color indecision

The dress is going together now, but I'm having second thoughts about my trim color.  I found some silk shantung in a darker pewter green color, and I've spent the past few days cutting bias strips, carefully basting it to the edges, making buttons, and twisting cord out of embroidery floss.  But now that it's coming together, I don't think I like it.  It almost overpowers the delicate green of the main fabric.  Now I'm wondering if I should switch the green trim out for off-white, like I had in my design sketch.  

So what do y'all think about the darker green trim - yea or nay?  It would cost a couple hours of work to  change it, but nothing too serious.   I'm about to hit the point of no return though, so I have to decide by tomorrow. 

an interesting fashion statement

I worked on my new 1910's corset last week, and although I still need to add the garters and bottom edge binding, it was finally done enough to try it on.  Quite an interesting fashion statement over my work clothes, don'cha think?

design choices

Thanks for the feedback about the fullness of my skirt.  I feel a lot better about using that one now, but I got bored and made up some design sketches just to see if I liked anything better.

1. The original dress.  It's clean and elegant and I like being faithful to the original.  But I think it looks a bit bath-robe-ish, which makes me hesitate.

2. The double layer Butterick skirt.  I've made this one before so I know it looks good on me and is easy to make, but I'm not crazy about the way it looks with the kimono bodice.  They don't seem to fit together just right.

3. This skirt is inspired by an antique 1910's pattern that I bought today. It's one of those transitional styles, and the back looks very much like the original skirt, but I thought the center panel with some tabs would give it a nice tailored look.  I think this one is my favorite at the moment.

4.  Straight skirt with a border, inspired by that photo I liked.  I like it, but I'm not sure I love it.  I could also change the color of the borders, but I'm still having a hard time picking a color.  I found a blue-gray that was pretty, but it didn't seem like the most "period" choice, if you know what I mean.

Anybody want to offer a vote?  I'm going to think obsess about it for a week and then start cutting.

1911 mockup

I made the mockup of my suffragette dress this week.  I like the bodice, but I'm not sure about the skirt.  It's fairly full in the back (I usually prefer the very narrow skirts for this period), and I never could figure out how to make the back pleats fall like they are charted in the Patterns of Fashion diagram, although I'm sure I can fake something.  Also, I omitted the decorative gore in the bottom of the skirt because I thought this would save me time (wow that's a lot of buttons!), but now it seems way too plain without it.  

So I can either keep the original skirt and add the gore back in, or I could switch out this skirt for the double-layer one in the Butterick pattern... or... I dunno?  Maybe just a straight skirt with a contrasting band at the bottom?  I'm just afraid that would make me look shorter.   I think some virtual mockups might help me make a decision.

Anyhoo.  Here are some more pictures of my trial run.

I probably have more poochiness in the front than necessary.  

You can see the lovely raised back waistline here.

I have a LOT more booty than my dress form does, so that should give it more of that Edwardian S-bend shape.

Now that I have a workable mockup, I'm going to switch gears for a bit and make myself an Edwardian corset.  I'll definitely need one before I can fine tune the fit of this dress.  I look like a lumpy mess in these styles without one!  

suffragette dress diary

I haven't done a dress diary in AGES, but I thought that I might give it another try just so I have something to blog about.  I'm organizing a suffragette picnic with the DFW Costumers' Guild on Memorial Day weekend, and although I have a backup dress already, I'm hoping that I'll have time to make a new costume for this event.

My plan is to use this green linen/cotton striped fabric to make something similar to the 1911 dress in Patterns of Fashion.  I probably won't make an exact copy in regards to the trim and smaller details, but I think it'll give me a really good pattern to start with.  I also adore the dress on the right here, so I might do a belt and the contrasting hem like you see in that photo.  But I'll have to find some suitable fabric if I want to do that.  So far, I haven't had much luck because I can't figure out what color would go with this weirdo green.  I'm thinking that a gunmetal gray would be nice, but I haven't had much luck finding anything like that.

So first on the agenda: enlarging the pattern and making a mockup.   My goal is to have that done by next weekend.  Wish me luck!

new clothes for my man

We went to Scarborough Faire the weekend, and Mike was finally able to wear his new Alsatian costume!  It took me over 3 years to get it done (with about 2 3/4 of those years spend moldering in my to-do pile), but thank goodness it is finally finished!!!  Now I can sew for myself again without all the guilt and mopey "I guess I'll wear this same old costume" comments from my man.

And if anybody is joining me from my Festive Attyre website, welcome!  Hopefully I'll be better at blogging than I have been at webbing these past few years!

pattern luv

I finished adding all of my women's vintage patterns to my flickr archive.  There are a few VERY old ones from the Edwardian period, but most are from the late 50's - 70's.  I've had so much fun getting these organized and categorized and searchable.  Next month, I'll add my children's patterns.

pattern love

I added all of my 30's and early 40's patterns to my flickr set.  I hope I get around to making some of these soon, but in the meantime, it's fun to look at all of the charming fashion illustrations.  Some of them are so beautiful!

1904 ribbon corset

A fabulous local fabric store, Fabrique, hosted a remnant challenge this past month, and I decided to give it a try.  I came home with three different fabrics, and after a few weeks of waffling back and forth over what to make, I decided that would use some peacock silk brocade for a ribbon corset based on the 1904 corset diagram in Corset and Crinolines.  The super-cool blog Bridges on the Body helped me muddle through the construction, and the only problems that I had with this project came from the fact that I had to cut my silk  on the bias to get the feather placement like I wanted on the sides.  Of course, using bias construction on a corset is a HUGE no-no, but it is lined with some heavy-duty groisgrain silk that acts as the real strength of this garment.  My corset has a few minor wrinkles that probably wouldn't be there if I had cut it on the straight, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared that it might be.

I had a really hard time deciding how to trim this thing, but I just kept thinking of Tim Gunn and his  admonishments on Project Runway to "use your editing eye!"  I kept scaling back my desire to be flashy with beading or contrasting ruffles until I ultimately ended up making some self-fabric fringe by fraying strips of the silk.  I also used braid made of embroidery floss down the center of the fringe to give it a little more interest and to hide my lines of stitching.  I love how the fringe echoes the look of the feathers, and it adds even more "oomph" to the bust and hips, which emphases the hourglass look.

I'm sad to say that I forgot to take a picture of the back of this corset before turning it in for the contest, but I'll try to take a pic and post it next week.  I found some great 000 2-part eyelets at Walmart, of all places, and I ADORE how they turned out.  They had antique gold, copper, and black at the store I went to, but no silver.  How weird is that?  I'll have to look up the brand the next time I'm shopping there so I can check for them online.  The lacing is done with some cotton twill tape that I dyed to match the dark brown of the silk.  Oh, and I also wanted to mention that I bought my busk and boning from Vogue Fabrics, and I was incredibly pleased with the price and speed of shipping.

And now for the real question - what am I going to do with this corset?  Since I'm on such a vintage kick lately, I've been daydreaming about pairing it with a New Look blouse and pinstriped brown pencil skirt for a midcentury spin on a steampunk outfit.  What would that be - atomicpunk?  Or I might make it into a fairy costume, or maybe I'll use for the period it was intended for and wear it under Edwardian costumes... but it sure would be a shame to hide such a flashy set of undies!

starting a vintage pattern archive

I've been saying that I need to do this for years now, so I'm finally getting off my lazy butt and starting an archive of my vintage sewing patterns.  Eventually, I hope to separate them by decades, but right now, I'm just putting them all together in chronological order for ease of browsing.

16 patterns down, 100-something more to go!  Woohoo!