Author: kendra

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Experiments with Dyeing

So I needed cotton velvet or velveteen for the accents on this bodice — collar, cuffs, and buttons. I’m actually tweaking the color palette a bit from the original movie dress:  when I made the 1870-71 evening dress I ended up at Britex looking for velvet ribbon, where I fell in love with a beautiful vintage ribbon that was a sort of violet purple color. I think it is probably rayon (because of the sheen).  I hunted throughout the store trying to find something that would coordinate for the narrower ribbon of the bodice — didn’t find anything, so went with the closest I could get (which was more of a grape purple), and hoped it wouldn’t be too noticeable because of being farther away from the skirt.  But now that I’m going to be using bigger pieces of velvet on the day bodice, I need something closer to violet.  (And now I’m inspired to remove the narrow ribbon and try to dye that to better match, but that’s another project!)

I did the East Bay fabric shop tour — started at Joann’s, then Stone Mountain in search of the right shade, but couldn’t find anything right at either, so I grabbed some veering-towards-cranberry cotton velveteen and some RIT dye.  I’m actually quite terrified of dyeing — I have a front-loading, low water use washer, so I’m always worried that will screw things up — plus I just don’t have a lot of experience.  And I hate not knowing for certain what color I’m going to end up with — I’m the type who will spend more than I have to to get the right shade.  But I wasn’t finding what I needed in person, and I didn’t want to buy online because unless you’re good and get a swatch, you REALLY don’t know what shade you’re buying!

So I did swatches, playing with overdying with blue and purple and various mixtures of the two.  The straight blue worked the best, and I’m really pleased with the result.  It’s not perfect, because I’m trying to match cotton to rayon and the rayon ribbon has a sheen that the cotton fabric doesn’t have, but it’s the same tone and that makes me happy.

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Have Time! Can Sew!

So I am not performing at Dickens Fair this year.  Bella Donna did SO MUCH, particularly in September and October, and I need time to sleep, see my husband & critters, sew… you know, have a life!  I plan to gatelist at list one day to play scum, but I also want to go one day with Sarah and Trystan as customers to enjoy being shiny (and having tea! and stuff!). So while I could wear something in the closet, given that I have TIME — I think I’ll sew something!  And given that I only need to make a bodice, it’s not TOO crazy to add it to the sewing docket.

I originally bought the fabric for my 1870-71 evening dress meaning to make this dress from the BBC miniseries Daniel Deronda (hello fabulous bustle gowns, hello stripes!), and I even posted a tiny bit about it.  But then I got distracted, and made something else from the fabric, as one is wont to do!  But when I went to the garment district 1? 2? years later and the same fabric was still there in the same shop, well, obviously it was fate!

For reference, here’s the project page in case you’re wondering what the heck I’m talking about.

I grabbed my bodice pattern from my 1875 red & white stripey gown, using the ball gown front as that fit the best, although I still had to tweak it.  I appear to be slightly larger than my dress form right now (grumble grumble), but that only necessitated letting out the CF when I tried on the mockup.  I stared at the screencaps I grabbed a while ago, and rewatched the series while draping/drafting, and then cut out and sewed together.

Now I need to get to the fabric store (I’m hoping Stone Mountain will have what I need?) to get some purple velvet for the collar, cuffs, and buttons.  Speaking of buttons, those will need to be fabric covered buttons, but obviously velvet isn’t going to fit in those covered button form kits, so I’m thinking I should make my own – any tips?  And I’m thinking of basically faking the white blouse layer with it just being slightly wider than the opening, so that I can tack it in (I THINK it has a CF closure?  I’ll do that with tiny buttons or something).  The alternative would be a chemisette type thing, which sounds annoying.

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An Excessively Halloween-y Weekend

I had an excessively Halloween-y weekend the weekend AFTER Halloween.  On Friday night, we had the Lumieres occult dinner, which was spooky & lovely — mediums and aristocrats mingled over yummy French food, champagne, and candelight.  I went as a medium — Mlle Marie Anne Lenormand, who was more Napoleonic than Rococo era but who’s double checking!  I wore my gaulle, which I accessorized with lots of black — black sash, jewelry, and hair ribbons.

On Saturday night was the PEERS Ball des Vampires, which is about 10 min. walk from my house – yay!  I went with Bridget & Katherine — we had great Italian food beforehand (and scared the locals), then walked over to the ball.  There were lots of fabulous costumes (lots of Victorian & 18th century, one sparkly Edward who I had fun teasing, etc.).  I spent most of my time downstairs in the goth-y DJ room (they played Hong Kong Garden, so I got to have my Marie Antoinette masquerade moment!) — only did one-half of one waltz!  I don’t know, I just wasn’t in the mood to jockey for partners.  It does make me want to make the effort to hit the ball scene a bit more frequently (altho that means talking some of my friends into going too) — it’s a great chance to dress up and socialize, even if you’re not in the mood to dance.  I was feeling very “this old thing” about my black francaise (the other option was Nell Gwyn, but it didn’t feel terribly Halloween-y) so I resisted the urge to attempt to make anything new, and focused my time and styling a new wig and making wig accessories.  I ended up making a “cake,” and my rockin’ husband made me a guillotine out of balsa wood (the man is a talent!), plus giving me a scary guillotine-d neck scar.  Jenn absolutely took the cake (ha ha) in her gorgeous black & orange francaise, with black wig that had a jack-o-lantern that LIT UP.  It ROCKED.

A preview of photos is below — you can find the rest of my Flickr account (which I’m going to be using from now on for event photos) — here’s the Lumieres occult dinner and the Vampire ball.

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Duran Textiles

Duran Textiles is a company in Sweden making stunning 18th century textile reproductions.  Their newsletter comes out every few months and is always an interesting read — the latest issue has a lovely reproduction of an 18th century Banyan, and here’s a nice article on the pouf hairstyle (I’m interested to note they use styrofoam as the base for their reproduction wigs!).  Their pictures do a nice job of featuring their fabrics, but an even better job of providing inspiration for dresses, hair, makeup, accessories, etc.  Renaissance Fabrics carries a few of their fabrics, as does William Booth Draper.  I really, really want this embroidered silk…  on the off chance the fabric fairy is reading this!

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Mothballs & More Mockups

It’s felt good to throw off the mothballs and stretch my sewing skills again — it’s been too long since I’ve sat down to sew!  I finally found some time to get some decent mockup fabric a few weeks ago — I love Stonemountain & Daughter for having 10,000 weights of white cotton in house.  Usually I go there for batiste, this time I bought a ton of cotton canvas.  I cut out the latest draft of my mockup, which didn’t take long, and then traced all the boning lines.

How do you make pattern markings?  Often, if the (generally lining) fabric is light enough (in weight/color), I can just lay it on top of the pattern and trace the lines.  If it’s a mockup, I use a fine pen; if it’s the real deal, I usually use a plain old pencil (I’ve experimented with the various chalk products, but find that they give me a less precise line and wear off quickly).  But when I’m working with heavier fabric, and there’s a lot to mark (like in a corset), it’s harder.  Back in the day my artist husband had a light board and I LOVED using that; nowadays, I make my own by using painter’s tape to tape the pattern to the window, then tape the fabric over that, and trace (only works during daylight!).

So it’s still only boned in one half (and even then, only in the center front, center back, and some of the side front pieces), and I haven’t slit the tabs… but at least it’s in sturdier fabric with no revisions.  Next, I need to find time to hang out with Jenn and get her to look things over, but I’m really pleased with where it’s at!

I did finally settle on fabric.  I am 100% thrilled with Burnley & Trowbridge — I emailed Angela with questions about which of their linens would be most appropriate, and she put up with about 3 or 4 rounds of further emails, mailed me swatches at no charge, and ended up selling me some fabric out of her personal stash!  I bought some heavy linen canvas (that was the stash fabric), as well as some linen/cotton fustian in case the canvas piece isn’t big enough for two layers.