Sideless Surcoat - Historical Sew Monthly Stashbusting Challenge

Building on the generic Medieval fantasy costume that I started working on last month, I made up a relatively straight-forward sideless surcoat.  Went the easy route and again brought out the Burda 7977 for this instead of using one of any number of fabulous tutorials that are out there.  The goal here was to bang something out quickly so that I could show off the kirtle at Figments & Filaments here in Kansas City next month.

I was already planning to avoid buying anything new for this project, so it fit in nicely with the Historical Sew Fortnightly Monthly challenge for March which was "Stashbusting".  I found a five yard section of wool suiting that had a subtle brown and tan twill weave to it that I picked up at a steep discount eons ago with the notion that surely I could use it for something.  Thems dangerous words right there.  Well, to make it a little less 'shiny suit' and a little more Fourteenth Century, I serged the raw edges and dumped the lot of it into the washing machine on warm, and dried it on medium heat.  This resulted in an every so slight bit of felting which softened the overall hand and color nicely.  The contrasting was done in black silk velvet that was leftover from my Queen of Hearts project, and plus the thread, that's all there is to it.

Lol.  My neighbors must think we're so weird.

Not sure why it's riding up like that in the back.
Must have caught on the belt I'm wearing over the kirtle.

Another shot at that paternoster and the decorative edging on the sleeves of my kirtle.

You can almost tell in the close up shot above, but for the velvet, I just laid out the pattern pieces and cut strips about four inches in from the arm hole openings.  The velvet was sewn to the WRONG side of the arm openings, then folded to the outside, encasing the seams.  I then top-stitched about 1/4" from the edge, then again about 3" in from the edge and trimmed off the excess.  The top stitching largely gets lost in the pile of the velvet, so I didn't think it detracted from the historical look too much.  To finish those raw cut edges, I just used black silk thread to whip stitch and short intervals all the way around.  The collar and hemline were treated in much the same way

Thrift Store Finds: making a 1920s Flapper-worthy hand bag from a ladies blouse

A bit of a 'quickie' project to help me feel accomplished in between finishing off bigger fish.  One of the things I made time for on my trip to LA last summer was to hit up some thrift stores.  One of my finds from the Goodwill of Los Angeles (just west of Beverly Hills and south of Hollywood) was this blouse, a Hale Bob beaded silk burnout tank top that I practically tore off the hanger and hid under my arms.  It's the kind of top that, while pretty, I could never personally wear and do justice.  But as luck would have it, it was just enough fabric for a kick ass purse.

The color.  The beading.  The pattern... there was nothing about this that I didn't love.

Blouse was lined in a bright yellow habotai silk, and so I cannibalized that to be my purse's lining.

Only $2.99.  Considering similar blouses on the store's website were running around $140, I got off pretty light.

I happened to already have a ball clasp purse frame in the stash, so I used that as the foundation.  The lining and fashion layers were separated, and a bit of scrap yellow cotton was used to sketch out a pattern (and later as an interlining to give the finished bag some shape).  Basically, from the hinges up, I added a half-inch to the finished dimensions to allow for seams to be folded down.  Then I free-handed a basic purse-like shape that was wider than the handle, but would end up being gathered in at the top edges to meet the hinges.  I did the whole thing over top of the lining to remind myself of what my absolute limits to the dimension would have to be.

I took the cotton pattern and folded it in half before cutting so that I'd end up with something a bit more symmetrical that what I could manage by hand.

I treated the interlining as a sort of flatlining for the lining silk.  I did this because I wanted to install pockets and they needed something of structure to attach to.  I made up the template by pulling out the things that I knew I wanted easily accessible.  By having the heavy phone anchored to the wall of the lining, I could avoid having a bag that sagged in the center under it's weight.  The pen and cash/card pockets were for things easily lost in a big bag.  I just approximated about a half inch of space around each of the items for ease of use.

  

I folded the lining fabric over the edges of of the interlining once on three sides, and folded down twice on what would be the top edge.  The bottom corners were turned in to keep them from straying into the seam allowance on the bottom edge.

Finished pocket attached to the lining, flat-lined to the cotton interlining.  I put a row of stitches across the bottom of the cash n cards pocket to raise these items up a bit to make them easier to retrieve. 

The fashion and lining layers were assembled separately by laying the right sides together and stitching around the bottom/sides to within just over a half inch of each top corner.  The lining was sewn on the machine, but the delicate burnout velvet fashion layer was done by hand (mostly to keep my machine from eating the bead).

So sheer!

The fashion layer was attached to the purse frame first by folding the top edge over the bar and hand-stitching in place.

Then the lining was inserted and the top edges folded under, then whip stitched to the fashion layer just under the bar.  The outer corners were folded under and whip stitched as well, and then the points of those corners were tack stitched to the insides of the corners near the hinges to give the bag a bit of a gathered effect.  I made sure to  put the tag back into the finished purse, as a reminder of the piece's former life.  It makes me smile.

Slap on a beaded tassel and TA DA!  We're done!  Now to find an excuse to wear it.  :)

HSF 16 Terminology & HSF 17 Yellow - 1880s Tea Gown

Sooo... I had all of these grand epic plans to make a tea gown for the HSF Terminology post, but I ran into a bit of a demotivating wall when it came time to put the sleeves on and I couldn't commit to a trimming scheme.  Lucky for me, the fabric I ended up making the gown out of was a lovely, buttery yellow gold and the next HSF challenge in line was yellow, so not all was lost.

I've been in a decluttering mood here at the end of the summer, so I thought I'd try to focus on a couple of projects that would help me make a dent in the stash.  Do you remember that dye fail project from back in February?  The one where I realized that the yellow/gold rayon faille that I bought turned out to be a rayon/acetate blend and attempting to dye it red just left me with ten yards of fleshy pink nonsense? 

Yeah, that one.

So I had the bright idea that I'd make a tea gown out of it, because hey, what the hell.  I've made up enough Truly Victorian bodice patterns that I felt comfortable just making the necessary adjustments to the pattern on paper and skip the mock up.  Easy, one piece project, cheap fabric, no mock up... I was totally going to get this done in the two weeks that I had until the challenge was due.

I was wrong.  I took a break from cutting pattern pieces to dye up something like 12 yards of nylon velvet ribbon for trim.  The goal was to get a nice, deep burgundy color to complement the fleshy pink.  But the ribbon had been dyed and bleached once before in a failed attempt at making ivory by my sewing buddy over the summer and it didn't quite take up the dye the way I wanted it to.  In fact, the ribbon wasn't burgundy at all, but a nice, grapey purple.  Seriously, we're talking grape jelly here.  Well that was definitely going to clash with the pink.  So I tried to darken it into a more brown color, but that didn't work, either.  Eventually, I ended up with a rich, deep eggplant color that I totally loved... that also totally clashed with the pink.  So I scooped all of the pink fabric up and dumped it onto the floor, pulling out the five yards of undyed yellow gold that were left.  This was a bit shy of what the pattern stated that I'd need, but as the faille didn't really have a nap or directional pattern pattern to it, I figured I could get away with it, and so I started cutting all over again.

We'll start with a split pic, because the flash was doing absolutely nothing polite to the color of the faille.  The cutaway on the left was done without flash and, although a bit blurry, is much a truer representation of the actual color of the gown.

Some people are the sort of person that they can plot out a project to the end, complete with what trim they want where, so that the ends of trim can be inserted into the appropriate sleeves as they go along.  I am not that visionary.  I personally have a lot of trouble imagining how I want to trim a garment until I can look at it mostly assembled.  But sewing the ribbon onto a garment that I couldn't lay flat would have been nearly impossible.  So I sketched and I pinned and I stared and I waffled and re-pinned and then set the whole project aside for a bit instead of finishing it off over Labor Day weekend as I'd planned.  My biggest stressor was the pointed bits on the front and back of the bodice.  I couldn't figure out how I wanted the points to meet.  As is, the center of the points is ever so slightly off center from the front of the gown, which is along the line of buttons.  It took looking at a lot of asymmetrical gowns in order to convince myself to be okay with (and perhaps a glass of wine or two in order to find the courage to start sewing), but once I got over that hump, the rest of the trimmings just fell together.

The finished gown is floor length in the front, with a sweeping train in the back.  I'll probably stick a bustle pad under the petticoat to help fill it out a bit in the back.  And a faille petticoat over the cotton one will help hold the train out and keep it from collapsing in the back.  (also, an actual butt instead of my broken, hip-less dress form will help, too,)

Hmm, I'm good with the front, but that's an awful lot of
blank space there in the back.  But bow, perhaps?

After the points on the front of the bodice, I kind of wanted to embrace this asymmetrical theme that I had started.  I made cuffs that were not a uniform depth, so that they wrapped around the cuff and looked as if they buttoned closed, encasing the narrower end.  The same style was used on the tops of the pockets.

Pleats seem to be one of those things that I just can't not do.  They consume so much time, but damn if they don't just define the late Victorian look for me.  I sped up the process a bit with these in a couple of ways.  They are only finished on the lower edge, and I used hem binding tape to avoid the bulk of double turning the edge.  Then I inserted one three inch space after every three one inch pleats.  You can't really tell, because I hung the pointed ribbon tabs in the center of each of these wider spaces and unless you're looking for it, you probably wouldn't notice.  The tabs were cut into points and then treated with fray check.  Lastly, I avoided finishing the top edge of the pleats by sewing them directly to the hem and sewing the strip of ribbon over it.  Since the velvet ribbon is dark and bulky, you can't see the added bulk that it hides.

Gasp!  Sneaky cheating.  Also, I was running low on matching thread at this point
and went with a "close enough".  Luckily, I only had to do this on the hem

I was able to use up a spectacular amount of the hem and bias tapes that I inherited from my grandmother.  Since no one would see them on the inside, I felt no shame in using up whatever odd colors I could come up with.

I had just enough fabric left over to cut a partial front panel for an underskirt that I'll doctor up with the leftover bits of ribbon so that I'll have another option if I want to wear the tea gown open over a matching skirt.  I'll utilize some of the pink fabric to finish the top four inches of the front panel, as well as the side and back panels of the skirt.  As it'll be hemmed to a couple inches shorter than the tea gown, I'm not too worried about the pink sticking out.  As it stands, the cotton petticoat I made back in May doesn't give quite enough boost to my bustle-less bum, so making an underskirt with a good bit of yardage gathered into the back of the waistband will certainly help, regardless of whether or not I unbutton enough of the tea gown for anyone to see  it.

Hmm... now what to do with the remaining scraps of ribbon?  Surely the dress needs a bow somewhere.  ;)

1870s Linen Walking Skirt

A little over a month ago, I had whipped up a floral linen polonaise that conveniently fit into the Robes and Robings HSF Challenge, but it was a color/fabric combination very different from any of my other Victorian outfits and therefor needed a coordinating skirt of its own. Cue another low stress, not-for-competition, sew all that crap on the machine garment. I've found that doing this from time-to-time really helps balance out the stress induced by having garments that are entirely hand sewn and take months to finish.

 

Pattern used was Truly Victorian 201: 1870s Underskirt.  Fabric is three times dyed 8oz linen from Dharma Trading Co.  The three tries at dyeing was because I was at first trying to match to the polonaise purple, then when that didn't work, match to the maroonish bits of leaves on the polonaise, then the 'screw it all, I'll make it brown" when I tried to match it to the linen trims on the polonaise.  Obviously, none of them worked.  But the depth of color ended up being something I was really pleased with.  The brown gave it a nice 'weathered' look to it, something that I appreciate in historical recreations.  In most cases, I don't WANT to look like I'm wearing something fresh out of the box.  

 

 

 

The false panel of pleats was fairly easy to assemble.  I just took as long of a rectangle as I could cut out of whatever fabric I had left over, hemmed one end, then pleated it an arbitrary width of knife pleats.  The pleats were sewn together on the machine at the top, then the back portion of each pleat was sewing with a very narrow hem to help the dress hold it's pleats, even when the skirt has been traveling.  Even if they're not crisp and freshly ironed, they'll at least not have fanned out like a train and lost all pleating. 

 

 

 

The belted portion trimming the top of the pleats is just a length of brown velvet folded in on the sides and one ends.  It's sewn down to the skirt on the top, then tack stitched to the edge of each pleat on it's bottom edge.  I wanted to give the impression that it was the belted bit that was holding in the pleats.  The pointed end was left unanchored, except for a single button to help aid in the illusion.

 

 

 

The entire skirt is hemmed with narrow strips of velvet that were folded and topstitched at the top and bottom to give it the impression of being velvet ribbon.  WAY cheaper than using actual velvet ribbon. 

 

 

The complete outfit.  I had to go back and tack up the skirt on the polonaise a bit more in order to see the belted bit at the top of the pleats, but bustles are good about accepting that.  I'll try to fiddle with it so that the skirt of the polonaise hangs lower on the left side.  I'm aiming to wear this to a steampunk tea in December, so that's motivating me to get a few more cold weather accessories out to go with it.  There's a fur muff in the works, and I'm toying with the notion of trying to draft my own pattern for a talma wrap of some sort.