The first finished item of the year...

*drumroll*
...is my pocket:

It's a bit wrinkly from being carried around in my purse while I worked on it. Most of the work was done while I was traveling by bus and trains. I live in the country side so it's a 40 min trip if I want to go to Uppsala or a 2,5 hour trip if I want to go to Stockholm.

I'm quite satisfied with it since it's my first serious try ever at embroidery :)
It's made of two layers of linen and are embroidered with silk button hole twist and bound with silksatin ribbon. The embriodery stitches used are bouillon knots for the leaves and stem stitch for the rest.

Now I better get back to the male corset and the uniform jacket I'm working on for some customers. I'll be back with a finished frou frou hat soon :)

/L

Trims, accessories and bargains

My stays are finished but the batteries in the camera was out (they are in the charger now) so the pictures of it whith me in it will have to wait until tomorrow.
While waiting for the batteries I would like to share some ideas with you, we'll start with the trims:

On the top is a silver metallic braid that I intend to use on the edges of my cuffs. I bought it on ebay mostly because it is very similiar in the design with one braid that was on a 1750 stomacher in the FASHION book.
Now my pet en l'air will be of a later date so I'm thinking of making a narrow version of this kind of trim (the bottom one) out of the plain taffeta I got instead, but I haven't made up mind yet:

The picture is borrowed from Art, beauty and well ordered chaos and her tutorial for making different kind of ruching.

In the middle of the top picture is the lace I'm going to use in the neckline of my shift. It's 100 % Cotton and slightly cream colored. I got it on my last job, when I made the orders for the factory I was allowed to order some for myself too. So I got 25 meters of it ;)

And at the bottom we have another ebay find. It's 100% Cotton and cream colored and I love the flower and bow motif. I will use it for my engagentes, in double layers and heavyly gathered. (I have 10 yards of it so I can splurge ;) )

While swearing over my stays, I have had plenty of time to ponder about acessories. My biggest issue was what to wear around my neck. Simple strings of pearls are not my thing so I decided to go with the silk ribbon in a bow with a charm option. I've reserached a bit and the most common version of ths is to wear a cross. I'm a pagan and out of respect for those who are christians I will not wear their religiuos symbol as an fashion acessorie, now matter how period correct it happens to be. I found this pendant in a flea market about month ago and I've decided to use it:


I think it's made of silver because it was covered in those blackish smears that unpolished silver has. I paid 5 SEK (under 1$) for it! I like the peacock motif and think it's suiting since this we'll be one of the most decorated outfits I've ever made. I willl try to get a rather wide ribbon so I can tie a big bow like this one:



I've also decided to try to make myself some new earrings. I''ve found a place that sells real pearl drops so I will go for those with a silver bow accent.

Then we ave arrived to the most fun part. HATS!
I will make two,one tricorn and one wide brimmed. I love the tricorns but I also know that they are not so very historic accurate for all occasions, hence the need to make a wide brimmed one too.

The tricorn will be covered with light blue velvet or light blue silk taffeta. The trim will follow my pet en l'air so it will be silver or ruched taffeta. It will have a sash round the crown made of white thin silk adorn with the metallic buckle that I bought earlier.I'm planning to buy some very pink feathers and a white silk rose to top it of.

The wide brimmed one will probaly be covered with some black silk (note to self, need to buy it). It will have a white sash or maybe a wide pink silk ribbon and the same kind of buckle that my tricorn has. And a plume made of ostritch feathers. BTW for my swedish readers, I found this site while searching for feathers and it looks like a cheap and promising source...

I've also been thinking about a fan but I'm not done planning this one yet so I can't share so much about it.

To top this superlong post of, here are pictures of too great bargains I've made:

This is a trinket box that I found on Tradera (a swedish auction site). It needs a new lining, the old one is ripped, but I liked the design on the lid so much so I decided to buy it anyway.


This is 60 spools of silk sewing thread. Some of them are full and some of them are only half but for a beginner embroiderer as myself, it is a gold mine! I got all this silk, a pair of very cute embroidery scissors and a package of needles for 185 SEK with shipping. (It's about 26$). It's a steal considering that one roll of sewing silk thread costs me 15 SEK at my other supplier. And I get the cute containers that the spools are living in too :D
I bought this stuff here (sorry only in Swedish):
http://textilaterbruket.iqdesign.se/

Now I'm going to drink some tea and start sewing on my chemise.

/L

Power cuts can be useful sometimes...

On Wednesday this week, the power was out for almost a whole day and night. I could not work in my sewing studio, since I needed the electricity for both the machines and the light. (I currently only have artificial light in the studio but my lovely M are going to install a window for me).

So I had nothing else to do than resort to my hand sewing. First I embroidered on my pocket until I ran out of thread. Then I started to painstakingly remove the cream colored lambs leather I had bound the edges of my stays with. Oh, my what tiny stitches I had used :/

When that was done I started to remove all the bones. I was astonished when I discovered that it was only the horisontal, the shoulder bones, the center back ones and the longest side bones that were broken. The rest were completely intact.

I decided to go on and replace all om them any way, because I still think synthetic whale bone is better boning material. I also discovered that the pre cut crinoline steel I had ordered for CB was to shoort. I must have done a complete screw up when I measured the lenght of them or I screwed up the numbers when I wrote them down. (I hate having dyscaculia, it truly sucks sometimes). So now I have for precut and dipped lenghts that are completley useless for this project :(

Instead of the crinoline steel I now plan to use spring steel bomig, the same as I used in my pocket hoops. (I just have to find it, it's somewhere in the house or in my studio...) It's rather sturdy even though it's only 7 mm wide so I think it will work. I will put two lenghts in each channel though just to be sure of good support for the lacing. I will use the same steell boning on the horisontal boning too since I've read in Corstes & Crinolines that this was a common method for good bust support.

This evening I altered my straps and added some more boning channels and I will spend the rest of the night cutting, smoothing the edges and putting in plastic bones in my stays while watching this documentary of Marie Antoinette (again) and drool over the black/white and pink/white striped polonaise I want to make.

To finish this horribly long post, here are a picture of my pocket (again):


And one of my stays before I started to remake them:

Pocket progress...

Lots of posts here today but I've have lots of things to tell.
Here are my progress on the pocket so far:

Not the worlds most clear picture and the linen is very wrinkled from being carried around in my purse but anyway...
The stem on the wine and the outline of the dragon fly is made with stem stitch, and the leaves are made with satin stitch. I'm not very happy with how the leaves look, so I think I will try to make them with buillon knots instead. I work on this when I travel because I always get bored I don't have anything to do and have to sit still for hours.

/L

A quick update

Today will just be a quick list of what's going on right now.
My under petticoat is almost done, both waistbands are sewn on. I'm waiting for the sturdy cotton tape I've ordered to arrive, so I can sew on ties. I decided to go with cotton tape purely out of the economic factor. I get 3 m for 16 SEK, if I should go with the more historic correct linen tape I would have to pay 13 SEK/m. I felt that I prefer to spend my money on visible things ;)

The same place that had the tape also had other sewing supplies and some buckles. And I found very cheap but good looking ones for my shoes. They are made for a strap that 4 cm wide which should fit my covered shoe straps well. (9 SEK for one buckle, it's a steal ;) ):


I have transfered the embroidery design to my pocket today so tomorrow I can start to work on it. I will do some traveling this weekend so I hope I can work on the pocket on the bus and in the car.

Last night I tried on my stays (I was afraid that they would be to small) But they fit me pretty good even if I probably should loose some weight. I need to adjust the angle of the strap a bit and I will add some more boning to the side of the bust. I'm also contemplating to cut the armhole a bit deeper because it chafed me a bit yesterday. But maybe the chemise will prevent that? I think I will leave it for now and try it out. I can always lover the armhole later.The new boning material is on it's way to me, I'm going with synthetic whalebone for the body and crinoline steel for the bones at center back.

I've also started to construct the lining bodice for my pet en l'air. Originally I planned to use the pattern in Patterns of Fashion, but that one has a back that you can't adjust the sizing on. That means that I have to always tie my stays the same. That's noot so good. So now I decided to use the this method instead:
http://marquise.de/en/1700/howto/frauen/contouche3.shtml
When I compared the pieces for the lining and stomacher with the pieces for my stays I made another discovery. My waist is almost 4 cm higher that the pattern waist. That means that I have to change the pattern quite a bit. Very well, I can't do so much about this until my stays are finished so I will just read marquise's instruction and get my self familiar with her process.

/L

My pocket

Last night inspiration struck me hard and I took a pause from sewing my petticoat (which is almost finished, I'm currently sewing the waistband on the back).
This is what was left on my drawing pad when my muse was finished with me ( I've cleaned it up in photoshop):

The design for my pocket! I found the main inspiration for the wines in a fabric from the FASHION book and the dragonflies are well...I like dragonflies. First i tried to add little bows and roses and stuff to it but then I decided that I liked it better like this. I think its beautiful in it's simplicity.

I will embroider the motif with red work technique but with medium blue button hole silk on light blue linen instead of the standard red thread on white. The linen is a left over from my petticoat, it's a bit thin so I will interline it with a heavier linen before I bind the edges and the opening with blue silk ribbon.

Tomorrow night I'm going to order the boning for my stays so until they arrive I will work on my petticoat and the pocket. I love this project!

/L