Dress Diaries |
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a Victorian fancy-dress costume |
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November 2006 2 May 2007 5 May 15 May I think that inspiration on the Fire has finally struck but I'm thinking a secret project may be in order. *rubs hands with glee* Loren & Jonatha will be able to guess as I told them some of my ideas at Fort Fred but other than that... :> 23 May I'm excited. This is a chance to re-visit a style I love. I'm not reinventing the wheel here so, first, I might actually get this done in time and, second, I can focus on embellishment and textures. Novel idea that. Or rather I should say Bridget can focus on embellishment as she is all ready to add lots of sparkle. I'm going to just let her have at - a last project before she moves to the other side of the country! As with my Green Rohan dress I'm going for a romantic Pre-Raphaelite silhouette, and so the need for a Victorian corset. I ordered some steel boning to re-enforce the Frederick's of Hollywood one I bought earlier this week (thanks for all of your advice!). I'm basing my frock on Eowyn's Funeral Dress, with it's split skirt and big sleeves. The gown will be made out of orange faille. The underskirt and inner sleeves will be made from the original china silk that was too flimsy for my Federalist gown. I need to dye it red... I may even try for an multi-shade effect.
Let's see, today, after going over my old diaries and trolling through AlleyCat, Maggie's site La Cotte Simple and Michaela's pages, I pulled out my old LOTR patterns and went to work. I made up a mock-up, using the leftover $1 fabric I bought for the Rohan mock-up (glad I kept the extra round now!). I cut the arm holes and neckline generously as I knew those areas needed serious re-working. With B's help my first fitting went well. I'll have to get it on Narcissa to finish working on the armholes, neckline and fitting tweaks I think but it's looking good so far. Looks like I'll have to keep those little side bust darts but hopefully I can fit the arm for better movement. The Fire necklace looks a bit silly with the neckline untrimmed I know, but I couldn't resist a glimpse at the effect... :> 24 May The gores need to be wider/more fullness. 24 May The biggest change was to take out the center back gores and start them at the waist instead of the hip. Making room for my natural bumroll. :> I also trimmed the neckline (which ended up more off the shoulder than I was going for but hey it's pretty) and the arm hole (movement is such a lovely thing). I also decided to make my life easier and take out the wide overlapping gore at the side (like the green gown) and just put the slit up the side seam (Michaela's Funeral). I think the effect will be quite pretty. Against B's counsel I'm going to make a separate underskirt. She wants everything more stationary (for the embellishment) but I'm going to go for easier. I think it will be just fine. The skirt I was wearing under my toile is a McCalls bias cut that I've made up many times. I don't want anything terribly full or it will ruin the line of the dress so bias is good. My fabric is narrow though so I'm not sure I want to deal with bias piecing. I may go with the gored Butterick 3418 - another skirt I've made up multiple times and love. That already has a sweep on it which would look nice with this too. Ponders... On to the sleeves!! Depending on how much of a pain they decide to be I might actually get this thing cut out tonight. That would be cool! :> 24 May Trying to decide what to do for the lining. I'm tempted to line in twill to give some weight to the frock but with the slits it will show so I need a second lining of I don't know what. The twill is tan so I don't know if i could dye a close color. There is always cotton, bought or dyed to match. I could self line as I have the fabric but it would be fun to have a second chance with this faille. I have such a hard time using a pretty-could-be-used-for-something-else fabric for a lining. Like I have a hard time paying money for pjs no one sees. So bad! I don't trust myself to cut this late so I'm off to bed. 25 May I've decided I wanted red twill, so it would look cool when viewed through the slits. I then decided I didn't want to dye it myself and risk having a red Victorian corset so I went to Hancocks. They had a pretty bright red twill and it was on sale and everything - yay. Also got threads and an invisible zipper, although they didn't have orange so the zipper will be red. Oh well, this is why we use invisible zippers, right. I mean, is there another reason? Also stopped at Michaels for fabric paint... more on that later. Twill is in the wash and I'm heading back to my room to start cutting out. 25 May I'm so excited - this costume is really starting to come together!! I'm relived my ideas and materials for it are melding into something I'm digging. *YES!* Lots more work but coming along. I'm off to a scrapbooking workshop for the rest of the evening, which makes me a little sad (I want to stay and sew) but it's probably a good thing. My back is starting to really hurt. I think I need to raise my bed up before I do anymore cutting... 26 May I got very sidetracked with sleeves this morning. I went to cut mine out and decided I really didn't like the ones I'd drafted. They were nice but skimpy. If I'm going to have a train of doom I need BIG sleeves, right? So I started wondering around. The first sleeves I found that I loved were the petal McCalls 4491 sleeves that Kendra used on her Elf Dress. Mom, who has no restraint when it comes to pattern sales, had the pattern so I got it out to take a look. Still really liked the sleeve but was daunted by modifying my sleeve to a two piece affair and dealing with my narrower fabric. *mreh* Then I pulled out my Art of the Two Towers for help and remembered Arwen's Mourning dress. I wondered over to Alleycat's pages and really liked what I saw. The gown was designed for an Elvish Queen of Gondor, so it has combined elements from the elvish and human styles. Bigger sleeves than the typical Eowyn frock but smaller than Arwen's typical Elvish ones. In short just what I was looking for. I also realized that my neckline ended up similar to the Mourning. Really. I didn't do that on purpose! In addition to Alleycat I found Maggie's pic of her sleeve pattern was very helpful. *wink* I was also super inspired by Kay Dee's repro. Can anyone say wow? She mentioned her modified sleeve pattern turned out similar to McCalls 4491. When I looked at it I realized it was really similar to my original sleeve - I was so close! I just need to round out the shape a little and it was pretty much the same. I'm trying to keep my sleeve all one piece so it pro bally won't be as long as Kay Dee's but I'm much happier with it now. *hugs computer* I love the internet and the online costuming community I really do! 26 May I also got as far as putting together one sleeve, looks pretty good. Not as big and full as I wanted but I had to work with the fabrics I had on hand. It will be impractical and constantly in my way which that is some consolation. :> 28 May So the whole time I'm outside stenciling my fabric, it's fine. I come inside to try & sew my fabric & the power goes out. I should mention the fact that it's not lighting, it is not storming, it is not raining, it is not anything outside; there should be no reason that our power should be out and it is. This is so my life right now. So, I guess I can fold laundry. I can't put any laundry in the washer cause the power is out. I think I'm gonna pick up but I can't really clean cause I can't vacuum cause of the power is out & I can't sew cause the power is out & I can't iron anything cause the power is out & I can't post on my Live Journal, all the pictures of what I did today because the power is out. So, I really hope that the power comes back soon because this is just not shaping up to be a great evening. 29 May I stopped when I got to the side seams and center back (zipper) because it was really too late to be doing complicated things. I know my limitations. Both sleeves are done too, although I'm thinking about changing the shape. I really need to try it on before I decide though. I've got everything pinned on Narcissa but haven't taken pics yet... looks SO good!! I was despairing about finding fabric for the underskirt and inner sleeves. I had some fabrics in the stash that COULD have worked but they didn't really wow me. So I went to Jo-Ann's yesterday morning to see if I could find something in the midst of the Memorial Day sale. My fabric mo-jo can back to me and I found the perfect thing, seriously perfect. Not only is it the right color and on sale but it doesn't need as much embellishment as we had been planning. *eyes deadline* That can only be a good thing, although B may not agree. :> 30 May This started out as an idea, inspired by Michaela's Padme Watergown, to jazz up some plain fabric from the stash for the underskirt and inner sleeves. I loved the effect and thought it would be fun for the fire theme. When I decided to line the orange faille in red twill - twill for the weight and drape and red because it would be seen through the slits - stenciling the plain cotton twill to blend with my other "shiny" fabrics seemed an even better idea. My first obstacle: while I have many talents drawing with pen and paper is not one of them. I had an idea in my head of what I wanted for the design but how to transfer that onto my fabric? Then I thought about the pretty design papers used for scrapbooking and starting looking through that aisle at Michaels. Lo and behold I found the perfect stylized flame design right away. I pulled out the paper and laughed; it was Harley-Davison paper. Of course, why hadn't I thought of motorcycle gangs to inspire my costume right away? *grin* A good lesson in "think outside the box". At Michaels I also picked up some spray fabric paint. The colors were limited so I got the only two reds - poppy red & cranberry - hoping the mix would be pretty on the flaming red twill. I also picked up a spray gold glitter fabric paint to finish it off. Because life is better with sparkles. I scanned the Harley paper into the computer and sized it up to the scale I was looking for. That was printed out, taped to a blank quilting template with and cut out with an exacto knife. I then sprayed one side with spray craft glue and set it aside to get tacky. (I repeated this step every 3-4 times I moved the stencil to make sure that it stuck nicely - one of several helpful tips on the spray paint web sitehttp://www.simplyspray.com) When I started testing it became apparent that the poppy red didn't really show up on the red fabric so I set that aside. I started work on the back gores in cranberry but it never came out as nicely as the first few testers and then it started to run out. The paint was not really designed for stenciling and while it worked (I think the stencil needed to be sprayed with glue after each use) it wasn't ideal. The little cans were also a bit pricey to be running out after 2 half gores. So I gave up on the colored paint. One of the early tests had been to over-saturate a flame with the gold glitter spray. It had looked blah when wet but by this time it had dried completely and in the evening light looked pretty cool. Much more subtle than the original concept but "fiery" all the same. So I decided to carry on with the Harley design in gold glitter alone. Every piece of lining was stenciled in Harley flames from the hem to about the hip level. The back gores (pictured above) are the only ones with cranberry fabric paint. I ended up using 3 bottles of the glitter stuff and it was just barely was enough. I would have liked more on the front gores but I decided I'd spent enough money already. Not to mention more than enough time painting out in the summer heat! :P So the lesson learned is that it's probably cheaper to just by nicer fabric than to create your own finishes out of cheaper fabric and paints. Especially factoring in the time of testing, working & clean up (about 6 hours in my case). Having said that, my Harley lining does look cool. It's the kind of detail that needs the right lighting and that I won't see much (it will peak through as I walk and as my train gets flipped over) but that adds depth to the costume. My homage to my favorite costuming flick, LOTR, and all the details that were never seen onscreen I guess. So far it's the only thing that specifically says "Fire" too. You 'all will have to tell me if it's been worth the effort on Gala night. :> 11 June I'll be working on the under sleeves and underskirt on Friday. The darling Brooke is going to let me use her serger - yay no rolled hems! That should save me about a week of work. I love you Brooke! The Fire costume is turning out to be the "it takes a village" project. More proof that costumers (and sisters) are the best people. Oh and I found some really cool make-up for the Fire yesterday too. I came across Urban Decay while browsing in Ulta. I was in there innocently enough, looking for a OPI nail color, when the Heavy Metal Glitter Eye Gel caught my eye. B and I had been talking about how fun some dramatic eye make-up would be with the Fire mask. I really wanted to get the whole look the chick at the counter showed me but just got the eye gel for now. If I get it all I will end up spending more money on make-up (that I will pro bally only wear one night) than on almost all the fabric for the costume. That is hard to justify! Maybe I've been a Mary Kay consultant for too long - I'm not used to paying retail for quality make-up anymore! :> However MK doesn't carry Heavy Metal Glitter Eye Gels, Heavy Metal Glitter Eyeliners, 24/7 Eye Pencils and heavily pigmented Eye Colors. Moo. 12 June A hem, some sleeves and the jewelry/beading and the main dress is done! Providing the bustle outfit doesn't get me too many fits I'm thinking I might actually get all my "must have this" list done, without losing my sanity, after all. It's a happy thought. 13 June So I searched online to see if I could avoid a drive to Garrisonville and guess what? It comes in RED! Oh yeah baby! So check this out: gold glitter flames on the red and red glitter flames on the orange. How much fun is that? I'm a little skeptical about the red glitter flames distracting too much from the Bollywood jewelry so I ordered some more gold too to use at the neck if I so desire. *rubs hands together* Testing will show whether this will be super cool or over the top but really can a fancy-dress, fantasy Fire costume really be over the top? B says no. :> 16 June So I need to sew the skirt so the hem is all ready to be serged when we get together again in a few weeks. The sleeves can be sewn now too and then all that is left is the hem. Oh yes and the extra stenciling and embellishing. :P I took my camera yesterday but was too busy talking to take pics. Maybe I should not take pics on purpose, like Katherine, and keep it a surprise until Gala night instead of just being lame! :> 19 June
I started work on the underskirt as well. The lining and zipper are done but when I started to seam the chiffon layer my tension starting giving me fits so I stopped for the night. 22 June B has only been working on it for a few hours but the embellishment is already looking cool! I wish I had the time to do it myself (I love beading) but B always does such a nice job and this leaves me free to work on other things. My scrapbooking crop was canceled tonight and I wasn't feeling like moving around much so I pulled out the red print English gown and finished attaching lace flounces to the sleeves. I want to add some more trim to the neckline too so it looks all spiffy for the 4th of July event in a few weeks. Tomorrow the family and I are off to Philadelphia for the weekend. We are going primarily to see the King Tut exhibit but I think we may stop in at Independence Hall and that stuff too. We've been talking about going for months but it was an on-again, off-again venture until a few days ago. Nothing like a last minute mini-vacation! I haven't been to Philly since I was 13 so I'm looking forward to it, despite the ultimate result of no CC sewing this weekend. *rolls eyes* 30 June I've been looking at pics from CC06 to try and whip myself up into excitement for the sewing part (not just the wearing) and I think the old WWKD is finally kicking in... So I'm off to work on something - not sure what yet. Perhaps the chemise gown? Or the sleeves on the Fire? Or... :> 1 Jul 4 Jul 5 Jul The underskirt ended up a bit slapped together, I'm a bit horrified at the sloppy stitching with three different red threads (whatever was in the house), but the chiffon was being a pain in the butt and I'm trying to curb my perfectionist side these days. The skirt will serve it's purpose and it's an overall effect I'm going for this time. This costume really is the oddest mixture of slap-dashery and detailing. I'm rather amused. 6 Jul 9 Jul 19 Jul Problem is every time B finishes a section we decided that it needs "just a bit more". I love my sister!!!! 23 Jul 29 Jul I also had some inspiration strike on my flight home and will be re-working a few things on the dress, namely the sleeves. I've also decided I need a beaded belt so i can take the other one back. Ooooh! :> 1 Aug 4 Aug Oh for those that asked, no you can't have my Bridget. *slaps hands* Hands off, mine I say, MINE! 14 Aug
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