In the Hood

I'm off work today! And that meant that last night, I didn't have to go to bed at a reasonable hour! I stayed up late finishing the French Hood for my court gown. Not bad for working with scraps from the fabric stash, ne?



I'm thinking that since I made the entire thing out of scraps from The Stash, that I should put up a tutorial for other budget costumers. Of course, since I didn't take any in-progress shots, that would require me to make another hood. Oh, the horror! (cough)

In other news, I've finally broken down and am bidding on a lace front wig that I can style into a Maiko wig. My own hair is very fine and doesn't take to styling well, and with a wig I'd only have to style it once. And with a lace front, it will look like it's actually -my- hair instead of looking like a costume wig. If I win it (current bid...$0.99!), then expect some styling pics, followed by pics of me prancing around like a crazed lune in my kimono. :p

Domo Arigato, Mr. Rebato

Finished the rebato! Hooray! I've also managed to get some more of the embroidery finished. Two panels down, four to go! :D And now, some pictures. :D Click to enlarge, of course. Sorry for the crap lighting on the last photo, but it's the only pic I have of the finished sleeve that really shows any of the new details.




Next step is to find some nice lace and start in on the ruff. I'm a bit iffy on exactly how to make the ruff, but if I can BS my way through the rebato and it come out looking decent, I'm sure I can figure out the ruff. ^^ I still have to make the loops that will attach the rebato to the bodice, and add an extra decorative support in the back that will tie it into the bodice. In the meantime, I'll keep on working on the sleeve embroidery so I can finally get the bodice entirely finished, while figuring out the digitizing software for my embroidery machine and finally get all my blackwork patterns loaded. Hopefully I'll have more to share soon. :D

Back to it!

My, my I've been away for quite a while! Sorry about that, life got in the way. ^^; I'm back sewing again, and it hurts. My pocketbook. It's writhing in pain. Mind you, I haven't spent any vast amount of money, not by a long shot, but even shelling out the $20 I spent today on friggin' beads, beads, hurt me very deeply indeed. But, at the moment I am very determined to finish the green court gown of doom in time to wear for the opening of Scarby this year, which gives me until Easter weekend to work it all out. I've made a few revisions to the gown design, too, which I think will make it much more exciting. Instead of the regular overskirt/underskirt/forepart combination, I'm going to do a paned skirt, similar to paned sleeves, something like what's seen in this portrait of Elizabeth at Prayer. Instead of the large scrollwork pattern, I'm going to work out something in goldwork, probably a border of some sort, and maybe some sort of scrollwork pattern to fill out the panels. I'm not sure yet. I do know that I want the border to be the same embroidery as is on the bodice. I've decided to digitize the blackwork pattern I was using and just machine embroider the skirt, since it would definitely take too long to do by hand and I'm sick and tired of hand embroidering. I want this thing finished!
I also blinged up the bodice a bit. I outlined each sleeve panel with beads, which improved everything by 800%, and I'm adding in the last of the AB crystals to the centres of the flowers. I'm working on finishing up the last bit on the first sleeve, and I've started embroidering the second set of sleeve panels during my lunch breaks at work. I still need to make the bound eyelets up the back...a daunting task, ugh. I'm eager to start on the rebato and the head eating ruff (of doom!). There are some mundane things to do...undersleeves, embroidered cuffs, etc. Not sure what to do on an underskirt. I could do white to match the undersleeves, or black as a contrast...not sure yet. I'm leaning toward black, though.
I should probably try to finish the light blue court gown (yet more hand embroidery, ugh!), and Omi-san's gown. There's allot of embroidery on that gown, too, but all of that can be done with the machine. ^^

And now, for a bit of inspiration, some new(ish) pictures of that scrumptious black gown from The Lost Colony!

Costume Musings

I'm in the mood to make a really freakin' huge costume. The sort of costume that makes people part ways for you and mouths drop open. I really, really want a gown like this Elizabethan gown that's in a stage play called The Lost Colony.
I've never really made a late period gown like that before, and I love that I can just go all-out with embroidery and bullion trim and such. ^^ I never really went in for the look of the wheel farthingale, but after seeing the Lost Colony gowns and some of the gowns others have made, I really want to give it a shot. I don't have any fabric to work on this now, but I have some white cotton and some soaker hose, and I'm ready to make a farthingale!
On a side note, almost every single wheel farthingale gown I've seen others make is in some shade of gold or white. I don't know why this is, and it's driving me nuts! I can only bring one gown to mind that wasn't in that colour scheme, and that's Sarah Lorraine's Elizabeth Brydges Gown. There are plenty of examples in portraiture of wheeled gowns in all sorts of colours - black, blue, pink, red, etc. (I really love this blue gown.) But all these gold gowns makes me want to make one in a really rich colour, like burgundy, or a hunter green. ^^
On another side note, I only found one site that was offering wheel farthingale dresses, reproductions from portraits of Elizabeth I, for sale....for $15,000. Yeah.
Next on the list is Du Barry's black and silver gown from the 1938 production of Marie Antoinette. I know, I know, it's black and white and I can't really know the colour, but considering that Marie Antoinette was in this frothy white cloud of a gown in this scene, and the nature of their relationship, it made sense that she would be in a heavy black gown. I'm guessing velvet. And I want it. WANT IT. Need to save up for the silk velvet, but Silk Connection has it at under $10/yard. ^^

I'm wavering on whether or not I want to make an Italian gown as my bridesmaid's dress for next year. I still want to make an Italian gown at some piont, but I have such a particular vision in my head of what I want the gown to look like that finding a suitable fabric is driving me bonkers. I was considering doing a late period gown like the one above in greens and silvers, but one doesn't want to distract from the bride, and it would be hell to get on a plane. ~le sigh~ I did find this fantabulous fabric at the Fabric Masterpieces eBay store that I think would make a beautiful underskirt or forepart.
Blarg, I'm waffling! There's another part of me that wants to make a Rococo gown for the wedding, even though it's completely the wrong time period, but I want to make an Elizabethan I could wear to faire and cons and such.
Speaking of green Elizabethan gowns, I've started work back up on the green/gold embroidered gown. I'm hoping to have the entire thing finished by the end of the year so I can wear it for the new faire season. I also dug out the light blue gown and came up with a few things to improve it, but wouldn't you know it, the bloody cup with all my gold beads in it has vanished! I originally based the gown off of the dress Viola wears by the river in Shakespeare in Love, but that forepart was just hideous. But, I'll come up with something. I still need to make the partlet, too. It'll actually be my first attempt at a partlet, but I'm not worried about it.

So, here's my goal: I have this big plastic bin out in the garage that Mom put all of my in-progress stuff into when she cleaned out the entry hall. (My makeshift sewing room.) It includes the mauve Marie Antoinette gown, Mina's red bustle gown, my lattice smocked detachable sleeves, Ashlotte, and various other costume bits and pieces. By the end of the year, I want ALL of those costumes to be finished. I should probably work on them simultaneously, but I really just want to blitz through each project and have it finished. I'm going to start with a small project, the lattice smocked sleeves. Hopefully, I'll have pictures soon. ^^

Holy Cow

I think I've lost my mind. This is my latest ambition :

Yup, definitely lost my mind.

This gown is from the 1938 production of Marie Antoinette, starring Norma Shearer. To the right is Gladys George as Madam du Barry. I fell in love with this dress the minute I saw it. It's shiny, it's huge, it's 100% over the top, and I LOVE IT. And I must have it.
Unlike some of Norma Shearer's gowns, there don't seem to be any colour photographs of this one. But, watching the scene, since Marie Antoinette is in white, it's a safe guess that this gown is black. I'm going with black and silver for my version. I'll probably make it in velvet, and I've found that CCartwright has bulk flat metallic sequins...15,000 sequins for $12. Za.
I'm hoping that Wal-Mart will be getting in their Christmas fabrics soon, because they always get at least a bolt each of black and red cotton velvet. I intend to buy it all the minute it comes in. This will be the product of it. If I can't get my hands on the Wal-Mart velvet, then Silk Connection sells black silk velvet for $10/yard. Not as cheap as the cotton, but a damned good price for silk velvet.

In other news, I have pictures from AnimeFest up! Not here, though. I have them up on Facebook. See them here :
AnimeFest 2009
AnimeFest Trinity Blood Photoshoot

I've also set up Myspace and Facebook pages for our cosplay group, Better than Stuff. You can visit us here:
Better than Stuff on Myspace
Better than Stuff on Facebook

I'll be uploading pictures, videos, and all sorts of things, so please friend us! :D

We who are about to dye, salute you

Well, while the fabric is in the washing machine, I thought I would update everyone with what I was working on.
I'm not really sure what possessed me, but I had the sudden urge to make this dress :
Yes, it is the dress from Titanic. I have always liked it, and for some reason I had this vision of myself wafting around in a cloud of chiffon. So, before dance class today, I decided to hit Joann's to see if there was anything cheap that I could use to make it out of.
Of course, the LA fabric district has completely ruined me on chiffon prices. I bought a zillion yards of fabulous georgette out there for the grand price of $1/yard. Now I can't bring myself to buy chiffon or georgette in the stores if it's anything over $2. Everything I found was around the $4 mark, even on the clearance racks. I finally came across a $2/yard butter yellow chiffon, and decided to buy the entire bolt. I also bought some pink silk essence for the underdress so the dress would be a dress and not a nighty.
I bought a pack of purple RIT dye at Wal-Mart, came home, and got to work. While most people don't advise trying to dye polyester, I've found that it actually works quite well if you're going for a soft pastel colour. So, in a move any self respecting seamstress would have a stroke over, I filled the kitchen sink with hotter than hot water, sprinkled in some salt, and emptied the entire packet of dye. I stood at the sink for 25 minutes kneading and stirring hot fabric before getting too tired and exasperated to continue. I rinsed out the fabric and tossed it into the washing machine, where it even now is spinning out the excess dye.
I think it's going to be a very nice, soft lilac colour when it's finished. After rinsing out the majority of the dye in the sink, it was still quite a lovely purple colour. Of course, my hands are also quite a lovely purple colour, since I couldn''t find my rubber gloves anywhere. ^^;
The aftermath :


More in the next few days.

Caterina, FTW!

Hello, everyone! I'm sorry I haven't updated in such a long time, but things here have been a bit crazy. ^^; I haven't been doing much sewing lately, but I'm very into Vintage fashion right now, so expect some 1950s style dresses and a 20th Century section to be added soon. :D
In other news, AnimeFest was this past weekend (Sept. 4-7), and I'm very proud to say that my Cardinal Caterina and the Astharoshe Asran costume I made for my friend, won a Judge's Award at the Cosplay Masquerade! :D I may enter Caterina into one more cosplay contest before retiring her from competition, so look for me on stage at YuleCon in November! :D

A little sidetracked...

So, I have taken a bit of a detour from sewing and am back to doing some computer modding. I'm working on a steampunk keyboard, a clockwork mouse, and maybe eventually a case mod.
I'm still working on Mina's red dress, I just don't have any pictures to share just yet. ^^; So, I'm still alive, just no updates yet!
If you want to follow my modding progress, please visit The Orden Alchemist's Workshop.

Blue Polonaise remake finished, and new photos and tutorials up!

I dragged out an old gown that I made years and years ago, and decided to give it a second life. ^^ So, the blue polonaise from the movie The Patriot is now finished and has pictures up! Click the pic below to go to the costume. ^^


I've also added some new pictures to
Cardinal Caterina Sforza and
Astharoshe Asran .

I've also added three new tutorials! (About time, I know.) They're very simple and should be easy enough for beginners, but if there are any points which are unclear, please let me know.

How to Make a Square Petticoat
How to Make a Circle Skirt
An 1860s Tiered, Ruffled Skirt