A Dedicated Follower of Fashion

Also I bought some (more) bling. My necklaces are being made as we speak (I hope), but do you know how damn hard it is to find a non-cheesy-looking crown brooch, let alone one that looks remotely like the one in the portrait? Well, I gave up on matching the portrait. But even finding a non-awful one has seemed like a tall order, so when I found one today on etsy, I snatched it up. A bit more than I wanted to pay, but since the necklace set was less than I was expecting, it evens out, right?

It's a 1950s brooch, and of course not perfect, but I think it looks pretty nice. Not too cheesy, right? I hope??

I fixed the farthingale today. SO THERE.

(Can I work on some new 18thc middling-class wear? Or a fancy striped anglaise? Or my neoclaasical gown? Or a late 1830s dress? Or a Winterfell dress? Anything but THIS)

Finished the spangles and trim on the second foresleeve today. Now just have to do the pearls! And then line them, and cut the slits for the puffs. And then maybe I'll stop ignoring the farthingale.

"I'm going to level the skirt and attach it on my day off." YEAH, OKAY.

Except that nothing is playing nice and I am DISGRUNTLED. (I've been using it all night. Such a great word, that is.)

First off, pro tip: don't store your reed farthingale on its side if you live in a remotely humid climate. It'll warp all out of shape and frustrate you to no end. I don't know who would be dumb enough to do that... *cough* (dragoneyes19 has suggested letting it get steamed during a hot shower, which sounds very effective to me...you know, in theory, if I had been that dumb. Ahem.)

I also made the waistband too big - made it to my normal waist measurement, which is apparently almost 3" larger than my kirtle-d measurement. O.o That makes the overlap way too big, which makes the whole farthingale hang weird.

Also, the whole thing is too short. It makes the kirtle skirt "kick back" under the hoop, which is such a farby thing to do. I know better than that!!!

In short, the farthingale needs some fixin's. I'm not in a place any more where I can just shrug and leave them, if I do know how to fix the problems. They're all very do-able (steam the whole thing, take off the waistband, add a piece to the top, and repleat to waistband), but not today. Today I just needed to take a step back from it!

So I proceeded to take it all off, sulk, sulk a bit more, and then finish sewing the pockets and keep spangling the foresleeves while marathoning Outlander, which made me feel quite a bit better about everything, because it's a fun story, because it's got costumes (plaid! yummy cozy wool!), and because that guy is hot. *nods* (I must give credit to hiraimi for continuing to nag me to watch it!)

I decided to finish the kirtle bodice first...because I really wanted to put the skirt on, so if I do the thing I don't want to do first, I'll keep working toward the thing I do want to do. Make sense? :P

Same old song and dance - it's taking longer than I thought it would! First I stitched down the shoulder straps. Then I went around all the bodice edges and tacked them down (up?), because I am so tired of this silk fraying, and I don't trust it with just the one line of stitching that will attach the lining. Then I sewed grosgrain ribbon to the inside of the shoulder straps, to hopefully keep the stretching to a minimum. Now I'm binding the armscye edge - binding because I don't want to lose any more width on the straps. They're already slightly too small for the trim that's going around the neckline, oops.

So now I'm doing a drinky-binding party of one. If it's crooked you'll know why!

I was supremely lazy today; all I managed to do was finish sewing the binding. This is not a proud achievement, as there was only about eighteen inches left to do. But...at least it's done? See how much of a pocket I can sew before bedtime. (Probably not much.)

But here is a Skirt. (I didn't sew up the seams all the way to the top because it's easier to wait til I figure out pocket slits and where it should be slit for the lacing, than to have to unpick it all again later.) Yes, the strips of damask at the hem don't line up. No, I don't care.

I have been sewing the last two days, just not for me. As I've mentioned before, I dislike alterations intensely, but I like when people will pay me for stupid little things like sewing on a button (you can't sew your own button? Really??), and I don't make enough money to say no!

But today I got a bit of sewing time to myself, and managed to finish covering up the colored bits of the sari trim. The difference in golds is a little less terrible in real life...

See, purple and green! Not working for me! Let's cover it up with spangles and braid!

Doesn't look great up close, but I think it'll make for a decent enough overall effect. (And for the trim on the lower sleeves, I'm not going to use the widest part of the trim, just the narrow flowered bits, so I won't have to cover anything up there.)

I sewed a very little bit on the forepart tonight...I, somewhat accidentally, spent most of my sewing time on a black 1920s slip. Oops? There's a Downton Abbey-themed cocktail party at the Laurel Hill house in September, and I need a new dress. No, I do. Really.

I still have the fabric for a 1913 evening dress, that I've had for years and years, but sense kicked in and told me that a 20s dress would be much quicker. Actually...I really decided against the 1913 dress because I don't have any shoes for it, and I couldn't find any good cheap as-is shoes en ebay. On the other hand, I can wear the obnoxiously gold t-straps with this new 20s dress. It's a black net with gold (flat!) sequin embroidery I found at work last October, and it just screamed "easy 1920s dress!" at me.

Since it's Downton Abbey (which is still set in the early 20s), and since I've already made a later 20s dress that I wasn't in love with, I'm going to do a 1921-ish style this time, with that potentially dodgy long length. It's (very) vaguely inspired by a dress in Costume in Detail. The slip's of a reasonably-opaque rayon lining fabric, and is possibly the dumpiest-looking slip in the world. Still have to do fastenings, straps, and the hem - but the hem will wait til I make the dress.

First of all, I'm off with the family tomorrow morning, for our (not-so-)Grand New England Tour. We'll be back Friday evening, but no guarantees I'll be awake enough to post then! I'm leaving the laptop home (and have a DumbPhone), so I won't be in touch til then. I'm bringing the scarletwork along; I traced out all the designs for the four small sleeve puffs today. I sincerely doubt I'll get far enough to regret not having traced more!

Besides tracing scarletwork motifs today, I also finished sewing spangles to the forepart. You can't really see it, but I did take a picture!

Oh - and yes, it is wrinkly, and no, I'm not ironing it. There shall be no melting of the plastic spangles here!

Spent the vast majority of my day off today not working on anything Tudor - only picked it up after dinner. I hemmed a 1950s skirt, and mostly reassembled a dress from a Butterick Retro pattern. I made it a few years ago, but the waist was a little too long and it looked dumpy, so only wore it a few times before taking it apart to fix. And there it sat in the Sad Bag of UFOs til today, whereupon I put it all back together...except that I mucked up putting the bodice lining in, so when trying to turn it right side out, it just tangled itself up and looked pathetic. Oops. Time to put that one aside for now. Will finish tomorrow.

I cut the skirt panels and the lining (a mid-weight white linen/cotton), and figured how much damask I could spare to put at the hem, while making sure I still have plenty for the lower sleeves. So that's what I'm doing now, hemming under the tops of the damask. Those damask patches aren't really necessary, but this way, if the gown moves or I decide to pin the train up (never!!! ...unless it's muddy!!!), none of the navy silk will show.

Back panel - a whole width of the navy silk, which is 54".

Side gores are about 22" at the hem, so when it's finished, the hem will be about 120". Which is probably even wider than it really needs to be, but I live in terror of too-narrow skirts. (I only did it once, years ago, and it looked so pathetic I promptly took it apart and remade it, with the grain going wrongways. And I still wear it! My brown linen-blend 18thc petticoat, that was. Anyway.)

Speaking of the grain going wrong ways...you can see on the straight edge of both the gores, there's a bit of damask pieced in going crossways to the rest of the pattern. It's very obvious when you can see the sheen of the damask, but - going under the gown, do not care. (Look, I'm going to have the pattern in the skirts of my gown itself run upside down if I need to, clearly this kind of thing doesn't bother me. :D )