HSF'14 #3: Pink! 1770s Court Panniers

I've spent the last week or so working on the panniers for my 18th Century Court Gown project.  The current HSF challenge was pink, which I'll admit, I wasn't too thrilled about.  I'm not really a fan of the color.  However, I've been trying to make a point of making foundation garments and underpinnings in colors other than white.  Not for any aesthetic purpose, mind you, but for practical reasons.  I store most of my costumes hanging up in zippered wardrobes, which makes it difficult to tell one white cotton blob apart from any other.  Ergo, color.  So I thought, what the hell.  This is already a ridiculous project.  Let's make it just that little bit sillier and make the panniers pink.

I picked up a few yards of white cotton sheeting from Dharma Trading Co and dyed it up in the washing machine.  I thought I'd chosen a nice, subdued shade of pink.

I was wrong.  That cotton sucked up the dye like it was dying of thirst, and what I ended up with was a violently Pepto-Bismol shade of pink.  Well, whatever.  It's underwear.  Life goes on.

I used Simplicity 3635 as a base for making the panniers.  

I had picked up the pattern second hand, though.  And while all of the pattern pieces were present, the instructions were not.  However, with only three pieces and a general idea of what the thing was supposed to look like in the end, I was confident I could figure it out.  One of the first things that I needed to change, though, was the width.  I took an image of the dress I was recreating and superimposed my measurements onto it.  As I am both tall and big, the dress was going to have to be stupid wide.  Like, 78 inches wide at the hem.  *pause for a fit of giggles over just how ridiculous my hobby can be*  Ahem.  As you can see, I wasn't taking the maths too seriously.  The diagram was done up in MS Paint and all measurements were approximate.  

Measuring out the pattern pieces, they would give me about 54" width at the hem (of the panniers, which would still be 6-8" above the floor).  Assuming that the petticoat and then the skirt of the dress would each add about 2" to the width, I needed the panniers to give me a total of 70".  Below is the rough sketch I did up to show where I wanted to add the width.  I had originally planned to cut additional center front and back pieces to get the extra width, but it turned out that my fabric was wide enough for me to just add 8 inches to the CF/CB and cut the front and back pieces on the fold.  

This is what I came up with:

I seriously spent like five minutes just sitting there laughing at the monstrocity, texting pictures to my costumer friends.  While there were certainly a few gowns with this kind of shape (such as the one below) that had that gentle sloping sides, it wasn't what I was looking for.

Mantua 1755-60, the Victoria and Albert Museum

So, where did I go wrong?  I think the problem here was that, although I widened the front and back of the panniers, I was still gathering the topmost portions into a waistband.  This resulted in the bottom being wider than the top.  I went back and took a triangle-shaped piece out of the center front and back that was 8" wide at the base, tapering into a dart about three inches below the waist band.  This lessened the circumference of the bottom hoop by 16", while affecting the upper hoops less.

MUCH better.

The gathers at the top of the petticoat should also give a bit more of a boost over the top edges, so I think this rendition will do just fine.  I set the dress form up on the dining table so that I could adjust the ties without having to lay on the floor.  The other big change I made from the pattern was to shift all of the ties over 3" closer to the center.  In the photo of the first draft, you can see how the hoops keep sagging  By shifting the ties, the tension gets distributed a bit more evenly.  The ties are attached with safety pins for the time being, as I'm still playing with their placement.  I'm having trouble getting the spaces between the hoops to stop collapsing like an accordion.  If changing the tie placement doesn't fix it, I may go back and put a few pieces of boning in to force them to stay apart.

Ties connecting front and back of the pannier give it an oval shape.

But not quite oval enough.  Gotta tighten those ties a bit more!

The thing is entirely machine sewn.  I opted to use bone casing instead of making channels or loops from the cotton.  It saved a lot of time (but cost a lot more).  My hope was that the casing would help soften the lines of the hoops a bit, so that I can get away with just the one petticoat between them and the skirt of the dress.  I left the spaces at the side for accessing pockets extra wide and bound the raw edges white cotton bias tape.  

I'm also considering ordering some of the hoop connectors from Farthingales, so currently, the hoops just overlap each other inside the channels by about 10".  I wanted to make sure that the entire contraption was easy to pack for air travel, so any of the more permanent methods of connecting the cut ends just wasn't going to work.

Info for the Historical Sew Fortnightly:

Pepto-Pink Panniers!
The Challenge: #3 Pink
Fabric: White cotton sheeting, dyed "coral" pink.
Pattern: Simplicity
Year: 1770s
Notions:  3/4" bone casing, 1/2" cotton twill ties, 3/8" poly satin ribbon, white cotton bias tape and stupid amounts of hoop steel.
How historically accurate is it? Hmm... 7/10.
Hours to complete: about 14, including sketching out the pattern and dyeing the fabric.
Total cost: totally guessing, but probably around $80 US.  Hoop steel and bone casing is pricey stuff.

Well, that didn't work: applying the Burn Test to determine fabric content.

Monday was a "dye all the things" day for me.  I did up the pink cotton sheeting for my court panniers, then dyed this wicked cool gold rayon faille that I got for super cheap from a discount fabric store online.  The idea was to try to find a way to keep the cost of my 18th Century Court Gown project from getting too out of hand.  Well, you certainly get what you pay for, and that cheap rayon fabric ended up being just that - cheap.  It came out of the dye bath with only the weft threads having picked up the dye.

Dyed fabric on the left, vs a swatch of the un-dyed fabric on the right.

Well.  Opps.  However, the mystery provided me with an excellent opportunity to practice the burn test method of determining fabric content.  You can find helpful flow charts all over the internet, but I use the following one, sourced from a Burda Style article:

from Burda Style

Since my warp and weft fibers were obviously different, the first thing I needed to do was to separate them.  I used a stick pink to pull out a finger full of the thicker weft threads, leaving about an inch or so of the very fine gold weft threads anchored in a fabric base.  The gold threads were so very fine, I felt like I had to leave them anchored to something or else risk a flutter of burning threads going every which way.

Picking out the threads with a stick pin.

First up was the red warp threads.  I rolled the threads into a small bundle and held them with a pair of tweezers over an old aluminum mint tin that I keep around for just this purpose.  I was already confident that they were some sort of natural fiber, since they did take up the dye.  What I discovered that the fabric readily burned, and did not self-extinguish (had to blow/tap it out or it would burn until it was gone).  The fibers charred (as opposed to melting) and they smelled like burning paper.  After tapping out the flame and letting it cool, rubbing the burnt end between my fingers showed the grey ash to be soft and crumbly.  Burn test says it must be cotton, ramie or rayon.  Since the website where I bought the fabric claimed it was 100% rayon, I'll guess that's what it is.

Next up are the gold weft fibers.  The fibers burned and were not self-extinguishing.  They kinda melted, though, and really did smell a bit like vinegar (I was never convinced that part of the flow chart was going to be legit, but yeah, vinegar).  Once it had cooled, the black ash turned out to be hard and kinda lumpy.  Burn chart says: acetate or triacetate.

A rayon acetate blend is mostly likely what I ended up with.  Acetate fibers would not have taken the dye.  And it makes the ludicrisly cheap price make more sense now.  Acetate IS dirt cheap.  Lesson learned.  Will have to be emailing that website back, because, yeah.  False advertising there.  But oddly enough, I'm not terribly upset.  Just thoughful.  I kinda LIKE the way it turned out.  It's a pretty color, albeit a bit fleshy looking.  I could go ahead and make the court gown as I was planning, only in this slightly different color.  Or I could make a different style of court gown out of this fabric, as I don't think the fur would look as nice up against this new, blended color.  Nah, I'll probably just have to toss this failed experiment into the stash and make another attempt at buying the fabric in the red I needed in the first place.

Perhaps I'll instead use it for that open front gown I was wanting to try.  It's an interesting enough color on it's own.  Some self-fabric embellishments would look fine on it.  A pinked rouching, or perhaps some poufs.  OMG, now that I'm picturing it, an open front, flesh-colored gown with ruched robings totally looks like a labia and I'm laughing my arse off, thinking of pairing that with a dark brown hedgehog wig and a terribly innappropriate stomacher.  And what would my DATE wear?  A dick suit?  Sounds like the perfect opportunity to break out the stupid high wig for a Macaroni style court suit.  

Ahem.  Anywho.  Maybe I should think on it.

Ten yards of fleshy-pink rayon-acetate faille, as well as five yards of the un-dyed gold.

HSF'14 #2: Innovations, the Korean Ayam

It was about this time last year that I was completing my hanbok.  With it, I wore my then chin-length hair pinned back into a teeny tiny pony tail, over which I stuck a chignon bun that I made out of false hair.  Well, now my hair is MUCH shorter and I've run into a bit of a cunnundrum.  What do I wear on my head when I don't have any hair?  So I turned to the internet in search of an alternative.  The ridunculously huge and complex wigs looked like fun, but this is a costume that I'd like to wear for long periods of time and a big wig would just be too heavy.  And also, I hate wigs.  So instead, let's look at hats. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayam_(cap)  

The one that really caught my eye was the ayam, also known as an aegeom.  It's a traditional winter cap worn by Korean women during the Joseon period (1392-1910).  The ayam has curved lower edges, to allow it to fit snug to the head.  The crown is traditionally made of black silk, with a red flannel lining, or possibly lined in fur for added warmth.  Lighter versions can be worn in the spring and autumn.  The upper 4-5cm is finely quilted, and long ribbons, or deurim, hand down the back.  There is a silk tassel (often red) attached to at least the front, or center front and back.  Flat braids or strings of jewels or pearls link the front and back of the ayam.

Quality photos of ayam from the Joseon period were difficult to come by.  So here are a few of the for purchase ones I was able to find and use to help me make my own:

http://www.hanbok-boutique.com/ayam-korean-hat-hanbok-hat-m-a-001.html

http://www.hanbok-boutique.com/ayam-korean-hat-hanbok-hat-m-a-001.html

http://www.sonjjang-hanbok.com/

http://www.sonjjang-hanbok.com/

While modern options include a variety of colors and lavish floral embroidery, I wanted mine to be simple and elegant. This way, I could pair it with a brightly colored modern hanbok just as easily as one of an older, more subdued style. Plus, I wasn't about to drop $50 + international shipping on something I was fairly certain wasn't going to fit my fat head when it arrived.

I had a cardboard party hat from New Year's laying around, and the crown of it seemed to be about the right angle.  So I separated it from the brim, stuffed it on my head and had a friend draw in the proper curves and crown height with a marker.

We had to cut a few slits in it to make the bottom fit better, then add in the forehead curve, but below you can see the finished pattern piece. The pattern is 4" high at center front, 5.5" high at center back, and fits on a head with a 23" diameter.

I wrote the basic instructions and notes directly onto the single pattern piece, so that I'll have them when I need them.  Here they are in text form, for those who can't read my handwriting.

Cut 1 (or two, depending on stiffness) of stiff interfacing of piece AB.

Cut one of lining fabric with 1/2" excess on all sides.

Cut the pattern along the blue dotted line, dividing the pattern into pieces A and B.  Cut one of piece A of outer fabric with 1" excess on all sides.  Cut one of piece B of outer fabric with 1/2" excess on all sides.

Cut one each of interfacing of pieces A and B.

To assemble:
- I used 1/2" seams throughout, except where noted otherwise.
- lay Piece A of outer fabric on top of Piece A of interfacing.  Sew in bands of cording until you run out of interfacing to anchor it to.  Attach a row of contrast piping on the top and bottom, then fold the seam allowance on the piping to the back.
- lay Piece B of outer fabric on top of Piece B of Interfacing.  Attach a row of piping to lower edge and fold seam allowance to the back.
- Sew piece B of outer layer onto interfacing AB.  Sew piece A of outer layer on top of piece B.
- Fold outer layer of ayam in half, right sides together, and sew up the center back seam.  Turn right side out.
- Fold lining in half, right sides together, and sew up the center back seam with a 5/8" seam.
- Pin inside out lining to the wrong side of the outer layer and hand stitch the lining to secure it.
- Rejoice, as the really tedious part is behind you!

The rest, I think, is fairly self-explanatory.  Make or acquire tassels and decorative knotwork by whatever method works for you.  String some beads, pearls, semi-precious stones along the sides, connecting center front and center back.  You could use a wide ribbon to make a passable deurim, if you're so inclined.  I left out any decorative embroidery on the body of the hat, but may give that a go on any future attempts.

Ta da!

And it wasn't my intent when I started this project, but this will totally work for the current Historical Sew Fortnightly challenge.  Looking back over the project, I think the most wondrous innovation has got to be the faux pearls, as I am a huge fan of using them to dress up costume projects.  Big Bead, Little Bead has a wonderful article on the history of man-made pearls (among many others).  Mine are made of glass with a 'pearly' coating, a style of bead whose European manufacture was really picking up in the mid to late 1800s.

The Challenge:  HSF'14 #2

The Innovation:  glass faux pearls
Fabric: a synthetic black brocade that a friend brought back from Korea, red polyester something-or-other. Stiff collar interfacing for the foundation.

Pattern:  we made it up. 

Year:  late 19th c.

Notions:  polyester thread, silk cords and threads for the tassels, glass pearls, rayon cord for the knot, and cotton yarn for the couching.

How historically accurate is it?  Mmm, it's hard to judge.  The only pictures I could find from this time period were small paintings, reproduced in books.  If anyone out there comes across a link to a dated museum example, do share.  But until then, I'm just going to have to call this one a best guess.

Hours to complete:  maybe 8-ish.  Making the tassels and attaching them to the knot work took the most time.

First worn:  not yet

Total cost:  from stash, but even guessing, I'd say under $10.

References:

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayam_(cap)

- http://www.bigbeadlittlebead.com/guides_and_information/history_of_faux_pearls.php

- http://www.hanbok-boutique.com/

- http://www.sonjjang-hanbok.com/

- http://thetalkingcupboard.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/a-guide-to-joseon-hairstyles-and-headgears/
- Decorative Fusion Knots: A Step-by-Step Illustrated Guide to New and Unusual Ornamental Knots by J. D. Lenzen

Costume College, 2014

I just went through and made my reservations for Costume College.  Sooooo excited, as this will be my very first year going.  But oh my gods, what should I wear?  My Honey is coming along, too, but will only be joining me for the gala, so that's only one extra costume, there.  I've already laid claim to a design for the the 18th Century Court Ensembles:

Queen Maria Carolina of Naples-Two Sicilies, née Archduchess of Austria

Over the course of the next month, I'm going to be tackling the court panniers and the petticoat.  These conveniently fit under the next two HSF challenges: Pink and Under it All.  I had wanted to avoid doing white under bits, so I'm dyeing up the fabric for the panniers a lovely coral pink (pink enough to count, not so pink as to make me twitch).  I'll need to find myself an ivory fabric for the petticoat, though.  And I also got in the fabric for the dress itself.  I found a rayon faille on sale from Denver Fabrics that I'm going to dye up cardinal red.

I've also been tossing around some ideas with Honey about his costume.  By far, the most exciting option seems to be recreating the outfit worn by Sir John Acton, an Englishman employed by the queen to reform the the state's army (and whom the gossip mongers of the time assumed she was carrying on an affair).  I just love the black with the primary colors.  Not the fancy pants you're used to seeing in men's court-appropriate fashions.  Does anyone have an insight into what those sashes represent or if they're more complex than the sashes worn in beauty pagents?

Sir John Acton, 6th Baronet, c. 1811

The only drawback is that this painting dates over twenty years after the dress I'm doing from the 1770s.  But we'll see.  I'm still on the lookout for an earlier portrait of Sir John.  We'll see what I can come up with. While I think he'd look lovely in a pretty blue silk outfit, I don't think I could do the level of embroidery that I'd want in the time frame that we have.

A check of the Costume College Facebook page shows that the theme for the Friday Ice Cream Social is 'Club Ice'.  Hmm... maybe that Mr Freeze costume can get worn again, after all.  But do I really want to shave my head the day before having to wear a frankly ridunculous 18th century wig?  Perhaps that bag of wig tape will come in handy, after all.  The Thursday Pool Party and Sunday Tea still seem to be sans theme.  I suppose the court wear is going to prohibit me from doing anything too complex for them, anyhow.  But it'd be nice to be able to start plotting.

The discouraging of wearing costumes into the classrooms dissapoints me a bit, though.  While yes, I totally agree that large and elaborate costumes can be quite distracting, I'm sad to loose all those opportunities to wear the costumes that don't fit in a big social event.  Costume College veterans (alum?), how much of your day time is actually spent in classes and tours?  If there are actually large chunks of time spent loitering and socializing during the day, then yay!  More opportunities to wear the not-so-fancy stuffs.

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.

HSF'14 #1: Make Do & Mend

I'm running a bit behind on the Historical Sew Fortnightly challenges, due to last minute sewing for Arisia.  I'd have just skipped challenge #1 all together, but it's just too relevant.  I tend to come home from Big Events with a sort of settled feeling.  The deadline is over and anything I couldn't get done doesn't really matter any more.  It's a great time for me to clean the sewing room and bang out some of those terribly uninteresting little things that seem to crowd up the place.  I was able to tackle three mendings from the historical wardrobe and use them to fulfill the challenge.

Mend the first: mend Honey's pants

The khaki cotton twill trousers that I made to serve as kind of a catch all basic for late 18th or early 19th century were a trial run for a new pattern.  I made them fairly snug through the thigh and, for some reason, seemed to think that they needed a super narrow seam allowance so as not to add bulk.  Well, that seam failed when they were worn to the Steampunk Tea and Honey ended up with a 3" gap on the outer thigh.  So I sorted that out.

Not a lot of room to work, so I just made three rows of back stitches right next to each other.  We'll see if it holds.

And while I had them out, I went ahead and re-did the button holes on the fly.  They were a hack job done on the machine under a  time crunch and I was not please with the look.  I had learned to do the snazzy button holes for another project, so I pulled out the cotton embroidery floss and fixed those up as well.  I had some trouble keeping the stitches at an even width and length.  I'm thinking it's because they've been worn and the fabric stretched in odd directions.  I tried drawing a few guidelines on it water-soluble pen, and that helped, but the machine stitching made my lines end up too far apart and the stitches consequently too long.  Ah well.  They're mostly going to be hidden under the buttons and fly, anyhow.  It's something to remember when making the next pair.

I suppose that I'm the only one who will be looking at them from a foot away.  So neat enough is close enough.

Mend the second: fix the Monte Carlo dress
My entry for HSF2013 green challenge was this frankly obnoxious chartreuce leopard print dress.

I hated it.  It was horrifically unflattering and never felt like it fit right.  Well, that's because it didn't fit right.  I was in such a hurry to get it done in time to 'count' for the challenge, that I didn't take the time to go back and figure out where I went wrong.  Going back after a break from the project, it was obvious: when I sized up the pattern to fit me, I didn't get the inner curve on the skirt pieces quite right.  When I thought I was gathering too wide a skirt into the bodice, it was really the other way around.  So I swore quite a lot and unpicked sections of the skirt at the side seam, about 8" or so on each side.  I cut into the skirt a bit more, so that there'd be more raw edge to meet the bodice portion.  And this time, it worked!

I also replaced the velvet straps, as I never really liked the way the straps were supposed to be done.  I found a funky black chain/braid thing at the craft store and substitued that for the straps.  I also made the straps about an inch longer.  These feel much better and I think fit the spirit of the outfit.  Bonus if they provide enough texture to keep the velvet poncho I want to make from sliding off.

Mend the third: shorten the sleeves on my 18th century chemise
I knew that the sleeves on this thing seemed kinda long, but I had no idea how long until I started working on a gown to go over it.  I'd spent a lot of time doing the decorative hem on the sleeves, so I didn't want to just hack off the ends and start over.  What I did instead (which actually resulted in just as much work in the end, go figure), was to put a 1/2" tuck into each sleeve, and do the same decorative stitching there.  I kinda like the resulting look, and it cut an inch off of the sleeve length.

Excess fabric was tucked to the inside, then backstitched to keep it flat (Right).
On the Left is the sleeve from the outside.

So all-in-all, a touch late, but a terribly productive challenge.  I'm trying to make myself not stress so much about HSF deadlines this year.  Yeah, deadlines are good because they keep me working, but rushing and not doing something right, or wasting my time on an unnecessary project, doesn't really do me any good in the long run.