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Feb. 4th, 2016 11:42 pmI managed to spend all of my supposed "sewing time" today not sewing, again. Researching 18thc painted and printed cottons and silks instead. Ooops?
Also got my swatches of silk, so spent a very long time shuffling them, squinting at them, holding them at arm's length, perching them on my shoulder, etc. Narrowed it down to three fairly easily, but am stuck on those three. Which is fine, as this fabric's not in the budget for another couple weeks anyway!
So while I'm distracted anyway, let's talk about this pre-Raphaelite costume...as I mentioned, I've had the idea in the back of my mind for a couple of years at least. Last week I finally did some serious research (or, did a couple of google image searches with a mind to what I could actually make); after entirely too many hours I decided on this dress (Waterhouse's Windflowers). There were a few other dresses that I really liked, also Waterhouse (perhaps because, after seeing all his paintings of topless nymphs, I realized I've got an ideal Waterhouse figure - small boobs! Not that I plan on displaying them at the event. It's not that kind of party), but this one really spoke to me construction-wise. Plus I really liked both the pseudo-Grecian and the medievally looks, and this is something of a compromise between the two.
I've decided to use dupioni silk for the under-gown - an unlikely candidate for this dress, if it did really exist, as it looks smoother than dupioni will be (and come on, by 1900 a silk with that amount of slubs would have probably gone in the bin). But I never get to use dupioni in historical costuming, and it comes in so many fun colors, and it's one of the cheaper silks. I'll probably wash it to give it a softer hand. And Dharma voile for the overdress, easy peasy.
Also got my swatches of silk, so spent a very long time shuffling them, squinting at them, holding them at arm's length, perching them on my shoulder, etc. Narrowed it down to three fairly easily, but am stuck on those three. Which is fine, as this fabric's not in the budget for another couple weeks anyway!
So while I'm distracted anyway, let's talk about this pre-Raphaelite costume...as I mentioned, I've had the idea in the back of my mind for a couple of years at least. Last week I finally did some serious research (or, did a couple of google image searches with a mind to what I could actually make); after entirely too many hours I decided on this dress (Waterhouse's Windflowers). There were a few other dresses that I really liked, also Waterhouse (perhaps because, after seeing all his paintings of topless nymphs, I realized I've got an ideal Waterhouse figure - small boobs! Not that I plan on displaying them at the event. It's not that kind of party), but this one really spoke to me construction-wise. Plus I really liked both the pseudo-Grecian and the medievally looks, and this is something of a compromise between the two.
I've decided to use dupioni silk for the under-gown - an unlikely candidate for this dress, if it did really exist, as it looks smoother than dupioni will be (and come on, by 1900 a silk with that amount of slubs would have probably gone in the bin). But I never get to use dupioni in historical costuming, and it comes in so many fun colors, and it's one of the cheaper silks. I'll probably wash it to give it a softer hand. And Dharma voile for the overdress, easy peasy.
