um, wow, I'm actually alive

So I haven't posted in like, nearly months, but here's what I've been up to:

No pics, sad, because

1. I'm too lazy to upload them

2. I'm on my little laptop (the one my dad dug out of a drawer and got ready for me, yay) and that has like NO STUFF on it to upload.

Anyhow.

I've made most of my stays by now, I just have to try them on so I can position the eyelets for the shoulder straps. And then sew the eyelets for the shoulder straps. Though I don't expect any of that to happen soon...

I've also made a new skirt--- just like my favorite green one (which I've gotten to wear three times, yay for school-for-next-year interviews)--- it's a lovely plaid of a bunch of different dark-ish colors. I didn't have a lot of fabric, because I got it during the fabric adventure, which means it was a weird-shaped little piece (triangle) but it managed to work... I had to make the skirt an inch or two shorter than my last one, and make the waistband much thinner than my last one, and piece the back... but it ended up working. And it's nice and full enough, unlike...

...my other new skirt, which is NOT full enough for my taste! And the waistband is too small, which I suppose is what I get for trying to get a knee-length skirt out of less than a yard! I suppose I could make it into something else evetually...

And the book! I've gotten a few new fabulous ideas, and although I haven't worked out all the quirks (and probably never get them ALL) it's still going quite nicely! That is, when I actually get around to working on it! I'm an INKLING students (yay to those who know what that is) so the pre-christmas-break work is driving me crazy!

Oh dear, this is quite a long post. Horray for typing away while watching a Christmass-y movie with some of my siblings.

Ah well.

Yes, I'm still here!

Oh. Look. This is quite sad. I haven't posted for entirely too long. But I can tell you, I HAVE been working on the stays; I've sewn on most of the binding (all visible stitching hand-sewn, of course) and I'll be doing them eyelets next. Sigh. There is some mysterious thing about hand-sewn eyelets that makes one was to go into an enchanted sleep or something. But after that I'll have finished stays...

Another quick post...

It seems as though I'm doing a lot of these, aren't I? Very unfortunate! I'd rather do ones with pictures, but as I'm exausted and slightly stressed, I'll just give a few costume updates...

18th century stays: I chickened out and decided that I absolutely could not use a polyester fabric for my stays... even if the embroidery on it was amazing. Of course, I'm using polyester thread.... anyway. It would have been more work to use the embroidered fabric anyhow... because the cut, if you'll recall. And it would show through a chemise a la reine if I ever felt so inclined to make one... so I've cut out and put together a front layer for the stays out of this lovely, slightly changable light blue/gold silk. It's really un-slubby silk (makes me wonder if it is part linen?) and quite nice. It's so fine and beautiful! I still have a couple yards left (stash fabric yay) and while I was debating white silk for the stays I sort of thought, HEY! Maybe I should make a caroco/petticoat outfit out of the white silk and the light blue silk! ...maybe with an amazing floofy hat.... anyway. The stays need to have all their layers assembled (blue silk, main stays, light brown lining) and then the lovely (not) hand-sewn eyelets, and then binding...

...in other costuming thoughts, I'm suddenly into the 1950's. Augh. I want a pair of wide-legged, waist-high pants. Like beach pjs. But with more modern material. ...And I am good at epically failing at making pants. Like the shorts I *tried* to make last summer... actually those are partially canibalized for materials. But I want a pair of pants! I'd put a pic on, but I couldn't find one I wanted to post here...

And I want a 50's ballgown...

I know, I'm crazy.

~c

Why the stays must be finished

Get ready for A Series of Complicated Steps (yes, play-on-words of A Series of Unfortunate Events, which is one of my favorite movies, along with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Penelope) but anyway:

I need to finish the stays

So I can finish the Robe a la Francaise

So I can see if there is any fabric left over from it

So I can make a modern (okay 50s) ballgown with whatever fabric is left

So I will have something to wear to the wedding (and other things, but whether I will need it for other things is to be determined)

...Do you think I'll be able to do this before the 14th? No? You don't think so?

You are all so pessimistic. (Yes, the fiend Chesterton in Othodoxy has been talking about pessimism. I read 33 pages yesterday. Drudgery.)

~c, who wishes she had some pics to upload with this, but this is a quick post so I can go work on the stays when I should be doing homework

This is somewhat a random post...

I've worked quite a bit on my new 18th century stays, but I'm short one piece (okay, two; I have one I did wrong and I need to take out and replace) of boning. But my mom says she will drive me to go get more after school tomorrow, so all is good. I have pics; I'll post them probably after I get all of the boning in.

Even though I wanted to do stays with the style of the pic here (NOT MY STAYS! EXTANT ONES!) I realized that that'd show through the chemise a la reine I'm planning (don't expect updates on it; I only have four yards of fabric... would that be enough? I'm 5'8) so I'm thinking about using this lovely white silk I have. But although pretty, that is SO boring! Practical. But boring. And stays usually had some color to them. Or at least for upper-class women.

I'm also *thinking* (that means dreaming) about making a little silk dress (I want red!) to wear to my cousin's wedding later this month... it'll be really cold though (obviously this isn't near my house) so I don't know if that would work. I was thinking about boning it... augh but I wouldn't need to do that if I didn't eat all the halloween candy! *giggles* my brother is going to be a groomsman.... the color scheme for the groomsmen is absolutely lovely! Dark red and black.

18th century stays draft 3

Okay, so the due-date for the halloween dress is almost upon me, and I should try to finish the wings. The logical thing to do? Make a new pair of 18th century stays, of course.

I started with the mock-up, naturally. If you recall, my last pair of stays had several problems: most importantly, they were too short-waisted, also the straps were REALLY thick, and I had to adjust my robe a la francaise to hide them and the back, which was much much too high. All these problems occured because I was much too small for my pattern. (I believe I took like an entire piece off, and shrunk several of the other pattern pieces...) Anyway, I've made my own pattern, which hopefully should fit... Here's the first mock-up, below. It was a bit large, and the back pannels weren't long enough. I've fixed it since, (but haven't taken any pics, bad me.) and I'm almost ready to start cutting the real pieces. I'll be using a large-floral ( ! ) interlining, which I've used on one pair of stays before and is quite nice, and the very usual cable ties as boning. Probably the thick ones, because although other costumes gave glowing reports of the thin ones, I'm not quite sure if I entirely believe they'll do their job well enough. I'll just stay safe, thanks. Even though those are a more authentic size, I'm going to machine all un-seen seams, so it's not like it will be PERFECTLY authentic anyway. (I'm doing non-vivible boning channels, btw, I don't want machine-sewn visibles. I don't think. I'm pretty sure not all stays had visible boning channels....)

Here's the embroidered silk from my stash I was thinking about using... but it Isn't Period. Besides, I'm thinking about doing one of those nifty pairs of stays with the embroidered front and plain-silk sides.... y'know? So pretty! But I've never done them like that before! But COULD I DO IT? And did those ever have straps? (I want straps on my stays---fitting is SO much easier that way. Or at least I think so.)

Yay fabric on top of my old stays! Hehe! I still don't know about the fabric... so pretty but so unauthentic! Of course, I'll be using polyester blend thread, so that's another reason that my project is unauthentic... but fabric is so glaringly obvious! And thread isn't!

18th century Undies

Since I am making a new (and much more authentic than my last) robe a la francaise, I decided I absolutely needed 18th century undergarments.

The stays. These are actually my second pair of stays, since the first (which were a changeable blue/green silk) were too big. Even with this smaller pair, I had to size the pattern (butterick 4484) down quite a bit. These stays are made of a brown silk, and are binded with robin's egg-blue ribbon. It took me seven or eight mockups, but I'm pleased with the stays (even if they are a bit short-waisted, but not doing that again!) They are boned with plastic cableties, which work extremely well; try them!!

The back, currently laced with shoelaces. The hand-sewn eyelets are something I don't want to again any time soon! The stays were built to be spiral-laced, but they're currently shoelace-laced. The chemise is made of some polyester-type material that I got for some costume I made for a play. For it, I used Simplicity's misses 18th century undergarments pattern. The pattern runs HUGE, by the way.


Me putting on my pockethoops, which I'm not too fond of, due to the fact that they're not exactly historical (butterick 4484 again) and they flop down under any weight and drive me crazy. They're boned with some metal stuff from Lowe's.

Pockethoops from back.

The petticoat. It's made out of two types of fabric because I didn't have enough of any one type. I made the smallest size of the pattern (Butterick 4484 again), but they were still too big. You can see the petticoat falling down in the picture, showing my stays' tabs.


From the side. You can see how thin the sides of the dress will be.

From the back.







Me displaying the pocketholes that open into the huge pockethoops. You can fit so much stuff inside them! So I could have one pocket for historical stuff and one for camera, cell phone, ect. =)

Note totally non-historical plastic pink ring.