Cor Blimey!

To anyone reading this who voted for me in the Foundations Revealed competition I would just like to say a big "Thank You!"*

Thanks to your votes, as well as a little doodah I get to put on this blog saying I'm a finalist I also get a year's free subscription to the website which means I can use the money I save to buy myself a new thimble.

Yes, in the making of the corset I lost a thimble on the train.

Yes, in the making of the corset I did my usual procrastinating which meant as the deadline drew close I had to utilise every spare scrap of time I had which meant sewing during my commute to and from work.

I could make the lost thimble incident into a big sob story about how it belonged to my grandmother but to be fair:

1) she was a big knitter, not really a big sewist

2) I don't need a thimble in order to remember her

3) it turned my finger green

So while I was very cross with myself for losing it I did get over it.

It has occurred to me that I don't have a proper photograph of my wearing it (or of my 18^th century concoctions from last year) so here are some pics:

Assemblage

Inserted busk:

Seams - these are mock flat felled:

Sewing down the embroidery bit:

Lacing:

There's no modesty panel at the back because I ran out of coutil. I also think I overdid the coutil generally - there seemed to be rather a lot of it. I would normally make the bonecasings out of coutil but I had to use twill tape… also because I ran out of coutil. I think it's fair to say I had coutil issues with this one.

Photographs (if you want to see me in my underwear) are here. Note in these pictures I'm also wearing some Madeline knickers from Collette Patterns - made from white habotai silk and with two slight alterations (they were a little too low cut for my taste so I changed them to sit higher on the hip and I personally didn't like the bows head on so I moved them to the side a little).

Embroidery II

I am fed up with stabbing myself with pins.

I am spending all my spare time sewing in a desperate attempt to get my corset finished in time for the deadline. My hands look like they've been in the wars - goodness knows what my piano teacher thinks I get up to instead of practicing scales. It doesn't help that in addition to my stab wounds I also managed to burn my thumb with a kettle.

Anyway, as I'm sure you don't want to see pictures of my scabs I'm going to show you a few pictures of my embroidered dragons.

Here I am mid-embroider:

Here we have my embroidered pieces all stitched together (and also attached to the corset):

And here we have a close up:

There should be more corset news coming next week!

Embroidery I

What a lot of effort! All I wanted was an embroidered dragon! Was that really too much to ask?

As my drawing skills leave a lot to be desired I went to the library to look for pictures of dragons to see how they're put together. I looked in the mythology section, the art section, the religion section and the embroidery section.

Then I looked in Waterstones, the Oxfam Bookshop and the Community Bookshop.

Then I gave up and decided to drop the dragon idea and go for something art nouveau so back to the library and a look at some books on art nouveau for some inspiration.

When returning the art nouveau books I didn't want back to their rightful places on the shelves I accidentally went down the wrong aisle and found myself in the painting section. Lo and behold a book entitled "How to Draw and Paint Dragons" by Tom Kidd.

I joined the library (aren't libraries great?!), took out the dragon book and two on art nouveau (in case I decided to have an art nouveau dragon), bought some food and lugged everything home.

Later that day I came up with this:



Which is an attempt to separate it out into its constituent parts to make it fit onto the pattern pieces.

Then I cut the pieces out in poplin and sewed them together to ensure everything matched up and had smooth lines. They didn't. I had to tweak the design slightly.

Then I traced the design onto some stabiliser

And hooped the stabiliser with the coutil after first tacking the two together to ensure it all stays on the correct grain.

I was going to have two different dragons for an asymmetrical design (in fact I was going to have a winged lion on the other side but I don't fancy my chances of finding a book called "How to Draw and Paint Winged Lions") but I think that might just be a little too much for me.

My satin coutil arrived!

My initial thoughts were to make a single layer corset but now that I have my coutil I decided to google it and see if that's a bad idea. It does seem that a single layer of satin coutil would hold up to corsetry however I'm a little concerned about wrinkling - particularly with it being satin.

On getting it home I was able to examine the coutil more easily and discovered that it's thinner than I was expecting so the end result is that I think I'm going to back it with normal herringbone coutil. This will mean a slight alteration to my WRITTEN DOWN METHODOLOGY.

Meanwhile… I'm drawing dragons… .

Mock Up MK I

I am a genius! Not content with my discovery that if a garment is too baggy when worn it means it's too big, I have put together a corset mock up which almost fits perfectly on the first go!

Here it is:


The front is a bit high. Although this height is fine generally, I've decided I want it a bit lower. I think it will look better. I've changed the pattern so it's a bit lower in the front.

The hips are a bit big. I've sliced a bit off the pattern pieces at the sides and shaved the edges of the front gores a teeny tiny bit.

In the category of issues not relating to fitting, the busk is too long and I can't sit in it. I wondered about cutting out a bit at the front above the hips thus enabling a long busk but looking through my (limited) pictures, I only found one 1910s corset that looked like this and the rest of them just had shorter busks. I decided to go with the majority. I think I prefer it that way.

Eeeeee! Now I get to order bones and coutil!

Writing Down The Methodology

Although I'm still sorting out the fit of my new corset I've been giving the construction a great deal of thought.

After I abandoned the last corset attempt due to realising I'd forgotten how to make a corset and therefore doing it wrong* I decided it would be best to write down the method, step by step, several times, each time refining the method until I could see nothing wrong with it. It has the added bonus of being the all important step 16. Here it is:





Initially, I was going to embroider onto the coutil pieces and then flatline these to corresponding lining pieces before sewing the seams in order to hide the embroidery thread ends.

Then I decided that it would be easier to embroider a separate piece of coutil and appliqué that onto the already assembled corset resulting in a) far less of a need for a lining and b) no bone casing stitching lines going through my embroidery.

Then I realised that I may not be able to make decent flat felled seams because of having gores in which case I would have to make mock flat felled seams and would need a lining to hide the raw edges.

To summarise, this is where I have ended up:

White satin coutil
Mock flat felled seams
Internal bone casings
Spiral steels
Waist tape
Lining
Front opening busk
Flap of coutil over the busk
Modesty panel
Front modesty bit
Silver eyelets
Appliquéd embroidery bit
Black / red / orange / yellow embroidery
Black satin bias binding
Black ribbon laces
Suspenders
Flossing


* I need to unpick my seams and sew them back together… properly.

Picture

Further to my post of earlier today, please see below an amusing drawing courtesy of Lunchtime Illustration Limited:

I have no idea whether or not it will turn out to be anything remotely like this. For a start the shaded bit won't actually be shaded, it's being embroidered in some way.

New Corset

This year's Your Wardrobe Unlock'd competition was announced (quite some time ago) and we get to choose between 1812 and 1912. Neither of these two styles of dress used to appeal to me until more recently when I came to appreciate them a little more.

The thing is, neither one appeals to me more than the other and I'm not about to dive in to making them both in such a short space of time! Besides which, I'm not sure I could keep the enthusiasm up.

There has been a lot of doodling and looking at pictures and I kind of came up with a 1912ish ensemble and an 1812ish ensemble but I'm not really sure if I have the capabilities of these eras at this stage or that I'm willing to learn them in such a short space of time.

I do, however, have the capabilities of making an underbust corset and given a decent length of time I may even be able to make it a good one! With embroidery and everything!

Norah Waugh has a very helpful 1911 corset pattern. And if my wanderings into gores fails, the lovely Jo over at Bridges on the Body has kindly provided a different pattern from the same era.

So, two and a bit weeks ago, some of my sewing related activities involved scaling up the Norah Waugh pattern and tweaking it so that it's more in line with my own measurements. (Note, I don't have an amusing drawing as yet.)

Here is the enlargement:



Here are some calculations for alteration to my own measurements:



Here is the pattern altered to my own measurements with added seam allowances:



I've started cutting out my mock up in twill. I think it may stretch.

Fitting dress patterns

I have problems getting the bodice part of dresses to fit or sit right.

Is it because I have wonky shoulders?
Is it because I have broad shoulders but a skinny body?
Is it because I'm boney?

The answer to all of these questions is "no". It's because I've been cutting my patterns the wrong size.

I feel invincible.

Well.

Some spanners got lodged in the works and some flies fell into my ointment. This means my sewing went out of the window. I didn't go to Vintage at Goodwood at the Southbank and my plans to go to an Alice in Wonderland themed party as the Hatter have turned into plans to go to an Alice in Wonderland themed party as Alice.

I might continue with making the Hatter outfit I had planned and see if I can somehow crowbar it into another themed party at a later date.

Pink

On one of my past trips to Goldhawk Road I noticed that there were for sale some cottons with pink roses on them. I pondered what I could make out of that sort of fabric and then remembered something very important - I don't like it. My least favourite colour is pinky pink. I really don't want an item of clothing covered in pink roses.

I recently went back to Goldhawk Road and noticed the cottons with pink roses on them were still for sale. I thought a bit more about what I would like to make with them and then remembered something very important - I don't like them.

The shop was very busy and I had to wait next to the printed cottons to be served. As I waited, I thought about how I could make a lovely floral circle skirt out of one of the pink rose print cottons. I completely forgot that I don't like it and bought some.

As I walked back to the station (in the wrong direction) I remembered something very important - I don't like pinky pink. I looked into the bag to see if the pink was actually dark pink and I could convince myself that it was really red. Nope. It's pink all right.

I got home and washed it and as I hung it out to dry I gazed lovingly at the roses until I remembered something very important - I don't like them.

Once dry, I got in to cutting out the pieces for the circle skirt and no amount of not liking the fabric could stop me. Once cut out, I held one half of the skirt against me and looked in the mirror. I didn't like it.

I slept on it. I considered shortening it or turning it into a pencil skirt or shortening it and turning it into a pencil skirt on the grounds that less fabric = less pink but it was still pink.

Luckily I have a friend with a similar waist size who has no aversion to pink (or roses or circle skirts) and she's thrilled to be getting a circle skirt with pink roses on it.

Potentially Veering Off Course

There're a lot of things I want to make. I planned out my year. I've got various events I need outfits for (another fancy dress party, the Chap Olympiad / Vintage at Goodwood at the Southbank 1920s dress, Vicki's wedding), a circle skirt for my chum, the new Your Wardrobe Unlock'd competition and some random pieces of clothing that I can just wear on a normal day.

I went to see The School For Scandal at the Barbican last night. It seemed to get quite bad reviews (the ones I've seen and admittedly my research wasn't very extensive) some of which appears to have stemmed from the mixture of 18th century with modern accoutrements. I quite liked this for two reasons: 1) it meant I didn't sit there being distracted by historical inaccuracies because they were meant to be on purpose and 2) it was similar to the world in my head where everyone runs around in sack back dresses and frock coats and stockings and Louis heeled shoes and yet still have their 21st century conveniences and lifestyles.

So what do you think happened? That's right. I now want to abandon everything in my first paragraph and make myself a new 18th century dress!

Vintage at Goodwood at the Southbank

I'm going back to Vintage at Goodwood this year only it's not at Goodwood, it's at the Southbank. This means I don't have to camp in mud or stay the whole weekend.

One thing I was slightly disappointed about last year was that it only went back to 1940*.

One of my favourite 20th century eras is the 1920s and since dancing classes were on offer last year I was sorry that there wasn't a Charleston dance class option.

This year, it DOES go back to the 1920s and there WILL be Charleston dance classes so now I need a suitable dress.

I have this one (1929) but it's a bit eveningy. I could do with something a bit more… erm… short perhaps. And less pointy hemmed. And less shiny. But I don't want to accidentally end up with something that looks like I bought it from a fancy dress shop. I think it best if I steer clear of fringing and beading if I can or at least keep it to a minimum.

I had a think about it starting with this dress on Fashion Era (the one on the right) and the dress in my head developed from this, via several incarnations, into a blue dress with shoulder straps and an overlay of white spotted tulle but with short kimono sleeves and a pleated skirt with a little bit of pointy hem bits at the side (picture courtesy of Should Be Doing My Day Job Right Now Ltd).

When I finished with Audrey, I began to think some more about the 1920s dress and how I would attempt to draft it. Then Decades of Style sent me an e-mail informing me that their "Tier-Rific"** dress had gone on sale and I couldn't help noticing that apart from the diagonal ra-ra skirt bit, it looked uncannily like the dress in my head.

I shall see how easy it is to adapt the skirt bit to my needs. And for some reason I'm seeing it in orange and not blue.

Now to learn how to do fingerwaves… or get a big floppy hat.


* I would like it to go as far back as 1660 but realise that isn't generally considered "vintage"

** I keep thinking of Mrs Doyle's "tea-rific" pun

Audrey's Final Steps

I didn't quite manage to get it finished by the end of May but by the end of the bank holiday all I had left to do was to hem it.

Here it is! With hemming complete!







Little things

1) I have added lace to the hem of the lining. I got the idea from one of Casey's elegant musings and while my skirt isn't underlined, there is likelihood of the lining being revealed (when I lift the skirt up to climb out of a window) and if there's anyone watching they'll be greeted by some lace instead of a line of stitching.


I quite like it. I think I'll be annoying everyone at the party by lifting up the skirt and forcing them all to look at it. Of course, running around saying to people "Have you seen my lace? Look at my lace!" and flashing my lining has the advantage of making people think I'm drunk so they won't all be trying to get me to consume alcohol when all I really need to have a good time is a nice cup of tea (and to show off my lace).

2) The bit of satin that I snagged and attempted to tuck away out of sight has happily remained out of sight so far. I snagged another bit but it's on the hem on the inside.

3) The skirt has a waist tape. I need to figure out the best way to put a waist tape into a lined dress. It keeps getting in the way of the zip.

4) I got confused and the skirt lining has the seams going the wrong way. They're French seams though so except for where the zip begins it still looks neat on the inside.

5) I've not yet attempted the hairdo and since mine is too fine to create any volume I envisage a lot of back combing and hairspray in my not too distant future.

6) Note also the white gloves (not black).

7) I made the important decision to WRITE DOWN MY METHODOLOGY in case I wish to make another version.

There is something that has gone very very wrong with this dress. The party isn't until 9th July and yet I've finished it almost five weeks in advance! In order to remedy this I'm going to make a jacket to go with it out of the same fabric (but this time crepe side out) from this pattern (but without the bow and the buttons).

And hopefully I'll still be sewing on 8th July.

Audrey's Third Steps

Audrey was put on one side for a bit while I had to get on with other things but I'm back to normal now and I'm intending to finish the dress by the end of May which I can do as long as no-one wants to be sociable with me.

I decided to go with satin-side-out after all and no side split.

AUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH! I snagged my satin! Right at a focal point! I tried to tuck the loops in but it keeps popping out!

I'm quite happy at the idea of these sort of mishaps with clothes on the grounds that it shows the clothes are loved enough to be worn and are therefore fulfilling their potential as clothes but this has had a mishap before being worn!

Anyway, maybe it's not as noticeable as I think it is.

I did a lot of cutting out of fabric and a lot of sewing and I did it properly with underlining and clipping and notching and pinning and tacking and thread tension testing. I really want this to turn out well because I really liked the mock-up although there was a point at which I declared "Life's too short!"

I had to re-cut the underlining for the bodice centre front as something went awry and it seemed to be a bit lop-sided and wouldn't line up with the satin bit. In order to prevent more awryness I attached new organza to the already cut out satin piece and then used the satin piece as the template by cutting around it.

The curved top back piece has extra underlining going on because I'm worried it won't hold up. As the pattern piece is curved, I have one underling bit cut on the grain and one cut on the bias.

The top bit's all done - I just have to do skirt things and a zip thing. The skirt is smooth at the front and only gathered at the back as I'm not that thrilled by a gathered skirt at the front. I made this dress a couple of years ago so I'm not totally against the idea it's just I generally prefer a flat bit at the front and a big bit at the back.

Insert "yarn" pun here

When I was a little girl my Mum taught me how to knit. I can cast on, cast off, do a knit stitch, a purl stitch, stocking stitch, some ribbing and use more than one colour at a time. That's great but I tend to be limited to small things in geometrical shapes (blankets for squirrels anyone?) as I don't find the end result exciting enough to not get bored with what I'm doing. I think if I made the effort to get better at knitting I could make more interesting things but as with all skills, in order to get better at it you need to practice and in order to practice you need to enjoy practicing.

When I was slightly less little my grandmother took a few minutes to teach me how to crochet. It wasn't anything spectacular but I was able to produce a nice chain. Sadly I didn't keep it up and while I still have my crochet hook I have completely forgotten how to even start crocheting.

I visited my Mum last week and decided to use the time away from home and a piano and a sewing machine to re-learn how to crochet. I bought a book (which seems to contain everything you'd ever need to know about crocheting) and hunted out my crochet hook.

Although I learned how to do the basics, the week went wrong and I didn't get much further than learning double, half triple, triple and double triple stitches. It didn't help much that my yarn (left over from here) was too fine for my crochet hook and anything more advanced just ended up looking like a tangled holey mess.

When I can get to somewhere that has smaller hooks for sale I will progress a bit further.

Audrey's Second Steps

Despite having a four day weekend I only managed to get a little bit done but I drafted the skirt pattern, cut everything out in calico and assembled the mock-up.

I'm quite impressed with it. If I hadn't made a mock-up and had gone straight into the real thing it wouldn't have been a disaster. As it stands the mock-up, while not a perfect fit, is perfectly wearable (if I were trying to start a trend for unbleached calico evening dresses with multicoloured stitching, wonkily sewn in zips, pencil scribbles all over them and raw unfinished edges).

However, as it isn't the actual article I'm going to lengthen the bodice above the bust just a smidgen and take in the side seams under the armpit a bit. I'm also going to move the front skirt darts so that they line up with the princess seams of the bodice. I did try this earlier but somehow it didn't work. Maybe I did something very silly such as compared the front skirt with the back bodice…

Oh… or forgot about seam allowances!

I got myself some black crepe backed satin and I'm having second thoughts about using the crepe side. The satin side isn't overly shiny so I'm thinking I will probably go with satin after all.

And maybe I won't have a side split either. I made the mock-up without and it makes me feel all demure! If I do this, then there's no point in lining it in white as no-one will see it but I've already bought white lining anyway.

So this weekend I will be cutting out pieces of fabric.

Audrey's First Steps

I decided that I might as well draft my own pattern instead of using The Selfish Seamstress's on the grounds that unless someone has drafted a pattern to my exact measurements, I'll have to make all sorts of adjustments to it.

Then I realised that even if I draft my own pattern it will need a fair bit of tweaking to get the style right anyway… and I will have gone through the pain of drafting my own pattern.

So I taped together The Selfish Seamstress's pattern and it went together very well. Then I measured the bodice parts, removed the seam allowances and discovered that, in terms of width, I only needed to increase the waist by ¾" in total. I left the bust as it was as the measurement was very close to mine although I'm not sure how much ease I need.

I needed to lengthen it quite a bit but that was easy to do. Holding the bodice pieces up to myself I think I may need to increase the armscye but I will figure that out when I've mocked it up.

For the skirt I have decided to draft my own. I'm going to start with a pencil skirt (which I have successfully already drafted when attempting to draft a dress whose bodice I ended up not liking at the mock up stage) and then add extra width to it to provide the gathering at the waist and the desired hem circumference (which I haven't decided upon yet).

I've also decided to go with a split and line it in white - the white being something a bit different than all black and will go with the white scarf and (in my case) the white evening gloves. I've also decided to use crepe backed satin and will probably use the crepe side outwards. I don't think I have enough faith in my satin skills to produce something that doesn't look like it could have been so much better.

We'll see.

I'm quite impressed with my new tracing paper. It's heavier than my usual stuff and as such is less prone to curling when it comes off the roll. I don't know what it's like to pin through yet though.

We'll see (again).

A Change of Plan

This is how the corset has been going. First of all, my revised post-mock-up pattern pieces:

I was trying to make a good go of this because once made it can be used for other events. I'm making it in green with some black bits.

Busk insertion:

And then this is where I got to:

And that was on Sunday. And then I stopped for the following reasons:

1) I'm not overly confident about making an overbust and was seriously considering chopping the top off and turning it into an underbust. That way I can devote time to trying to get an overbust right when I have more than six days left.

2) I had only six days left and I started to panic.

So I have decided to use this corset instead:

I made it a year and a half ago when I was invited to a fancy dress party with the theme "Fairy Tales" and simultaneously had a thing for teaming red with blue. I also have a thing for teaming red with green* so if I get to John Lewis after work this week and buy some green ribbons then I'll be all set corsetry-wise.

I still have to finish making the chemise thing out of the EVIL fabric and the skirt needs a waistband and the apron needs attaching.

* or red with anything, really

Peacock Feathers!

In case some of you are not already aware, if you want to witness this Edwardian gown* being recreated (including all the relevant undergarments) and at the same time donate some money to help Haitians then go here… in fact, just go anyway because it's all explained much better than I can.

* it has beetle wing cases on it!

Fancy Dress Parties Part 2

The party on 9th April has the theme "Victorian" (if it had the theme "Georgian" I'd have absolutely nothing to worry about).

Let me see now, if it takes me one year to make a Georgian outfit, how long will it take me to make a Victorian one?

I've had four weeks.

Luckily for me this is not a party being attended by avid seamstresses and history fanatics so I don't have to come up with something amazing and historically accurate. I just need something that gives a whiff of the Victorian which for me means a corset and a bustle.

You probably want an amusingly drawn picture of the outfit. Here it is courtesy of the Initial Sketch On A Train Company Ltd:

So the plan is to have a chemise/top thing, bustle, skirt, apron, drapey bits and corset. Hmm… it makes sense in my head. The bustle will be my bum roll from here, the drapey bits will be made from the Your Wardrobe Unlock'd tutorial, the chemise/top thing is the top half of a Simplicity chemise pattern and the apron and skirt I will figure out for myself.

The lack of time and my inexperience in Victorian attire has meant that I've decided to do away with an outer garment so the corset will be my outerwear so I will effectively be wearing the bustle UNDER the corset but quite low on the hips. I need to ensure the length of the corset at the back isn't too long.

The fabric for the bustle drapery and apron and chemise come from some green fabric I bought for something else but decided I didn't like. It feels lovely and soft but is very prone to static so its original intended use as a lining isn't going to happen. The black stuff covering the drape and apron it is some synthetic voile. I can't decide whether the syntheticness is making me want to run for the hills (in a certain light, my camera thinks it is red which is a worrying property of this weird stuff) or whether I kind of like that it's shiny.

To the corset then. I decided to make a corset based on the drafting instructions at Your Wardrobe Unlock'd because I only once drafted an overbust corset myself and I didn't really know what I was doing (but sort of fudged something passable at the time which I now hate). I could use a commercial pattern but I need to alter them so much I may as well start one by myself from scratch since I have that option.

Here is the drafting of the pattern:


I don't know if it was my being inaccurate but the waist ended up slightly too big and the hips slightly too small. Luckily I had the sense to measure the draft so I could change it before I started cutting out the pieces.

Since drafting the pattern I finalised the outfit design in my head and realised I would need to make some design changes due to the incidence of bustle.

I tell you what, it's so long since I last made a corset that I've forgotten how to. I had to go and examine the last two I made to jog my memory and hunt through papers to find my diagrams for busk insertion. I think I've got it now.

Fancy Dress Parties Part 1

Further to my last post I have been informed of the theme of the party on 9th April and have been invited to another party on 9th July, also with a theme. The party on 26th March I will just wear one of my shop bought dresses (probably) as what with having to make an outfit for the April party I haven't had a chance to run up a new dress from scratch.

Right! The theme of the party on 9th July is "Famous TV and Film Personalities" and while the first person who springs to mind is Marilyn Monroe this is not a good idea because a) although I have the ideal dress pattern, I don't have the ideal figure or hair and b) my friend is going as Marilyn Monroe and will do a much better job of it.

The next person who springs to mind is Audrey Hepburn for which I DO have the ideal figure and there's a vague chance I may be able to bully my hair into submission. As for a dress, well, this is the best Audrey Hepburn dress and I want to wear it. What I'm actually going to have a bash at is this one because a) the best Audrey Hepburn dress is probably less familiar to everybody than Holly Golightly's and b) if I try to make the best Audrey Hepburn dress in three months I will go insane… and that's just figuring out what colour it is.

Things I am very happy and grateful for:

The Selfish Seamstress (which appears to be a bit of a misnomer since she's selflessly sharing her patterns)

Christie's

I have spoken to my friend (a different friend to the one turning up as Marilyn Monroe) and I told her I wasn't sure whether I should attempt to recreate the dress as accurately as possible or just go for the general feeling of the dress. She guessed (probably correctly) that I would, deep down inside, want to be recreating it as accurately as possible.

If I were to do this, since there were three separate dresses made, it leaves me with a dilemma… split or no split? Also, it's made of "black Italian satin" and I'm a bit wary of satin with its high sheen and ability to enhance the smallest of faults.

So I've decided to do what I usually do when I want to make a dress but have issues with some of the features: I stick to the bits that I like and change the bits I don't.

And... Relax...

Things are calming down a little so I have decided to pause and see what is going on in my sewing life instead of running around in a panic hoping I can remember what I'm meant to be doing. Work has become less mental, my piano exam will soon have happened and I have actually done some housework.

This is the state of my sewing life:

Events are coming up that I want to make new dresses for. Whenever I get an invitation to a party my first thought is whether I can accept it and my second thought is that I could make a new dress to wear for it. I tend to get more party invitations than make new dresses (that's much more of a comment on the speed at which I sew than my popularity) so I end up with lots of ideas for dresses that get committed only to paper and not to fabric.

I digress. Events this year I'd like to make new dresses for:

1) A friend's party on 26th March
2) Another friend's party on 9th April
3) The Chap Olympiad
4) The Anarcho-Dandyist Ball
5) The company Christmas party
6) Vintage on the Southbank
7) Bourne & Hollingsworth events I may go to (Prohibition, Blitz, Belle-Epoch)
8) Things that are likely to happen but may not (and I don't want to be counting my chickens at this stage)

Some of these events can have outfits that double up which probably means I can get away with making only three dresses for all these events, one of which I'm already getting stuck into.

This would be good as I have to study for a professional exam this year.

Then of course, there's the new Your Wardrobe Unlock'd competition which I may or may not choose to enter depending on all sorts of things.

I also need to figure out how to get my friend out of her sewing doldrums. She's keen to get started but is being held back by not having enough time and the worry that the sort of things she wants to make she'll never get a chance to wear anyway.

Another friend is coming over at the weekend to sew with me and to take back her sewing machine which has lived with me since August.

The Results

The winners of the competition have been announced and none of them are me. This is not a surprise. There was some very stiff competition.

I did however get some very nice comments. In particular about pattern matching (hooray for chevron lunacy!) and there was also one about having inspired someone which always makes me feel like I've done something worthwhile. It was really good to receive positive comments from people who understand it all. My Mum was very impressed but then she's my Mum.

I've also got a new follower! Hello!

Anyway, now that that one's over, there'll be another announced. Whether or not I will take part is yet to be seen.

Things that are currently going on are:
- Piano exam
- a dress with little flamenco dancers on it
- taking pictures of the dress I wore to my company's Christmas party

Steps 41), 42) and 43)

41) Embroider cotton sleeve ruffles

42) Line silk sleeve ruffles

43) Attach sleeve ruffles

I was going to line the sleeve ruffles because:
a) I didn't know how to finish the edge and
b) I thought it might look nice

Then I realised you wouldn't be able to see the lined bit so I thought a bit more about how to finish the sleeve ruffle edges and came up with pinking and stitching.

Step 41) was started but has not yet been finished. Maybe later.

Here is one of the sleeves:

There is another sleeve not shown here. It looks very similar to the one above.

Steps 22), 23), 24), 25), 26) and 27)

22) Measure from back of the neck and along the gown where the ruffles are to go

23) Cut out strips of dupion with graduated widths and hem the edges

24) Gather or pleat them

25) Cut out bias to go the length of the ruffles*

26) Sew the ruffles to the bias strip

27) Sew the bias strip to the gown

* could use this bias strip to finish the edges


I sewed the ruffle straight onto the gown without the use of a bias strip.

For more information on this, please see Uses for Business Cards.

Uses for Business Cards

At work I have business cards made for me. Whenever I order some I always get two boxes and I never manage to get through even half a box before I have to order some new ones due to a change in company name or logo.

This means I have many business cards that I can't use. Or at least, I can't use them as business cards.

Uses I have found for old business cards:

1) as bookmarks
2) to put in a wrist splint to prevent the edge digging into my wrist
3) as flash cards for learning how to read music
4) to write small shopping or to do lists on
5) as templates for making box pleats

And it is use number 5) that I wish to talk to you about today. For my gown I need to box pleat strips of silk. I could have chosen to gather or knife pleat them but I didn't.

I measured the length the trim should be by measuring around the edge of the gown. I needed lots of it. I also measured, at the same time, how long the pieces of differing widths should be. I'm intending to have the trim quite deep around the back of the neck and the shoulders and then narrower on the bodice and then deep again towards the bottom of the skirt / train.

I multiplied everything by three and cut out strips of the relevant widths and lengths. I sewed them together with French seams and hemmed the edges.

Now, this is where the business cards come in. I took three business cards and cut two of them length ways - one along the centre and one a quarter of the way in. These I used for my templates to enable me to keep a constant depth of pleat.

I started off with the red trim, folded the end and with a needle and thread stitched it in place (the stitches didn't have to be super secure - just enough to hold it).

Then, I slotted the widest template into the corner and folded the other end over the template to form a box pleat. This I stitched in place.

I turned the trim over and did the same again. I turned the trim over and did the same again. I turned the trim over and did the same again. And so on like so:


… until I got to the end.

Then I did exactly the same thing for the silver strip but with the three quarter width card:


And again for the black strip with the half width card and for the green strip with the quarter width card (these two are cut on bias because they got too narrow to be hemmed sensibly).

Then I sewed all four pleated layers together and attached it to the gown:

Photo' Shoot Part 2

The pictures of the gown are also up for all to see.

I'm so tired… .

Photo' Shoot Part 1

After reading some fashion blog posts about how to photograph clothes, it seemed the best option would be to have them taken outdoors. Since I was on my own, in just my underwear and in the middle of Winter I thought it best I stick to my own back garden.

I braved the gusty winds and the drizzle and the cold and tried to take some photographs of my stays. Somehow the lighting was really wrong and everything except for the shrubbery came out too light. I ended up moving myself and my camera indoors.

I have uploaded six photographs to "Photobucket" of my underwear.

I'm allowed to enter up to 10 photographs to be published as my competition entry. I'm intending to photograph the rest of my things on Sunday (talk about cutting it fine!) so I may end up removing one or two of them depending on what further photographs I come up with.

How I made my stays (with little butterflies on them!)

I haven't previously gone into much detail about my stays but other entries can be found here.

These stays are based on two different patterns. Mostly, they are taken from the 1770s stays in Norah Waugh's "Corsets and Crinolines". In addition, they have the same sort of neckline(?) as the 1780s stays from the same book - a bit straighter across the top. However, they have a stomacher front which is something that is tended to be found on earlier stays (the one in "Corsets and Crinolines" from the 1730s have a stomacher).

The stomacher front evolved from the requirement to have front lacing stays so I could have spiral lacing and still be able to get myself in and out of them. I then decided I should stick in a modesty panel. And then to have a quite wide modesty panel in case I needed to adjust the tightness. And then to have the modesty panel looking good and as a feature. And that's when the modesty panel turned into a stomacher.

I'm boldly going to assume that they qualify for the 1770-1789 time period of the competition and enter them and if they don't qualify then so be it.

I took the pattern I used for my other stays (which was altered from but based on the 1770s and 1780s stays mentioned above), traced it and altered it again. I separated out the centre of the front part and made sure there was a bit of overlap at the edges. As I was going to have a row of eyelets along the edges of the front side pieces I decided it would be best to have a bone each side of them. Once I had drawn them in place I drew in where the other bone channels went (from my original pattern). Other than that, the bone placement stayed the same.

I didn't make a mock up (shock!) because, from the other stays I made, I already knew that, other than the shoulder straps being too long, the dimensions were correct so these took the place of my mock up instead. Although I had changed the style, I don't think making a mock up would have revealed any issues without it having the actual fabric and being properly boned.

I cut out three layers of the stays - two in coutil and one in quilters' cotton and flatlined the quilters' cotton pieces to one set of the coutil pieces. On the remaining coutil pieces I marked the bone channel lines using a combination of tracing wheel, dressmakers carbon paper, ruler and pencil.

Then I sewed the side seams and shoulder seams so I effectively had two sets of stays - one with lines drawn all over them and one with a black and blue and green and gold butterfly design.

So then I sandwiched the two sets together to form one set made up of three layers and sewed along the seam lines to hold them in place.

Three layers of shoulder strap:

Next, I commenced battle with my sewing machine, called a truce, and sewed the bone channels along the pencilled in lines. I think there were two bones on each side that needed to be inserted before I could finish sewing the channels but other than those I left the boning until all channels were sewn.

Then I cut the synthetic whalebone to the correct length (I had a casualty during this stage and I still have a red mark on my knuckle where it got in the way of the scissors), filed the ends down with sandpaper and inserted them into the channels.

Down the centre front of the stays I inserted a wide steel bone to act as busk and there are two bones going across the top which are slightly curved. For these two bones I decided to use spiral steel as there was no way I would be able to get synthetic whalebone flexing in more than one dimension.

I sewed around the edges to stop the bones from sliding out, then trimmed the edges and then sewed bias binding around everything.

Then there were the eyelets of which I have talked before.

Blue ribbon was used to lace the thing up and here it is, at last, in all its glory:

Curly Garters

I haven't made much mention of my garters so I'll do that now.

Going with the roses on a black background theme I did a bit of internet searching to see if I could find a knitting pattern or cross stitch pattern that would work. I needed it to be fairly small and eventually I came across this.

It's a pattern for some mittens but the rose bud is repeated so I decided that it would be good to use as a repeat on my garters.

I started by knitting it with the long edge cast on to my needles - a normal stocking stitch with three colours. This caused problems as the way I weaved my colours around the back meant that it considerably restricted the stretchiness.

So then I tried knitting it with the short edge cast on to my needles:

and that helped. I knitted the other so it was the mirror image and then decided to find out how to get rid of the curling.

Too late! I should have worried about that before I started so I could have added some non-curling stitch around the outside but now I know for next time. I tried to block them to help with the matter:

Then I added some things to tie them with. Here is one of them on my leg:

General Things

There will be a sudden increase in posting frequency today. The competition deadline is Monday (!) and I have been spending much of my time sewing rather than posting progress.

I have been very VERY busy lately. On top of trying to get my gown finished, work has been loony (necessitating extra hours in the office) and I'm taking a piano exam in March so I've been trying to fit in practice for that too.

It has occurred to me that I may have a problem.

I've been cramming in sewing time whenever I can (including my train commute to and from work) and quite frankly I'm reaching the stage where I don't want to sew anymore. So why is it that when I receive an invitation from a friend to go to a party I think with excitement "Ooh! I can make a new dress for that!"?.

I am so looking forward to Sunday evening after I've taken my final photographs of the gown because I'm planning to spend it not sewing but I do rather think I'll be spending it thinking about other dresses to make.

I need more sleep.

Steps 29), 31), 32), 33), 34), 35), 36), 37), 38), 39), 40), 20) and 21)

29) Sew hook & eye tape to edge of gown opening leaving a gap right at the top

31) Wearing everything, push a flat piece of calico up the front and mark around the edges

32) Cut out some muslin, canvas (?) and black dupion a bit bigger than this

33) Transfer rose motif to dupion using the stencil and a green pencil

34) Put dupion, possibly with stabiliser, into an embroidery hoop

35) Embroider the rose

36) Sew bone channels to canvas and insert bones if required

37) Sandwich everything together and bind the edges

38) Wear everything and mark where the other hook & eye tape should go

39) Tack hook & eye tape in place and test and re-position

40) Sew hook & eye tape properly

20) Cut a "T" shape in the chemise and put everything on

21) Arrange the chemise neckline and mark it


I discovered a drawstring may be better for my purposes so I put in a channel instead of a gap.

Thanks to mock up MK VI I ran out of calico so I stuffed muslin up my front instead. Then, after drawing on it, I cut out the shape that will be seen when the stomacher is in place and cut a square of dupion* bigger than this. I transferred my rose motif to the centre of the dupion utilising a home made stencil and a green pencil. I teamed the dupion with an embroidery hoop and stabiliser and got to work.

Rose motif:

Stencil:

I found it went quicker than I thought it would go but it was still a slow process. I used two shades of red and two of green but I didn't really plan which ones would go where other than red for petals / green for non-petals so I just went along and did what I fancied at the time.

Here is some finished stomacher embroidery:

I decided canvas would be too thick and that I ought really to be using the same fabric combination as the rest of the gown (i.e. silk bit, silk organza bit and muslin bit) so I sandwiched those bits together instead.

Cutting out the pieces:

I didn't add any bones. I was a bit worried about bulk.

I wore everything (including the chemise and learnt not to tuck it into my stays too tightly). I cut a neckhole in the chemise and hemmed it.


* which may not actually be dupion.

Attaching the Skirt Bit

I dyed the rest of my muslin "Tulip Red". I had intended the muslin for mock ups and such like so if it went horribly wrong it wouldn't matter and also it was particularly inexpensive. I made a complete mess in the kitchen and when I finished, the muslin looked somehow a bit like this:

L-R: dupion, muslin, dupion, dupion:

It's a dark pinky orangey thing which is a colour tulips probably come in but doesn't make one think "red tulips!". This doesn't surprise me. I wasn't expecting a really deep red after my earlier experiments to get "Dark Brown" and "Dark Green" yielded light brown and light green. I made some more mess in the kitchen and ended up with "Rosewood Red" on top of "Tulip Red":

L-R: dupion, muslin, dupion, dupion:

Then this is what I did:

Sewed the piping (by hand) to bottom edge of bodice:

Cut the muslin into three equal lengths and sewed them together:

Tacked the muslin to the dupion at the top edge:

Pleated the muslin / dupion combo onto a strip of twill tape the length of the back waist (it got quite thick as there were three metres to reduce to 10 inches*):

Pinned the twill tape to the bodice at the natural waist:

Spent a very long time sewing (by hand) the pleats to the piping through both the dupion and muslin layers almost succeeding to keep the stripes on the pleats symmetrical:

Removed the pins at the waist and cut away the excess:

Thought about finishing the raw edge on the inside by binding and then didn't.

Wore everything. It is impossible to put the gown on elegantly without assistance because the stays restrict me so dressing involves standing with my arms straight up in the air and jumping up and down. This was the first time I had tried on the gown and I was a bit worried that it wouldn't fit. It did fit. Or at least I think it did. It felt a bit tight but then I'm rather used to my modern stretch fabrics designed for the woman with active things to do. I was able to run back and forth to the camera, leaping over the rubbish in my living room with no ill effects (please excuse the hands on my hips pose - the gown (and of course the stomacher) wasn't complete and it needed holding in place):

Took some photographs and measurements and decided that a decent specimen of a train would suffice, rather than a fine specimen (mainly on the grounds that I liked how it looked at this length, the shorter length would enable more successful hoiking up and I can always add a bit extra on at a later date (OK, I admit it - also because I was trying to keep work minimal due to the fast approaching deadline):

I haven't hemmed it yet.


* or alternatively 118 inches to reduce to 25.5 cm