Oh La La Tea Party

It’s been speedy speedy working on this costume, a pretty short deadline. Not quite finished here, still work to do on the skirt.

I didn’t do much on the finishing off of this, mainly making very very long tubes for very long ruffles.

But I had to post the finished result all the same.

Slicing and Icing

Even though she never actually said it, Marie Antoinette's most well known saying is without a doubt “Let them eat cake”, so what else could we make into a hat other than a cupcake.

We used plastazote, Denise carved the top and I sorted out the case and the plate. We started off with a pattern for a miniature top hat and built it out from there.

After a couple of coats of latex its starting to take shape. It needs a few more coats, some shimmery paint and some airbrushing, but it should look pretty cute.

Let them eat cake…kind of

Denise recently wrote an article on being inspired by history to create a dress, but not actually making it historically accurate. So to go along with it we are making a dress inspired by Marie Antoinette.

Its quite a quick little project, and starts out with netting. Lots and lots of layers of netting.

The sewing machine kind of got buried in it all.

Denise found two silk wedding dresses for £5 each in a jumble sale, and we are up-cycling them in this costume. Here is the skirt from one drawn into a new waistband as part of the underskirt.

The top of the skirt involves a pink and purple silk swag, we are just playing around draping and pinning until something looks right. I really like it pinned up with the flower.

An official project this time.

I finally got my project brief through for next term (which starts on Monday), if I'm honest it really isn't what I wanted. From what we gathered when picking modules we would pretty much be able to make any outfit we wanted as long as there was some form of corset it in. So I spent the summer (minus Ghana) researching fashion history, admittedly not something I even remotely view as a chore. I narrowed it down to an 18th Century pannier, preferably a riding habit, along these lines:

Lots of lovely embroidered buttons and beautiful cuffs.

I loved the skirts as well, not so much the really wide shelf-like, early Marie Antoinette style ones, but the looped up Robe a'la Polonaise:

From what I can tell though, the two aren't usually worn together, so my only worry was choosing between them. But now my brief has come through, and it looks like its out with those plans.

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The Brief.

Students are required to select one well defined character, male or female, from the following range of established characters from narratives covering drama, opera and dance.

Male: Oberon, Mars, Falstaff, Prince Charming, Cyrano, Volpone, Toad of Toad Hall, The Ancient Mariner, Tartuffe, Beowolf.

Female: Titania, Boudica, Coppelia, Olympia, Tosca, Camille, Bride of Frankenstein, Carmen, Valkyrie, Dido.

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This is the main part of it. I'm set on making a female corset, so that cuts out all the male characters.

Titania (Faerie queen from Shakespeare's Midsummer Nights Dream) would obviously be beautiful, and fun to do, but I feel like it is the obvious choice and the one that everyone wants to do, so, not one to be a sheep, that one is out.

I think Bride of Frankenstein is the next obvious choice for everyone after Titania, and I think I do "pretty" better than "monstery" that is out as well.

A couple of the characters are from operas and ballets, but the brief doesn't say if our designs would have to be suitable do play those kind of roles, or if we are just looking at the character in the context of the story. Especially in ballet this makes a big difference, I can't see an arabesque being performed in a crinoline.

Boudica and the Valkyries could be interesting, I'm initially thinking worked leather and fur. I think with the Valkyries being mythical there is a bit more room for interpretation than a person from history. And of course there are wings to play with.

All in all, I think I will have to put my 18th century plans in a little cupboard in my head to use later (the term after maybe), its a pity, but since I have resigned to that, I'm starting to get excited about the new stuff.

Beginning to brave the 18th century

I have been researching 18th century clothing for ages now, and it was about time I actually did something about it. So when Denise found a free corset pattern on the internet from the 1700s I thought I would give it a go.

We had to alter the boning channels slightly because the only boning to hand was some 5mm artificial whale bone. The pattern was meant for reeds which are quite a bit thinner.

I used 2 layers of heavy black canvas. It always looks so neat at this stage, almost makes me not ant to touch it.

I sewed and boned the channels for each piece first before sewing it together. Not sure whether it was tiredness or me being generally haphazard, but this was a definitely not a get it right first time project. I managed to seal up 3 channels on one piece before putting the bones in, and they weren't even complicated channels.

Also I reeeeally need to service my poor sewing machine, its making a noise that almost makes me cringe to use it, far more clunks going on there than there should be.

Also my boning ran out before I finished so its lightly uneven, must remember next time that if I'm not sure if I have enough boning I need to add it evenly to each side, so it doesn't end up lopsided. There was enough for toile purposes though.

Didn't make it round to the back however, and I don't have an awl so it wan't laced up. It fitted pretty well however all things considered, just a little bit on the large side.

Off to the museum...Woman's Riding Jacket

The more I look at 18th century clothing the more I am really drawn towards the riding jackets. They are so neat in their style, with nipped in waists and crisp sleeves.

There is a huge amount of appliqué on this jacket. In the picture it looks really even, but in real life my first thought was that it was kind of wonky. I think it was having to incorporate the fastenings down the front that made it look like that.

Off to the museum...Court Mantua

The second little V&A outfit, 1775-85 court mantua. For some reason a bit of my brain fell out, and I didn't photograph the entire garment, so my sketch will have to do.

The fabric of this was stunning. I just can't get my head round having the patience for that much hand embroidery, I suppose they didn't have the internet to distraction which seems to be my main downfall.

Off to the museum...Chintz Caraco & Petticoat

I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London yesterday. It is so huge, there was no way you could get round it all properly in a day,or even a week, and I only had half a day. I focused on the 18th century costumes, taking pictures and quick sketches.

My camera did a better job than I thought through the glass without flash. This outfit is a Caraco and Petticoat from 1770-80.

The right sleeve had a ruffle around the bottom edge, but the left one didn't. I think it probably must have come off with age, but other than a small tear on the inside, I couldn't see any evidence of it.

The front closed with 9 hook'n'eyes, three on each pair of tabs. They don't match up in a straight line. I thought this was strange, if you are going to spend so much time making a dress, you would think you would take the time to make sure the most visible part is neat. But then maybe is has just stretched that way from being worn.

The skirt was a wide box pleat with the pleats outwards from that being around 2" apart.

It looked like the hem was originally pale blue ribbon, but the museum had put some kind of net on it for conservation purposes, it looked like a modern addition.

I do love a good project

I went on a little shopping trip today, I do love fabric shopping, picking the type, the colour, the trims, bringing home the fresh little newly cut bundles, all ready to be made into something pretty.

Today's shop was for Flatmate-Weathers' corset. She found this corset which she liked, with the panels in different colours and the flower details. I am hand embroidering the flowers onto hers, which was this evenings task. I am going for a vaguely 18th century based pattern. I got this book for my 20th birthday (last Saturday) from Denise and it is wonderful. Well worth reading by anyone interested in embroidery and historical costume, its very detailed and is full of detailed line drawings of sections of real 18th century embroidery.

I flicked through it and scribbled this page down with a combination of the different flower shapes and styles.

I then went though my embroidery threads to pick out some colours for the detail, though I did actually change my mind after I took this picture. I am using grey silk-dupion for the front 4 corset panels and a slightly off white silk-dupion for the rest. I am going to keep the embroidery on the grey only, keeping it towards the centre.

This is the design I came up with, I am going to keep to only a few colours, Flatmate-Weathers didn't want the flowers to be too dominating, so I kept it fairly simple.

I used my trusty light box and a pencil to trace the design onto the silk. I'm sure that is not technically the correct way to do it, but chalk made a line too thick, and carbon paper with a tracing wheel wasn't accurate enough.

I did a little sample of my chosen threads on the silk to check the colours. This was a good idea because it made me decide one of them didn't really work (its hard to show the colours properly in a picture). Thread often looks a slightly different colour stitched into the fabric instead of just being laid on top of it, so I will definitely be doing this again.

Then I began stitching. I'm using stem stitch for the main stem, and back stitch for the thinner offshoots. When I put the corset together I shall mount the silk onto calico. I wasn't sure whether to do the embroidery through the silk and calico together or just the silk. I couldn't come up with any really good reasons for one being any better or worse than the other, so I'm just sewing through silk. Mainly because it means I get to start the embroidery and put off the mounting.

This is how far I got this evening, I was slightly distracted by the amazing Mumford & Sons live set from Glastonbury. I want to get the corset finished before Flatmate-Weathers returns on Sunday...but I will have to see how it goes. I would rather do a good job than rush it.