Parasol woes...

There is always something, I suppose, the one thing that makes me want to throw something across the room and let loose a curse word.  Or twenty.

For my first Victorian project, it was the bag.  More so because it was something simple.  You wouldn't think a drawstring bag would give me so my grief.  But really it was my overuse of fabric that made it so difficult, since I had to take it apart and trim away part of the top section's interlining to fix it.  Turned a simple probject into a hassle, especially since it was a day or two away from when I needed it.

This project?  The parasol.

Now, I realized after I painstakingly stitched on twelve strips that you aren't supposed to sew on trim before the cover is sewn on the frame.  Surprise, that wasn't the issue at all.  Haven't had one stitch pop.  No, the problem is the cover itself, which is too small for the frame.  As in, I can't sew the middle section of the spokes (or whatever techical term it is) without snapping the threads that are holding the end.  This was all after I broke a needle and got sliced up by a pin so well that it would have made a knife proud.  So I'm really at a lost as to what I can do.  I may not even have enough fabric left to trim the parasol at all.  I don't hate parasols.  They're a tad bit of a pain because of the now sewing trim on first thing, but other than that, they're fine.  But this one...This one makes me dislike it more than hats and corsets.  And that's bad.

Conversely, my little bag/reticule went together fairly smoothly.  Because of my skirt trim fiasco, I ended up having two leftover triangles from that, so I used that as the base for the bag.  It took about an hour, and all it needs are ties.  Picture later because I don't know where my camera is and if it's in my sewing room, I'm not going back down there until my parasol apologizes for being MEAN.  Or maybe I should blame the fabric.  It's probably the fabric's fault that it can't stretch enough.  Well, either way, that's what's going to have to change.

Whine, whine, whine, I'm putting that aside and working on my bodice tomorrow.

A hat? And it's not at the last minute?

Buttons are on the skirt.  Final strips are on the overskirt and it just needs a waistband and closures.  Boning for the corset and bodice is in the mail.  Jacket pattern is (hopefully) done, though it may have to be shortened due to lack of fabric.  And my greatest accomplishment, I made a hat.  Pattern.

Well, I made part of a hat pattern, based on the TV hat pattern.  I was going to have to change the pattern anyway because the front of the hat was too narrow for my big head, apparently, even with the hat tilted forward.  So I thought, in my ambitiousness, why don’t I alter it some more?  So I took the TV hat pattern as a basis for the crown, altered it so the bottom arched upwards on the sides, and used an oval brim instead of the brim for the original pattern.  I wanted something a little different than the hat I already made but simple enough that I could do it with not that much skill.  Then I saw this fashion plate (the hat in the middle) and thought it would be doable.

So this is my interpretation of that, but with a short crown, since the larger one (the regular crown) just looked silly on me.  If I think that crown looks weird, I don’t know what I’m going to think of myself wearing a skyscraper of a hat for a late bustle dress!

One side is different than the other because I was playing around with the curvature of the crown, so it’s a bit lopsided in the front.  Man, making a hat pattern, even from an existing one, is a pain.  I’m going to have to do it again eventually, especially for my zodiac dresses, but hopefully I’ll have a better library of hat patterns to work with by then.

I may at least cut out the brim and start sewing on the wire while I’m at the beauty shop tomorrow.  Which reminds me that I need to start playing around with my hair switches to figure out what I’m going to do with them.

 

Oh, and here’s a quick picture of my skirt and overkirt that I took before above stuff was finished and I did a trial run of the bustling in the back.  I just look at that picture and it feels heavy...

 

 

That's all for now!  Hopefully I'll have an almost completed bodice and corset to show you by next week!

Quick update this week

This week is the week of doing the little things I've been putting off for a while.  Like putting closures on my drawers, hemming my chemise, and sewing the strips onto the back of my overskirt.  I also spray painted my parasol frame (which was a bit of a fiasco, but it turned out okay).  So nothing really interesting this week to photograph other than my bodice mockup, which now has buttons so I can actually try it on:

Fun fact, I'm not wearing a corset under that.

So next week I'll dive into some of my bigger projects, starting with my jacket pattern.  It felt so much like fall today that I'm itching to start it.  And other than lengthening the darts, my bodice is ready to cut out once I prep my white fabric.  Let's get stuff done!

Corset in a week? Sure, why not!

Okay, so it's not 100% done...but if I had my boning now, It would probably have part of the binding on it.  So like the skirt, it's almost done.

Pictures first, rant second

Front and back of corset before boning channels (oter than the back) and waist tape were sewn on:

The corset front with the basted channels...

And how it looks after finishing up this evening!

I would have tried to take a picture in it...but it seems as if my chemise has mysteriously gone missing...

This is my second real corset and the first corset I've made with external boning channels.  Sewing them on is a pain, but I do like the effect.  I'd like to thank my lovely Loop Pressing Bars for all those strips.  Simple gadget but awesome.

Other than basting before sewing on the channels, I don't really have any secrets.  It's still a miracle to me to put a corset together and have it even close to being even in the back.  Out of everything that I've done, corsets are the least fun.  It's a necessary evil and the one thing that holds me back in finishing Victorian dresses because everything depends on it.  I'd totally do a quid pro quo deal with someone if they'd make my corsets for me.

Well, at least it's something almost done.  I count that as a victory.  Now to work on the bodice, and the overskirt, and the hat, and the parasol...

Skirt=done! Well, 95% done!

So I've been sewing for 2 years, roughly.  The fact that I'm even doing this type of stuff is pretty ambitious for someone so new at sewing in general.  So I feel as if most days, I'm doing very well for myself.  Then I make a mistake so amateurish that it makes me think if I'm ever going to just stop making stupid mistakes.

Like for this skirt.  In the previous pictures, you saw that the trim design is in intervals, which meant I had to do a lot of math to make sure that it was even all the way around.  Guess what I forgot?  That the skirt is A-line, and therefore measuring the hem was not even close to the same measurement as the 12in up that the trim was to be sewn to.  As in, about a 16in difference.

Cue two hours of measuring the skirt between that point and the hem to make sure the trim would be even somewhere, pinning, and trying to stitch down this behemoth.

Cue two more hours of measuring how much to cut off, cutting off three inches from the top of the skirt, gathering the back as tight as possible (not easy with this weight of fabric) and putting in several darts to take up the HUGE excess, measuring, remeasuring, and finally putting on the waistband.

A lesson, boys and girls: double check your math.  Furthermore, double check your math in the correct place.  I never thought I'd be done with this thing.  Good thing it turned out the way I wanted to in the end.

So without further ado, pictures of the dress I took yesterday in the sewing classroom.  Still needs eyes (I got bored and sewed on the hooks) and buttons on top of each triangle along the top strip, which is why it's 95% done.

The corset was also cut out yesterday, and this evening I'm working on making the external boning channels.  Hopefully I can get everything but the boning, binding, and flossing done this week.  Keep your fingers crossed...

Skirt trim progress and pictures!

I had a burst of energy to work on sewing tonight, so I spent the past few hours catching up on Project Runway and tackling the trim for my dress.  I had already cut out the individual pieces last week, but I haven't done much with it since then.

I started a black strip motif on the overskirt, and I wanted to carry that into the skirt trim as well.  Apparently this dress should be called "glutton for punishment" because I wanted two strips on each triangle.  All eighteen of them.  Most of the time tonight was spent on finishing just two of them.  But for all of the learning curve I somehow tackled tonight, I do have pictures on the process.

I gave each triangle a half inch seam allowance, so I pressed and stitched down the slanted sides first, leaving the stright side alone, for now.  One negative thing about working with twill like this is that it doesn't like to stay down, so it actually looks better stitched down.  There's a ton of visible stitching going on in this dress, so what's a bit more?  It's either that or kill my hands slipstitching.  I'm sorry, I'm not THAT anal.  And as my sewing teacher said, if someone is that close to notice, then you better be married to them or about to be married to them.

Next, the strips.  I needed the strips in a chevron, so I found it easier to cut on the bias the opposite way I wanted the chevron to go (so after you stitch, you end up with the seam allowance being a triangle, not a...trapezoid?).  It's easier to press and easier to trim.

So here's what the triangle looks like with both strips stitched down:

I'm still having problems concealing the little extra fabric at the points.  I just kinda tucked it back against the fold line.  Any suggestions for that would be appreciated, since I have, ugh, sixteen more to go for this.

Another thing I was having a problem with (again, due to the bulkiness of this fabric) is the strip at the top of the main part of the trim.  I first did seperate strips, but it was murder to press and still didn't work out.  So I had to use the same method as all the other stuff and sew a strip of red onto the black fabric.  I swear, if I can't sew perfectly straight boning channels by the end of this, then there's no hope for me.  Oh, and I'm using just the regular foot, not a zipper foot.  Better results that way.

So this is a small part of how the trim will look:

Oh, and here's a shot of the overskirt trim.  If you notice up close, the strip closest to the hem is more wrinkled.  That's what happened when I used the zipper foot

And a bit of a surprise for you!  I have a picture that my sewing teacher sent to me of my modern red and black dress.  It's not a great picture, but you'll get the gist of it.  No front shot though, so I'll see if she can send me a shot of that too.  You will notice I am in heels.  Yes, that's a big deal, because the next time I wear heels will be, one, if someone else I know gets married, or two, I get married.  Neither of those things are in the foreseeable future, so enjoy that while you can.  Also, isn't that black piping SEXY?

There.  Now you can't say I never show you pictures.

Long time no post, but I have been working on stuff

Yeah, I know, it's been a while.  I don't have any pictures yet of my red and black modern dress (mostly because someone else took pictures of me, so they're on someone else's camera/iPad/whatever.  Pictures will hopefully come for that.

With that dress in mind, I learned a few things:

• Piping needs to be 1/8" wider on each side (so 1/4" wider).  I took into account the allowance for the cord width but not the cord circumfrence, so my 5/8" piping was only 1/2", which messed up seams, which meant I ended up with an extra inch of room in the end.  So yeah, tiny things like that are important.
• The way they wanted me to attach the front and back shoulder seams don't work with piping.  Pretty much it had to be done by hand after the facing front and back and the outter fabric front and back were sewn together.  More work, but it was worth it.

So yeah, I would recommend this dress.  I'd take some width off the hem (I took 2" off of each side except for the back seam) but other than that, it was a nice dress pattern to work with.

Onto more Victorian things, I have started my red and black dress.  Progress is slow because my wrist has been on the fritz, but I do have the skirt sewn except for the side seam and waistband, and the overskirt is cut out and the side pleats are basted.  The bodice mockup is in the works, and I'm trying to find a way to alter my glove pattern since my fingers are longer than the original's.  I plan on using the leftover black sateen for the gloves and trim, if I have enough, since that will be more cooperative than making 1/2" strips of black twill.  Plus it will be a nice contrast.

I'm basing the design off of the lavender dress in this fashion plate:

I won't be putting in ALL of the stripes, and it looks like based off of my practice run, the pleats on the skirt trim may not work well with the fabric I'm using, so I may just use the triangle motif and run with that.

I think a lot of my time, like with the modern dress, will be cutting and making bias strips for trim...which I really should get started on so I can finish the overskirt.  But if (I hope) there aren't any fitting problems with the bodice or the corset (yeah, I need to put some boning in it, but it looks like it'll work this time) this project shouldn't take nearly as long as the first one.  I'm improving!

Pictures to come when I actually make something interesting...

Future plans, and a new pattern!

One of my costuming friends, Mary Gode, was ever so kind enough to give me the newest Truly Victorian bodice pattern as a gift (thanks again, Mary!).  Everyone was gushing over this new bodice, and I was no different.  I had been trying to figure out a way to make a pointed vest and jacket bodice since the Rejected Dress, and both the military dress and the Sagittarius dress require vests (the latter a faux vest).  This new bodice pattern gives me a template for that, and I couldn't be happier.  So the red and black dress will now be Early Bustle instead of Natural Form.  Don't care as long as I can make something pretty out of the fabric!

Speaking of Sagittarius...yes, that's my huge project I was talking about.  I plan on making a Victorian dress for each sign of the zodiac.  Eventually.  More to come on that.

So, after I get done with my dress for my friend's wedding, I'll be working on my corset, then this dress.  I've been submerged in Natural Form and recently Late Bustle designs, so I need to switch gears for Early Bustle again.

Speaking of my modern dress...it's getting close to being done.  That is if I don't decrease the width of the hem, which I more than likely will.  The hem is huge, since it's a circle skirt.  As in, it's about 155in long.  In comparison, my bustle skirt is about 115in or so.  Because of this, and because of the longer back, I decided to pull out my bustle and put it on underneath this dress.  You would think the dress was made for bustle wear.  This has inspired me to possibly make my own polonaise in the future, since that's what it looked like.  Interesting.  A pity I don't have my camera, otherwise I would have taken a picture.

Now, I need to be good and get some work done and not go on another hunt for fashion plates...

Another hobby challenger is approaching!

The mockup for the modern dress is more or less done.  I didn't take any pictures of it because it's a pinned mess due to fitting issues at the armhole, which may just have to do with using too stiff of an interfacing for that particular fabric.  I'll also have to raise the neckline an inch or so.  It's fine if you just look at it, not so much when I bend over, and since I'll be cutting and serving the cake at the wedding, bending over is gonna happen at some point.  But other than that...the dang thing FIT, first time, no adjustments other than cutting a 12 bust and 14 waist.  I'm starting to have a tiny bit of faith in commercial patterns.  A little.

FYI, this is the fabric I'll be using, along with solid black sateen:

http://www.quiltknit.com/assets/images/fabrics/rk10991-91.jpg

As a comparison, it's a complement to Kaufman's Ultra Sateen, but I think the site said it's a bit lighter weight (I couldn't tell when I felt the fabric at a local store).  Gorgeous sheen, and it's something I'd equally use for dressier modern and Victorian dresses alike.

So other than washing the fabric, I can't do much else this week.  But I'll be occupying myself with making a trial run of (part) of Vicky's wedding cake.  Did I mention I decorate cakes as a hobby too?  For almost four years now.  Well, scratch that, I used to.  My wrist probably won't hold up too much anymore for that since I hurt it from repetitive use at my previous job which, appropriately, involved a lot of decorating.  But I'll still make cakes, and this is the third wedding cake job I've done for friends, but it's the first "traditional" tiered cake (which is why I'm doing it--I need practice).  I may post some pics of previous stuff if I decide to make a cake post.

So after the dress and the cake is done...back to the corset.  I measured it, and it should work this time.  If I'm still not happy with the shape of the bustline, I can always use the bust gores from the Laughing Moon pattern.  My next corset I'll try bust and hip gores, but right now, I'd just like a corset that fits.  Ah, if only everything we tried to sew fit us like a glove every time.  Sewing would be so much more enjoyable...

And because I'm a tease...I've been working on sketches for a huge Victorian project that will more than likely span over several years, depending on inspiration, time, and funds.  It's not one dress but several.  And that's where the archery stuff in previous posts comes from.  But I've pushed that idea back to next year in lieu of another dress in the project.  It involves fish.  I'm being overly vague.  If you can figure it out from that, then that's pretty impressive.

To bed, then tomorrow I'll start the cakes!

And now for something completely different...

Modern clothing!  I know how to sew modern clothing?  Oh wait, the Project Runway thing.  Yeah.  Made a suit.  Still sitting in my sewing room, unworn since I did a final fitting for everything.

But even then!  This is the first time making a modern dress.  One of my best friends, Vicky, and her boyfriend Thad are having a commitment ceremony in July, so I wanted to make a dress, now that I have the sewing skills to do so.  But since it's less than a couple of months away, I wanted to keep it relatively simple.  I'm a jeans and t-shirt type of gal, so I'm not going to wear tons of frills in loud colors for modern clothing.

I fell in love with McCall's 6504 when I first saw it in the catalog, so I decided on that one, the type the model is wearing with the longer back.  I'll be making it out of dark red and black sateen, but the exact design is still in the works.  I'll need time to do a mockup anyway, so I have some time to decide.

In Victorian sewing news...I don't remember if I said I made a mockup of the Truly Victorian corset.  I did, and it didn't work in any way,shape, or form, so I redrew the pattern today after a few week huffy sewer hiatus.  That usually happens for corset and bodice mockups, unless I'm on a deadline.  But I'll see if I can get that done too before mid July.

But for right now...I'm feeling lazy and I'm stuffed from barbeque, so I'm going to go veg.  Sewing can come later.