I like the insides of things to be neat. So the inside is lined with wool then velveteen because this also needed to be warm for caroling. The velveteen keeps the wool from touching my skin at all because I'm allergic, and it's also warm. The purple satin covers the raw edges of that lining. The black ruffles are just for more decoration. They are made from a decorative black tulle that I cut into strips and gathered.

The end of the ACC

Well, the ACC is over as of midnight on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day, and while I didn't finish, I'm very glad I participated and pleased with how much I did finish in time. Tonight, I shall report on that experience.

For my underwear layer, I completed my Spanish farthingale, as you already know. The English adopted it from--you guessed it!--the Spanish, and wore it all through the Tudor and Elizabethan periods. Later in the Elizabethan period, the French farthingale and the Great farthingale gained more popularity. As my outfit is intended to be from the 1560s, the Spanish farthingale made sense to me. I also like the look of it.

In period, it would have been made most commonly from silk and stiffened with reed or cane in England (some areas such as Italy preferred a softer look and were more likely to use things like rope to stiffen their farthingales), but I don't have a lot of money, so neither of those materials were readily available to me. I made my farthingale entirely out of cotton, and stiffened it with electrician's fish tape (plastic). I assembled it mostly by machine, although I used some handstitching for finishing certain areas. For pictures of this item and information on construction, please see my previous posts on it. I did draft my own pattern.

My other undergarment is a simple chemise. I roughly followed these instructions from Sempstress's blog. However, instead of using a conic block to draft it, I actually simplified further and used a T-tunic that fits me well, and used some "about there" math to determine how wide and long to make the sleeves in order to have them as fluffy as I wanted. I cut the neckline after finishing the rest so that I could actually try it on and make sure to get it right because I am very picky about my necklines.




Again, my setting is 1560s England, but I believe this general style of square-necked chemise was used over most of Europe, and it was definitely used throughout the Tudor and Elizabethan time periods, although not exclusively. There were high-necked chemises, both gathered and not as well.

This item would have been made of fine linen in period, but again, I didn't have access to that. I did, however, have some white cotton voile that I thought would do nicely for a chemise. I did construct it mostly according to period construction techniques. The body consists of two rectangles, the sleeves are rectangles gathered at the wrists to cuffs, there are square underarm gores, and the sides have triangular gores to give fullness. In the interest of time, I assembled most of the pieces by machine, but I did fell the seams, hem it, and attach the cuffs by hand. I will also finish the neckline by hand.



(There's a slip on my dummy because it makes it much easier to get things to slip on over her nonexistent head.)





For my main layer, all I completed was the underskirt (minus a button and buttonhole) and most of the overskirt. This style of skirts would have been worn in England, again, for the majority of both the Tudor and Elizabethan periods, although as the style of farthingale changed, so did the shape of the skirts.



This is where my choice of fabrics is most correct, as I was given these lovely brocades to work with (out of Hastings' stash just before the competition, not bought for me). However, they are, I believe, cotton (and possibly partly synthetic in the case of the black and gold), and in period they would more likely have been silk. Linen and wool were also much more commonly used than cotton in Europe during that time period. The overskirt is trimmed with a purchased trim that has the right sort of look (and will even more so when I add an absurd amount of pearls), but is definitely made of modern materials.

I didn't exactly bother to "draft" a pattern because they are both constructed of rectangles, and again they are both assembled according to techniques that existed in period, except for the use of my sewing machine. The underskirt is a cylindrical tube that I knife pleated into a waistband at the top, leaving an opening to get my hips through. It will button closed. I machine sewed it, and as I was able to use the full width of the fabric, I didn't bother to do anything to finish the seams--I just left the selvages on. I used the blind hem foot and stitch on my sewing machine to hem it. That pains me a bit, but I was badly running out of time. I literally made this article of clothing entirely on Friday.




The overskirt is two rectangles with a seam in the back. Again, I used full fabric widths, so there is no edge finishing, other than hemming the front edges where it would open. I did have to trim some excess fringe from one selvage. I machine top-stitched (Yuck! I know.) the front and bottom hems because I knew I was covering them with trim. The top of this skirt is also knife pleated, but they were only pinned in place, not sewn, by the end of the competition.




The things I am most pleased with about the overskirt (besides the sheer gorgeousness of the fabric) are the seam in the back and the seam in the trim.


Look how well the motifs line up!


Can you even tell there's a seam in this corner? (By the way, if you can, that's fine, but I do think I hid it rather well.)

The remainder of the main layer is completely undone. Jon helped me with patterning the bodice, but I didn't manage to get it even mostly assembled before the contest deadline. It will match the overskirt, and it will have slim sleeves that match the underskirt.

My outer layer is a waist-length cloak. Cloaks of various lengths have been worn nearly forever and all over the world, and yes, they were used in England during the 1560s by both women and men. Many materials were used, including wool, velvet, and furs (primarily for trim and/or lining, as far as I can tell).



Mine is a full circle, as some were at that time. It is made of three layers because I wanted it to actually be warm. The outside is black velveteen left over from a project for a friend a few years ago (thank goodness I had enough!), the interlining is Welsh wool that I got from my husband's grandmother, and the inside is actually a tree skirt that Jon's sister-in-law gave me! Can you tell that I try not to take myself too seriously? That being said, this item of clothing reduced me to tears--I'll explain why in a minute. I bound the edge with bias strips of some rather cheap satin I acquired earlier in the summer by sewing for a friend's wedding, I used jewelry clasps I already had, and I made the collar of white rabbit fur that my husband also already had.



Now for why it reduced me to tears, but I have to give you a little background. As you may have noticed, this is not the "warmth" layer I originally said I was making. I ran out of time for that. But during the period of the Challenge, I was also working on some Victorian pieces because my husband and I are part of a vintage (Regency and Victorian) dance group, and this dance group got hired to go Christmas caroling at the zoo. My husband and I also love to sing, so we signed up to participate, but my mother-in-law (from whom I had been borrowing costumes because I haven't had time to make mine yet) didn't have a lot of warm things, so I needed to make some for me and Jon. I did not make this piece at the very end of the ACC, but I was in a rather urgent hurry because I had this cloak and Jon's Inverness to make in two days because we would be caroling, and that was two hours outdoors after dark. So, I was burning my candle at both ends (with a blowtorch), and the binding did not turn out up to my usual standard. I honestly don't mean this to brag, but I am a rather picky person, so usually, the insides of any clothes I make are very neat. This trim is kind of "twisty" even on the outside and rather messy (at least in my opinion) on the inside.



So yes, I literally cried and didn't want to ever wear that stupid cloak! Practicality won out. Then after I caught up on some sleep and was less melty, I realized I actually like the cloak pretty well and can survive the fact that it's not that pretty on the inside.

Now on to accessories! I did not finish any in time that can count. I completed a muff (a beautiful muff, if I do say so myself--and that's not too braggy because my husband planned it), but with my husband's help. And not just design/patterning. He did some of the sewing. I'm still going to tell you how we made it, though, because I think it's super awesome--and Jon gets all the credit for this.

First, he cut two long rectangles of some satin I had lying around, sewed them together, and filled the resulting tube with down harvested from a fairly ugly (and too-big) coat someone had given him. (Sometime I may tell you about the disaster that results from a bag of down left in the same room with a greyhound who is home alone!) Anyway, then the tube got sewn shut, and the resulting fluffy rectangle got wrapped into a smaller tube, overlapping to avoid a cold spot. Next, Jon sewed three furs together--two coyote pelts with a rabbit pelt between them. This gets sewn into a tube as well so that the rabbit pelt becomes the wonderfully soft lining of the muff, and the coyote pelts fold out over the ends to become pretty cuffs. (Can you tell that my hands get really cold?)

This is where I took over. I then made yet another tube--deliberately a little tight for the down--of some pretty cut velvet that I had left over from another past project. This I hand-stitched down, then I fixed some of the seams of the coyote pelts, trimmed the edges a bit, then hand-sewed them down over the cloth.



I love the resulting product. It also gets both Victorian and Elizabethan use, and it kept my hands so warm while I was out there caroling. And it's pretty!

My other accessories will be forthcoming, hopefully by Saturday because I would really prefer to have them at Twelfth Night. Since the competition is over, I will probably enlist Jon's help because he likes doing it anyway and would have helped a lot more if I had been able to let him during the actual ACC. We will be making a partlet, necklace, and girdle belt.

p.s. Sorry for not posting on some of my other miscellaneous projects this month. I promise those will still be forthcoming. And if anyone wants better instructions including pictures of the muff's construction, please tell me soon because I will be making one for a customer.

November ACC update

I'm late updating, but I did make progress on my chemise during November, though I didn't finish. I actually decided not to make it my completely hand-sewn piece because my underskirt will have fewer seams and, therefore, be somewhat easier to make that way. I am, however, hand-felling the seams instead of using a more modern finish because my chemise is made of a very lightweight cotton voile, and I thought hand-felled seams would look the best. I'll post pictures when I have actually finished it, as any current pictures wouldn't be very illuminating.

Believe it or not, I still do not intend to drop out, and I think I have a fair chance of finishing the first two layers and at least one accessory. I don't have high hopes for finishing my outer layer in time for the contest, but I do still intend to make it just for my own benefit.

I'll write some more very soon about some of my other projects, like my Victorian corset, my husband's Inverness, and some other odds and ends.

Actual Pogress!

Well, I suppose I’m not going to be one of those bloggers that you can count on to post regularly and frequently. I actually have made progress on my ACC project, though. My Spanish farthingale is done! I may decide at some point to replace it because it may not be wide enough at the bottom, and I ended up having to cut away part of the top, so the waist is a bit large. But I’m certainly happy with it for my first try.



Last time I blogged about it, I had cut out and mostly sewed together the “skirt” of my farthingale. It took me some time to decide how I wanted to stiffen it–what to use, whether to make hoops or a spiral, etc. For some arbitrary reason I prefer the spiral, so I sewed the final seam, leaving enough of an opening that I would still be able to get it on.

I had a few spools of fish tape (something electricians use) on hand because I planned to use it for my Victorian cage crinoline, but I decided I could spare one for my farthingale. Good thing because I can’t afford to spend much money to finish either project.



Then when Grandma passed, I acquired a lot of the odds and ends of her sewing stash, about a zillion spools of thread, a lot of pins, and–more significantly to this project–several packages of single fold bias tape in assorted colors. I decided to use them for my boning channels because it would save me the time of cutting my own strips (let’s face it, I’m rather behind) and possibly the money to buy fabric for it.

So I picked a spot down the skirt that seemed reasonable for the first hoop and pinned one of the bias tapes in a circle at that level. Then at the point where the ends of that circle overlapped, I angled the bias tape down until it seemed like there was an appropriate gap between the first two levels of the spiral (pinning as I went) and kept the spiral with that amount of gap going down the skirt.



As I ran out of each bias tape, I simply overlapped another one–it took three. When I got close to the bottom of the skirt, I eased the gap, so that the bottom was another level circle. I sewed the bias tapes on so that the ends of the fish tape would be able to double back into the spiral.



Since I had already decided to use un-matching bias tape, I thought I would embrace the quirkiness of my farthingale. I sewed the channels on with various un-matching threads, then used some really bright yellow muslin I happened to have for the waistband. It’s a little silly, but it makes me giggle. And no one will ever see it under my gown, so there was no reason to avoid the craziness.




So, yay! I have one piece of my ACC project done. I wish I had more completed, but I’m still pleased with any progress, really. I’ve begun my chemise, but that is going to be my handsewn piece, so I won’t be done with that any time soon. But with my farthingale done, I can begin work on my skirts, so I will be working on those as well.



I’ve also made some good progress on my Victorian corset, so that will be my next blog post.

Since I’ve been watching a lot of Star Trek (Next Gen and Voyager) as I sew like mad, live long and prosper! ;)

Loss

Well, I have not posted any progress on my Elizabethan gown for the ACC this month. That's because I haven't made any. It has been a very busy month, but I thought I'd be able to at least make some progress during this last week. Not enough to really "catch up," but something to post about. No such luck.

Last Saturday, Jon's grandmother--who I have been taking care of for a couple of years--was diagnosed with a staph infection in her leg. We spent around five hours in InstaCare and at the pharmacy, etc, but we thought it would clear up, and it looked like it was, if slowly. She was in a lot of pain, so she and Grandpa needed some extra time from me and my husband for a few days. Then Wednesday, she wouldn't wake up, although she was breathing. We don't know if the staph infection caused it or not. She's been in poor health for a long time. Whatever the cause, she was in septic shock. At about 4:50pm, she passed on. I have a lot of peace about that. She's not in pain anymore. I only worry about Grandpa because he's very lonely now.

All this has meant there's been a lot of work for the whole family, so I definitely haven't been sewing. I do still hope to finish my ACC outfit on time, though. I don't anticipate coming anywhere close to winning, but I believe I am fully stubborn enough to finish. Unfortunately, I can't conscript my husband to be slave labor like I sometimes do because I have to do all the work on this myself, but maybe I can make him cook and do dishes and such instead.

One thing I did manage to do earlier in the week, before I realized we were losing Grandma, was make a pair of pantalettes to go under my 1860s ballgown. The pleats on the legs haven't been pressed out yet, but I like them. I think these pantalettes are rather pretty, and I'm kind of hoping they can do double duty under my Elizabethan. They may be too long, though.