Costume College--What I wore!

I don't generally do these, but I thought why not do something new and do a post about what I wore to Costume College? I made three new dresses--the Game of Thrones dress, 1920s tennis dress, and 1920s robe de style. I rewore my Angry Birds dress on Thursday night, and my cotehardie on Sunday.


My Angry Birds dress, with five yards of silk charmeuse lined with three yards of China silk may be the best thing to wear ever. I had thought about a more elaborate dress, but since we were going to the garment district on Thursday, I felt this was for the best! I also loved wearing my Game of Thrones dress. I wore it over my 18th century jump-type-things, which gave a nice fit plus a sort of "period" feel. In the show, they wear 18th century style stays, but I didn't like the way mine looked under the dress, so the jumps it was!


And then the 20s. How much do I love the 20s? So much! The tennis dress was perfect for Saturday. I couldn't imagine not dressing up at Costume College--I just don't have enough events--but an easy costume is nice. I initially worried that it wouldn't feel costumey enough, but once the whole thing was together, it was. And the robe de style might be my favorite gala dress ever. I wish I had thought to get a picture with the sun behind me, because my legs shadowed through very nicely. So scandalous!


And then I finished with the cotehardie. I really just wanted to wear the veil again. And some advice--if you make this type and travel with it, put the dowels in it. It packed perfectly! I had already refreshed it by putting the dowels back in and spraying it with water and baking it. It had flattened a little since the last wear, so I was quite happy I didn't need to completely redo it!

And that was my wardrobe! Next year's plans include the 1890s bicycling sweater and outfit I didn't do this year, a teens evening dress with beetle wing embroidery, another Game of Thrones dress, and...

A 1920s Hemstitched Tennis Dress

My 1920s tennis dress is loosely based on this dress at the V&A and this dress on Etsy. It's made of dress weight linen from Farmhouse Fabrics. My scarf is some lightweight cotton that I had, and is based on the photograph in this pin. I'm wearing white tap shoes, based on the flat Mary Jane type shoes based on the photograph in this pin.

I used my 1920s base pattern for the bodice. I've had it for several years, and can't remember what it started as. It's a very simple shift shape though. The skirt is straight panels box pleated, based on the pattern in Women's Wear of the 1920s. It's about 110 inches, or two widths of linen. The hemstitching on the bodice is done by hand, and explained in this post. The neckline and armscyes are bound with self bias. The belt is very simple. It's just a tube of linen without a closure that I pull over my head. The belt buckle is a mother-of-pearl buckle I bought on Etsy.


I'm wearing the dress over my cotton 20s combinations, fully described here. I'm using garters to hold up cotton stockings. They're very simple, just crepe de chine and lace gathered over elastic. I've since bought an antique garter, which is constructed differently and that I'll eventually reproduce.


A detail of the neckline. You can see the bias binding at the arms. The hemstitching was done by pulling threads and sewing groups of thread together.


A detail of the waistline. The bottom edge seam allowance was pressed up and the skirt topstitched in. I've seen this done on 20s dresses, and it makes a nice, neat line. The box pleats are sewn together for about half an inch. I tried to sew them a little further down, like the pattern and the Etsy dress, but it was extremely unflattering.


A detail of the hem. While most of the hemstitching in the dress was decorative, I actually hemmed the dress with hemstitching as well. It's quite easy, just catch the fold of the hem as you sew the little bunches of threads.

Now, if only I really played tennis...

More Hemstitching!

One of my costumes for Costume College this year is a 1920s tennis dress. This would be my third tennis dress. You'd think I played instead of being one of the least athletic people on the planet!

The dress is going to be fairly straightforward. A sleeveless bodice with a squared neck, drop waist, pleated skirt and belt. It's going to be trimmed with hand hemstitching. My dress is mostly inspired by this dress at the V&A, with a little of this dress on Etsy thrown in.


I've started the hemstitching on the dress, at the waist level. I pulled five threads since my trial run (of about two inches) in four threads was slightly narrow. I then sewed the pulled threads in sections of five. What I discovered though, as seen on the leftmost vertical bar, is that five vertical threads did not equal five horizontal threads. On the next bar, I pulled a sixth thread and kept up the square theme by sewing six threads at at time. Though the width was closer to the horizontal hemstitching, the bars were faced too far apart. I tried sewing five threads, and still a little too far. I tried again with four threads--the rightmost vertical bar--and they matched. I'm very happy that for once, I started in the least visible place. I don't mind several slightly different sized bars at the side waist, but it wouldn't have worked at the neckline!



I once again learned from my 1927 Butterick's Art of Dressmaking. Hand hemstitching really is quite simple, if not as fast as machine hemstitching! To do it, you pull threads in the shape of your design, which does limit you to straight lines. Here you can see Petal investigating my work.

Then you secure your thread at the bottom left of a row of pulled thread, and working left to right, wrap your needle around however many threads, pull them into a little bunch, and sew a stitch at the bottom right, and continue. Then go back and do it in the other direction. Or leave the other side alone, or do half a bunch at time on the other side for serpentine hemstitching, which I haven't tried yet.

You do the hemstitching on the wrong side of the work. That way the wrapping thread doesn't show as much.

And because the book can probably explain it better than I can, below the cut you can see a badly Photoshoped picture of all the information I used. I'm doing the double hemstitching which is really just sewing the bunches of threads on each side. The directions are for hemming, but you can of course pull threads anywhere for your design.