February Accessorizing Challenge: Jewelry

When I found out this month’s challenge was jewelry, I was a little flummoxed.  I have a ton of costume jewelry; I tend to over shop on trips to the Fashion District in NYC, and there is a place where you can get tiaras, awesome wonderful tiaras and full, crazy Edwardian-ish necklace/earring sets for like $8 each.  And, oh, boy, do I indulge.  So, at first I was a bit at a loss.  Then I remembered my girdles.

16th Century Venetian girdles, I mean.  I had one that I made and loved but had never really finished.  And I wasn’t sure about the technique I used to make it.  And then I had another one that was still in the planning stages, that I wasn’t even sure of all the pieces I’d use.  They were perfect for this challenge. 

The first, which I wore with my Dragonfly Venetian dress:

Dragonfly Girdle Before

Dragonfly Girdle Close Up

I’d bought those three awesome brass beauties at a bead sale, and there were pieces that were sold separately that would fit in the center.  But they weren’t right for this project, and I thought I’d be able to find something else that fit.  That was more than two years ago, and I never found anything else that would fit - until recently.

In addition, I used wooden beads that I’d had for years and wrapped copper beading wire around them to make caged beads.  Then finished it off with small pearls and small purplish-blue glass beads as spacers in between.  I was really chuffed about how it looked.  But.

As you can see, I used some kind of cord to keep it all together.  And when I wore it, I just tied it in the back - and it was always too big.  It didn’t sit in the right place.  The cord was so unfinished looking. So, for this challenge I decided to fix the connection in the front, take off a couple of beads and put a proper closure on the back.  Which I thought I could do without having to entirely re-string the project.  Alas, nope.  It quickly became apparent that cord was not going to do.  So, I stripped off all the beads and put it all back on beading wire.  Then I jump ringed all three of the brass pieces together and inserted these copper bowls in the middle of the brass pieces.  I love how they catch the light and look almost three dimensional.  Here’s the finished product:

Dragonfly Girdle After

I’m calling it finished now, although I’d always intended to add dragonfly findings to the front, as well.  In then end I decided that would be overkill.

The second girdle is for my Zebra Venetian, a costume which sits in the UFO pile.  It’s almost finished - I just have been having such trouble with the trimming.  And I decided that the skirt didn’t have enough bouff to it, so I’ve bought more zebra print to fill it out.  It will get done, during this Year of the UFO.  But in the meantime, I have made a girdle for it.

It’s made out of these wonderful, huge blue glass beads, small black and white striped beads and a Christmas tree garland that I cannibalized for pearls and square silver bits.  It also has this really interesting light blue almost seashell like beads on it as well.  When going through my findings, I realized I had these huge black and silver roundels that I’d bought when people were wearing those kind of earrings.  I thought it was a perfect end piece - especially for a piece of jewelry that is essentially pointing at my nether regions.  Did I mention the Zebra Venetian is meant to be worn for a Courtesan character during Carnavale?

Yeah.  Neither one of these costumes is really h/a, and the Zebra one is firmly tongue in cheek. 

Zebra Girdle Finished

Zebra Girdle Close Up

Details:
The Accessory:  Dragonfly Venetian Girdle and Zebra Venetian Girdle
Historical Period:  16th Century-ish Venice.  But not at all meant to be historically accurate.  More influenced by.
Outfit It Accessorizes:  No pic for Zebra yet, but here I am in the Dragonfly at Renn Fest
Materials Used:  Dragonfly: brass and copper findings, wood beads, copper beading wire, silver beading wire, pearls, glass beads, jump rings and lobster clasp.  Zebra: glass beads, plastic pearls, plastic faceted beads, silver beads, silver beading wire, screw clasp.
Techniques Used:  Jewelry pliers to get it all together.

Writing this up makes me realize even more than usual that I know nothing about jewelry making.  I’ve just been bumbling along, doing what seems right, from what I’ve managed to glean from the random articles I’ve read here and there.  I mean, I don’t even know what all the proper terms are.  But I can see that this is a rabbit hole that I could seriously fall down, and learn to love.  

1830s On My Mind

I have suddenly fallen totally and fully in love with the early 1830s.  So, I'm planning to make two dresses.  These two dresses, in fact:

from Dames a la Mode

from Dames a la Mode

To be more specific, it's the red velvet one in the first print, and the black and white one in the second print.

To help with this project, I've joined the 2014 Year of Foundations challenge.  I'm making my first item the corded petticoat.  Because it is going to take forever.  And, of course, I'd bought materials to make one ages ago.  So, this helps with my desire to use up stash stuff.  Since, shockingly, I really need to make stuff instead of just buying things to make stuff and saying "one day".

I'm thinking Costume Con for one of these.

Accessories Challenge: January - Hair

On January 25 I went to a Civil War ball at Gadsby's Tavern in Alexandra.  For the event I made a new ballgown bodice and, of course, did my hair for the night.

Then, promptly didn't take a picture of it.  Le Sigh... Let's just chalk it up to running late, fight with my bf and general nonsense.  But not to despair!  I redid my hair today and took pics.

I based the hairstyle on a couple of ideas of images from early 1860s/late 1850s hairstyles.  I was trying to keep the idea of horozontal focus of the hair in mind, and to stick near the year of the style of the bodice (which is Truly Victorian's Raphael Dinner Bodice from 1861).  I didn't want to do something too difficult - I'd done my hair for a previous ball and was okay with the center part, rolled down sides for the front.  I wanted something interesting for the back.  I wanted three braids, and curls in the back, at least. Inspiration pics:

From pinterest.  There wasn't any note of where this is from.

La Mode Illustree, Feb 1861

The Accessory:  Civil War ball hairstyle.

Historical Period:  1861-ish.
Outfit It Accessorizes:  My one pic from the actual ball that I have is below.
Materials Used: Hairpins, hairpins, hairpins, flowers, hairspray.  Otherwise it's all my hair, no rats.
Techniques Used:  Curls, braids.