I actually sewed this morning, before going to work. Shocking! Instead of laying around in bed listening to NPR (one of my all-time favourite activities, but one that I do fairly frequently), I got up and got dressed (in a fairly cute CorpGoth outfit, by the way). But I still had 40 minutes before my
This time, it’s stripey! But still a big black sack! The most unattractive dress shape possible! But it’s historically accurate, it technically fits, and I’m going for it! I can never get the hang of mirror pix, but it does look better on me than on the dressform. Marginally 🙂 Just need to hem it,
I’m half an hour into an one-hour dress for Gatsby. By the way, the one-hour dress pattern takes me about two days to make, though I did just finish all the “tricky” patterning, and I even bumped it up a notch by trying the two-piece pattern this time. It’s from a 1925 pattern booklet that
Don’t know if this will actually happen in time for this year’s ADSC Gatsby Summer Afternoon. But I bought a new hat at Convergence 15, a lovely hot pink confection trimmed with big black feathers and a whole bird, made by Caveat Emptor. Which is ’20s-ish in style and makes me reallyreallyreally want a dress
I’ve loved this dress since I first saw the portrait in a book, sometime in the early 1990s. It’s the classic refutation of “pink is not period” for renaissance faire or SCA. It’s super-girly. It’s fantastic! It’s very Pretty Pretty Princess! This has been my dream gown, and dammit, I’m going to make it. So
Photos from Venice, Italy, in February 2009 during Carnivale. Also, here’s a costume video shoot of me. It features my mother and step-father, all at Campo San Zaccaria. Click the image below to play or click this link — Trystan’s carnivale costume video. The video is about two and a half minutes long, and the
It’s done. All hemmed, trimmed, even skirt hooks and miscellaneous tacking. Now it’s late, my back is killing me, I’m going to bed. But the gown does look damn good, if I do say so myself (also, it’s done just shy of 2 weeks before we leave — BOOYAH!!! m/ !!1111!!!!)
It’s only a paper stomacher… The easiest thing to pattern. Just stick some paper under the francaise and draw a shape. Smooth out the lines. *Ta da* It’s a stomacher. For the actual item, I used an inner layer of white mid-weight canvas-y stuff, covered w/the pink silk on both sides and the sari fabric
It was kind of a girlie weekend, in more ways than three. Saturday, I did a ton of pleating and pinning and re-pleating and pinning to build the petticoat for my Carnivale outfit. I just took two widths of silk — made the back one half-again as wide, for some oomph — and stitched them
What I wanted to find at this year’s trip to the LA Garment District was something to go with this hot pink and silver (polyester) sari I’ve had in the Stash for years: I made a sketch of my costume concept in Tara Maginnis’ drawing class at Costume College (shown at left). The idea is
So I updated my swatch book last night. Which required measuring of some yardage. And I don’t think I have enough fabric for my intended Carnivale costume. The black shantung embedded with shisha mirrors is only 4 yards of 45″ wide material, and something tells me that just won’t be enough for a robe a
This sort of robe a la francaise held up in a polonaise would be both very pretty and quite practical for Carnivale next year. Can’t have a train or anything dragging about in the damp, and despite the potential cuteness, I don’t want to go all lolita-short. That example circa 1760s-1770s is more accurate. I
July 15, 2006, at the Piedmont Cemetery Our inaugural Lumieres picnic was beautiful! I had a most delightful time, and I must thank the most gracious Comtesse de la Valliére for her warm hospitality. The Comtesse, my cousin Cecily, and myself ventured out early — around noon — to the far reaches of the Valliére