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.

Undies and Accessories

So what have I been up to? A few things.

I had mentioned archery gloves in the last post, so I did a muslin mockup of my right hand (which looks like a three fingered glove). First time sewing gloves! It wasn't too difficult, and with just a running stitch, I was able to finish it in an hour or two. They're too big, but I'll be making more changes to it later on, so it wasn't a waste of time.

I've also did a duct tape gaiter pattern courtesy of Festive Attyre. Super simple, just sacrifice a pair of old stockings, put it over your botted feet and however tall you want the gaiters to be, and then take pieces of duct tape (not a long wrap like a mummy) and wrap up your leg and the part of the boot you want to cover. The hard part? Cutting it off your leg! The instructions are here.

Drawers are done except for a drawstring, and the chemise needs a few tweaks in fit before all it needs is insertion lace and a ribbon at the collar. I am going to suck it up and by the TV corset pattern, since we all know it takes a bit of time to get a good fit on a new corset pattern, so I want all that fitting done long before anything else gets started. I may order that next week. And who knows? I may be convinced to apologize to the Rejected Dress and finish it. I'm feeling slightly generous. That or I need a historical dress because the one I'm working on I want more free reign of creativity.

So what else do I need to work on? Gaiters, bustle pad, hat (at least the buckram frame of it) and depending on whether or not I finalize yay or nay for the leather thing, I can work on some of the archery accessories if I use the faux leather I already have. We shall see.

"Listen to your creative gut" is the moral of this story

This is what happened to my first Victorian project. I had planned on using a steampunk jacket pattern for it because I loved the look of it. But my mind started tugging at me. Pretty soon I wanted to change this and change that about the pattern, and it was apparent that my mind kept pulling at me so much that it was saying "this isn't what you want to do" from the beginning. So I made a plain bodice instead, my mind eased, and I was happy with the end result.

The tugging is happening again with this military outfit.

I realized I was trying to shoehorn this outfit into something that it's not, and I've narrowed my view of it to the point that I'm not inspired by it anymore. So one of two things needs to happen. Either scrap the military outfit all together (which I don't want to do) or find something else for DPP and do the military outfit the way I want to do it, without having to shoehorn it into "steampunk."

So. We're back to square one, ladies and gentlemen. Then late last night I came up with a tenative plan. I want to keep it a secret for now, but it does involve archery.

So what about all the plans I've made for the other outfit? I can actually still use a lot of it. The breeches and gaiters could still be used. I plan on making partial gloves in the form of archery gloves (And perhaps put plate armor pieces on the fingers? We shall see.) Nothing else has been bought or done, so I'm not backpedaling much.

And see? My mind's at ease again, so this was the way to go.

But Andrea, you might be wondering, what happened to the yellow and lavendar dress? Don't. Just. Don't. That dress is very very lucky I haven't started a fire in the barbeque pit and burned it. I'm through with it. It's not worth my time. Which means that along with a steampunk look, I also have to make a few pieces for the regular Victorian stuff this year. Oddly enough, the colors I'm working with will be dark purple and gold. The color family continues to haunt me!

I was going to make a crown pun...

But I'll spare you. I'm finished with my practice run of the crown!



It turned out better than expected, though as you can see, there's fuzz from the interfacing. I'm going to have to figure something out with that. I don't want to draw the design directly on the fabric, but I can't have that fuzz...especially since I intend to have this either on a black or red background.

In the end, I didn't find an acceptable way to do the monogram, so I either need to find another, plainer font, or something not as thin. Trying to make tiny horizontal stitches is difficult. I had a more successful time with all those tight curves in the crown. I developed a method for it.

First, I mark off the starting point and some guidelines so I can see where the stitches need to "flow" so to speak.



Then I start filling in the gaps. For tight turns, I go into the same hole on the inner curve side but continue as normal on the outter side.



Depending on the tightness, I may go in the same hole one or two times, but no more than three, otherwise it starts becoming bulky. Not sure if that's the correct way, but it turned out all right.

I'll tackle the final draft later with lettering and all, but now my sights are set on gloves. I got the Butterick glove pattern (because I'm too lazy to make my own, so it's worth the 99 cents) and the pattern's cut out and ready to go.  I may work on that this weekend, but I really should get the rest of the Project Runway stuff done.  Still haven't done the final steps in a couple of things.  So I'll focus on that before I immerse myself into handsewing these gloves.

How very fitting I'm doing all this hand sewing when I'm teaching a mini lecture on that very subject on Monday for sewing class.  I'm the unofficial hand sewing expert (yeah right).  Turns out that blind hemming and slip stitching have more variations than I thought...and I've been doing one of them "wrong" from the beginning.  Well, my logic is the same way with the above curve thing: I do something by trial and error, and it works, so I don't bother going the pro's way.

It's almost 2:30.  Let me get to bed.

So it begins...

I've been starting on prep work for the military outfit. Monday evening I quickly realized that the original Victorian pattern for the vest and jacket was horribly out of proportion. Luckily, I have a already-fitted Truly Victorian bodice and both volumes of Fashions of the Gilded Age at my disposal, so between those two, I think I can come up with something that looks like the original design.

I've also been looking into gloves. I'll be making military dress gloves, and while I'm not sure the modern pattern was used back then, they did have gloves that buttoned at the wrist, so that's a start. I'll save my sanity and buy a pattern for that.

And tonight I started something I wasn't planning on doing: embroidery.

The thought came up some night this week in the wee hours of the morning that I should do some insignias or what have you, like uniforms do, like patches that denote rank or what branch of the military they're in. So I decided to do (hopefully) two things, a royal seal and a royal cypher. What is a cypher? A monogram basically, and I've seen it used for the royal family in Britain on various things. So since that was simpler, I started on that first.

I am a cross stitcher, but I'm not embroiderer. So this trial run is looking shoddy at best, but I wanted to see if I could do it.

I started with just tracing my printed out design onto tear away interfacing used for machine embroidery:




Then I (attempted) to satin stitch. I used gold cross stitch thread and dark red sewing thread. After an hour's worth of stitching, here's what I have so far:



As I said, shoddy. I'm sure it will get better as I go along. The royal cypher always ends in R for Rex or Regina. I chose to use the initial of the family name of the monarch rather than the given name since royal families in this particular place aren't so boring with the naming of their heirs, so they have cyphers to honor the entire lineage, not just one monarch. I decided.

I may break my vow of "don't buy anything that isn't mandatory" and get the glove pattern next time it goes on sale. I want a lot of the tedious work done first, and I do need these gloves for this outfit. So that's how it goes.

Project in the future

The supposed end of Project Runway is coming soon, although my sewing teacher hasn't said anything about a real date yet, so my classmate and partner in sewing crime, May, hopes that we get another month...or two. She's working on five different after five dresses, so she has had a much more difficult time at it than me. But what I've seen of it is gorgeous.

In the end, yes, again, I amended my Victorian dress plans. After doing a mockup of the bodice, I decided that I didn't like how my torso looked in my corset, and I want to make a new corset before finishing the outfit. So there's that. The skirt is almost done, though.

So what's next? Actual working on stuff wise, not much. Planning wise...oh, I have plans.

Your Wardrobe Unlock'd, a wonderful resource site with articles for sewing and historical clothing, has a contest every year, and this year one of them is for Steampunk Historical Inspirations, or some combination of those words. So I plan on participating.

I have an idea for a roughly 1874ish steampunk military dress. I am not a huge fan of the brass and leather look, it's just not me, so I'm going more towards "ficticious military uniform" route rather than traditional steampunk. I've been using inspiration from both military outfits of the time and riding habits, some of which were heavily inspired by military outfits. My dress won't be for riding since I want it to be a bustle dress, but I may be convinced to make riding pants as an alternate outfit. Am I getting on a horse? Are you kidding me?

I was planning on starting this next year, but since the contest ends in February of next year, that won't work. So I've been trying to plan ahead for when I do have the funds to buy the things I need for this outfit.

Really the only things I can do now are the mockups for the bodice and hat, undergarments (not my corset yet) and gloves. Well, I'm going to TRY is what I'm saying. We'll see just how good my hand sewing skills are. This project hindges on me learning a lot of new things, all of which can go horribly south and the way of my original plans for the purple and yellow dress. Why can't I do easier stuff? Hello, my name is Andrea, and I'm an overachiever. Nice to meet you.

Resurrected dress

After a few weeks of no productivity whatsoever, I had a thought. The Victorian dress I abandoned could be revived, but in a different way. I still have six yards of the yellow fabric left to use, which is enough for a skirt and bodice. What I'm going to do (though it pains me to do so) is take apart the pleated skirt and reuse the fabric for the rest of the outfit. I realized a couple of days ago I had no intention of going back to that pleated skirt, and if I don't want to waste a ton of fabric, I need to cut my losses and reuse the fabric in some way.

So this is what I had in mind:

Yellow jacket bodice and purple vest, but the vest will be attached to the sleeves and the jacket body will be an optional overlay. This way the vest can be an optional standalone if my torso gets too hot from the extra layer. The skirt will be yellow with a purple ruffle on the bottom (I've sworn off pleats for a while) and trimmed in some way with any extra yellow fabric I have. The overskirt will also be purple, but I don't know the design yet. That was another reason why the previous project flopped, the overskirt.

This project will also be how quickly I can put this together. I had told myself that I wasn't going to participate in the Project Runway thing anymore, but now one of the new students wants in on it, and I can't just not finish when she's starting from scratch this late in the game. So...can I do this in a month or so? Yeah, probably. It's stuff I've done before, and if I can get a mockup pretty much done in one evening, this bodes fairly well for the rest. I hope.

Back to old haunts

Due to financial constraints from every which way, I've decided to take a hiatus on sewing altogether. So, for now at least, I'm defaulting back to my original drug of choice: cross stitching.

My mom, before we were born and when we were little, was an avid crocheter and cross stitcher. She taught my two sisters and me when I was about eight or nine (still have my first cross stitch stashed somewhere) but I was the only one who stuck with it, and I've been hooked ever since.

So fast forward to high school when, during the summers, I would cross stitch religiously, like it was my job, for four, five hours or more. During school, and throughout college, I didn't have the time, but it was still the one thing that I did on my downtime that truly relaxed me.

Then I got into sewing in 2010, and cross stitching has gone by the wayside, but I pick it up on occasion. At the very least it's made me adept to other forms of embroidery, such as flossing for corsets.

So now I've narrowed my cross stitching niche down to two categories: Asian cross stitches and zodiac/celestial cross stitches, but I'm very very picky about what I do. Currently I have a project in the works for both, a series of small but complex zodiac designs from Julie Hesler's Fantasy Cross Stitch (which I believe is out of print) and "Oriental Lady Beauty" from Joan Elliott's Oriental Odyssey. The latter's easier, so I'm picking away at that now.

No fancy pics and whatnot. Cross stitching's not very photo worthy until it's done anyway!