HSM 2015 Challenge #12 Re-do

So the piece I decided to create could be for several challenges, it is blue (Challenge #2), it is from my stash (Challenge #3), it is English Regency time period (so appropriate for War and Peace, Challenge #4) and it is an accessory (Challenge #7).  Mostly I made this piece because I really wanted to complete the blue challenge as it is my favorite color and I am still working on the actual piece I proposed to finish.  It was important to me to finish a blue piece within this year and I had a piece of blue silk in my stash.  I really needed this piece to be entirely from my stash for cost reasons.

I would really like to thank the Couture Courtesan as she was the inspiration for this piece.  She posted her version and links to originals in January and I have been wanting to make one ever since.  I just loved her version so much.  Here is my version of the little round reticule.

Originally, I was going to do a more complicated embroidery, but realized I did not have the time.  The embroidery is simple gold metal thread couched down in a spiral pattern and some left over gold spangles from a previous project.  The one thing I am really not sure about is the pearl tassels, I like the way they look but they are pretty modern in design.  I had them laying around in the stash, but may replace them with some hand made silk tassels in the future. 

The Challenge: Re-do
Fabric: change-able silk
Pattern: made up from the post by the Couture Courtesan found here. She discussed her pattern and I adjusted it a little bit due to my materials but I followed her directions.
Year:  Early 19th century
Notions: thread, gold spangles, gold metal thread, pasteboard, pearl tassels, changeable ribbon
How historically accurate is it? Maybe 80-90%?  The whole thing is handsewn, but the ribbon is synthetic and the tassels are not right.  Also the embroidery design was made up by me rather than based on an original.
Hours to complete: 7 hours
First worn: not yet, hopefully in the new year
Total cost:  none, all stashed supplies
 

HSM Challenge #7 Accessorize

Diadem flat, before comb addition so you can see the detail

Technically this is not sewing, so it only sort of counts for the HSM challenge but it is a project I have been dying to try.  I have always wanted a regency diadem, but was a bit intimidated of the detailed metalwork.  I have experience with metalwork and the details in the metal just take so long.  Then I saw the brilliant post by Mistress of Disguise! A full tutorial to make a regency diadem! She had the amazing idea to use lamp banding to create the very detailed part of the diadem.  Since this challenge was to Accessorize, I jumped at the chance to make one.  I am not going to post any kind of step by step pictures since the full tutorial provides very lovely and detailed photos and I only modified a few small things.  I did use my jeweler's saw instead of snips to cut out the brass frame.  This was because I used heavier brass and I did not want to have the break in the frame necessary for scissors.  Other than that, I used my dremmel to cut out the lamp banding flowers so I could save the neat edges for another project.  The rest of the project I just followed the tutorial.

Diadem ready to wear

I am so in love with the tutorial provided by Mistress of Disguise and so happy with my new jewelry!

I highly recommend trying her tutorial, this was far easier than I expected.  Also, if you want one and don't feel like making one, Mistress of Disguise sells them on her Etsy.

HSM for March: stashbusting a Regency hat

For the few of you asking what happened to the blue challenge in February, I am still working on it but the handwork is taking forever.....I do intend to finish the dress one day but February was unfortunately very optimistic for me.

The HSM challenge for the month March was Stashbusting.  Like almost every costumer I know, I have a ton of accumulated stuff.....bits of fabric that was perfect or cheap or maybe a bit of trim that was too much to throw away but too little for most projects.  Stashbusting is a good thing and something I need to do far more often as my stash is embarrassingly large.  In searching through my stuff I found a lovely piece of dupioni silk in forest green. This piece has been in my stash for years and is too small for anything other than a hat or a purse.  I have been in need of a new Regency hat so I decided on a quick Regency hat for my stash project.  Going through the rest of my stash, I found buckram, millinery wire, flannel, gold buttons, gold and green trim, a small piece of gold ribbon, green glass bead trim and forest green thread.  This project came entirely from my stash at hand.

 My inspirations for the shape were the Quickie Capote by Jen Thompson of Festive Attyre and the fashion plates webbed by Ginger from Scene in the Past on her flickr page.  However, I did make most of my hat up rather than copy any thing exactly simply based on personal preference.

Basically, I played around with paper until I got a brim shape and size I liked the look of. Once I had the size, I cut the brim out of 2 layers of millinery buckram and then machine stitched wire around the entire brim. 

The wire was stitched down using zig zag stitch and the edges of the wire were just overlapped by several inches as you can see in the photo.  The stitching of the wire was the only machine sewing I did on this hat.  I just really hate to stitch wire down by hand.

Since the wire would easily show through the thin silk, I added a flannel layer (called mulling) to give the silk a smooth line and hide the millinery wire.  The flannel is just hand stitched down with big stitches.  
 At this point I held the brim up to my head and measured the distance around the back of my head not covered by the brim.  For me this was 7 inches.  I needed this measurement to cut a small piece of the silk that could be used to bind the edge of the gathered back of the hat that would not be hidden by the brim.  I cut an 8 inch (1/2 inch added to each side for seam allowance) strip 2 inches wide to bind the back of the hat.

Hat back

The back of the hat is simply a huge circle gathered to fit the brim and the 8 inch strip of silk.  In my case, I have very long hair and often need to make extra room in my hats to accommodate my hair. If you are making your own hat a smaller circle may suffice.  Mine is 26 inches across. Since the silk is so thin, I flat lined it with some cotton muslin I had laying around to give it a bit of body.  The gathered circle was handstitched into the brim and the small strip of silk.  Then the brim lining was handstitched  down to hide the raw edges. 

Hat side

Hat front

The hat is decorated with some stash buttons and stash trim. All the decorations are handstitched onto the hat.  Although I needed lots of room for my hair, I felt the back of the hat could use some structure.  I took inspiration from Jen Thompson's Quickie Capote and gathered the very center of my big circle of fabric to make pleats.  I covered this gather with a button from my stash. 


The Challenge: Stashbusting

Fabric: green silk dupioni, white cotton muslin and cotton flannel
Pattern: none

Year: early 19th century Regency
Notions: thread, buttons, antique glass beaded trim, gold ribbon, gold and green braided trim, millinery buckram, millinery wire
How historically accurate is it? Maybe 70%? I made up the pattern and it is more likely historically inspired rather than historically accurate. Also, I am not sure if this grade of silk would have been used in the Regency period. 
Hours to complete: 15
First worn:  not yet
Total cost:  None, all of this was from my stash.
Stashed for how long? The trim and fabric have been stashed for at least 8 years.  The buttons are part of of a button stash passed onto me by my mother-in-law 16 years ago, so I have no idea how old they are!

Sheer white regency dress

For the Jane Austen Birthday celebration held by the local JASNA group in December of last year, I wanted a whole new outfit.  In my last post I covered the creation of new stays, but I also wanted a new dress. 

I had this amazing sheer white sari that I thought would make a wonderful dress. It is cotton and has lovely blue and yellow embroidery.  It was also very very stiff.  I washed it 3 times and found it to still be very stiff. 








Since the fabric was completely sheer I needed to either line the whole dress or wear a bodiced petticoat under it.  Since the fabric is so stiff, I was worried about how the stiff outer fabric would play with a lining.  I decided to whip up a quick bodiced petticoat.  The bodiced petticoat is made of polished cotton and edged in a embroidered cotton lace. The skirt is pleated across the back to add fullness and sewn flat across the front.  I left the fullness that should have been taken in by darts in the front of the bodice.  Drawstrings are sewn into the side seams of the bodice which gathers up the front when tied to close the bodice petticoat.  This gives the petticoat some size adjustability and adds a bit of fluff to the front dresses without being very full. The top of the bodice is currently pined closed, but I might switch the closure out to hook and eye at some point.

The inspiration was several of the portraits of Napoleon's relatives.  The white dresses had long sleeves and were worn with puffy upper sleeves.  In some cases it is unclear if the puffy sleeves are part of white under dress but in other cases it is clear that the puffy sleeves are on the over dress, like in this portrait of Maria-Paulina Bonaparte.   There are also some surviving long sleeve dresses that show simple long sleeves so I decided to make simple long sleeves on the under dress. I pinned a number of these images to my Regency pinterest board. I wanted this dress to be simple and and long sleeved and then I could make puffy sleeved over dresses.  The sheer fabric for the dress turned out to be really horrible to work with.  Not only was it stiff, but since it was such an open weave, it frayed if you looked at it.  I had to top stitch all the seams to stabilize it.  The image below shows the side back of the bodice with all the top stitching to stabilize the fabric. 

 The bodice front was gathered into cotton bias tape to cover the raw edges. Then gold trim was sewn over the top of the bias tape.

The skirt was made to utilize the fancy part of the sari.  The sari also contained a nice white border that I cut off and applied to the bottom of the skirt.  Since my inspiration came from the dresses worn by relatives of Napoleon, I also added gold fringe to the hem of the skirt as seen in some of the portraits. 

The skirt is fairly flat across the front of the dress with only a little gathering.  The skirt is pleated across the back.  The dress closes in the back using drawstrings.  I got this idea from a surviving dress and am rather pleased with the results. On me the dress closes in the back and requires some gathering, unfortunately my dress form cannot have the bust lifted by the stays and the dress does not fit the dress dummy.

 Here are a couple of full length pics.  Overall I am fairly happy with this dress, it is very versatile and gives me lots of options to dress it up.  I am sad that I have not yet had time to make the fun overdress due to how much of pain this white dress was to make.  I am hopeful I will make the very cool overdress in 2015.

Creation of new Regency stays

Back in December, I went to a birthday party for Jane Austen hosted by the local JASNA chapter.  I posted pictures of my final outfit, but thought some more details might be helpful.  One of the first things I needed was new stays.  I posted about an attempt at making short stays earlier on this blog and if you read the associated posts (here and here), you will know that I ruined them.  Basically, they were very comfortable and gave a great shape for everything but driving.  Since I have to drive to almost all local events, I decided to add cording and boning to the short stays.  This turned out to be a really bad idea and completely ruined the shape.  Modern lifestyle strikes again!

I decided this time to make a more traditional set of Regency stays.  For these stays, I was inspired to try to recreate the stays from the Ohio Historical Society by an article on Foundations Revealed.  The stays have a pattern that is readily available from 19th US Regiment of Infantry Capt. Angus Langham's Company 1812-1815.  Actually they have a bunch of really neat information and surviving garments.  Here is the information page on the Ohio Historical Society stays.

The pattern shows the placement of all the cording and has simple pattern pieces.  I took this pattern and sized it up using photoshop.  The original pattern has a 22.5 inch waist!  To keep the overall proportions to the pattern, I figured out which measurement (bust, waist or hips) would be hit first in upsizing.  In my case, it was the bust.  Once I had the bust measurement correct, I figured out how much bigger I needed the hips and waist and simply drew alterations to the pattern.  The only other alteration I made is that I wanted to add some steel boning to help support the back lacing.  I made this decision after reading the article on Foundations Revealed in which the author spoke about the lack of support she found on a mock up with just cording down the back.  To make it easier to add a steel bone down each side, I straightened the back panel center back. The picture to the left shows most of my pattern pieces, it does not show the shoulder strap and the straight center front piece.  I did use the pattern piece for the strap, but the center front is dictated by your busk and is simply the width needed to accommodate the busk.

These stays were super easy to put together!  I made them out of linen lined in sturdy cotton.  The cording was natural tone cotton thread done in the same manner as the short stays.  Here is an image of the cording from the lining side of the stays.












The front busk is a shaped piece of wood specifically for Regency stays that I have had laying around in my stash of stuff forever.  To make the busk removable, I left the busk pocket open by binding only the outer layer of the stays across the busk pocket.  I carefully hand hemmed the lining at this point.  I then hand sewed some small eyelets through which a ribbon is laced.  The ribbon keeps the busk in place when the stays are worn.

The stays were finished and bound, then I added the straps by hand.  At this point, I tried the stays on and figured out that the straps needed a completely different angle on my body than on the original.  Thankfully the straps were added last and could be easily repositioned. The picture to the left shows the new positioning.  The straps start at the back of the corset and tie to the front using ribbons and hand bound eyelets.  I am thankful for this, because the straps are way to short.  I may alter this when I make a new pair.  You can also see in the photo another deviation from the original.  I used metal eyelets, this is not correct but I was unsure of my pattern and did not want to spend all the time to make hand bound lacing eyelets when I was not sure these would fit. 

Here are my finished stays!  One thing I noticed is how very narrow the arm holes are and how very far out on the shoulder point the straps sit.  However, they are very comfortable on, even if it feels sort of odd to have the straps so far out.

 As you can see, the stays don't fit my poor dress dummy very well.  She has no squish and the boobs cant move up like they do on a real person.  However, since she can wear them without a chemise and has a blue body, you get a much clearer image of how they sit and how odd the straps seem.  I had a friend come over and take a quick pic of the stays on me so you can see what they look like on a human.  I love the subtle shape they give and they are so comfortable.  I was very worried since the front busk is 14 inches that they would be impossible to sit in, but the are completely comfortable.

Jane Austen's birthday celebration

I am terribly late at writing up my most recent costumed event, life has just been getting the better of me recently.  I was also hoping to get the time to take pictures of each layer, but that has not happened yet.  However, I did want to share some photos and talk at least a bit about my accessories. 

The local JASNA group held a birthday celebration for Jane Austen in a lovely venue.  We started with a short lecture about houses Jane herself would have known and how they might relate to her novels.  After the lecture, we had a lovely lunch and then retired to the library for dessert and tea.  During the tea time, the lovely lady pictured with me below held her raffle for a regency dress made by her.  It was her generosity in hosting this raffle with ticket purchases throughout the past year that allowed the JASNA group to use this lovely site.

Here is a picture of just me that shows the bottom edge of the my new sheer dress and shoes.  I am wearing a regency chemise, my new regency stays (which I love!), a bodiced petticoat, the sheer white dress and my green open robe.  The white sheer dress has pale blue and yellow embroidery up the front, which did not show in the pictures but matches the shoes.  The long sleeves and the gold fringe at the bottom is inspired by the portrait of Marie Pauline Bonaparte by Robert Lefevre
 shown here.  I just loved the look of the long sleeves under a short sleeved dress.  I do plan on making the over dress but the sheer dress gave me such fits I had to pull something else out of my closet to wear over the sheer dress.  So the green open robe is a "this old thing" addition.

I do plan to do a write up of my new regency stays and of the sheer dress, but at present I don't have good enough photos.  However, one of the lovely ladies, Nancy Haseman, who is actually very good at photos took some lovely images of me at the event.  I have her permission to share the images below.  She also has some amazing images of the event and of the other ladies in regency dress on her website Captured Memories NM if you scroll down to the 2014 JASNA birthday for Jane. 

First off an image of me sitting.  This image is why I love my regency stays, they help me keep the correct posture no matter what I am doing!

Here is a good image of my shoes and stockings.  These shoes are the Highbury regency slippers from American Duchess.  They are dyeable satin slippers and they have hidden ribbon loops so you can add lacing ribbons to your shoes.  On their instructions for dying these shoes they state to use a dye several shades darker but I thought it would be good to see how much darker.  I used dye number 2011 (also from American Duchess) which should have been royal blue.  They came out much much lighter.  However, they match the embroidery on the sheer dress and my jewelry almost perfectly so I was happy.  I just though others who were looking for a specific color might want to know how different the colors came out. 

My hairstyle was inspired by the lovely tutorial by Taylor at Dames a la Mode.  Taylor did an amazing job, she looks just like the portrait in my opinion! However my hair has less texture than Taylor's and the extra wraps around the bun were sliding like mad.  So I added a second braid and placed this around the whole bun to give me something to pin the heck out of.  Surprisingly, this all worked and my hair stayed in place all day.  Here is an image of the back of my hair and green dress.  You can see that the green dress used to close in the back before I turned it into an open robe! 

Finally, here is an image of my hair from the side and a good shot of the jewelry.  The necklace and earring were made by Taylor of Dames a la Mode.  Taylor runs an etsy shop with the same name damesalamode.  She is amazing to work with!  This set was a custom order with a deadline and Taylor communicated clearly with me every step of the way.  I love my jewelry and loved working with Taylor!

Cording regency stays and finished stays

I finished the cording on the regency stays. I thought I would share some pictures of the method I used to cord the stays.  The cotton cording I used is pretty thick and I needed to widen the needle hole before I could pull the cotton cording into the channel.  I used my corset maker's awl to widen the hole and looped the cotton cording through doubled up regular thread and a blunt needle.  Here is the basic set up:

Regency stays

I have been working on a pair of Regency stays.  I wanted the stays to be long since I have a fuller figure that is really not conducive to the stays confined only to the bust. I also wanted the stays to be comfortable.  I ran across some amazing research by Sabine about short stays ('Short Stays' Studies) and thought these would be a perfect fit.  Short stays have very little boning while still providing the correct shape.   Sabine provides all the necessary information to make several different types of short stays.  I used her information and quickly whipped up a set using Figure C with full cup coverage. I boned only the center front and the center back to support the lacing. The stays were amazingly comfortable and surprisingly curvy. However, the curves did not show at all under my dress and gave me the correct shape even when sitting!  I am sorry I did not take a picture of my stays prior to starting the alterations (I was rushing to finish them before an event and then plain forgot after).  Thankfully others have gone before me and provided wonderful pictures of the unaltered stays.  Of course Sabine has pictures as well, but also have a look at the lovely work of Abigael of My Darling Dear and the Regency who is posted several times about her version of the stays (J.S. Bernhardt Stays, c. 1810-11, Part 2, Part 3) and the always inspirational Before the Automobile who also made a lovely set of these stays (Shift and Stays for 1810). The pair I made looks very like those made by these two wonderful ladies.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the short stays were great, until I had to drive. After one wearing I determined I was going to have to add more support to be able to use these stays for my figure with my modern lifestyle.  I added more boning to each side to support the sides and added cording.  There is not a specific issue I hoped to solve with the cording, I have just always wanted to try it. Originally these stays were 2 layers in all areas except the gussets, so I could simply sew boning and cording channels. To add the cording, I used an awl to poke a hole into the channel and a needle and thread to lead the cotton cording through.  Here are a couple of pictures of the almost corded stays, I promise this time I will get pictures when I next try them on!

In this photo, the right side had had the boning and the cording added. I have just started the left side.

Here is a close up of the left side, where you can see the area with stitching but no cording added yet.