Commission - Purple Bustle Dress

So. Yes. It has been a very long time since my last post. Six months almost, but who's counting aside from all of you? 

I could sit here and start rattling off excuses for why I've been unable to post, so I will: I was commissioned by a friend to make a Victorian ensemble. A purple and pink ensemble based off the famous purple and pink reception dress by Worth. 

Charles Frederick Worth, Reception dress c. 1874.

Now, I say 'based off of' because the patterns and style was decided first, then I showed her a photo of this dress and she fell in love with the color scheme. The patterns for the dress were the trusty ol' Truly Victorian TV405, TV305, TV201.

I wasn't around when these photos were taken otherwise
I would have fixed that apron.

Some detail shots. Holly is still too big n' busty to fit
period clothing. I promise the dress fit the client. 

This is my second time working with the Vest Basque and I didn't cut any corners this time. I actually finished the arm holes and put boning in the seams. I also added some buttons on the back and the cuffs because I kept loosing the buttons and running out to buy more. The nice people at my local Joann's must hate me.  The skirt has two long ruffles at the bottom and the seam of the top ruffle is covered by purple bias tape. The underskirt pattern is ridiculously easy and quick aside from the butt-pleating which took a good evening.

The apron over-skirt, however, takes a few re-reads of the instructions to get how to add the closure(the hemming and bustling was a bit fiddly but that may be do the fact that I was using the smallest size.) Its some kind type of contraption reminiscent of a modesty panel in a modern day corset. The idea is to not have a gap between the front and back pieces of the apron, so this piece of fabric extends from the bottom of one to the bottom of the other and is attached by buttons, hooks and eyes, skirt hooks, or even snaps or Velcro for quick costume changes.

Unfortunately, the panel didn't cover the closure of the waistband itself. So using the same concept, I rigged up a small band with a skirt hook and it ended up working wonderfully.

She also had me make her a full set of Victorian undergarments to wear under the dress. A nice red taffeta corset made from the Silverado Bust Gore pattern and the Truly Victorian Grand Bustle, Simplicity 9769 chemise and drawers all made from muslin.

Ignore the horror movie lighting

Tried making some nice pin tucks. I think they turned out alright 

HOLLY STRIKES AGAIN! 

I haven't made this chemise or bustle before and they were both pretty easy. The instructions on the bustle confused my tiny brain for a while because of the fact that is isn't bustled by tied ribbons like the TV101, it has a piece of fabric acting in place of ties so I'm not really sure if it can be stored flat like the other one. And adding the ruffles while trying to keep from blocking the boning channels was pretty tricky, but I'll definitely be making one of these for myself in the future. Same with the chemise. It's more a Civil War era but I feel it can work for more styles in the Victorian era.


And so yea, that's what I've been busy with....for the past 5 months...so quit hasslin' me.


I'm just kidding. Keep hasslin' me. In fact, go hassle me at The Dowager Dame Facebook page. That'll teach me to keep everyone waiting.

Flaming Sacque-Back Gown

So with today being the 150th anniversary of Gettysburg, all the cool, big-time costumers are talking about making 4 or 5 brand new civil war dresses each or wearing one of their hundreds of already finished dresses to cool events or the infamous battlefield itself.

And I'm just sitting here making a costume for the sugar-plum fairy.


Well, that and I'm FINALLY getting to work on the Adventure Time Princess project.

But instead of starting off with Marcy's ball gown, I'm stepping out of my

19th Century comfort zone and beginning Flame Princess's robe à la française(we'll call it a sacque from now on, shall we?) 

I love the look of sacque-back gowns. A dress so amazing that not only does the skirt train, THE ENTIRE BACK OF THE DRESS TRAINS. DUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE! If you don't think that's cool get out of mah face!

It also has the same room-clearing power as a crinoline.Which is good in a crowded convention setting.

It gives me a good chance to make some 18th Century undergarments for general use in future projects. These will be made by hand out of nice and period appropriate fabrics. The gown itself will be handmade out of some pretty two-tone taffeta from, you guessed it, Fabric.com. 

I am a know-next-to-nothing when it comes to 18th Century and A LOT of books will need to be purchased, but this will be a good learning experience.

Any advice to help?



Check us out at The Dowager Dame Facebook page! Tell me what you think there!

And We're Back! A look at Animenext 2013 [Image Heavy]

Now that the post-convention-depression is beginning to wear off and I can finally look at sewing machine without wanting to start sobbing uncontrollably again- a very hard condition to deal with when sewing is your day job- I am back and ready to report on Animenext 2013!

Over the years of cosplaying at conventions, I've learned that it is VERY difficult to take pictures of all of the awesome people in awesome costumes you run into. Doubly so when you yourself are an awesome person in an awesome costume. But I did get a fair amount of photos of people I randomly assaulted with 'OMIGOSHTHATSSOCOOLCANIGETAPICTURE?!' while they were busy doing something else.

An Alice from American McGee's
Alice and Alice: Madness Returns.
She made that hobby-horse herself!
AWESOME!

A Sen(Chihiro) and Noh-Face from
Spirited Away one of my favorite movies.

The Phillip in his Donky Kong suit.

And The Phillip out of costume with his childhood hero

At the Chipocrite concert I spotted a Death
from The Sandman comics.

The Phoenix Wright Gang
(The Phillip is gonna laugh at me for not
knowing the characters) 

Dr. Wily, Zero, and Splash Woman from
Megaman.

This guy comes to Animenext EVERY YEAR
and just sits in the outdoor area between the
hotel and convention center and just sings
to himself. I love it! 

A princess Loki. I interrupted her on her
way to lunch....

And princess Avengers I interrupted during lunch, I'm sorry,
ladies, you were just too fabulous to pass up!

Timmy Turner's Dad, in his natural habitat
of cursing Dinkleburg.

Master Roshi and Ox-King from your
varying Dragon Balls.

 We wandered out into the atrium just in time for The Phillip to shove me into a My Little Pony photo shoot.(Coincidence? I doubt it!) Warning: If you aren't familiar with MLP, this may go WAAAAAY over your head.

All the Pegasi- Gala!Dash, Soarin', Scootaloo,
and normal Dash.

Gala!Dash showing off how awesome Tank is...

...and King Sombra tortoise-napping him. 

 Next came the Raritys and lemme tell ya, does one of these thing not belong here or what?

A picture of me in the hotel lobby

The convention was great as it always is. Chipocrite was there again, Uncle Yo was there again, and some obscure J-pop band was the headliner. No idea who they were, but The Phillip and I were in the elevator with them at one point. They were pretty chill.


Unfortunately, I must now find a way to get the purple stains out of my dress and the hurricane rains that was happening on the first day caused the colors to run. Always pre-wash fabrics. Always. 

But, it survived and once I ad more OOMPH to the bustle(and shorten the train a little bit(seriously, people, an entire convention center and two hotels worth of space and you still step on the train!?)) I'll wear it to another convention. The Phillip and I were thinking Comic Con NY or something of the like. We'll see. =)

Been to any recent events? What's an event that you go to every time it rolls around?




Now that I'm back in the blogging game, I may have some stuff to say on The Dowager Dame Facebook Page. Check it out!

Update on Lady Rarity's Dress. [Image Heavy]

So aside from a small ruffle that needs to be added to the hem(Shhh! Don't tell my teacher, she thinks it's 100% done!), The Lady Rarity Dress is complete. And with a week and a half to spare!

Or rather, a week and a half to freak out and panic because the accessories aren't done.

Yup. That's about right.

Here's the dress on Holly, My Slightly-Bigger-Than-Me-Because-No-One-Wants-To-Make-A-Dress-Form-In-My-Size-So-All-My-Outfits-Look-Too-Small dress form.

American Duchess Tavistock Unboxing and Review.

With the making of a new costume comes the excuse to buy myself things. Well, not that you need an excuse to buy yourself a new pair of shoes. Amiright, ladies? ; )

Crisis Avoided or Why You Should Always Read Directions.

So coming back from weeks of slaving away in front of both the sewing machine at work and the sewing machine at home( My boss affectionately refers to me as "an old sew-and-sew.") I am finding time to blog. FINALLY. I swear, I'm gonna get better at this.

And with my brand new Singer 9960 Quantum Machine, I am continuing with the Lady Rarity Dress.

LOOK AT HOW AWESOME IT IS!
The ruffler foot even works on it! 

The Equine fashionista herself!

I'm using Truly Victorian Patterns 1872 Vest Basque and 1875 Parisian Trained Skirt. In white and royal purple cotton/silk poplin bought from Fabric.com. 

The train and bustle on the on the skirt and the cuffs and collar on the top are in the purple to

'simulate' Rarity's mane and tail. The front apron on the skirt is white as are the sleeves and main body of the bodice. The faux vest at the front will be a light blue silk. I ordered a yard of a few different ones from puresilks.us, so I still don't know which one yet.

An armscye is the armhole- where the
sleeve connects to the bodice.

Now, where is this would-be crisis I lured you here with? I'm not alone in the sewing world when it comes to issues with armscyes. They are either too big, causing unsightly bunching and gathering; or they are too small, preventing you from moving your arms. With the mock up I made of the vest basque, the armscye was so constricting that it was painful to hole my arms out in front of me. At first I thought it was due to me trying it on without my corset and proper undergarments, but even when I was all decked out, my underarm and shoulder suffered.

I reluctantly decided that I needed to manually enlarge the armscye on the pattern. Then, something in the back of my head told me I needed to re-read the directions and I found this:

"Choose Front, Vest, and Collar pattern piece that correlates to your Adjusted Front."

This could have ended very badly.

All I needed to do was a bit of math, and I figured out that the size I needed was two-parts one-size and one-part a-size-larger. The actual bodice turned out perfect!

The moral of this story: READ THE DIRECTIONS ONCE, TWICE, THREE TIMES! It may seem like a waste of time, but your beautiful outfit will thank you!

Here is some more pictures of how the dress is going so far!




Doing Things The Hard Way...

      I know the three people who follow this blog have been wondering where I've been. Well, I've been busy....

      A perfect storm of Things-Just-Not-Working have set me back a bit. I am trimming the Lady Rarity dress with purple ruffles at the hems and seams. The ruffles at the hems are to themselves be hemmed on the top and bottom edge and the ruffles at the seams would simply be gathered and sewn in.

      I had planned to use my handy-dandy narrow hem presser foot to do this quickly as I've heard wonderful things about it, but alas, I seem to have ordered the union worker of the bunch.... 

Working it's horror on some poor
unsuspecting scrap fabric...

      And by that I mean: This thing wants to work on ITS OWN terms and if you violate that, it will set out to destroy you and everything you have ever planned to accomplish.


      So, I am forced to hem 1/4" on both long edges by hand...


      All 2+ yards of it...


    Yea, remember when I said I've been busy?

It's at least two yards...

      It took me all weekend and then, when I thought I was finally done with this batch(because I still need to do a whole lot more...) I found that my ruffler foot attachment doesn't want to work on my machine anymore. So, several hours of troubleshooting and broken needles later I decided that I'll give it a try at the machines at school. 

      It worked. Sort of.

      The machine kept sputtering and skipping pleats and I wasn't able to finish at least half of the super long ribbon before class ended.

At the moment, I'll continue to fiddle with it and I'll try it out on one more machine before I quit the ruffler foot and gather the old fashion way; Two long stitches and a whole lot of time.


Have any of your sewing projects been halted, postponed or slowed down by technology conspiring against the seamstress?




Humina, humina- What's this? A Dowager Dame, Lady Monroe Facebook page? I know there's a few people who read this page- I know you're out there! I can see the pageviews! YOU CAN'T HIDE FOREVER!- So why not head on down there and drop us a like and a comment?

Corset and Undies.

Okay, Jack, you are gonna sit down a blog, dang-it!

Well, It's March now and I met my deadline of finishing all of my Victorian undergarments by the end of February. Well sort of. All the main construction is done on most of them and really all they need are things like trims or fasteners.

The Drawers. 

The Drawers are from the trusty ole Simplicity 9769. They(Like most of the underthings) are made from white cotton broadcloth purchased from Fabric.com. The Pattern is easy to follow and there's only a few pieces- but the leg pieces are HE-UGE! All that's left to do is trim the bottom of the legs  with some eyelet lace and the white eyelet beading/black ribbon.

Chemise

Okay, thought I had some pictures of the actual chemise but I guess I was wrong. I'll post them as soon as I take some. 

So, I had decided to make this style chemise back when I thought I was doing the Marceline dress, so it's cut more for a civil war evening gown. I used the out of print Simplicity 5729.  

Now, let me explain something here. I am a pack-rat. Bordering on hoarder status. I get anxiety from cutting up patterns that are still readily available. But cutting out the pieces on an OOP pattern? Well, it kinda went like this...

The pattern is pretty simple except for the neckline. It was a bit fiddly, but I'll just chalk that up to my own stupidity. 

Unfortunately, I will probably end up making another one with sleeves and fancy laces. I'll try to recycle parts from this one and if I really can't save it, I'll just use it as a nightgown or bathing suit cover.(See that pack-rat-I-can't-throw-anything-away-thing I did there?)

 Bustle

Oh, my God. OOOOH, MYYYYY GOOOOOD. THIS THING IS THE GREATEST THING EVER!

Truly Victorian TV101 Wire Bustle. It took a bit of pounding my head into the instruction booklet in hopes of preforming some kind of knowledge osmosis, but again, that's because of my own direction-following difficulties. A person with a normal working brain should have A LOT less trouble.  

I purchased the bones from the TV website. They are sturdy and have managed to withstand a constant state of the bustle being tied. I don't recommend it- the bones being tied 24/7, that is- but the pattern allows for them to be removed and replaced, so it's all good. I have yet to make the ruffle overlay at the moment and I may replace the hook and eye front closure with a drawstring of some kind. Other than that, the bustle is pretty much complete. Which brings us to...

UGH. The Corset. 


As you can guess from the lovely intro, the corset didn't go as planned.
It was all set up perfectly, I was going to use the simply marvelous black on white vine printed cotton I've been itching to use on something, All the other fabric I had already in storage and all I needed to do was buy the kit from Corsetmaking.com.

But THAT should have been the giveaway.

Things were fine at first. I finished the corset and wore it under my clothing for a few days. To get a feel for how it fit and how to move, sit, and work in it. I had read some reviews online about how the hips of this pattern were too tight and how people needed to at big ol' hip gores for it to fit. I thought I was lucky because the hips were as comfortable as could be, which is unusual due to my wide hip bones.

Me, showing off my fancy new corset! 

But then I realized that I had made the pattern too big. Commercial patterns have this issue were they give accurate proportioned measurements, but put them under the wrong number. So what was a size 16, should have been a 14 bust and waist with 16 hips. 

The corset was super loose around the bust- again, strange given by rather large bosoms.

So, I thought I could fix everything with the historically inaccurate use of SAFETY PINS.

But alas, It wasn't meant to be. The blasted thing kept riding up and eventually it began to hurt my lower back. Never understood why. I will have to make another one. I'm going for the Laughing Moon Dore Corset that's so popular around these parts.

The laces- completely closed- telling me my
corset is too big.

And so, with all this out of the way, I can continue making the lovely Rarity Dress and future Victorian Garb.  Anyone else working on various underthings and unmentionable from throughout time? What's your favorite era to make underclothing for?