Sewing for me...

Here is the beginnings of my banner hanging in my sewing room.

Every 20 days I tend a flame for Brighid.  Brighid is one of the old Celtic gods that became a Catholic Saint and priestesses/nuns/devotees have been tending her flame for centuries.  While she is more commonly known for being the patroness of healing, poetry, and smithcraft; she is also associated with the arts and crafts. Usually I get a lot of my harder sewing done during that 24 hours, this time due to the inordinate amount of stress I have been experiencing, I wanted to work on some small things that I've been putting off for a while because - well - they aren't costumes and I didn't need them for an event.

So I always save any left over fabric from projects.  Some folks make quilts out of their scraps.  I make banners.  Its a relatively new thing for me, but I'm liking it.  I use left over ruffles and other bits to show off what I've made...

I also took the time to make myself a huswife (aka a sewing kit).  I made mine so it holds specific tools and keeps them together.   As you can see it wraps up neatly and can fit into my purse if needed.  It holds some more modern tools like a seam ripper, pencil, scissors and other items.  The pockets can hold buttons and thread while the little flap at the center top can hold pins and needles.  This one is fairly simple, I got the idea from Jane Austen's Sewing Box, which a good friend gave me for Christmas.  Then I kept and eye out on Pinterest for other versions until I figured out what I wanted.  Then it was a matter of having time to make it.  

I'm glad I did.  A lot was sewn by hand for both projects. I was able to work away a lot of anger and stress.  While its still not all gone, that's why I keep sewing!

My VERY FIRST completely hand sewn dress! And HSF #18

Remember this?

Cartridge pleated skirt

Well, unfortunately 20 yards of Indian cotton doesn't pouf out a skirt much and while it was fun to make and learn that "Yes, I too can do it!" - its the perfect color for the next project (HSF #18) I have.  See, I want to make the jumper Anne Hathaway wears in Becoming Jane.

Screen Capture - Anne Hathaway - Becoming Jane (2007)

As you can see, its a sheer-ish dress but with a chemise and pantalettes, its very modest.  I was sick for much of the stitching, however the skirt is four panels re-gathered into the original waistband.  The bodice is simply two panels with a curve at the top and at the armsceye.  I also made the cord for the neckline by hand as well!  I don't need to tell you that it was really hard to turn the fabric until I figured out to use the smallest safety pin I owned...

The shirt is an old shirt that was in my repair basket.  I've had it for around 10 years and it was a favorite until the lace under the bodice tore.  I repaired it with the machine (zig-zag) and cut the full length sleeves into 3/4 ones and added the cuff/tie by hand.  (The shirt was done in a couple of hours this evening).

Ta-da!

        

HSF #18 -Re-make, Re-use & Re-fashion

Fabric: Indian cotton (from the skirt) and an old blouse I've had for about 10 years or so.

Pattern: hand drafted (on the fabric)

Year: roughly 1795

Notions: hook and bar, thread

How historically accurate is it? Its based on a movie costume - I've not seen extant examples that are similar, but a its a summer day dress it wouldn't have lasted long anyway.  Those were probably turned into quilts and rags when worn out.  Certainly not kept as treasures.

Hours to complete: about a week of hand sewing in the evenings (about 4 hours a day)

First worn: For the photos - but I'm taking it to costume college.  It feels comfortable enough to wear in class and not too distracting.

Total cost: $0 (Woo-hoo!)

Costume Build List (Part One)

Also known as The UnEnding List of Things to Do, But Make Me Happy So They Are Worth It.

So I took some time to sit down and write out all my projects.  I have two lists.  One if for myself and another is for Dickens.  My list includes projects for me, gifts and projects for Victoria and Meghan (They mostly need prodding to work on their projects but still its use of my machine.)  The projects for Charlie are lower priority, mostly because the are things for him to wear with Victoria...

This list does not include other sewing related tasks such as
Historical Sew Fortnightly (but I think some will apply!)
Attending Costume College
Helping Meghan Move
Moving Victoria's Room
Re-Instating my Sewing Room

Some items have deadlines (Dickens related things)- others do not (ie Kana has been a to-do for a couple of years now)

MY LIST

• Corded Petticoats (3? - one for each of the girls)
• Queen of Hearts (Two parts - repair and make another)
• Alice Cape - blue with white stripes (note to self - purchase 1' white grosgrain - ~20-30 yards)
• Alice muff - white rabbit fur of course 
• Sash for green stripe regency dress
• overdress (regency)
• pelisse
• curacao
• Pink Plaid
• Green Kirtle
• Chemise -Regency long sleeve
• 30's Dress (I will commission this one, but I have fabric..)
• 50's Dress
• Florentine (not yet finished, but technically wearable)
• Quilted Petticoat
• Round Gown
• Pantalettes (Alice, QoH, and a spare one or two)
• Pirate shirt (Victoria*)
• Blue Kirtle (Victoria)
• Breeches (Charlie)
• Coat (Charlie) - Actually he should have a couple Victorian, Revolutionary, and Regency
• Kana (Victoria)
• Belle Steampunk (Victoria*)
• Tricorns (cuz pirates amirite?)
• Blue Dress (Meghan*)
• Pantalettes (Meghan*)
• dino corset (Meghan - tudor style*)
• rapunzel corset (Meghan - 18th century style*)
• steampunk corset (Meghan - underbust*)

Its not much right?

Fabric, fabric, and more fabric...

So on my trip to Texas I got to go through my mom and grandmother's stash to pick what I wanted I'm such a lucky girl that I also received stash fabric from my Dad's wife, Blu and some of my great grandmother's dresses(including the dress that family history says is her wedding dress!) from my cousin Jill..  I've spent the last two weekends cleaning and sorting everything.  Due to how some of it had been stored, I ended up being quite ruthless in my cleaning (barns are NOT friendly places for fabric storage).  ALL of it - from swiss dot organza and leopard print faux fur to dusty rose taffeta (it was bought in the 80's so give me a break) - was washed in HOT water and run through the dryer.  This weekend, we finished up the lace.  Whew! I now have 3 more shoe boxes of lace and 3 more plastic tubs of fabric.  All neatly sorted by base color thanks to my OCD. See below for photos!  I lost my sewing room to a new roommate a little over a year ago and I've taken over part of one side of the garage for my storage, while I do most of my sewing in a little area off the dining room.  Thus continuing a family tradition of having more fabric than food on the dining table (they make WONDERFUL cutting tables!)

   

This and That - UFPs

So, I've been spending a lot of time working on UFPs and little projects.  I added ruffled cuffs to a dress I purchased from a de-stash.  I may add ruffles around the collar but I want to wait and see...

Ruffled cuffs!

 I finished the strawberry embroidery for a pocket and just need to add the ties.

pocket embroidery done!

My new scrap basket (a $2 basket and a liner made from stash material)!

A pin cushion made from scraps of Prof. Sprout!

Florentine update

I've finished the forepart.  I actually just made a complete skirt.  I thought it would be more useful that way...

It looks like I will need to make a farthingale as the photo above shows the skirts over my corded petticoat.  The skirts just don't stand out like I want them to.

I really enjoy hemming a skirt by hand and the old style of construction where you hem the skirt and then attach it to a waistband.

As you can see below, I built the skirt with a side opening and a box pleat in the front and an inverted box pleat in the back.  That way I can change it up if I want or need to.  

Next up: the lower sleeves.  I'm debating on how I want to embellish the dress and I will still need to add a ruff.

cartridge pleating

Otherwise known as the method that uses up massive amounts of fabric (thus helping the weaving industry), cartridge pleating is kind of fun on the hand sewing scale.  Fun because once you figure out your pattern of pleats, you can just go to town.

I made the skirt out of 20 yards of india cotton.  I followed the instructions on this website. http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/blog/how-to-cartridge-pleating

I really liked the formula for figuring out how many yards of fabric you needed.

There are others with similar information, I just liked how this one was laid out for me.

It *only* took a couple of evenings to do once the fabric had been washed and pressed.  Some variations of instructions recommend adding a layer of felt or thicker fabric at the top hem (where you are making the pleat).  The idea is to sandwich it between the fold of the skirt fabric so that you have a thicker and stiffer bit right at the hips.  I think I'll try that with the Italian dress I'm making.  I'm guessing (an educated guess) that it will make me use less fabric which is awesome as I only have 10 yards to begin with...

 So one of the websites called cartridge pleating instant hips.  Here is the skirt on Mrs.Weasley.  I can't wait to see it on me in a corset...

The lovely partlet btw, is a find from the costumer's sale.

As you can see it hangs just below my corded petticoat, so I won't have to worry about short skirts!  I'm also hoping to use this combination under my Victorian work dress...  We'll have to see what the costume lords at Dicken's say...

Chemise

I've just finished a chemise for my daughter.  It's made of Indian cotton.  Due to her unique fitting issues I decided to drape the fabric on her to get what I wanted. (One shoulder sits higher than the other)  This also made the hem look off but it sits well on her. the side seams are machined and flat felled by hand.  The neckline, armseye and hem are all hand stitched.  I find in calming to stitch by hand.  It should be good for several time periods as I made the straps narrow enough and put enough scoop in the neckline to allow the straps to be pulled down on the shoulder. I added a lining in the shoulders to help sturdy it up a bit.  It's fairly simple and she will be adding lace around the neckline. We are considering adding a ruffle at the bottom; but I want to get started on my Victorian corset now...

The easy (supposedly) 18th century petticoat

I tend to do lots of research before I make something... sometimes its specific but most times I just read everything I can find on the subject and look for the similarities.  In making this skirt, I read all the blogs/articles listed below, some were merely (ha!) inspiration and others were like a map for what I wanted to do. 

Jessamy's Regency Costume Companion
La Couturiere Parisienne...
American Duchess 
La Couturiere Vienoise
Armed & Slightly Dangerous
and many others that I just can't seem to find at this point...

I just completed this petticoat for my 19 year old daughter.  The quick and easy description of what I did was measure the circumference of her in her pocket hoops and the distance between the floor and her side waist over the hoops. 

To make my life easier I cut the panels and sewed them together and hemmed the bottom.  The (probably) was way easier than trying to hem it while it was on V.  I used grosgrain ribbon for the waist ties.  I had her put on the pocket hoops and dropped the skirt over her head until the hem hit the floor.  Then I simply (kind of - if anything is simple when pinning to a squirming person) pinned the skirt to the waist ties...

Although this is all you HAVE to do to create this type of petticoat; I, OF COURSE, had to add a knife pleat ruffle along the bottom.  In general this wouldn't have been a problem at all, but the fabric tried REALLY hard to not have a pleat at the bottom of the skirt.  The sewing complications actually caused a lot of hilarity, but suffice to say 'tis done!

Victorian Corset

So my corset is to be of the Victorian Era and is inspired by this beautiful blue corset from V&A's Underwear: Fashion in Detail. This particular corset is on page 86-87. So as I'm not fond of the idea of trying to create pattern pieces from a photo as many of my costume-y friends are wont to do I set off to find a regular old tissue pattern that approximates the lines of this corset. What I found was Butterick 4254. And although it doesn't look exactly like the other, I think it will do. The mock up was done in a muslin. Many folks advised me against it, but I'm short on cash and really just want to see if the pattern in big enough to go around me properly and long enough to go from breast to hip. I think that a muslin is the way to go until I get to an actual trimming-down-my-waist mockup. Anyway, Butterick patterns tend (I hear) to come with a LOT of ease and generous seam allowances so after making it up I found that cutting the largest size will probably produce a corset that closes without trimming me down much but is at least 4 inches shorter than I would prefer it to be.

So after tracing out the patterns and adding 4 inches to the length - I've started putting together another muslin. (see why I'm using muslin? I don't feel bad about throwing away the first mock up. I would if I had used twill or gods forbid coutil) I actually have the second mockup halfway done and feel confident enough that I feel that I could start cutting out the twill. But I'm lazy and would rather write a blog post instead of sewing tonight. My guess is that after the mockup is finished I'm going to cut two layers of twill so that I have three layers finished. I plan on stitching each layer together per the recommended seam allowances and take it in as needed.

I plan on the boning placement being more like the blue corset. But I kinda plan on freestyling it as I go mirroring each side. I've tons of spiral boning and tips so hopefully I'll end up with a comfy corset that trims my waist down 7 to 8 inches with an inch of opening in the back.

Good thing I have great costume-y friends that will be easily (hopefully) bribed to come over and pin the final product down to size when I try it on.

Wish me luck!

sewing projects

So this weekend I did some sewing.

First I finished my DTD affectionately called "Molly" - which was super frugal as now I have a dress form custom sized to me! time + energy + 3 rolls of duct tape = dress form that could have cost $300.



Then I made a pair of regency pantalettes. Normally these would be two separate tubes that each tie around the waist separately. I modified this because except for this photo not a one of you will see them in action! So mine are a bit more modest, and only use one string to tie on. Hopefully this will let me avoid any possible calamaties that befell women of the period.



I also started the shift, which is almost finished AND started crocheting a cloche to wear. What makes all this frugal? I had everything I needed at the house. woo hoo!