mandie_rw | Entries tagged with 19thc

Posted at whatever ungodly hour of the morning, since there's a snuffly rhinoceros sleeping next door, and I might as well do something useful?

(One of those collecting-my-thoughts posts, feel free to skip!)

I think I want to make one of these for our New Castle Christmas, so I'm hashing it all out with myself!

from rijksmuseum
( blah blah blah big sleeves are silly )

Current Mood: sleepy

Whole lot of nothing to do today, so I could actually make some headway on the chemisette. Of course I decided I want to edge the ruffles in lace, and my lace stash is still up at the apartment. Other than that, though...Thank goodness for the Olympics, they're very good for sewing to!

...Except when they put the men's swimming on during primetime. Gotta actually watch that, you know. *smirk*

Anyway, watched like three games of soccer this afternoon while finishing the hemming on one ruffle and putting the gathering stitches in, and got about 1/3 of the second ruffle hemmed during primetime. (Swimming. Distracting. Swimmers. Even more distracting!)

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Rolling Stones; Hide Your Love

While bored at work today, I realized I have fabric earmarked for seven Regency dresses (have Regency on the brain at the moment, no idea why). Seven. SEVEN.

It's times like this I'm pretty sure I'm crazy.

Well, two of them are languishing in the unfinished bin, and another's a pelisse not a dress - but still.

Can we make up more Regency events in this area, please?

Oh, and I want to go ice-skating in costume this winter! Which doesn't have to be Regency, but I did mention that pelisse I want to make...

Current Mood: ditzy

Have dragged myself out of my funk (mostly by re-reading The Count of Monte Cristo for the umpteenth time. Love that book - though I admit I often pick it up where it gets good - when the revenge starts! *grin*) and decided to get some sewing done.

I've been considering making a chemisette to go with my Regency dress since I made the thing last year, but 1/didn't have time for the first day I wore it, and 2/have always thought they looked a bit dopey. In the year since then, though, I've seen

reine_de_coudre make and wear them very well with her 1812 dresses - they look good on her! Plus they really do make a low-necked day outfit look more complete.

I'm sure mine will still look stupid, but that's okay. Plus then I have less chance of getting sunburnt on the back of my neck, which I'm prone to in costume!

To that end, today I wrangled out a mockup that actually fit in the shoulders, which took longer than I thought it would! The basic chemisette is all sewn together; now I have to cut out and sew a thousand miles of frills to put at the neckline.

Current Music: Rolling Stones; Dancing With Mr D

I finished the reticule tonight and took pictures of it, so I thought I may as well post them, as I won't be on tomorrow night.

To reiterate: the reticule's made of a scrap of cream shantung (which is why it's not any bigger!), lined in green linen. The embroidery's done in cotton floss, and is just stem-stitch and backstitch. And there's a gold bead in between each motif. Also, the embroidery's sloppy, because I haven't had much practice and don't really care to have a whole lot more. Embroidery's alright, but there are so many more fun bits of costuming...still, this wasn't as painful as I thought it would be!

I sort of originally wanted to do the whole bag, but after tracing out half the design, decided I'd had about enough of that! Which is good because I'd have run out of time to do it.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Rolling Stones; Little Red Rooser (live)

Clearly, when I wish for a snow day so I can have "a whole day of sewing," I actually mean "a day of waking up really really late, starting to sew the 1840s mitts I cut out ages ago, getting completely derailed by my late Christmas prezzie, a new record player, showing up on the doorstep, and then going over my friend's apartment for dinner." But hey, I'm far too excited about the record player; I haven't been able to play my records in ages, since my mama's record player bit the dust, and I've gotten some new ones I was itching to play. Primarily the 1967 copy of Their Satanic Majesties Request, just because it's from 1967. And the cover's really cool. Plus the single and album that came in my Leeds box set. The player is nothing special (the speakers are tiny and the sound has no real bottom to it, but it's a step up from my laptop's speakers! And I'm no audiophile, really), but YAY I can play my records! Made it a point to play all the Who/Stones/Beatles albums first, and that took a sadly short amount of time. Need more...

Anyway. In between all this, I actually did manage to finish sewing something: my 1840s mitts. Something non-essential and boring to photograph, naturally.

(Please to be noting loverly shirt of Awesome Bass Player.)

They're made of plain black wool, lined in black silk that fabric.com told me was taffeta, but which looks a whole lot like shantung to me. Whatever, it was extremely on sale when I bought it a year or so ago, and I do not complain about cheap silk! Hand-sewn, because how long does it take to sew a pair of mitts? A couple hours -- or if you're me, two weeks, because they get buried under a pile of crap and you forget about them.

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Rod Stewart; Maggie May

Quick update on progress: I cut out a pair of mitts with the intention of Finishing Something Today, Dammit, but by the time I'd pinned one of them together, the sun had gone down, and this house is far too dark to be sewing black silk lining to black wool mitts with black thread. I don't like the "hooray, I'm blinding myself!" feeling.

So...back to the petticoats. I actually got all the flounces sewn on the flounced petticoat today, and I had all good intentions of finishing it tonight, but have been completely derailed by a certain AIM conversation (it's all good though, totally worth it! ;) ), so that probably won't happen. We'll see how late I feel like staying up!

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Rolling Stones; Starfucker

Yay, I'm sewing! Not the quilt squares, because I still haven't found them yet, but I'm working on the corset. I'd work on something else, but, um, the corset's the only thing I have to work on right now that I've found all the pieces to: I've got no idea where the Black Diamonds corset's got to (am probably going to wear it for Halloween this year, so am actually trying to finish it this time), or where the rest of the black veleveteen for the Tudor is. And I'm sewing the boning channels of the corset by hand because...I can't find the foot pedal to my sewing machine! This is really just getting silly. It's all got to be in the house somewhere. If I'd known I was going to lose all my shit when we re-did my room I'd have thought twice about doing it! (Well, okay, not really, as I lurv the new area rug I'm getting; when it comes in I'll take a picture.)

Yeeeah...self-control, what's that?

I know, I said I was going to use this perfectly acceptable fabric that I already had for the 1870s walking dress- it was even striped! I lied. It's not my fault though...I saw this fabric when I went to Wal-mart to get the canvas last week and didn't buy it, because I had no use for it. Then a couple of days ago, I realized that it wanted to be my 1870s walking dress, and my brain would not let me go to sleep that night (mental costuming is awful that way!) until I promised I would go buy it as soon as possible. Went and bought it today:

I bought all that was on the bolt - 10 3/4 yards, which kind of sounds like a lot, but it's not really, when you factor in all the trimming froof I'm planning to put on it! The fabric was labeled a cotton/poly blend (oh, the horror!), but I decided I don't care - the Lust for the Stripes overrode my aversion to polyester. Plus when I got it home and did a burn test, it burned like cotton - I almost singed my fingers because I was expecting it to melt and put out the flame itself, like straight poly does, but, whoosh! Nope. So I figure the poly content's pretty low, and I'm going to ignore it anyway. *lalalala can't hear you*

This of course means that I'm changing the design of the dress all around - I mean, not that I probably wouldn't have done that anyway...but it's definitely happening now. The previous plan was for the dress to be fairly simple, because I don't have a huge amount of that fabric, plus it was telling me it wanted to be a simpler dress. ~~Why yes, my fabric talks to me. Doesn't yours? Actually I think this red and white stuff might be yelling obnoxiously...~~ But now that's all out the window, of course - hence the 10+ yards of fabric. Now I get to go play in the insprational images folder again.

Why yes, I'm going to be That Obnoxious Person when I wear this, aren't I? Blindingly stripedy. Bwahaha. That is, if I don't blind myself sewing the thing first...

Current Mood: cold
Current Music: Foreigner; Cold as Ice

Although I just ordered the busk last night, and I'm completely out of cable ties - which I will be using for boning, as per usual (briefly considered buying actual boning but decided I was too cheap)- I decided to start working on my new corset.

Yeah, it would be completely outside of the realm of possibility for me to work on something that's relatively close to being finished - like the polonaise - and wait until I have all the supplies I need to start on this.

All the pieces cut out. And sewn together. No, it doesn't lay flat.

The fashion fabric is a white poly brocade I've had in the Stash for ever and ever... it dates back to the days of my early sewing when I attempted to make stays and really had no clue what I was doing. (I wish I had a picture. They were pretty priceless.) But happily there was plenty of brocade left over, and I decided to keep it until the day I had occasion to make a Victorian corset. That day has arrived! Bwahahaha.

Ahem. Anyway. (Yes, poly brocade. Oh, the horror! You just wait. This outfit's going to be a Wal-mart Special...oh, you'll see.) The brocade is backed with a layer of canvas, which frays like nobody's business, the wretched thing.

Basically, the process went a little something like this: cut out all the pieces, realize that all the brocade pieces need to be basted to their canvas counterparts because the brocade has a distinct tendency to creep while being sewn, baste all the pieces, sew the four vertical pieces on each side, iron seams, burn finger, sew hip gores in both sides, rip out at least three places on each seam where I managed to miss the layer of brocade and re-sew them, iron. Burn finger again. Decide to hang up sewing for the night.

Current Mood: full of pudding
Current Music: Bad Company; Ready For Love

Out of the many news stories I've seen today that deserve that heading (I've decided 2008 is just a BAD, BAD year to be an actor!), I chose this one to share: And you know what? I am taking this personally. And am very insulted. I hate that song!

In other news, I actually am sewing. Decided that I do have the money (or, well, that instant costuming gratification is VERY IMPORTANT) to finish my Tudor, so that's what I'm currently working on. If I can sew a billion eyelets this weekend, I'll be able to finish the kirtle. (Yeah, and how many times have I said that?)

I'm sooo close to being done work; I just have to go in Monday for the final cleanup and to pick up my last check.

And because I have so much money to throw away on my costuming habit, I'm plotting once again. ...This time it's something I haven't done yet. Victorian. But we'll see.