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.  :)

Medieval Fantasy Kirtle and Paternoster (Rosary Beads)

So I made myself a second kirtle for a medieval fantasy group project that I got roped into and I found myself wanting to come up with an outfit to wear it with.  Hence the non-specific Medieval fantasy-like project was born.

I used Burda 7977 for the kirtle and ended up fitting it with bust darts to give it a bra-less snug fit, so not terribly historically accurate, but comfy as hell.  Darts were a much easier fix to do when fitting myself, as opposed to trying to re-work the armscye.  There is not enough yoga in the world that would let me do that properly and I was too impatient to wait for help.

The dress is a mid-weight (4.7 oz) linen from Dharma Trading Co, dyed a pale green to match the details in the as-yet unfinished overdress.   Machine sewn for all weight-bearing construction seams, since learning when to say no to hand-stitching is one of my goals in life.  But I did cave and tack down the felled seams by hand.

This is the second time I've made up this pattern, but the first time that I attempted the double sleeves thing it has going on.  They actually turned out pretty nice and I think I'll leave off the lacing on the over sleeves so that they hang open a bit for some flair.

Here you can see the hand stitching to finish the seams, as well as where I used gold silk thread embellishment to hide the top-stitching around the neckline, which was also how I treated the lower edge of the cuffs of the over sleeve.

Once it's on me and I'm wearing shoes, the hem will sit just off the floor.

While I was fitting with the back safety-pinned closed, I realized that I could slip the dress on and off without un-pinning it.  Therefor, the lacing didn't have to be strictly functional.  So to save a truly epic amount of time, I skipped binding the eyelets and just gently used an awl to help thread a rayon yarn through the edges.  I was able to keep my lacing intervals much narrower this way, so to avoid too much puckering of the center back when worn.

I came across the idea for a paternoster while browsing through medieval costume sources online, looking for accessory ideas.  While not a particularly religious person myself, I latched onto the notion of the rosary being an acceptable way for individuals to express their tastes and show off wealth, without being considered "too flashy" in doing so.  As the outfit I was making was gearing up to be an upper class representation, the rosary became an essential accessory.  Sarah Edgecumbe has put together a fantastic pinterest board on the topic, with LOTS of references from paintings.  Also, paternoster-row.medievalscotland.org, as well as this SCA paper were super informative.

I ended up making mine from materials that I already had on hand.  Fifty 5/16" light red beads meant to resemble coral, separated by larger beads of "jade", also quite decadent.  Christ Laning has an entire blog post devoted to the red beaded paternooster that helped cinch my choice of beads.  My fantasy lady apparently has expensive and exotic tastes.  I strung them all on gold silk cord and I made a small tassel from the same.

The whole thing isn't large, but just enough to wear wrapped around the wrist and offer me something for my fidgety hands to play with.

Project Summary: 1920s Poison Ivy

The first costume I want to talk about from our group of Batman villains is Poison Ivy.  This was by far my favorite character of all that I worked on.  I love this color and I love this character.  Poison Ivy is a villain who wields her sexuality as a weapon.  It was a super easy choice to assign that character to my bff, V, as it is my personal goal in this life to find her costumes that show off her super long legs.

The theme for our group was 1920s reinterpretations of the characters as they were presented in the Batman movies that came out while I was growing up.  Poison Ivy was featured in Batman and Robin (1997) and was played by Uma Thurman.  

Even though her cape here appears to be a burnout velvet, I really loved the light, fluttery hem of it.
It was this hemline that helped me chose how I wanted to realize this costume.

I loved how this character was done up in such a way as to take advantage of the long, lean lines.  She wasn't super busty or showing a lot of skin.  To capture her look, I went with a long, dropped waist dress with a handkerchief hem, which reminded me of the hemline on her cloak.  I started with the following pattern:

Folkwear #264: the Monte Carlo Dress

 For period inspiration, I found this little vintage number for sale on Etsy.

I used a silk chiffon, and flat lined the bodice with silk habotai, both of which were dyed emerald green.  The only adjustment to the pattern was to change the way the straps were put together.  The bodice is covered in tiny little o-shaped arrangements of gold seed beads and the neckline was outlined in alternating seed and bugle beads.  There is also one narrow sash of beading and embroidery that hangs down from the right hip.  I dyed up a scrap of silk velvet in a darker green, and used it to make ivy leaf appliques with couched gold silk beading thread for veins.  These were placed on the left shoulder and right hip.  The idea was to be balanced, without being symmetrical.  Litlle dangly bits of beading hang from the appliques on the shoulder.  

I also cut out an 8x80" strip of chiffon with angled ends for a scarf.  I didn't want to try to pair a lot of jewelry with this dress, as I thought the beading was rather taking care of the bling factor for us.  But her neck just looked too naked without something there.

For the hand bag, I just sketched out a rectangle on a piece of habotai that I dyed gold, then machine basted it to a piece of interfacing and stuck it in an embroidery hoop.  The pattern I just made up after looking at too many art deco designs.  I sketched on four horizontal lines and had V start beading them.  The rest just sort of developed as we went along.

The gloves were white nylon gloves bought from the party shop.  Everything on the internet said that nylon dyes up just like silk, and they were right!  We set V up in a pair of latex gloves to protect her skin, then put the nylon gloves over them and started painting.  The idea was to replicate the purple and red fingers on the characters leather gloves in the movie.

The shoes were simple enough.  A pre-owned and well worn pair of strappy heels were given a new life with a coat of gold leaf.  Simple, yet elegant.  Her hair pin was salvaged from this retro iron work peacock thing that my mom has hanging on her wall.  The thing had this blingy rhinestone bit stuck to the top of it's head, and she hated how out of place it looked.  It had obviously fallen off and been hot glue back on (poorly), so I spent a fair bit of time picking glue out of the settings before soaking it in vinegar and baking soda, then giving all of the metal parts a touch up with gold leaf, as well.

Woo, look at that hemline.  I think that's my single favorite part of this dress.
Eight sided skirt, with round about 8 yards of hem, all hand stitched rolled hem.

On stage, with the Joker.