New Project? An Elizabethan Round Gown (Loose Gown)

As an aside, it turns out that the Steampunk Sultana took 9th Place, out of 22 entrants.  Not high enough to win anything, but I'm pretty pleased.

And now, because I don't have enough things to do, I've decided to make new garb for an upcoming event, Terpsichore at the Tower XX.  I will be 26(?) weeks pregnant and while I can absolutely wear some of the other garb I already have (I made an Italian renaissance dress the first time I was pregnant for Terp), I am auditioning to join a madrigal singing group, and they all wear Elizabethan attire.  So, this is a sort of two-birds-with-one-stone outfit.

The round gown I'd like to make comes in two parts, per Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 1560-1620, as seen below. The kirtle (underdress) is fitted at the shoulders and shaped a bit down the back, but otherwise falls straight off the bust.  The sleeves and front, which will be visible beneath the overgown, are fancy (either with exciting fabric, embroidery, or other embellishment) while the remainder is of more utilitarian cloth.  The sleeves are laced to the kirtle (hooray!  I hate setting sleeves!) so I could, theoretically, have multiple sets of sleeves (maybe one in pinked satin and the other in brocade?) to match  my mood.

Round kirtle from Patterns of Fashion

 The overgown fastens up the front with frog closures (which I now know how to make myself!) and is short-sleeved.  This also is fitted across the shoulders and back and then falls straight to the floor.

Round gown (short-sleeved) from Patterns of Fashion

In order to get the gown to stand out and look as lovely as it does in these drawings, I would have to wear some underlayers to give it support.  I have seen other re-creations of gowns of this nature that did NOT have appropriate under-wear... and you can tell.  So, I'm trying to decide if I'd like to wear petticoats or a farthingale.  My initial intent is for a farthingale, because hoops give a nice breathability that layers of petticoats do not.  And I will be dancing and teaching dance in a VERY CROWDED event.  Plus, I'll be a little oven for my bun.  ...perhaps I can borrow a farthingale from a friend of mine, rather than making one.  Hmm.

So, my vision for this is the following components:

1. White cotton chemise - I already have this!
2. Farthingale - hopefully I can borrow it!
3. Kirtle - I have some very lovely yellow-gold/magenta shot silk that my husband gave me for my birthday that would look STUNNING with a pinked/slashed embellishment.  Perhaps I can do the front panel and sleeves with this.  (It was originally purchased to make a bliaut, but I only need 5-6 yards for that, and he bought me 8!)
4. Over-gown - Probably in black velveteen. I think that would be a lovely contrast to the brightness of the kirtle, and would give me fine opportunity for some really high-contrast embroidery.
5. Coif - I have one!
6. Small flat cap - Also in black velveteen.  I have one in sage-green brocade, but it just won't match!  :p
7. Ruffs? - I'm not sure if I'd want to do a collar and cuffs, so we'll see!

Next step: measure myself and draft patterns.  Then I'll assess how much fabric I need to see if this is actually feasible!

Steampunk Sultana and the Simplicity 2172

IT IS DONE!

Here's my entry for the Steam Ingenious: Your Best 2172 Contest!

Steampunk Sultana

It consists of (from the bottom up)

1. Salwar (hammer pants)
2. Kamiz/gomlek (long white chemise/undershirt) - I LOVE this pattern! love love love.
3. Chirka (fitted supportive vest, in yellow)
4. Entari (Simplicity 2172-style!)
5. Fancy necklace from my collection
6. Yellow linen turban.

So, most of these pieces are made in relatively historically-accurate ways, with the obvious exception of the 2172 coat.  It DOES, however, look remarkably like these ladies here:

For the coat, I originally bought four wooden toggle buttons thinking "Hey, bamboo is kind of oriental-looking, so that'll make this less Western European-looking!" but in doing more research about what kinds of closures the Ottoman Turks used on their jackets, I found lots of lovely braid frogs and thought I'd try my hand at it.  Having never done so before, I looked up how to make your own frogs and ball-buttons.  I have to say, it was a bit of frustrating work, since the illustrations obviously show smooth cord, and mine was fancy braided trim.  Well, I tried it anyway, and here's what happened:

Loop once, loop a second time, crossing over

Cross under the starting place, over the next...

...then under, over, under...

...and after much fussing and pulling: voila! A ball!

I then had to measure and mold my little flower ends for all the braid frog closures.  I wanted them to extend most of the way across the front of the jacket.

Pinning down the first two petals.

Three petals pinned.

A few stitches (or 15) will secure the braid.

Four happy sets of loops and ball-buttons!

I hand-sewed all the braid closures to the front of the jacket.  I had initially wanted to do five, because I thought four ball buttons would not be secure enough, but the decorative loops made it so four was the maximum allowance.

(Yes, I forgot to take a picture of the closeup of the front of the jacket.  I'll do that next week.)

I put on the jacket over my kamiz and it was VERY sexy... in that "Hey, I can see your nipples through your shirt" kind of way.  Not good for wearing in public, as far as I'm concerned.  Fortunately for me, my inspiration image had this nifty underjacket thing, seen here:

Turns out, THIS is the supportive garment, called "chirka."  It can be made with long sleeves as seen here, but can just as frequently be found sleeveless, which was ideal for my project, as the 2172 jacket has stupid sleeves that limit movement and are very narrow.  So, I measured my body, used a grand total of 1 2/3 yards of fabric and made this:

...and I made this FACE!

It's a little tight and a little high across the bust, but that's probably an artifact of trying to construct a fitted garment by myself.  That being said, I think it turned out really well.  It's DEFINITELY supportive.  It looks like it's binding, but really, it wasn't uncomfortable at all in the three hours I wore it.

I think it fills out the picture frame neckline of the 2172 coat very nicely, preserves modesty, adds support AND totally changes the flavor of the jacket from generic Euro-Steampunk to decidedly Ottoman.

There's a little weird coloration going on: I wore this trick-or-treating with my kids and it rained, so the lighter areas are those that stayed dry.

 The pattern has this loop-and-lace detail on the back (which is, admittedly, totally lost in the pattern of the jacket fabric, but here it is.

What a lovely backside!

So, an excellent experiment.  I will definitely be wearing this to the Middle Kingdom Twelfth Night, where celebrants in the Society for Creative Anachronism are requested to "dress up as someone you aren't normally," and since I normally wear 14th Century French attire, this is a change up!  It's not ENTIRELY accurate to pre-1600, but it's a costume for a holiday party.  The end.

Steampunk Salwar

I have finished Step 1 for my Hallowe'en costume.  As you have read previously, I am entering this contest, which requires that I use Simplicity Patterns' earliest attempt at mainstreaming Steampunk.  Now, I never do anything easily, so I have chosen to totally re-imagine what happens with this coat.  I had hoped to trick-or-treat along side my husband who will be dressing as Malcolm Reynolds, because Inara has an outfit (or two) that could, conceivably, be made with this coat pattern.  My dreams were dashed, however, because my local JoAnn didn't have any (ANY!) fabric that would have worked for the Inara dresses I was trying to make.  They DID, however, have these:

With me now: "Oooooh!  Aaaahhh!"

These are all 100% cotton and suggest Western Asia somewhere between 1500 and 1880.  So, I've now got my fabric and need to figure out how to make a costume that will (ha, right?) work both for a Steampunk contest... and won't get me punched in the face in the SCA.  I am basing most of my research on SCA-period Middle Eastern clothing (helpful stuff here at Mistress Safia's) because it's my primary costuming era.  That being said, many of the manuscripts and portraits I can find for Jews in that area of the world (I focus my historic recreations on Jewish dress, as my persona is Jewish) are a little outside the purview of the SCA (fortunately for Steampunk, this isn't much of a problem!).

So, this lovely Morocco-meets-Sugar-Rush block-printed quilting cotton is going to be my 2172 coat.  I've got wooden toggle buttons to go down the front (but I may end up doing cord frogs to match the portraiture better).  I'll have to figure out how to eliminate the pocket-flaps from 2172, because NO portrait I've seen of Turks, Persians, etc (Jews or otherwise) has an over-jacket with pockets.  Since this pattern has pockets built in, I can either just remove the flap, or cut the side front panels as one piece.  I haven't decided yet.  (Pockets are TERRIBLY handy...)  And sleeves.  Hmm.  Something.

I could NOT get a good picture of this fabric to save my life.  I tried, like, fifteen times.  Anyway, this was the best approximation I could get.  It's a lovely sunshine-yellow (which was a color expected of Jews throughout much of the Middle Ages and later - think "Yellow Star" as late as WWII) and it has tone-on-tone tiny flowers all over.  This will be for a second coat, with a higher neckline (so, more supportive, right?) and a shorter hem.  It will be visible at the neckline and front center, and possibly at the sleeves, depending on how that all shakes out.

This fabric also wasn't very photogenic.  It's a white woven-stripe cotton that's relatively sheer (I put the black wool in there to give greater contrast).  This will become the kamiz (chemise; undershirt).  It will be visible in the bowl of the neckline, poking out at the cuffs and draping below the yellow coat.  I'm really looking forward to this one, because this fabric just feels SO GOOD TO TOUCH!  I wanted to buy it all.  I wish I had all the money in the world.  :(

This is fabulous cotton pinstripe shirting in turquoise and brown.  It felt more synthetic than the white cotton when it was on the bolt, but washed up really well.  This will be used to make salwar, which are (totally legit) MC Hammer pants.  Yes, really.  I actually made some salwar (using this pattern) only I mis-cut the leg: I forgot to halve the leg measurement at the foot, so I have really baggy pants instead of baggy-crotch pants that fit closely at the ankle.


Anyway, let's compare:

Legit.

2 legit.

And now I quit.

See you next time!

Hallowe'en Projects: Wreck-It Ralph and Steampunk

So, my children LOVE the movie Wreck-It Ralph.  Li'l Miss, who is two, wants to watch it ALL THE TIME.  Fortunately, since my husband and I are vintage game literate, it's nostalgic for us, so we don't mind.  To that end, we thought it might be fun to all dress up for Hallowe'en as the four main characters in the movie, as seen here:

So, obviously the 2-year-old girl will be Vanellope Von Schweetz, the 4-year-old boy will be Fix-It Felix, the 9-foot-tall dad will be Wreck-It Ralph, and the US Army Veteran mama will be SGT Calhoun.  Works out great for everyone, right?  Yeah, except for the fact that Veteran Mama has NO IDEA how to craft armor.  In two months.

I DID, however, stumble upon this AMAZING tutorial for Halo armor out of EVA and craft foam (cuz sculpting fiberglass and/or metal is totally everything-prohibitive for me) here: http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/35790-KAT-ARMOR-BUILD-with-custom-undersuit.  Not only is it a build from the game I believe Hero's Duty is emulating, it's a FEMALE build from that game!  SO AMAZING!  This gal builds her entire suit, including a custom undersuit FROM SCRATCH!  And she takes photos every step of the way, so it's very user-friendly in terms of re-creating her work.  "So?" you ask, "Why haven't you started yet?"  Well, my friends, this gal took ELEVEN MONTHS to make her suit.  So, since I have no idea how EVA and craft foam reacts when you try to build with it, I can't cut any corners, so it'd reasonably take me that long.  And I just don't have the time.

I had to make my peace with giving up Calhoun, because I'd really LIKE to learn foam armor crafting.  But perhaps another time.

Then, I was cruising around Pinterest and found that a friend of mine pinned a contest for Steampunkery.  Now, this contest is mostly fabric manipulation and THAT I can do.


For this contest, you must create an amazing costume using the very distinctive jacket from this Simplicity pattern.  She says the bustier and skirt are totally optional (as they're not particularly interesting in really any way) and you can modify the jacket as much as you like, so long as it's still recognizable as the 2172 pattern.  The deadline is November 1, which means that I have to get it done for Hallowe'en... and that gives me my replacement for Calhoun!

Now, I just need to decide what shape I'll do (I'm thinking Persian/Turkish or Moroccan Jewish), and ask my husband if he'd prefer to go as Wreck-It Ralph or as my Steampunk Sweetheart.

Ciao!

Long time no... see?

Wow.  It's been a million years.  BUT!  I've done a lot of learning in the past three (gasp!) years and am looking forward to chronicling more of my adventures in stitching.

Since my last post, I have entered the Golden Seamstress competition twice more, only at the Advanced level.  After sweeping the Novice category twice, I was informed by one of the coordinators that I, personally, was banned from the Novice category, no matter how I adhered to the rules in terms of other participants (as the rules are written, if less than half of your group has never won the division, you may enter as novices).  So, I moved up.  In 2012, my mother and I put together a Viking-era kit for her.  We learned a lot of new techniques: herringbone stitching, nålbinding (a sort of one-needle knitting), tablet weaving.  We had a lovely time, got everything completed (mostly) and were beat out in ranking by a group whose outfit wasn't as well-fit nor as historically appropriate as ours was, but their documentation was better.  From this, I learned that the Advanced division requires proper WRITTEN documentation.


In the spring of this year, my mom and I brought my sister on board and we made a set of clothing for me to reflect my personal armory as used in the SCA.  Having learned from my previous year in Golden Seamstress, I took a stab and writing my first Arts & Sciences Documentation.  This was all completed before the actual event, of course.  It included notation on why I chose this style of dress to reflect my armory and what changes I made from what the research indicated.  The only thing the judges could find fault with was my bibliography.  I, foolishly, didn't keep track of my resources AS I USED THEM, so when it came time to write everything up, I came up short.  That being said, it was an excellent first attempt at documentation.  Our team of three achieved nearly as much as the groups against which we were competing, and they all had six members.  So, we won the "late period (1200-1600)" Advanced division.

Now I'm trying to decide if I'd like to enter my own team in 2014, or if I'd like to try learning from someone else's vision.

Me next, me next!

After having taken the summer off from sewing in order to run a day-camp, I'm now back in the mindset for something fabulous. I would like to make myself something that's as historically accurate (in design, at least, if not construction - I do so love my machine) as possible because everything else I have is period-oid. I'd like to go whole hog.

The inspiration arrived in the form of a nice chocolate-brown jacquard I found on the cheap at a yard sale. I originally thought it was natural fiber, but I've since changed my mind: while it has the nice drapey-ness of cotton, it is entirely too shiny to be so. Maybe I'll try out that "burn test" everybody's talking about. I got something close to six yards. I have a remnant that I thought would go just swimmingly - it's off-white, green and brown upholstery brocade. It turns out that I have SUBSTANTIALLY less of that material than I thought, so I needed to find a dress that I could make in predominantly one fabric with only accents of the other. I was able to find this glass painting, "Susanna & the Elders" by Aert van Ort (1525).

And for a more targeted image:

You can see Susanna's gown is almost entirely white, but has these really interesting sleeves that seem to use practically no fabric at all! This is PERFECT for my "Wow, I really thought there was more here" bit of fabric that I want to use.

So, now I'm on a mission - how do I best re-create this outfit? I have started by looking up other portraits from the same time period (this glass is from the Netherlands, but I have a number of other locations that provided back-up portraiture) to find similar sleeves, necklines, overall styling and that sort of thing. I'm working on compiling an easy-to-decipher file that will keep all my notes in order. More later!

Doei! (that's "Goodbye" in modern Dutch!)

She breathes a sigh of relief

Yes, it's been awhile. That's because I was buried under a pile of Tudor.

The couple for whom I was making four outfits decided that the bride would pick up the two bridesmaids' gowns. I think the thought behind that was, "If I can make one, I can make three just as easily - they're pretty much the same, right?" Well, they all turned out lovely, but if _I_ were the bride, I think I would have wanted two less things to worry about.

Given all that, however, I am EXTREMELY grateful that I didn't have to work on them. The men's outfits turned out to be SUBSTANTIALLY more of a bother than any of us could have guessed. They did, however, turn out gorgeous. They were based of portraits such as these. I have learned that I NEVER want to make another pair of paned (pained, for sure) slops EVER again.

NEVER.
Well... maybe one more pair. I made a set for my husband back in March for the Golden Seamstress Competition (my group WON the Novice Division, by-the-way), but everything that comes out of Golden Seamstress is a little bit jank. As you can see, we didn't get the socks done... or the trim all the way put on... and I think the pants are held on by safety-pins and one of the leg-bands is missing. (These errors have all since been rectified, I just don't have any pictures.) Also, that's me in the background.

I've learned a whole lot about how to make paned slops, however, so maybe the next time won't be such a trial.

Oops, did I say, "Next time?" I meant, "the final time."

Anyway, the wedding outfits sure did turn out nicely. The groom (whose outfit I made) in the foreground, left, dancing with the gal whose dress I had nothing to do with, and the bride in the background dancing with her brother, whose outfit I also made.