Rescued and Resurrected #2

EXPERIMENTS WITH MORI KEI

Another insanely productive and demanding year in college is finished and I've finally landed from all the stress and press alas there are lust and time for blogging again. I've created lots of thing during my schoolyear, but I will show you, dear readers, all about them in later posts. This post is about my first try of adding even one more style to my eclectic style palette, mori kei! 

I've been attracted to the whimsical mori kei style since I stumbled across it last summer, but I had a hard time handling the rather loose fitting silhouette, being a full busted curvy viking woman, not a tiny little waify asian girl. But when I and M was in Spain last summer during a massive heat wave, I bought a linen dress at the market, in white from an Italian lagenlook brand. It was a huge step for me, I've never attempted dressing in all white/light colours and loose fit before. But I realised that it wasn't so unflattering as I first thought. And in 40 degrees Celsius and blasting sun, it was really comfortable to wear something that actually allowed air to circulate along my body. 

A rather blurry photo of me in the lagenlook dress, taken late in the evening. I think I'm trying to give M directions about something...

 

 

 When I got home, I found myself pairing it with longsleeve tops, knitted sweaters and boleros, grey thick tights and a white petticoat, still loving it all autumn and winter.  Loose fit and light colours wasn't so dangerous!

So when I stumbled across this tunic in a recent thrifting spree, I decided it was time to add more breezy, loose clothing to my wardrobe:

The thrifted tunic on the right, a broken blouse from my RR-stash on the left.

Close up of the fabrics

The tunic looked cute as it was but I decided that I wanted to make it mine by adding to it. I used material from the chequered blouse and added pockets and a bow at the back. I also added a ruffle at the bottom, made from a broderie anglaise duvet cover I found at yet another thrifting spree last summer.The broderie anglaise trim was also rescued from the same duvet cover. The pockets and the bows was made from the sleeves of the blouse and those had a button tabs that kept them rolled up. I looked at those tabs, they were so cute somehow,  and decided that I wanted too use them on the tunic. I played around with placement and finally decided to use one as a whimsical detail at the front and the other as the center piece on the bow. To top it all off I aded som mother of pearl buttons I had in the stash. And I love the final result!

But now I was on a roll. I decided that I needed something to wear under the tunic, I tried with my white petticoat but I didn't like the look, so I made a pair of pants/bloomers of the remaining broderie anglise from the duvet cover. They are Plinka pants, a pattern designed by Tina Givens (can be downloaded for free if you register to her site). I've modified the pattern in the crotch area, the original is super baggy drop crotch, something I hate so I used my standard loose fit trouser crotch instead. I also made the bottom ruffle wider than specified in the pattern, skipped the bottom facing due to thickness of the material (the serger is a saviour in those situations) added a separate elasticated waistband and omitted the pockets and the little patch. And gosh, I love these pants. They are super comfy and I love that if I stand with my legs together it looks like I'm wearing a skirt.

The tunic and pants together? It's an outfit to be happy,giddy and whimsical in. I feel like putting on rubber boots and jump in water puddles :P
M, my trusty photographer,had a hard time capturing these following photos, because yours truly was feeling so giddy that I couldn't stand still ;)

Clickning at the photos makes them bigger, as usual.

Oops, should have smoothed out the bodice after all that exercising ;)

Now I'm off to work on the unicorn dress I found earlier...

Hope to see you all soon!

/L

Thrifting spree

Last Friday I had a day off. That doesn't happen often for me so I decided to celebrate it by going sale shopping and thrifting in Uppsala, the town that's closest to me (I live in the countryside). I went to the lingerie shop, five thrift stores, the fabric shop, my favourite clothing chain Indiska and IKEA. A busy day but I found lots of treasures.

Like this little gem, curious to know what it is? Find out after the jump:

A post that's long over due...

So, in my last post I was almost finished with my outfit for the May event and then I went AWOL from the blog, again. The last trebmling months of spring and the first month of summer has kept me busy,busy, busy. But now I've chiselled out some time for the blog and finally can show off my Edwardian outfit, that I'm very pleased with. Lots of images and more info after the jump, as usual.

An edwardian blouse

I'm making progress on my Edwardian outfit, albeit a bit too slow, but this upcoming weekend I hope I'll have the corset ad the corset cover in wearable condition. 

The corset have been a real hassle, I've lost count on how many times I've ripped out the boning channels on the back pieces. But today I've finally figured out in which order to sew them so hopefully the rest of the sewing progress will go better. I hope I will ha a corset to show you on Sunday :)

Now on to the subject of this blog post, the blouse.

HSM #3 Stashbusting - Edwardian hat

My plan was to try to participate in The Historical Sew Monthly Challenges this year but my schedule and my planned Edwardian event in the end of May has made it hard. My planned stash busting project, an Edwardian blouse  isn't finished yet (needs buttonholes and the cuffs fixed) and my HSM#1 Foundations project, an Edwardian corset is still in the works too. But I'll guess I've just have to suck it up and post things when they get ready...any ways. I finished this hat yesterday and realized that all the materials in it came from my huge stash, so it is qualified to be entered in this challenge.

The Challenge: HSM #3  Stashbusting,  An Edwardian hat
Fabric:Scraps of acetate duchess satin in two shades of purple
A sun bleached and worn sun hat made of paper straw
Pattern: None, made things up as I went along, looking at fashion sketches and photos from the period.

Year: circa 1905
Notions: Home made ostrich plumes, four purple ostrich drabs, two candle rings with mauve roses, some rather thick steel wire, sewing thread in black and purple and some home made black spray paint.

How historically accurate is it? My materials is 100% modern but the look is accurate so I would say 50%?

Hours to complete: 24 hours

First worn: Will be worn at the event in the end of May

Total cost: Most of the materials are scraps from other projects but I think I once paid about 0.5$ for the candle rings and about 5$ for the hat.

This hat started it's life as a regular sun hat. I used it a lot. It got sun bleached. It started to look worn. It got thrown in my stash for hat base use and I forgot about it. Then last spring I was invited to a suffragett luncheon. I very hastily threw togheter and outfit and made a super quick make over to the hat by makeing a sash out of some duchesse satin fastening it to the hat with osme sticheds and a brooch. Threw in some black plumes that I've made earlier for a 18th century masked ball and scurried away to the lucnheon. This is how the hat (and the rest of my outfit) looked:

I was never 100% happy with either the outfit or the hat. So when the May event came up, I decided that they both needed at make over. My biggest quarry with the hat was it's color, the flimsy brim and the high round hat crown. I started out by solving the color problem. I mixed rubbing alcohol with some artist quality black aceylic paint in a spray bottle and gave the hat a couple of thin coats on both the outside and inside. When it dried, it was even in color (not stark black but even) and it was matte instead of the horrible lustre it had before.

To lover the crown I followed this excellent tutorial, It worked really well but I think I accidentally made the flat crown piece a tad to big so my crown isn't 100% flat, but I decided that I could live with that.

To take care of the flimsiness of the brim I zig zaged a length of wire around it on the under side. Since this kind of hat needs to look good on both sides of the brim I covered the wire with some bias tape that I made from another duchess satin scrap. Then I started to play around with decorations, I just gathered all the materials I could find in the stash that matched in colour. I quickly realised that I somehow needed to make the brim a bit wider and I also needed to get more of the purple shade that I used for wire covering into the decorations. But how? Extend the edge with bias?

No, just plain bias satin would ble too flimsy...than I tried boxpleating a scarp to the edge...and it looked great! So I quickly made a 5-6 cm wide length of bias strip as long as I could squeeze out of all the scraps (I had to piece several small lengths together) folded it in half, pressed it down and ran a straight stitch a long whole it's length about 7 mm from the edge. Then I took my pinking shears to the sewn edge to get a prettier edge and stop it from fraying. Then the hat rested for a couple of weeks...until yesterday when me and a couple of other costumers met up for hat making day.

Then the brim got it's box pleated trim and the rest of the decorations sewn on. And here are the final result. (I'm madly in love with this hat and I cant wait to wear it!)

Highlights from five months of slöjd

So my last post was in September, and I had high hopes of getting back into blogging a bit more often. Well, that didn't happen. My slöjd course in school literary drained me, my days mostly looked like this:

05:00 Sound of the alarm clock

06:19 Off to school

09:00 - 16:00 Official school hours

16:49 Hop on the train to start journey home

18:50 Arriving at home, time to cook dinner, doing housework and collapising in the sofa

22:00 Time to go to bed

Repeat this schedule five times a week, with some added hours here and there for working late in school to get projects done. Also add in worknig 11-17 every two weekends as a personal care assistant and we have the reason to my blogging absence pretty clear.

But even if last semester was hard I learned a lot. And I created a lot. I can't show you guys everything I made because then this post would get like a kilometre long but I will show you the artefacts I'm most proud of after the jump. Warning, image bonanza coming your way!

Vintage fusion wardrobe #1

A felted atomic hat in the making...

 A couple of weeks ago I scored a cute atomic print dress on etsy. It arrived just before this weekend and as soon as I tried it on, I felt a desperate need to acquire some matching accessories (Yup, I one of those matchy matchy types. I love to go all in with kitschy details in my outfits). A picture of me in the dress will be posted as soon as I have the proper undergarments. A black bra and girdle showing through a pink dress is not pretty.

Close up of fabric curtesey of etsy seller sheandhervintage

Today in school we worked with different wool felting techniques and while the teacher demonstrated them in the beginning of the class, inspiration hit me like a bomb. Of course I should make a hat! A wool atomic hat.

I started out with wet felting a base in roughly the same shape as the white "rockets" in the print. Then I needle felted on the black spots and the pink circle. Tomorrow I will add some millinery wire to the edge to help the hat maintain it's shape and also to help me mould it after the curve of my head. I will also wet felt some black wool on the wires that are lying on top of the hat in the image below and try figure out a good way to add the green "leaves"... or maybe I should leave them out? We will see tomorrow night...

Atomic hat WIP, the colours are a bit skewed, but you can see the general idea.

I'm so excited about this!

/L

Rescued and Resurrected #1

 Black roses and stripes!

So this is the first post that goes in to the Rescued and Resurrected (henceforth called RR in texts) category.So what is RR then, you might ask?

Well, that's my name for refashion, up cycling etc. I sometimes find clothes, accessories and such in thrift shops (or ordinary shops, but that's rare) and  see how awesome they could be with some modifications. Or sometimes I find something made out of a fabulous material but I don't know right away what it will become. If the price is right, I buy them. Then they end up into my RR-bin until I get the time/inspiration to resurrect them.  Clothes from my own wardrobe that falls victim for my style changes might also end up in the RR-bin if I still like the material they are made of. For me this is a way to save money and also make sure that I have truly unique wardrobe. So now with further ado, here are two RR items that I wore to a wedding in august:

Sadly, I was in a hurry when I altered these clothes so I have no "before photos" or images from the making the magic happen.

The blouse is a silk knit I got from a acquaintance wardrobe cleaning. It had a rather modest and boring V neck before I hit it with my scissors and sewing machine. I used the neckline from this vintage pattern, Simplicity 2511. I had some problems with the knit stretching all over the place so I stabilized it with a selvedge strip from a thin cotton twill. It still lost it's shape a bit so I also had to do small tucks in the corners.

The thin border is actually a crochet beading lace, laced with black satin ribbon, the lace I had in the stash but I had to buy some ribbon. The rose buttons that I sewed on the corners and also made earrings and a brooch of came out of the stash ( It's great to be a button hoarder, I tell you ;) )

The skirt was found in a bin marked "all clothes here, 30 SEK (4$)". It's made of a rather flimsy polyester but the stripe and the shape caught me. As frequent readers of this blog know, I have a total crush on stripes.

It originally had a absolutely horrid lining made of even more nasty polysester that the outer skirt kind of clinged to. It looked awful, the sad thing. I ripped pout the lining and hocus pocus, I had a fabulous 50's skirt, the only thing it needed was for me to wear a petticoat underneath :)

I got tons of compliments at the venue and I felt fabulous in it!

/L

Ch-Ch-Changes...

A lot has happened in my life that has kept me from blogging.
To keep it short and not bore you all with gruesome details I had a break down over my life situation that cast me into a depression. I managed to pull through and have now made a big change in my life, I've gone back to school. I'm studying to be and fine arts and slöjd*  teacher for junior high school. I'm starting my second year the first of September.

It was a tough decision to make and it's getting tougher because when spring arrives my college fund that the state is offering (student loan + fincial aid) is running out which means that I have to juggle work,study and somehow have some spare time. But I will pull though somehow because now I'm determined to get a "proper" job, damnit.

One thing that I have missed during all this time is blogging. It's not that I don't sew it's just that I don't only sew 18th century. I've branched out into new era,1890 to 1908 and I'm also working on my mundane wardrobe (late 1940's to eraly 1960's)  and some custom work for clients. So instead of splitting all of these different subjects up in different blogs, I'm making this blog more of a sewing blog. I hope this might inspire me to write more often. I'm also planning to start carrying a notebook with me so I can scribble down all blog post ideas I get when I commute (wich I do more or less four hours a day) which might help me to actually get the blog posts in here instead of just scrambling around in my head.

Since the blog will have more topics now, I will rework the way I use tags. They will be sorted after eras and then tagged with a specific item (like this-18th century:petticoat, vintage wardrobe:hats, edwardian:jewellry etc, custom made: corsets and so on). The tags follow the titles of the lists that help me organize my sewing and hopefully this will make it easier for me to blog and easier for you to keep track of the diffrent subjects in the sidebar.

This means that I will have to go back though all my old posts and retag them, I'm not sure how blogger will react to this but If something behaves strangely in your feed you now know why.

I hope you all still want to follow my endeavours, even if this blog is no longer the18th century focused blog it used to be.

As a reward to all of you who read though this long text only blog post, here is David Bowie with a song to cheer you all up ;)

Best Regards

/L
*slöjd - it's a Swedish word that are hard to explain. Craft is the only word I can find in English but the word slöjd means more than just knowing the skill to do something. It's about passion, inspiration and enjoying the process as much as it is about the ability to make something.

The pinkstriped polonaise (or my absolute favourite 18th century outfit)

The fabric for this outfit has been laying in my stash since I first started this blog and so has the inspiration image. When Elisa of Isiswardobe kindly invited me to the 20th year anniversary for Gustafs skål, I knew this was the dress  I wanted to wear as evening dress. I was short of time because three weeks of my planned sewing time was used to make three application projects for the teachers program at Konstfack (University college of Arts,Crafts and Design, a very prestigious school in Sweden). But I managed, although I stopped sewing at 4 am in the morning of the event and made last stiches sitting in the park of the event.

Fabric and inspiration





Back in 2009 I scored a fantastic striped silk duipion on Tradera (swedish version of ebay).
I got 9.75 meters and the fabric was 90 cm wide (=10.6 yards of 35").
My main inspiration was this amazingly hysterical and wonderful creation from Galerie de Modes:



I choose a "blonde" silk organza for trims and opted for pink bows instead of green because I could not find a green that played well with the shades of pink in my fabric. I also made a much smaller bottom ruffle on the petticoat and adopted the width of the gown ruffle to look good with the shorter length I had do to because of fabric shortage.

 Pattern and construction

There are diffrent ways of constructing a real polonaise, I choose to do a separate corsage (bodice) and an over gown. I used my standard 18th bodice for the corsage and draped the pattern for the gown by looking at the ones in featured in Cut of womens clothing. I got some fitting help from the lovely Carina, a fellow costumer in GS, Elisa, and Caroline wich is also a GS member.

Since I'm a long legged vixen and wanted some serious back action for this gown I quickly realised that the fabric would no be enough for a full length gown. So I started with cutting the skirt panels, sleeves and corsage and used the remaining fabric for the gown.

I mixed machine sewing and hand sewing due to time constrains but I took the time to hand sew the CF and CB of the petticoat to make sure that the stripes matched there (this is actually the only place on the whole dress that the stripes match, all the stripes was totally uneven so it was impossible to make them match anywhere else). I also hemmed the petticoat by hand.

The corsage was assembled by machine and finished by hand, it closes up the front with hooks and eyes, also sewn on by hand. I choose to trim it down the front with the same rose trellis braid I used over the seams in the back of the gown.

The gown is lined in the bodice area with white linen and pink striped cotton in the sleeves. I machined it together and hemmed it by hand. All the unknown meters of double box pleated organza trim was hemmed and sewn on be machine.

The finished result
I absolutely adore and love this dress! I feel faboulus in it and I so want o make more over the top creations in the future, subtle and understated is not my thing! I'm also very pleased with the sleeves I think I finally got a good pleated sleeve pattern.

The only thing this dress is missing is a matching hat, necklace and walking staff but I'm working on it ;)
To get the serious amount of back action that is a bit exaggerated of my pose in this picture, I'm wearing a cul de paris with a quilted rump on top, I made the rump after Kendras in depth analysis found here. (I used no 3). On top of that are two petticoats and then the silk petticoat and the gown.

Me and Elisa, the Pink ladies 18th century style!

Ooops, our hairstyles got tangled with each other...

Elisa was kind enough to do my hair and she did a faboulus job, this is what it looked liked when she was working on it:
 

 And here is a good shoot of the finished hair style (and me powdering Elisa's hair, image taken by Anna Skomakare):

Now I'm working on a over the top decorated strawhat and a walking staff to go with this gown. And I've also started with a flowered anglaise and have plans for an amazing hat for that gown too...

I hope I'll have more time for blogging this following months because I really miss you, all my readers and fellow bloggers!

/L

A pierrot for Harlequina

This post i s way overdue, the masquerade where I first wore this outfit was early this spring but my life has been kind of hectic so costume blogging ended up last in my priorities.

I have always liked comedia dell arte and harlequin in particular so I really enjoyed making this costume.
The costume consists of five pieces, a velvet mask, a neck ruff, a velvet jacket with gold lace, a gold silk waist coat and a petticoat. I also made matching shoes and a ridicule.

 

The mask is made of papier mache, moulded over a plaster copy of my face, water proofed with flax seed oil and then covered with velvet on the outside and linen on the inside. I really like the shape of it, it almost stayed on with out strings! And the high forehead kind of give it quite a spooky appearance.

The ruff is made of a very wide,white ribbon with gold edges. I box pleated it and then folded it in the middle lengthwise and attached ribbon ties.

The waist coat is made of gold silk dupion and I created the lattice pattern with carefully sewn on velvet ribbon. I'm really proud of it because it opens and closes in the front with hooks and eyes and I managed to match my harlequin checks so well so the opening is invisible if you see it from the front!
I interlined the front with a thick linen canvas and the back is the same black velvet that I used in the jacket. For lining I used a black silk matka remnant I had in the stash. When I have time I want to go back and re fit this garment because I'm not 100% happy with the back.

The main inspiration for this ensemble is this striped so called zone front jacket from KCI (image found on pin interest) and the victory outfit from the Duchess movie (original image from The costumers guide to movie costumes):



I draped the pattern for the jacket using the victory jacket and the KCI jacket as main reference. I chose to make my sleeves without pleats and I also made my back with a little different seams but the overall shape is very similar. The peplum was the hardest, I swear, I lost count on how many different shapes I tried. Then I stumbled over Bauhausfrau's struggle with the victory jacket and she had kindly enough shared her pattern for the peplum. Even with that I help I stood in my sewing studio scratching my head and stared at the cut out and sewn together half moons of fabric that just lay there in a puckering mess and wonder how the f**** it was supposed to work. Then when I lifted the test peplum up from the cutting table and sewing magic occurred, all the pleats fell in to place and I had an eureka moment!

For some reason all the pleats ended up lying in the same direction in this image, but they usually lies flat :P

From there it was more or less smooth sailing with the jacket, and I'm very pleased with it, although the combination of cotton velvet and cheap linen lining has stretched so I need to go back and alter the fit in the back a bit. But I love the overall shape, the gold lace that my sister kindly bought for me and I feel very pretty wearing this pierrot.

The petticoat I'm wearing is completely hand sewn and made from a lovely super sheer striped cotton voile from puresilks.us. Hand hemming that bottom ruffle and sewing it on was not fun but it really was worth it in the end!

And finally here is a picture of the front of my shoes:

These were a pair of boring old ladies shoes, but the leather was good and the heel sturdy so I bought them for 20 SEK ($3), attacked them with gold paint and remnants of the gold dupion and got myself some fab harlequin shoes :D

Since the masquerade I have worn this outfit without the mask and ruff and it works nicely this way too, although warm summer weather and black velvet is not the best combination. (The super fabulous hat I borrowed from Elisa over at isiswardrobe and she also did my hair and took the pictures):

Here I'm doing the last stitches on my Galerie de modes inspired polonaise that I wore in the evening on this event.More info on that project will follow in another blog post.

I really like this angle because it show of the silhouette nicely, although the wind has caught the peplum.

/L

The stays are finally done!

Here they are, in very romantic candle light. I'm quite pleased with them, I love the fit and their appearance.
The front and back lacing is wonderful. My beloved M laced me in once and now I can get in and out of my stays by my self. WIN!

I use 6 mm baby blue satin ribbon for lacing, because it looks pretty and are sturdy. Not very period correct, but I couldn't find anything else in the right colour. I tried plain old white corset lacing but it looked horrible and with all the work I have put in this pair of stays I want them too look their best.

So here are the final info on my stays:
Pattern: c.a 1780's from Jill Salens book, modified to fit my body
Materials and construction: 2 layers of linen twill with a silver silk dupion on the outside. Silvery blue silk dupion for piping and binding. Channels made with machine, threaded with silk button hole twist for top thread and regular sewing silk for bobbin. Eyelets done by hand with silk button hole twist. All assembly was done by hand using white linen thread. Binding by hand used threads pulled from the binding fabric for a perfect color match.. For lining I used white cotton/linen (remnants from my chemise), and it was sewn in by hand after the binding was done using white linen thread.
Boning: Steel flats made from sewer tape in centre front and in centre back (sewer tape is much stiffer than regular steel flats and crinoline steel).  Synthetic whalebone for the rest.

In the photo you can also see my modified chemise, I removed the lace ruffle because it was a PITA to iron flat after each washing and I felt that it often was in the way when patterning garments.

I'm also wearing my new decency petticoat, I decided to make one since my chemise is so short. It was very simple to make, I just took an old linen bed sheet and sewed it into a tube by hand.Then I made a drawstring channel at the top, made two tiny button holes and threaded a ribbon through. DONE!

Now I'm working on my outfit for the masquerade held by Gustafs Skål in March. It's a secret what my character are going to be, but I can tell you that the outfit will consist of an pierrot jacket, floofy white petticoat and reticule. With hedgehog hair of course. And a mask and some character appropriate accessories ;)

I'm currently working with the jacket pattern, the papier mache mask base is recieving some moisture protection before I can embellish it, the floofy petticoat is cut out and ready to be sewn together and my under petticoat is also cut. I'll sew the floofy one by hand and the rest by machine with some hand finishing. I hope to be able to start making the jacket this weekend, so I can measure how much trim I need. I'll have to order the trim from my sister (the fabric stores in Uppsala are not well stocked on pretty trim) so I must hurry so it will get here in time.




Well I'll better get working on it then...and hope that I'll be able to post some more pictures soon.

/L

"Almost finished"

...it feels like my moon ray stays has been in the "almost finished" state for a really long time. I've worked on them on and off since my last post that was painfully long ago. The reason for this project taking me so long is several, some is work related, some is due to personal issues .Anyway bare with me, here comes a recap of what happened to the stays since my last post.

In the end of 2011 I only had the sewing on the straps, piping, binding the edges and lining to do when I decided to wear it in it's half finished stage to an event. I ripped it, one of the front panels tore right of in the seam. I got so mad that I lost the urge to work on it.

In the second half of 2012 I started to long for 18th century again. I looked at my stash of fabrics intended for my 18th century wardrobe and decided that now I want this damn thing finished!

So I fixed the ripped seam (it was only the thread that broke, not the panel it self), re-enforced it and all of the other seams and worked through the painfully slow process of adding the piping on top of the seams. When I was doing it I hated myself for coming up with the idea of piping but now I'm glad that I did it. My stays looks so nice with it!

With the help of Elisa from Isiswardrobe I did a new fitting and we discovered that I would benefit from a gusset at the bottom edge between the mid back and side back panel. She also helped me to fit my straps.
Both the straps and the gussets are made of one layer of dupion backed with one layer of the linen twill, I believe it's sturdy enough.

Moon ray stays - front

So here are one half of my stays, (I focused on the moon ray front) the only thing left on this half is making two eyelets for the ribbon that connect the strap to the front. The other half not pictured is in the process of getting it's top binding stitched down, then I'll add the lining and I can work eyelets on that half too. Then they are finally ,truly finished and I can work with the rest of my wardrobe again!

I promise to post better pictures when this forever project are truly finished!

So, sorry all my readers for my absence, but look forward to me being back in the costuming game with a vengeance!

/Lithia

I'm not dead...

...life just kinda of got in the way of costuming and hence costume blogging.

But now I'm back on the horse, since a couple of months. I've made myself a bumpad and a decency petticoat but I haven't photographed them yet.

Something I have photographed is my stay making process. Me and Isis finally managed to get togheter a couple of weeks ago and I got my mock up stays fitted. I then adjusted the pattern (I had to make it a lot smaller, some one has lost some body wisdom since the pattern was made). I also made the neckline and the arm hole lower.

Then I cut out the whole shebang in two layers of heavy duty linen twill (= an old bed sheet scored very cheap on a swedish auction site) and outer layer in silver silk dupion. I have decided to make the back pieces half boned, the side front fully boned and the front will be boned with a sun ray pattern (but since my stays are in silver maybe I should write moon rays instead.) The idea for the boning on the front comes from these extant stays found in Norway:

Images from Norsk Folkemuseum's colletion.http://digitaltmuseum.no/things/thing/NF/NF.1914-0210

I have just started with sewing the boning channels. I'm doing it with my trustworthy Husqvarna Zig Zag from the 1950's and I'm using button hole silk twist for top thread and ordinary sewing silk for the bottom thread.
It looks really nice but oh, boy this baby eats thread! This is what I managed to sew with two 10 m rolls worth of thread:

I did do some errors and I'm using the threads I rescued from those to sew the eyelets, last night I managed to get 3 of them done:

The first eyelet was damn near perfect but the last two is not as round as I would like them to be. Oh, well I'm the only one that are going to see them anyway...

One thing learned so far in the process:
It is a great idea to have seam allowances bigger then 1 cm. This will work but bigger seam allowance would have made things a hell lot easier...

/L

New pair of stays in the making...

Since I'm not completely happy about the fit of my old pair of stays, I've started on a new pair.

My first plan was to make them fully hand sewn and use taffeta for the outer layer and stiff linen twill for inner layer with a soft linen fabric for lining. But then I decided that I don't want to make a hand sewn pair until I find a pattern that I know works for me.

So the new plan is to make a fully boned pair that have the boning channels machined but all the assembly, lacing holes and bounding of the edges made by hand.

Here are the outer fabric, the bounding tape and the string I'll use for lacing:

The fabric is a lovely silk dupion from my stash. It's got a subtle sheen that's almost metallic which I think comes from the fact that the warp in it is black and the weft is a very light grey. The bounding ribbon is a synthetic duchess satin tape, I totally fell in love with the color that matches the string I plan to use perfectly. The later is a gift from Isiswardrobe, I think it's made of viscose.

The two inner layers that holds the boning will be made of  a stiff linen twill I got in my stash. It's an old bed sheet that I scored on Tradera (the swedish ebay) and it's big enough for several garments.

I'll use some leftovers from my chemise for the lining and the hole thing will be boned with synthetic whalebone except for the center front, center back and the horisontal bones, there I'll use flat steel.

Here are my mock up sans the boning:

I got the pattern from Isiswardrobe, we have similar body type but she is bustier than me and have higher waist that me so I had to do a few alterations to the pattern. It was still better than my old pattern because that has a totally too low waist.. The stays will lace up fully in the back and partly in the front. I choose to make them this way so I can get in and out of them myself. If I remember it correctly this pattern is from around the 1780's but I don't remember Isis' source right now.


I hope to get some fitting help after my fashion show is over in the middle of september. I'm itichng to have my stays done, I have some many garments to go over it I want ot make...

/L

Captured in the Linnegardens

Isis over at isiswardrobe snapped some pictures of me at the Linné garden event:


Admiring the hollyhocks


"What a naughty hollyhock bud"


"Close up of the hollyhock bud" (taken by me)


"Wow,that's a huge shrubbery of flowers"


"Admiring a pretty flower"


"The whole she bang in front view"


Me and Johannaelisabet in front of one of the tree's at the entrance of the garden
(and me doing the "framing my uterus" gesture. I have no idea why I always do that pose with my hands :P)

You can see some of the linen cap I wrote about yesterday. I'm wearing the only 18th century outfit that I own, my pet en l'air that still are a work in progress ;)

For this event I managed to get all three sleeve cuffs on. Now I need to finish my new stays, then I can make the stomacher to close with hooks and yes (with buttons for show) and properly attach the pet en l'air to the sides of the stomacher instead of pinning it on. I've also decided to add the pleated self trim on the robings and the stomacher. I feel that this garment need all the flair it can get because I'm all in it for the bling ;)

/L

The second finished item of the year...

...is a little hand sewn pinner cap made of linen (left overs from my chemise) and the same cotton lace I used on my chemise. Here it is adorning a big stone in our garden:

I wore it yesterday to an event in the Linné gardens in Uppsala. I didn't manage to be captured on my own camera but Isis took several photos of me so hopefully I can show you action shots soon.

It felt good to work with my 18th century wardrobe again. I hope to be finished with my new stays this side of new year, because I can't make any new garments until it's done.

/L

A serious case of the "bleh"

Sorry for my disappearance. This early spring has been a little heavy for me. First I had economy problems. Then I got ill a couple of times (nothing dangerous only colds and a upset tummy). When ever I started making something from my costume list, something immediately went wrong.

To show one example, I happily started decorating my wide brimmed hat with silk. It looked terrific. When I was about to sew the first pleated panel down on the brim, my millinery needles were nowhere to be found...I still haven't found them...

But last night I had a very whimsical dream, I was in a 18th century kitchen (a big one, must have been a castle or something) making cookies. They were some kind of shortbread cookies spiced with orangepeel, cinnamon and coriander. The Swedish 18th century poet/singer/satirist Bellman was with me in the kitchen making big mischief and amusing me at the same time. When I woke up I was feeling were giddy and inspired to start over with my 18th century wardrobe. So I hope I'll get back to you soon with the first project, a new pair of stays.


Carl Michael Bellman
Source: Svenska Familj-Journalen/Wikipedia Commons

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Pink damask jacket - Part 1-- Just a little teaser

It will take a while before I can truly start on this jacket, I need to make a new pair of stays first, but I will show you a quick sketch of it:

The jacket is from PoF 1, but I have changed the front from a stomacher closing to a closed front with hooks and eyes, like a caraco. I think that with that alteration this jacket will be dated somewhere between 1770-1780, which means that I can wear it with both hoops and bumroll.

The trims will be made of a gathered strip of striped cotton voile with a gathered ribbon stitched on top on both sides. I have not decided yet what color the ribbon will be, maybe a dusty green? Or a matching pink?

The lining will be a pink cotton satin from my stash, it's actually ripped out curtain linings ;)

Now back to the things I was supposed to do :P
/L