mandie_rw | Entries tagged with z:madrigal gown

As predicted, I sewed nothing on Thanksgiving, but I did sew today (after watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off on television for the 500th time).

And sleeves are actually the devil, I have decided. I think I should never make anything with sleeves ever, ever again. The only thing that prevented me from attempting to murder this dress and its sleeves was the fact that I retained enough sanity to know that you can't murder inanimate objects. I had to rip out and re-sew the sleeves so many times, I lost count. Believe me, I was cursing those things out as only a frustrated seamstress can do.

The lower part of the sleeve, the green linen, mostly behaved, except for when one sleeve fit and one didn't, even though they're both the same size. I made it fit, dammit.

Not the most exciting thing I've ever made, I know...Almost done, though! (See, I can make things quickly. When I have to.) Mom just has to figure out what shoes she's going to wear so I can hem the thing tomorrow, and then it will be done.

Current Mood: irritated
Current Music: The Rollers; Stoned Houses #2

In other words, lots of boring-ness. Have I mentioned lately how annoying French seams are? No? Well, that's because I never finish my seams on anything I make, because I'm lazy and hate things like French seams. But since this dress is not actually for me, I figured I'd be a long-suffering Good Seamstress and finish the seams.

Last night, I draped the bodice of the gown -- I decided to make it in two parts, bodice and skirt, because that's easier for me. And I'm a big fan of Easier. Draping on a real live victim was fun. I'm not used to my dummy yelping when I stick her with a pin. Somewhat miraculously, I managed to not cut the smock, though we definitely had some close calls. Draping took what felt like forever, but when I made the mock-up, no one was more surprised than me to see that it actually fit. Isn't draping fun?

Bodice pieces, of the leftover grey cotton (the rest of it is living in my Tudor gown's sleeves, if you recall).

I managed to cut out the pieces of the bodice in the linen/rayon and sew them together last night as well. This dress, by the way, is machine sewn where you can't see it (hopefully), and hand-sewn where you can. It's all about compromise.

The bodice sewn together. It looks like an ugly vest (and gave me nightmare flashbacks to the blue vest I had to re-sew this summer at work...somebody's mother took it home to make it, and brought back something that looked like she sewed it on crack. In the dark. And she brought it back the day of dress rehearsal. And it was going on a LEAD. That was fun).

Today I hand-sewed the eyelets ~~because I am crazy~~ in the front to lace the thing, and then it looked like...

...well, an ugly vest that laces up the front.

About halfway through the eyelet fun, I got bored and decided to make the skirt. (Because French seams are so much more fun?) Used my usual scientific process of eyeballing it for the gores, of which there are five. The cat insisted on helping me out by holding down the fabric so it didn't escape, and then by attacking the string I was using to make the curves. (See, triangle to gore like magic!)

Then many, many hours of sewing and ironing and sewing ensued. Like I said, French seams suck. I managed to avoid ironing my fingers or leaning on the iron (I have done both), which, considering all the time I spent around the iron today, is nothing short of a miracle.

And then I sewed the ugly vest and the skirt together, and now it kind of looks like an actual garment, which is always heartening. Not too exciting-looking, but better than an ugly vest.

I don't know how much I'll be able to get done tomorrow because, well, it's Thanksgiving Day! Besides the whole going-over-relatives-house-for-dinner thing, there's a whole thing on the Doors on TV earlier in the day that I have to watch because, well, what my friends unkindly call Old People Music is my other obsession. ~~Sewing and costuming's the other-other obsession. In case it wasn't obvious.~~

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Procol Harum; A Whiter Shade of Pale

Like I mentioned a while ago (wow, checking the date of that post, it really was a while ago), I've been recruited to make a dress for my mother to wear - madrigal dinner for the choir she's in, they have ugly stuff for the members to wear, yadda yadda yadda.

I had lots of fun ~~and probably overambitious~~ plans, but when she finally talked to the coordinator of the dinner, apparently only the people in The Court get to wear fun clothes, and my mom is not in The Court (of course. Politics apparently play a part in choirs, too. These people need to stop taking themselves so seriously). The woman in charge described Everyone Else as Commoners. Sigh. I know what that means, to these kinds of groups, anyway. No bright colors. Boo. ~~*starts whining that They Had Pink Back Then, but decides it's not worth the trouble*~~

Also, since I got my parameters so late (relatively speaking; she needs the dress for Dec. 4), I decided it was safer to just make do with what ~~evil~~ Jo-ann's had...I know I could have gotten cheaper pure linen online for less than what we paid for a rayon/linen blend there, but oh well. I didn't want to deal with any WHY IS THE FABRIC NOT HERE YET panic, plus my mom seems to feel that buying fabric online is Srs Bzness. (I don't know.) Plus we had the whole, "But linen is so wrinkly!" conversation...I then followed that one up by pointing out the pretty wool they had in stock, which was indeed very pretty but was HOLYSHIT $25 a yard OH HELL NO.

We also had the "Do we really need that much fabric? Fabric is more expensive than I thought..." conversation, to which I kept replying, "Yes. Because you're tall," just to annoy her. (Well, it's true, my mom is about 4 1/2 inches taller than I am! I'm the short one in the family. It's why I wear heels all the time.)

Anyway, we ended up with a linen/rayon blend, like I mentioned. Mom was mad because she liked the green linen blend better, but they had maybe two yards tops, and that certainly wasn't going to be enough ("IT'S BECAUSE ..." "DON'T SAY IT." "...YOU'RE TALL!"). So we settled for some navy blue instead, which Mom proceeded to abuse as ugly the entire ride home. ("At least it's not brown!" [That was the only other 'common' color they had] "Like a TURD?" "YEAH.")

The fabric:

Color's a bit off, especially on the green, but that's as good as I could get. Yeah, it's green. That's the leftover linen from my medieval gown (and in turn, that picture's too green...the actual color of the fabric's somewhere in between those two shades! I don't know why I try).

Inspiration:

From Norris' Tudor Costume and Fashion, on page *mumble* It purports to be a dress of Commoners early in the Tudor reign. I know Norris isn't the most reliable source on the face of the planet, but oh well. We'll all just have to get over it. I am making the gown short sleeved, so I can make separate sleeves out of the green linen. Partly because that's all the fabric I have left, partly because Mom wated green, so green sleeves should make her happy, and partly because green sleeves are just more exciting. ~~And because I refuse to endorse the whole Commoner=Brown ALL THE TIME thing.~~

Over this past weekend, all I managed to do was make the smock to go under the gown, out of cotton muslin (because no one cares what it's made out of). It's short because it's coming from my own bolt of muslin in the Stash, and I'm stingy. And because I'm making a compromise between my own costuming Layers Are Awesome! mindset and my mother's modern Layers Are Bad and Make You Hot mindset. (An aside: I think that's the hardest part of trying to get someone into dressing up and sewing historical stuff -- layers!)

Boring smock is boring. Also does not fit on Mabel and is pinned in the back to keep it up, which is why it looks stupid:

(We can also play I Spy The Crap in Amanda's Room in this picture, including a cat, a plaid skirt, a Stones album sleeve, and said album on record player.)

Long posts seem to indicated I did something...but I didn't really sew much! I'll have to finish this over Thanksgiving break -- obviously, as Mom needs the dress the weekend after next!

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: The Who; My Wife

And something vaguely related to sewing, at that, so it's all public and stuff. *promptly falls over in surprise* Well, I didn't get anywhere near the amount of schoolwork done today that I should have, so why not compound the procrastination with a LJ post? It's too late to concentrate on history textbooks anyway, so I may as well give it up as a lost cause for tonight.

I've been a victim of nearly perpetual waffling on Black Diamonds... at this point it's less than a month to Halloween, and there's still a ton and a half of work to do on it. I swing back and forth between being determined to completely finish at least the corset (I highly doubt the tails will be beaded, by this point in time) because it's going to be AWESOME and SPARKLY even if it's not finished, and completely despairing of the whole thing, wondering what the point is, because it's not going to be totally finished and the rhinestone scallops are wonky anyway and I still need to find a hat but what's the point on pouring money down a rat hole if it's not going to be finished anyway...

Right now I'm on an upswing and have decided it's going to be finished. Not least because now people have actually seen me sewing on it, so I want to be able to show it off!

As for the Tudor Ren Faire gown, I'm still blissfully optimistic about finishing it next weekend, as I have Monday and Tuesday off for fall break. Shh, don't tell me that's totally unachievable; I'm enjoying the delusion!

Also, I may or may not be making a dress for my mother. The choir she's singing in is having a madrigal dinner first weekend in December, and she told me they have some crap for them to wear (really, her word for the costumes they supply, haha), but was hoping maybe I could make her something...? And, because we all know I'm a sucker, I'm probably going to do it -- but only if I'm given a reasonable amount of money to play with. I refuse to use the nasty cheap satin that overpopulates the local Joann's this time of year, for example! That stuff makes me twitch. It won't be a Well-Researched and Period-Correct Garment, but I at least want a plausible style for whatever time period we end up going with...I do not do Simplicity-style "Medieval."

I'm kicking around a couple of ideas already (of course I am!), but I'll wait and see if I get a go-ahead for spending money on things like linen...and if I get the go-ahead for Stupid Hats. We all know I love Stupid Hats, and there were so many of them in the 14th and 15th centuries. In fact, if I don't get the go-ahead for inflicting Stupid Hats on my mother, I might have to add something to my own To-Sew list!

You know...like I need anything else on there. Like I need to buy more fabric for myself. Self-control? What is this self-control you speak of??

Also: ARGH I SMELL A SKUNK BLARGH. I never smelled skunk up here before this semester, now I've smelled it at least three times since we've been here. *choke* Can people stop pissing off the skunks, please?

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: The Who; Underture (Tommy)