Indienne Summer Begins

Ladies and gentlemen, I did not expect to be inspiring and heading up a group project when I visited FabMo on Friday. However, when I walked in, there was this amazing - I didn't know the content at the time - filmy rayon Indienne print chiffon. There were two bolts. And after a bit of deliberation I picked up ten yards, because hey, at a buck a yard, WHY NOT?

Trunk picture: 40 yards of folded lovely crazy stuff.

I also bought a crapload of linen and some really lovely cotton voile (also in an Indienne print), but that chiffon stuff kept calling to me. Finally, I paid, walked my things out to my car, and posted a picture to a private group on Facebook...

...And then spent the next five minutes sitting in my car fielding questions, then the next 20 minutes back inside the warehouse, posting pictures, giving fiber contents, and basically acting as buyer for a bunch of friends remotely. In the end, after having one of the FabMo volunteers reel off about thirty yards of the stuff, I offered to save her time and just buy the whole bolt. For $30. Yanno, because reasons.

I didn't even take it out of the car. I didn't, because I knew I was going to be at the McMac Fabrications beta launch on Sunday. And because I am a pusherfellow bargain hunter, I brought the bolt in.

Just about everyone tried to stick to their fabric diets. "Oh, I don't need any more fabric. I have so much already!" I almost feel bad. But when I ripped the first person's purchased yardage off it, everyone's heads swivelled around, and I'd soon sold off the remaining yardage.  I call that a win. :)

And so now we're starting a small group on Facebook to post what we're doing with it. We've had proposed ideas everywhere from filmy Regency gowns, to high hoop summer voile gowns, to 30's lawn dresses and full-skirted 1940s Dior.  I can't wait to see what people come up with, and I'm expanding the theme to include any Indienne print, just for funsies.  Are you interested? Look us up. :)

Busy Weekend Full of Edwardian Things

It's been an insane weekend.

Saturday was the GBACG's annual Open House. I went and ran sound again, which was much needed since we've traditionally had issues with people being unable to hear, or unable to understand the speaker as they're distorted through the PA. (I did this last year, and the comments were that this was the first time attendees had been able to understand half the stuff spoken onstage.)

Backstage Selfies are a Thing. Not in wonderful taste mind you, but a Thing.

I'd also spent a chunk of Friday night going through some of the assorted boxes of Stuff in my closet, sorting through some of the giant pile of silk flowers (millinery projects that never were) and bags and bags of scraps of ribbon (because once upon a time I was a remnant bag junkie - this was before Joann's started giving you a discount to buy the last yard).  I also dug through the fabric stash a little more and ended up bringing three whole bags of *stuff* to donate to the raffle.  It was nice!  I sort of wish I'd had more time, because I'm sure there's more *stuff* that would've exited my home.
But yanno, I can never keep from acquiring things...

So this year we had a silent auction. And in that silent auction was a thing that I desperately adored. So I bid... rather higher than I'd actually planned to.  I'm not sure I'm going to tell you more than that, because I sort of think I'm going to write about it for a certain magazine... maybe? But here's a coy little peek.

Peeking dazzlingly from the tissue paper

I also ended up with a pattern for a 1910s dress, and a bunch of neat lock-together storage thingies. I forsee a Great Button Sorting in my future. So three bags in, slightly less than a bag out, that's not bad... right?

Today, I got up considerably earlier than I'd gotten up for like a month, and drove to Oakland for my first ever peek at the Oakland Museum's White Elephant Preview Sale.  That was a lot of sleep dep for an amazing experience.  I met up with Michelle and others for the first ever McMac Fabrications field trip, and we stood within visual distance of the entryway as the line grew longer... and longer... and loooooonnnnger behind us. A bit before 10 AM, the line began to creep up closer to the door, and at just a bit past 10 we were ushered through the gaping maw of that warehouse.

I have to emphasize that point. The place is huge. HUGE. I expected it to be about 1/4 the size it was. Oh. My. God.  The overwhelm factor in the first few minutes was just huge.

I was going to spend some time in the Women's department looking for vintage stuff, but in my sense of urgency and utter overwhelm, didn't realize there was a vintage *section*, and so spent some time discontentedly glancing around at all the 1980s and 1990s junk, and then promptly left. I sort of percolated my way slooowly towards the sewing, stopping in the home linens area to pick up a very fine filet lace tablecloth.  The sewing area really did me in. There were SO MANY awesome sewing machines, and at least four that I would've taken home with me in a trice given the opportunity. There were bins of ribbon, bins of lace, bins of bits of fabric, more wool than I could justify buying. But I'll spare you the narrative, and just tell you about the haul. :)

So this is my notions haul. The GBACG announced that they're having a summer whites event, and of course my brain went to Edwardian lace dresses... So I ended up with a giant spool of lace edging ($8) suitable for ruffs, I might add, and this five-yard chunk of compiled lace ($6) that desperately needs washing, plus a five yard cluny lace chunk, and this spool of white figured tape that I think will compile nicely into things like bandeau straps and the like.  Along with that I got this really nice brocaded ribbon (18" for $.50), 3 yards of navy seaside themed 1950s trim, and a spool of probably about 280 yards of rather wide soutache.  Er, I had a plan for that, hilariously enough. We'll see.

 Hard goods I was a little more restrained on - there was a seam roll, which is one of the things I didn't yet have, and two non-standard cams for a mechanical buttonholer. A box of giant tapestry needles, which I use all the time as lacing bodkins, and these lovely fancy handled paper scissors from about 1910-1930 or so. (Hard to date, since they have no maker's mark on them, only "Solid Steel" where the initial S is shared between both words. Googling has been unhelpful so far.)

 Patterns!  There weren't many vintage ones by the time I got there, and I was fortunate enough to find one with a reasonable bust size. The other two should be reasonably easy to enlarge since they're fairly simple, and the dress appears to be just a drawstrung shaped sack. It's a lot of trouble, but still SO much cheaper than Etsy.

 Fabric haul: the filet lace tablecloth I'd mentioned earlier, plus a 5 yard length of this insane sort-of-Polynesian border print. I have NO idea what possessed me to pick it up, and less idea what to make of it... but hey.  Underneath it all is this amazingly soft bi-color wool twill. It's *heavy* as heck.

So preeeettttyyyy...

 Okay now we get to the fun part...  This is a middy-style day bodice - I'm guessing a child's size, but I haven't actually unfolded it and checked - in a lovely plushy velvet with silk trimmings. Basically finished, but entirely unworn. I saw this being hung up and literally made the incoherent grabby hands gesture at the woman behind the counter. She brought it over and I gasped at the price tag.

Is this a mistake?

WHAT. FIVE. DOLLARS.  WHAT. WHY.

Oh.

 So no, it wasn't a mistake. It's marked down to five bucks for probably the same reason that it was left entirely unworn - there's a giant gaping hole cut over the back left shoulder.  I have no idea why, and there's no indication, so I've got a few guesses.  Either it was marred or stained in some way, or the kid took a good hack at it with some scissors. (I know I ruined a few really pretty things making tiny sewn sachets for mom when I was 8 or so.)  At any rate, someone very carefully trimmed the edges clean... and then never got around to patching the thing.

 Bonus, we have a clue about where this could have come from - either the fabric, or the blouse itself. (That's the selvedge in the back of the inside.)

 This was impossible to photograph, but I also found a lovely (though in need of some repair) 1920s camisole slip.

 Right *next* to it, I found this lovely thing that I at first took to be a 1940's evening waistcoat.  Until I touched it and...

 Nope! This is some sort of evening bodice, though I couldn't give you a really accurate date at this point. My brain keeps thinking 1870s, but it's small enough and plain enough that it could've been a less-fashionable garment made for a (very) young lady. I love that you can see all the piecing and piping and boning, and the sweat guards and hanging loops and everything.
But  the best part was... definitely the last bit.

 But this was what took the cake. This is the back of an Edwardian gown.

This is the front.  I squee'd. I really did.  It's so lovely, even if it's not in great shape.  The interior construction is really interesting, and I'm thinking about how best to document it.  What say you, dear readers? What do you want to know about this dress?

And now it's after midnight and I'm still working on other blog posts and I have email I need to get back to and and and...

I live!

It's been a few months, and I promise you a blog update on the other blog, for those of you who're interested in hearing about the what/where/why.

But I am *entirely* remiss in posting, and so I have to tell you that *tonight*, I am reprising my talk from Odd Salon last year at Nerd Nite SF. It's sold out, so my apologies for anyone who reeeeeallly wants to see this and didn't hear about it in time, and to anyone who expects me to be much more than a giant bundle of nerves tonight.  (Debating changing my LinkedIn headline to something like "Independent Researcher and Lecturer in Historical Dress and Fashion". What do you think?)

 So how about some costuming updates? That Tudor jacket came out well, and Noel lent me a ruff which made it look *amaaaaazing*.

Damn, it feels good to be.. like 1601ish.

So, remember that cotehardie that I cut out? I was going to make a woolen overdress to go with it, and indeed, I still even have the woolen (a lovely silver-blue heathered suiting from the 1960s) standing by, but for Halloween, inspiration struck late and I ended up using the pattern (with several rounds of modifications) to make a Game of Thrones dress over it out of the same silvery-blue silk that I made my Athena costume out of last year.  It turned out pretty well, all things considered! (Though I'm told it's not "screen accurate". Screw those people. I made this in less than a week! No fancy embroidery here!)

A lady of King's Landing

The other thing, was that the 2014 Holiday Party turned out to be "The Future" themed.  I joked that this was a test by the Events team after the 1930s dress for the last event - they know that "the future" is the one period I don't do.  But I looked at the inspiration boards that they provided, and I spent time drawing and browsing art deco resources and then Fabric.com had a sale on metallic lame.  And I was hooked.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the metallic lame was two-way stretch metallic PVC.  But dangit I'd bought the stuff and designed a dress around it, so like hell was I going to give up now!  I spent a good while patterning it out, and was stumped temporarily by the cowl-neck.  Searching for patterning images for the thing, I ran across a snapshot of a 1930s tailoring treatise, currently running for something like $100 on eBay for a broken down copy. But it turns out that Michelle had a copy, and was able to point me in the right direction.  Game on.

I patterned, I cut, and when it came time to cut the big side panels, I couldn't find a space in my apartment large enough. Whoops.  So I took them to work, and cut them out on the floor of the office between two desks. Then I took the whole thing home and started serging it together.

Now thankfully, I'd made a few knit material tops before, so I wasn't entirely surprised by working with this stuff. But man, if I thought doing French seams on a geometric pattern block was stupid, trying to serge a geometric pattern in *stretch knit* was stupider.  In the end I'm still not 100% pleased with the lay of the front stripe, and it ended up much more rounded than the art-deco steps I'd envisioned. But as is the case with so much in the costuming world, nobody sees the flaws but you.

I also wore this for New Years (because why not?) but sadly neither venue lent itself to photographing the material. And yes, I have an "updo mohawk" in both wearings. :)

Art Deco meets Art... Futura?

Fervid

Running running running running.

It seems like I keep deciding I'm making a costume for this event or that event like the week before said event. Welp! If this helps keep me from overthinking it... yay!

Well, it looks like a giant arming doublet sleeve, but dayum does it look good on me. Laurie draped a Tudor block on me this evening over my old effigy stays (which I really need to remake, since they gap a little more at the bust now, and since I don't need them to gap for Venetians).  I converted that into an English Jacket pattern. (I made a quick and dirty mockup in ugly Christmas muslin, and yep, it'll work!)

Oh, and since I never did post a picture, here's the 1930s dress from the last post.

Or, well, at least it's the back of it. Definitely some things I would change in the next one (and there was almost a next one, except that it sounds like I can safely wear this to Gatsby after all).  But it went together beautifully and it's SO comfortable!

On Doubting Myself

On a whim, I'm making a 1930s dress out of a polyester fashion chiffon that I picked up on my last trip to the Garment District - Oh crap, I haven't posted since May... Uh, yes! I was at Costume College!  I barely dressed up at all!  But I was there!

Anyway, I got a bunch of printed polyester fashion chiffons that I LOVE from the by-the-pound Michael Levine store. And work is having a sort of electro-swing themed summer garden party (a la Gatsby) so I decided fashion print + 1930s pattern = winning, right?

Well, none of my existing paper patterns (that I could find) actually were frilly enough for the purpose. I actually spent a few hours pawing through my research library and had an option picked out from one of them, when I realized that I'd actually picked up an amazing surplice-back 1930s dress at the local thrift store. 

I took a pattern off that, then enlarged it to my size. Then I spent a bunch of time freaking out about how I was totally doing this by feel, and went back and put the new-drafted pattern against an existing one that I knew fit. I altered it a bunch.  And then, still last night - this was all on Monday, you see! - I threw everything off my worktable and cut it out. 

Today when I got home from work I dicked around on the internet for a few hours, and at 9 really sat down to sew.  I ran gathering stitches in the underbust, set up my serger, and serged the skirt pieces together, switched it into a rolled-hem and hemmed a bunch of parts, then went to my sewing machine and basted the bodice parts together.

Yeah, all those alterations that I made based on that existing pattern that I knew fit me?  I'm taking them out. :P   Whoops.  Should've trusted myself!

So, on the "left to do" list is serge the side seams, re-roll-hem the neckline (too high!), serge the shoulder seams, gather the shoulder seams, and then gather the underbust and finally set the skirt into the bodice.  Then set the sleeves, and roll hem the hem of the skirt.

The one mystery remains - will this be a slip-on frock? Or am I going to have to cut bias and slit it and put in a side opening?  The original has no visible fasteners except at the wrists (and the snaps in the bra-strap keepers at the shoulder seams).  This is gonna be interesting!

Incompletes, Impulsiveness, and Meticulous Frugality

Well, great. So this post probably shows up in your feed twice, because apparently hitting tab and then typing posts the thing on Blogger. Whoops.

I owe so many posts at this point it's not even funny. The awesome thing I alluded to in the last post is an amazing 1894ish tea or graduation gown that I got at the Vintage Expo. But unless I hear clamoring for it, I'm probably not going to get around to posting about it much.

Instead, I've been doing a lot of what I can only call "impulse costuming".  And it's been all from stash, which is AWESOME, zomg I cannot TELL you how awesome.

This post started as a Facebook status that just kept going, and now I'm going to unload a whole 'nother post's worth of impulse before I even get to what I set out to post about. Right.

Awhile back I decided I was attending the final yearly Actions of the Lowe Countries, and that dagnabbit, I wanted a German dress. So I pulled out some patterning supplies and my Tudor block, and went through three iterations of the front curve before I got it right. I then pulled out a 80"x90" old olive-drab woolen (military? boyscout?) blanket from the stash. It took some careful patterning, but I managed to get an entire dress with half sleeves out of it. The skirt isn't very wide, but hey, isn't that about right for a camp follower anyway? The guarding came from a roll of navy blue scrap woolen I bought from another GBACG costumer when I visited Casa de Fruita last - it was slated for just this sort of purpose. I've still got enough that I think I'll make an Elizabethan fitted jacked out of it.  Anyway, the German dress: I finished the last bits of handsewing onsite before dark!  And I fitted a panel of helper lacing into the lining so I could get the hooks and eyes closed. I also made a sort of crappy wulst and conned Cherylynn into pinning it to a wobbly, but reasonable Wulsthaube. When I find my wire, I'm going to remake the wulst and try that again.

It seems that none of the amazing photographers actually took my picture this year, so I have one shot I had a friend take, and a selfie that I took from just before I took down my (plastic) tent.

Drei Schwestern - courtesy Shelley Monson (me on the right)

Plasticamp selfie - I threw the English partlet over it for sun protection. Next I need to make a gollar.

Okay!  So! 

Impulse costuming strikes again!  Last week I took a pattern that Laurie had fitted to me *literally* years ago (possibly four?) and took a piece of thrift-store linen, and cut out a cotehardie pattern. There were some shoulder issues. That's okay. I was able to put a dart in the first draft, then pivot it out and splice the paper patterns together, then move the pattern just far down enough on the original fitting toile/lining to recut the armscyes. (Thankfully it'd been long to start with - needlessly so since there'll be a skirting gore in the middle at some point.)  So then I stalled. 

The reason I started the cotehardie was actually a bit of - you may gasp - medieval fantasy costuming (Winter is coming, y'all). But I would hate to make a full set of underwear and gown out just for fantasy stuff. I have this great bolt of *insanely* slubby dupioni in a quite interesting silver, but it'd be too warm to wear over wool. But I have this great woolen dress-length I got at the thrift store for a song. So, that's two overgowns - one historical, one fantasy - but what to do for the actual cote? 

Years ago, I bought a random length of blue linen, and a random length of pink linen. God knows what I thought I was going to do with them. At some point I made a pair of rather larger than anticipated pocket hoops out of some of the pink. But the blue sat, forgotten. Until I went spelunking into the Fabric Closet of DOOM (requires a headlamp, not even kidding), and dragged it out.

Well, this stuff is bizarre. It's at least partly linen. I think it's got... ramie? in it too. The selvedges are GOREGOUS.  And I've got just under two yards of it, 70", post-washing. (It had clearly been washed.)

"70 inches?" I hear you muttering. "That's not nearly enough to make ANYTHING for an adult sized human."

Yeah, normally, that would be right. But this stuff is bizarre, did I mention? Because it is also 83" wide from selvedge to selvedge.  Just like in the German dress, I grabbed the graph paper and plotted the gown pieces. I can make this work, but I'm going to have to cut the sleeves slim and flip the trimmings into gores to round out the underside of the biceps. And the skirting gores might not be all that wide. Oh, and I will have one strip 2"x10" long, left unused. It'll probably be facings for sleeve buttoning parts. I'm okay with this for a cote though, especially since I patterned in enough room for a lacing stand into the front. This will be the undergown!

And I've got two beautiful gowns planned that can go over it for various occasions. :)

With that, goodnight!

Eight Months?!

No, I wasn't pregnant.  Yeesh.  But I just realized that the last time I posted here was... in August.  It's now nearly April.  I'm about to turn 31 (which is a pretty cool prime number), and while things have oscillated between exploding and progressing smoothly at home, I'm finally getting to the point where I feel good enough (and am pushing back enough on day-job work) to get some sewing done.

That said, I haven't exactly *finished* a lot just yet, but I've got a lot of stuff in the hopper. I'm planning to blog more here, so let me tell you a little about what's on deck - if there's anything you want to see more about, let me know so I can write up a post about it.

• military-blanket German camp follower gown (zomg I did some smocking!)
• awful Regency corset of DOOM project
• art deco pajamas

And I think I'm also supposed to tell you about the Mucha outfit at some point... oh hrm.

Aside from that I'm also pondering how to re-order my living and working space at home. I realized at some point that the fact that my worktable is also my sewing machine fixery bench and ironing board really contributes to the project-blockage that I experience all too frequently.  (That said, I have something like five sewing machines waiting for small parts so I can send them on down the line to their next homes.

Hilariously, what I really logged on to post about in the first place will have to wait until I can get some better pictures.  I went to the Vintage Clothing Expo yesterday in San Francisco and bought a really neat 1894ish study piece!