the halloween dress 2009 again

...And continuation of the victorian-halloween dress project. Sorry that all the pics are out of order; I'm not that great with blogger. Or computers in general for that matter. Anyway, these are the side-hangings for this dress.... I was inspired by a fashion plate with triangular side-hangings, and decided to do something similar myself.

This is the pleating that goes on the front apron, which is made out of black-and-white striped fabric.

The finished corset.... but it didn't fit right, so I've reworked it since, though I haven't tried it on, so no report on its status of fit now yet. (I look horribly cheezy in this pic, I think...)

The back of the corset.... It really compresses, as you can see by comparing it to my natural back... it's quite creepy, actually! Note very unmatchy blue ribbon lacing. We've tried so many things to keep it laced shut... finally ribbon worked, though I'll probably use multiple pieces of ribbon on the actual halloween night.

The front again...

closeup of my fabric! I think the flocked spiders are perfect for this outfit.

The interior boning channels, made out of ribbon as directed by my pattern. I used cable ties as boning; at first I was worried that they wouldn't bend the right way for a victorian corset, but they achieved the victorian curve splendidly, though not extremely noticeably. So fyi, thick cable ties may not work too well for extreme "hourglass" victorian corsets.

The interior of the corset. I've since reworked it a bit. My only problem with how it looks is that you can't see the patterned lining much due to all the boning channels! But I suppose that doesn't matter too much.

Front/back shot. Why? I don't know.






The front of the corset. For those of you who want to use Butterick's stays and corsets pattern, the gussets will need to be upsized quite a bit.

The binding again; you can see me folding it over with my fingers. Sorry my nails are a bit messy.

The binding of my corset. After this picture was taken, I folded it around the raw edges and hand-sewed it under. It's one of the only hand-sewn bits of this costume.

My corset lining. I wanted to line my corset with a halloween-y print. The ribbon is for boning channels.

Before the lining, boning, and binding were added. For some reason blogger does NOT want to let my photographs be turned on their correct sides....

The fabrics for the dress! I've also used a bit of cotton-y black stuff.

I was going to add piping to the corset, but as you can see it didn't work out at all. It did not give the effect I wanted.




The breakfast-nook table, which I invaded with my corset and sewing machine....

The corset, in pieces.

Before the orange-with-black-flocked-spiders fabric was added. The reason for the usage is that I have a lot of it! I'm using it to make a set of 18th century french panniers as well.

the mockup. It was huge!

The corset, plus the mockup and fabric.

Some of my wigs... the halloween one is the black with white stripes. I intend to style it in a take-off of victorian era hairstyles, but of course adding lots of ribbons and flower petals and such!

Some embroidery I did while listening to hermenutics lectures for homework... I don't know if I'll be able to incorperate the embroidery into the dress; most likely I'll use the embroidery for something else. The colors are more black/orange in person, btw.

Detail of the still-pinned pleats on the side of the hanging side-parts of my dress.














ta-ta