Costume-Con 33 Roundup, Sunday

Still playing catch up from Costume-Con 33.  On Sunday, they had the "Miss Ellen's Portieres” competition, where entrants made costumes out of curtains.  I entered wearing my shower curtain short gown, paired with a teal cotton petticoat and my perpetual work in progress, the whitework apron.

Showing off my grandmother's sewers union pin from when she worked at a men's pants factory in the 70s. 

Sunday night was the Historical Masquerade, to which I wore Maria Carolina's court gown.  Kristen was kind enough to help me with my presentation, wearing her own jacket and petticoat combo to serve as a chamber maid.

Our presentation was a comical nonsense number that was basically me getting my maid to help me find my dog.

A portrait of Maria Carolina of Austria, Queen of Naples and Sicily, by Giuseppe Bonito, c. 1770s.

I still have a few yards of this red silk left, as well as some fur.  I'm thinking that one of these days I'm going to make myself a court train to hook onto the dress, even through one wasn't present in the source painting.

I'm particularly proud of my wig, which I carted onto the plane in a gift bag as my carry on.  Well, it made it!

Ridiculous staged costume portraits.  It's was friends are for.

Kristen and I with our roadies, Bethany and Lauren.
(the gals pulling the strings to make our dog move on stage).

No awards for this one, which just goes to show how hit or miss this kind of thing can be.  Ah well.  We had a hell of a lot of fun back stage and I'm proud of how the costume turned out.  Now I just need to figure out where on earth I'll ever wear the thing again.

A Regency Spencer, HSM March: Protection

HSM 3 Protection

I finished a spencer to go with my Regency day dress this spring.  The blue cotton pique was picked up at the scrap swap at Figments & Filaments last year.  I used the pattern from the dress for the bodice back and sleeves, and just extrapolated the rest.  The dress has a drop front bib, so I was able to work with the under bits which overlap underneath the bib.

Decorated with a total of twelve completely non-functional buttons, as well as a few
bits of folded fabric tubes sewn down over the back seams to add a bit of interest.

Ruffled collar holds its shape with two rows of piping along the edge.
Or perhaps a couched cord would be a better way to describe it, as it's not encased within a seam.

Detail of the non-functional false cuffs (and fabric texture).

I turned the sleeve inside out so I could show off how that nonsense was put together.  The seams at the armsyce and bottom of the sleeve puff are bound with cotton tape.  The puff is supported with a crescent of silk organza and the band is held up with two tapes, further assisting the poofing.

Sleeve head, inside out.

I can't decide if it's too much ruffle to wear the chemisette AND the spencer.
I suppose I could always sub out for a fichu if I want to tone it down a bit.

The flash really brings out the shiny in the dress fabric.  I haven't the foggiest what the secondary
content of the dress is, and have absolutely no fabric left to play with.  I guess the world will never know.

And for the Historical Sew Monthly Challenge:

What the item is: Regency Spencer
The Challenge: Protection
Fabric/Materials: blue cotton pique, linen, silk organza.
Pattern: heavily modified from the Laughing Moon Mercantile bib front dress pattern.
Year: 1810-ish
Notions: fabric covered buttons, hooks with hand stitched loop closures, cotton twill tape.
How historically accurate is it? 8/10
Hours to complete: maybe 20
First worn: in a 'done enough' state for a costumers' guild outing to see Pride + Prejudice + Zombies, but in the finished state, right there in the dining room.
Total cost: The fabric came from the scrap swap at a local costuming convention and the lining is from my own leftovers, so the only really cost was the button forms. All told, maybe $6.

Done Enough! An 1890s Outfit

Over the fall and winter, I've been plugging along on an 1890s outfit.  It's kind of morphed as I go, from something with a sailor theme, to something with more of a city park picnic sort of feel.  I suppose a lot will get decided when I figure out exactly what I want to do for a hat.  But until then, the outfit is at that wonderful yet frustrating stage of "done enough" where I technically have enough pieces to put together a reasonable outfit for wearing, yet haven't gotten to the finishing touches that really make a costume pop.  Ergo, I share my progress with you all to help inspire me to quit letting myself get distracted with other things.

I started with the blouse, or a shirt waist as it was called at the time.  I used the 1894 Shirtwaists pattern from Truly Victorian and the fit was amazing.  Perhaps largely because the toughest thing for me to fit is my upper arm and shoulders, and the shirtwaist has a lot of, well, you could probably smuggle a moderately sized woodland creature in that sleeve without anyone being the wiser.  They are kind of ridiculously huge.

TV 494: 1894 Shirtwaists

The fabric is a silk/cotton voile with a beige and white pinstriped pattern from Fabric Mart.  One of those acquisitions that I purchased for a project that I never got around to doing, but it worked great with this.  It was nice to have something other than a flat white, which is what everything looks like in the old black and white phots from the era.  I flat-lined everywhere with an off white quilting cotton.  The oompf in the sleeves is held up with a strip of folded over silk organza layered under the arc of the sleeve head.

For the skirt, I used the 1898 Walking Skirt over the appropriate version of the TV170 Victorian Petticoats.  The skirt fabric is a lovely dark teal wool/rayon suitting, also a Fabric Mart find.  This one was one of those "I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but I have to buy this fabric" kind of purchases.  It always makes me happy when I can go back into the stash and put one of those to good use.

TV291: 1898 Walking Skirt

The skirt was a bit cumbersome to assemble, due mostly to the size of the panels and the weight of the fabric.  The skirt is fully flat-lined with cotton and an additional 12" deep facing of cotton and some obnoxious purple stiff linen-like thing I found in the bottom of a bin.  I think it was an online fabric purchase gone horribly wrong that I was too lazy to bother with returning.  Makes a great substitute for horsehair, though!  The petticoat and flat-lining are both done with the striped cotton from that epic roll I picked up in the scholarship sale at Costume College last summer.  We unrolled it in the hotel room to try to fold and pack it into the luggage and came up with 72 YARDS!  Not bad for a $55 donation to the cause.  And for the record, we did make it all fit into the luggage of two people.  There was some packing magic going on right there.

I regret nothing.

Speaking of no regrets.  OMG, MY SHOES!  I picked up a pair of the Astorias from American Duchess on imperfects sale.  Both pairs I've gotten this way have been damn near flawless.  I think I cause more damage on my first day wearing them than they come with, but hey, I'll take that discount.  I used the Angelus leather dye in Brandy, which was way more straight forward that I had expected.  With a little sweet talk, I even got my Army vet spouse to come give them a spit shine when I was done.  So shiny!

Astoria Edwardian Leather Shoes from American Duchess

Put it all together and Viola!  An excellent historical hall costume for wearing around the convention. It worked well for an outfit that I could wear during my office hours in the programming nexus at Arisia. The layers kept me warm but not too warm. And the shoes were incredibly comfortable for someone who almost never wears heels.

Detail shot of the fabric and buttons.  I have no provenance on the buttons beyond being
"Czech" and "antique", but they were bought off eBay as a gift and I never found out any more.

Look at the shine on those toes!  Thanks Honey!

The belt was made with a bit of ochre gabardine of dubious content that I found lingering in the stash. I made a few folds to emulate a bow and wrapped them around the ends of one of those novelty buckles that interlock.  Not sure about the historical accuracy of that kind of clasp, but it worked in a pinch. I've found myself a bit more sympathetic to that nasty shade of yellow after watching Crimson Peak.  The bit hanging from the strand of red rick rack is a pair of folding snips I inherited with my Nana's sewing stash.  They were actually kinda useful to have at hand when at con.  I'm still pondering what else the outfit needs to finish it off.  A hat, for sure.  Perhaps a hand bag.  I have the pattern for the 1898 Eton Jacket that could certainly work, but I'm hesitant to try to stuff all that sleeve into all that sleeve.  The original plan was to do something of a nautical theme to take to Costume Con 36 in San Diego.  But like most embellishment projects, there are so many choices out there as to make picking one impossible.  I keep hoping that I'll stumble across something that will sell me on an idea.  If nothing else, I have a ridiculous roll of narrow, natural colored twill tape that I picked up in the Fashion District in LA.  If I could just pick a pattern, I could certainly do that to my heart's content.  

TV498: Eton Jacket

Some of the inspiration photos I'm working off of:

April 1898, Standard Designer
Love, Love, LOVE the way the embellishment is done on the dress on the right.
If  I can find the right trim in the right amount, I think I'd like to do something big and angular like this. 

Walking suit by Jacques Doucet, 1895 Paris, the V&A Museum
Can't get much plainer than unadorned khaki.  But the silhouette seems to make
up the difference.  I was comforted that you can clearly see the stitching line of the
hem facing, even from a distance.  Makes me feel less weird about my own.

1890's Studio Portrait
No reason I have to have a jacket at all, really.  This lady looks quite put together,
finishing her otherwise simple outfit with the parasol, belt, bow tie and hat.
Oh how I wish I could get a better look at her belt.  It looks intricate, even from afar.