Past Projects - petticoat and bum roll

A few weeks ago at university we finished a quick little project which I adored. We frequently have projects like that to help us become more confident in our sewing skills, since there are some people on my course who are incredibly new to sewing. These projects are awesome because they seem to perfectly correlate with things I want to make anyway, although I guess that's what you get when you study costume at university and make costumes outside of university. I digress, the pieces I'd like to show you today are an 18th century petticoat and bum roll. My university has a very heavy focus on period costume, something I am 327430847% down with and since I plan on making some 18th century outfits this year I was very pleased to have a chance to get started. 

Both pieces are made from calico since we're asked to buy packs from our university shop containing everything we need for the project. I'm well aware that lady's undergarments were never made from calico back in the day but until I have the inclination to make another set using period fabrics it'll have to do.

Here's the bum roll, not quite finished yet but you get the idea.

And here you have the petticoat (+ me wearing it!). I ended up making a stupid mistake right at the beginning which meant I didn't have enough of the thick calico they'd provided us with to make the front panel for the petticoat, instead I used some of my stuff from home which turned out to be a different weight. You can't really tell the difference from far away but you can certainly feel it, I'm just glad this is a petticoat. In sore need of a good ironing as well.

The pleats were created by pinning the petticoat to a mannequin in four places (front, back and sides) and then tying elastic round the waist and carefully pleating it up under the elastic, using said elastic to hold everything in place until it could be pinned.

Like so!

I'm really pleased with how it turned out and I can't wait to use it under a skirt. I originally wanted to make it walking length so that I could use it under shorter skirts but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get it shorter than you see in these pictures. I now plan to pin it up if I need to.

Past Projects - Tessa Gray evening gown

 I thought, while this blog is getting its sea legs, I'd go back through some of the things I've made and share pictures and write little posts about past projects that I finished before starting the blog.

First up is my Tessa Gray cosplay from Cassandra Clare's 'The Infernal Devices'. I decided to make her dress from the front cover of the last book, so I of course had to do a bit of ad libbing where the back is concerned. This mostly came about because I wondered on a whim if I could find any similar fabric on ebay and when I immediately (we're talking in the space of five minutes) found some it seemed like fate.

 

 I started by staring at this image for a long time, I then sketched the dress as I imagined it would look from other angles. I don't normally have to draw things out but I find that it really helps for cosplays where there is less reference, I suppose it's a way of creating my own. Then followed about a five weeks of sewing on and off before I got this... 

There are some little things on it that bug me, such as how wrinkly the bodice is but overall I'm incredibly proud of it. I learned a lot of new skills and did some things that previously scared me.

I also made the undergarments that help give me the right silhouette. I skipped out on a chemise since it's so off the shoulder and also didn't feel the need for drawers, so underneath I wear a corset; lobster tail bustle, bustle pad and a ruffled bustle petticoat. I made the corset at uni and took a little more out of the waist than we were supposed to so that I could get a more late-Victorian shape from it. The bustle I made a couple of years ago following American Duchess' great lobster tail bustle tutorial and the petticoat and bustle pad were made in a weekend, they're based on pictures of extant examples that I found on pinterest.

I made a conscious decision to offset the buttons down the back. I wanted to extend the fantasy weirdness that we get from the rose bertha down into the bodice a little, it also has the added bonus of giving me a little more breathing room size wise. Since I'll be wearing it all day at a convention I wanted to make sure that I didn't have to lace my corset as tightly as I did when I took my measurements. Unfortunately I realised this halfway through the making process so I had to get a little creative with button placement.

My little sister helped me with the roses, there are twenty three (I think) on this dress, twenty one to make up the bertha and three hidden in the bustle, we made about half of them each.

It's a really magical dress to wear, I get quite giddy every time I try it on. I think it's because I've wanted to try wearing bustle era clothing for as long as I can remember and to finally get to is just amazing.

I'm going to be doing a bunch more posts like this before I get underway with posting about new things. I feel I need to clear the decks of the older things that I'm really proud of before getting on to making brand new stuff.