Checking in--A Few Updates!

I have a lot planned for this blog, and the biggest plan is to update regularly! With that I thought I'd go ahead a post a preview of sorts. Pictured, I have the first velvet flower and thread wrapped bead for the silver and black robe de style I'm making for the Costume College gala, an original 1920s bandeau that I've patterned started writing an article on, an original 1920s garter that I'm planning on reproducing and writing about, and the 1790s stays that I'm working on, mostly because I actually like making stays, and wanted a pretty new pair.

One goal that I have is for every project is to post some sort of tutorial. Most will be small and a matter of looking at what I'm doing and what will hopefully be helpful.

In addition, I've started a Facebook page (also linked in the sidebar) for this blog. I'm just planning to use it for announcements about this blog and my antiques blog, and what I'm working on updates, to sort of celebrate those I'm getting somewhere moments.

On Perfectionism

I am not a perfectionist. I'm so far from being a perfectionist that I actually proudly show my friends my non perfectionist work and we laugh. And I absolutely love this orignal natural form bodice on my website because it's made the way I make clothes. The outside--it's lovely! The inside? Well, it's done, isn't it? A few loose threads, sewing that seam by machine twice and overlapping the seams, whipping the seams at not perfect angles to finish them--that doesn't hurt, right? Can I do things like that and other details perfectly? Well, except for decent backstitching in heavy fabric and buttonholes, I pretty much can, but I have no desire to, and I blame that on starting a costume collection early on in my costuming career. Everything I own has a mismatched seam, or piecing, something to make you unhappy. When you think of our costumes as clothes that people would make and actually needed to wear (no two months until the event luxury!) and quite likely would want to remodel, it makes sense to think that they would spend time on the areas that counted--those that showed.


And here we have a dress of mine--the Spotty Dress--and a dress in the Museum of London that's patterned in The Cut of Women's Clothes. And what do these dresses have in common? The fronts don't match.

I measured carefully, and lined things up, and when I sewed the hooks and eyes in, things looked a little off. Not too badly off though, I thought, thinking of having to rebind the hem, or reset the hooks and eyes in case small differences in their placement were causing the issue. And then I tried it on, and well? It was awful. A good, very obvious half inch. Only, it wasn't obvious. This was the underbodice, the overbodice can be seen open in the picture. It wasn't going to show, so, what would they have done? Well, maybe if this dress had been made for the Princess of Wales, they would have fixed it. But I think most Victorian seamstresses would've left it--it does nothing to the structural integrity of the dress, it would take absolute ages to fix, and it doesn't show. And I had already sewn the hooks and eyes in with big, visible stitches knowing they'd be covered. So that's what I decided, and I finished the dress, wonky underbodice left alone. And, I had seen something to back up this idea.

When I saw the dress on the right in the Museum of London, not only was I happy to recognize a dress from a book (It's like meeting a celebrity! Each familiar dress I totally fangirled over), but it had one of the prettiest sights I've seen on an original dress. The point on this gorgeous, silk, highly detailed dress, was clearly not matched. I can only imagine the seamstress' dismay when that happened. But she decided to go with it, and the dress remains lovely.

And back to my dress, if someone would leave a visible mismatch, wouldn't someone also leave an invisible one? Quite often, I think it's the tiny imperfections--mismatched points, stress wrinkles, picked out seams--that make these dresses seem real and remind us that actual people made these. Why not leave those little imperfections in our own dresses too?

18th Century Hair & Wig Styling: The Book

If you don't know Kendra of Demode, you really should. She's an absolutely amazing costumer.

She's written a book, 18th Century Hair & Wig Styling: History and Step-by-Step Techniques, and if you have any interest in the 18th century at all, you need to support this project! There are many levels of support.



And selfishly, I want this book published too. Have you seen how awful I am with hair? I need all the help I can get! Seriously, the one time I wore a wig it blew off my head and rolled away a bit. If I lived in the Bay Area, I would have gone for the personalized styling session :)

The campaign is almost over, so help spread the word, and if at all possible, support this amazing project!

Checking In!

It's been a horribly long time since I posted, and even longer since I've posted anything costume related. However, there is a very good reason for that--I teach 6th grade, and school started three weeks ago. I'm rather dead to the world. I have a much harder time adjusting to the school year than I should because I essentially work the same hours that I slept in the summer. Really. In the summer I usually sleep from about 4 something in the morning to about 1 in the afternoon, and during the school year, I work from 7 something in the morning to 2 something in the afternoon, and then there's the lovely thing known as grading.

Anyway, enough of that! Since a costume blog post is nothing without pictures, I thought I might as well post a picture of a project that I'm working on. Though working might be too strong a word at the moment. Since work started again, I've done about 18 inches of straight stitch embroidery :)



It's a 1925 bathing suit that's at the Met, is patterned in Women's Wear of the 1920s (can you tell I love this book? A friend calls it the Pink Book of Awesome, and it's a totally perfect name for it), and was patented in 1925. How incredible is that to have SO much information about one suit?

So work goes on on that. I have some absolutely beautiful Appleton crewel wool to embroider it. I'm also planning on making a hat and bathing shoes. Making the shoes? Should be interesting!

It will be a bit before I get that finished, most likely. It's planned for a day at the beach prior to Costume College 2012.

In what I'm working on and need next news, my Regency Renaissance faire costume is done, so the event after that is a Civil War reenactment-lette. I'm making a dress with a very bright yellow cotton print for that. It'll be a yoked bodice, box pleated skirt, bishop sleeves with pleats sewn down at the top. I'll keep the blog posted! Right now, only a pocket is done, and that I sewed the print upside down. Um, oops? But it doesn't show! It is my ease back into doing things project, and as such, it will be completely hand sewn as that's so much easier for me than lugging out the machine.

So, I'm just posting to say yes, I do still exist! Though I'm not completely sure I feel like I do this time of year :)

Where have I been? What am I up to?

Yes, part five of the sacque draping is coming soon. The front is important!

However, I've been sidetracked, or rather I should say, this was the project that sidetracked me from what I was working on and I'm back to that. You see, in less than a month (*faints*), I'm going to be in the Costume Con masquerade in an as of yet unfinished dress. It's totally doable in the amount of time I have, but I've gone into manic sewing mode because it's rather stressful that it isn't done. My masquerade dresses have always been done long before the masquerade!

Anyway, each tutorial takes about an hour to write, which isn't so bad, but the more time I spend on the computer, the less I feel like sewing afterward. So the tutorial is on hold for the moment. If you click on any pictures though, you'll go to the Flickr set where you can browse the rest of the pictures.

So, there's my excuse! It is coming though. And there will be a ton of spotty dress pictures and information after the masquerade :)