17 Century Sewing Challenge: Queen Henrietta Maria, 1633

First off - it's been way too long.  But, I made a vow to update my LJ once a week and have been doing pretty well with that, so now it's time to update the blog!  I'm just going to start fresh with new projects and insert old stuff that I've been doing as I go along.  So, on to the new!

I’ve been excited about 17th century costume for a while now, but just haven’t been able to get off the ball and get something made.  Imagine my excitement when I ran across the 17th Century Sewing Challenge started by Isis’ Wardrobe - a challenge to take a year and create any outfit you wanted based on artwork or extant garment dated 1600- 1699.  Here was the perfect challenge to get me started on making at least one of my planned outfits.  Except …

The challenge started in September of 2014 - so they’re just about done with the year.  Sigh.

Still!  Some people joined a few weeks ago, so I went ahead and asked to join the Facebook page.  And then I set about pinning all the images I could of dresses and bodices and skirts that I was interested in making.  Because, one of the requirements of the challenge is to make an exact replica in style and color, as close as you can.  And none of my planned outfits fit the bill.  Why? 

Van Dyck, 1635

I’ve been planning on making this dress for years, ever since I got my copy of Aileen Ribeiro’s Fashion and Fiction.  Right there on the cover was my dream dress - Queen Henrietta Maria in a green dress festooned with pearls.  I’ve been collecting pearls for years to re-create the design.  But, I’d decided a while ago to make the dress in blue.

Van Dyck, 1633

Then, during my great pin fest I found this dress.  QHM again, regal and beautiful in a blue dress, representing honor and wisdom.  I loved the trim, the collar, the hat, the whole look.  So, this is going to be my dress.

In the bit of research that I’ve done about this painting, I discovered that it’s in the National Gallery downtown D.C.  Woot!  So, I’m off to take a good long look at it this weekend and take lots of notes about details (like, is that collar all lace or is there a bit of solid fabric there? Does the dress have pinking as stated in Ribeiro, and I just can’t see it in the pictures?), and decide if the blue fabric I have is the right blue.

In addition to this, today I found this painting, showing what’s going on under the lace collar and gold striped scarf (so exciting!):

Sorry it's sideways.  I wish I could fix that.  Also, apparently this is also Van Dyck, but I can't find info on it.

Amazing!  So, I have all the details available to me about the bodice, as well.  Really neat.  And finally, I found out today that Maryland is named for Queen Henrietta Maria - I mean, it’s meant to be right? ;-)

So, here’s another project that I’m very excited about!

Year of Foundations Challenge #1- Corded Petticoat

The Corded Petticoat is Done!!!

Did you hear the angels sing today?  They were singing: “All the cords are sewn!  All the cords are sewn!”  Woot!  And I just want to say:

I will never sew another one of these again. 
Never. 
Seriously. No.

Several times I had to stop and try very hard not to cry because man, oh, man did this take forever.  Just forever. I tried to break it down NaNo style and do an hour a day - but the endless stitching, round and round and round didn’t exactly inspire me to jump out of my bed an hour earlier than usual during the weekdays.  I ended up doing long bunches of time at the machine instead.  And, when I had to switch machines, my output switched so instead of 4 rows per hour, I ended up dropping down to 1-2 rows per hour.  I’m not saying it was a totally horrible experience.  No… just a serious time commitment.  I think I estimated that it would take about two weeks of steady work.  Not so much.  I think it’s been a month now.  So… I definitely take my hat off to anyone who wants to make one of these, and if they do this by hand, with tight rows, even more power to them.  I have seen some lovely examples. 

On to the details.

Section of Challenge:  Section #3 - Skirt Supports and Section #4 - Petticoats, rolled into one, really.
Time period: 1830s Corded Petticoat
To be worn with:  an 1832 Ballgown at Costume Con (fingers crossed!)
Number of Cords: 81 in the front and 80 in the back.  The yarn ran out half way around.  But I’m cool with that.
Number of hours: Something like 50.  I stopped counting this week because I was determined to get it done and just pushed, pushed, pushed on it.
Materials: Bleached cotton muslin, 90” wide, Sugar n’ Cream, cream colored yarn, thread.

I’m calling it done, although technically it’s not.  Because it injured my main machine (poor machine is in the shop!), I had to finish sewing it with my Featherweight.  Which does not do a zig zag stitch - which means I couldn’t put in a buttonhole on the waistband.  And I was not doing that by hand.  But it has a waistband, is cartridge pleated (well, small pleats, so gauged), and could be worn.  So, I think it counts.

Yay!!  On to the pics (which are of an un-starched petticoat.  I’m itching to get starching and take a pic of it standing up on its own):

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.

Catch Up Post #1

This is the first in a series of catch up posts I’m DETERMINED to do.  I need to get all caught up on all the things that I’ve done in the past year.  Well, at least since May.  But, I thought I’d start with the most recent stuff, just to not be totally embarrassed about talking about stuff I did 6 months ago, right off the bat.  J

Accessories Challenges 1 & 2: 

September - Hats
I finished the embroidery that I’d been working on for something like, oh, 2 years, back in August.  Yay!  Just in time for the first challenge!  So, I sewed together the cap and did the final stitching around all the edges.  For the tie in the back I took 6 strands of the thread I used to embroider the cap and braided it in a long string.  It ties around my head and stays on pretty well.  Helps that I have hair that holds things, I suspect.

Top View

Side View

Back View

October - Bags/Purses
A few years ago, my friend cross stitched some flower images for me, with the intention of me using them to create Regency purses.  I finally got around to making one of them this month.  I used information about triangle shaped Regency bags and made up my own pattern.  I have to say, the next one I make will be a bit more well done.  This first version has some kinks that I need to work out before making a more formal version.  I imagined this one would be used for daytime.  I think it’s cute.

Front View

Side Back View

So, I'd been working on this for Gallifrey One:

Yes, 18th Century 5th Doctor.  It was epic.  Mostly because that wig is hilarious!  And huge!

I did not do the fan - that I borrowed from the lovely Artemisia Moltabocca over at Diary of a Renaissance Seamstress.  The shoes are American Duchess.  The print for the skirt I got from warmcanofcoke's design over at Spoonflower (it's the slightly larger print, and it came out lighter in real life than it looked on my screen).  The Pet en l'air is made of a combination of silk dupioni and polyester taffeta. After searching and sampling/swatching for weeks online, I finally hit upon the right color/fabric combo in a bricks and mortar store and bought everything they had in the silk, but it just wasn't enough.  So, back to the store to find a substitute fill in fabric.  I kind of wish I'd seen the polyester first, because it was much cheaper and spot on the same color.  But it's unlikely I would have bought it, given the fabric snob I have become.  Even for a Doctor Who costume.

I need to get over that. :)

I also made this Mels Pond outfit:

Given that I am a bigger gal, I ended up painting the fabric myself and making a version of the Sparkle and Fade dress that I thought would be flattering to my body type.  I did not think I was going to end up making a baby doll style, but it came out kind of like that.  The British Camo River in the pic is the lovely Laura from Rocking the Frock who sold me the leather jacket that I cut the sleeves off of for Mels' leather vest.  The only regret I have is that I didn't have time to braid my hair.  And of course, today, most of a week later, I've thought of how I could have quickly braided my hair to give me the look, but in a much shorter time.  Ah, well.  Live and learn.  Perhaps if I ever wear the outfit again, I can give it a go.

Also, my legs look fabulous.  Almost too skinny in proportion to the rest of my bod. 

And just in case you are wondering, the line up is: Birthday River from A Good Man Goes to War (the fabulous Lis from Dragonfly Designs by Alisa), 18th Century version of River from The Time of Angels (the aforementioned Artemisia), Amy Pond, Mels Pond and British Camo River of Flesh and Stone.  We just needed a Rory to make our lives complete.

Don't we all need a Rory to make our lives complete??