Chemise a la Reine

I believe I mentioned this project quite some time ago but the time as come for me to start revealing it properly.
It was my birthday on the 18th of June and because me and my cohorts are largely still at university at the moment I decided to hold my celebrations later in the summer. I'm going to be having a picnic where everyone has to come as their favourite historical figure (and if they don't they don't get any food). I, of course, decided to go as Marie Antoinette and so I began recreating the clothes she was wearing when this portrait was painted.

I got rather excited and ended up making her robe en chemise in about three days over the Easter holidays. There is one rather giant mistake but I'm going to live with it and maybe make another one in the future.

I used three different dress diary type posts in order to figure out how to go about making mine, Books 'n' Threads, The Dreamstress and Before the Automobile.

The first thing I did was cut out, fold and pin on the shoulder, neckline and armscye pieces to plot where everything needed to go, I would end up adjusting these very slightly later on but it wasn't any kind of important change. I then chopped five metres off of the seven and a half metres of cheap muslin that I'd bought and gave it a giant hem rather sloppily on the machine. I sewed as much of this gown as I could on the machine just because of the sheer amount of fabric, I didn't much feel like hand sewing all of that. I then created a channel all along the fabric at the waistline for the cord that would gather it in. This took forever, even with the machine, because I was trying to get it as straight as possible. I succeeded though so that's fine. After I did that I ran two gathering stitches along the top and then another one about three inches down from them and gathered it all up.

I then pinned and stitched the top all along the neckline and under the arms. This part was hand sewn because I had to leave it on the mannequin.
Unfortunately I couldn't figure out where the opening was supposed to be and so, in the spirit of it just being for a picnic I put it down the back. I have since learned that it should be open all the way down the centre front and am kicking myself!

Here you can sort of see how instead of dropping it a couple of inches under the arm I pinned it lower than my top two rows of gathering. Later on, once it was all sewn down I trimmed away the excess, following the shape of the armscye.  Ignore the dodgy looking gathering, that was too be taken out later on so I didn't worry about how crooked it was.

For the sleeves I cut huge rectangles as you would with a man's shirt and then ran three cord channels across them horizontally at intervals. The puffs on Marie Antoinette's chemise are different sizes so I guesstimated the distance between the channels. Threading cord through all the channels was an absolute nightmare, I promised myself never again (although whether I keep that promise or not is up for debate).
To sew the sleeves into the armholes I gathered up the top and then hand stitched them in the normal way.

And this is what the robe en chemise looked like with the sleeves but without the rest of the shoulders or the neckline ruffle. I stopped taking photos at this point but I do have some bad selfies of me wearing it in our incredibly messy dining room. Here's a little teaser!

It's an incredibly feminine and fun garment to wear. I imagine I'm going to be paranoid about dropping anything on it all day. Also grass stains and dirty fingers and dust... This is why I don't wear white. Ever. On the upside, SO PUFFY!!!

Next up, underwear!

A bonnet fit for a country lady

Is exactly how I think of this bonnet. It's so countryside-y with the pheasant feathers and the wheat and the berries. I'm going to start out with my progress photos (such as they are, there were points were I forgot to photograph anything) and then finally photos of my finished bonnet. This might be a
 long post.

My initial inspiration for my bonnet came from this fashion plate from 1810, the top three bonnets specifically.

But in the end I think it ended up looking a bit later than 1810, maybe 1815-20.
Anyway, here we go!

I started off by making a cardboard pattern. I used a slash and spread technique on a long rectangle to make the brim, the tip and sideband are rather self explanatory. 

 

 I then spent three hours drafting and re-drafting the pattern until I got a shape I was satisfied with. I actually messed up at this stage, I didn't take into account the angle of the centre back nor really how much the brim slanted outwards at the front. The problem with the centre back caused difficulties later on. If I were to make it again I would try to tame the front a little and pay more attention to the back.

This is the shape I settled on in the end. After this I traced out my pattern onto the buckram and bound all the edges in bias binding.

Pinning it before all the bias binding was sewn on to get an idea of what it would look like.

The backing for the silk

My tutor advised me to back my silk with something lest the buckram's pattern show through the thin fabric, I did just this. She also told me that any glue might stain the fabric so I didn't use any, hence the bias binding, as an anchor.

I sewed each layer on separately using running stitches so it took about three times longer than it might otherwise have done but it meant that I avoided entirely the risk of getting glue all over my fabric.

 Here you can see how I've whip stitched the centre back together on the brim. The same method was used on the sideband. For both of these I had to adjust the ends which meant unpicking everything, trimming the buckram down and then sewing everything back in place again. A pain but completely necessary. After I'd sewn the ends of the sideband together (only sewing through the fabric) I slip stitched the tip in, again only sewing through the fabric.
The tabs you can see on the brim were part of the buckram pattern, I cut one of them slightly two deep and it showed a little before I put all the trimmings on.

You can just about see here where I running stitched the brim onto the sideband. This took a bit of messing to get in, because I suddenly changed the angle of the centre back seam. It ended up distorting the sideband a bit but you can't notice it because I piled all my big trimmings onto that spot.

Then it was time to line the brim. I was initially unsure about pleating it but I'm glad I went for it in the end. I started off doing tiny pleats, these are what you can see in the photo above and the photo just below this text. I got most of the way around and then realised that they were too dense and the shear amount of fabric was making the bonnet too heavy. On the left in the photo below you can see where I tried widening them to get an idea of what they might look like.

I then unpinned all of it and re-pinned the pleats in place again, only wider. I ditched the centre front pleat that changed their direction as well. To do the pleating I just laid my fabric inside the brim and started folding it. I've a deep seated fear of anything mathematical so picking up the fabric and hoping tends to be my preferred method.

Here you can see where I tacked the pleats around the top and bottom, I also trimmed off the excess fabric. At this point I totally forgot to take anymore photos for a while so there will be a bit of a jump. Once I'd tacked the pleats I folded the top under and slip stitched the lining to the folded over seam allowance from the silk brim fabric, that left me with a flappy brim lining that I could still get my hands underneath to be able to sew the trimmings on. 

The ribbon was kind of haphazardly stitched on with tiiiny running stitches. The little cockade thing took me about two and a half hours to make, probably because I was trying to watch 'Banished' at the same time....

The large pheasant feathers were sewn on before I stitched down the ribbon on that side. I went through the shaft of the feather then out to either side a few times on each one. The smaller feathers  I stuffed in behind the ribbon as an afterthought since it looked a little sparse. Later on I would have to unpick the ribbon on that side in order to sew the berries and wheat down.

I don't have any photos from when I was sewing the berries on because it was dark out and it's a very fiddly business. Essentially, they came in bundles of twelve so I wire stitched (really just a button hole/blanket stitch) them together, trimmed down the stems/stalks to the length I needed and then positioned them on the bonnet, sewing over them with a double thread until they didn't move. 

Once I had the trimmings sewn on I put in the petersham headribbon, anchoring it in a few places via tiny prick stitches through the velvet ribbon, which you can't see at all.

Preparing the lining. The idea behind this is; measure from the centre of the tip down the longest edge of your sideband, that gives you your width. Then measure the circumference and that gives you the length. Once you've done that you fold over one edge and gather it. 

Once I had it all pinned in I then had to go back and sew the seam at a really extreme angle to make it fit properly. After that though, it was finished!! 

And here is one picture that shows the true colour of the silk. It's much more vibrant than the ones above would have you believing. 

And then here's one on my head.

From before the feathers, wheat and berries went on

And here's the usual breakdown of elements that I do; the base is brown buckram, edges finished with bias binding. The tip, sideband and brim are covered with rust coloured silk, the silk is backed with pure cotton. The bonnet it lined with navy blue faux shot silk taffeta with a navy blue cotton petersham headribbon. It is trimmed with navy blue velvet ribbon, one paste button, (roughly) nine pheasant feathers, three stalks of wheat and sixty fake berries. It is sewn entirely by hand and took quite a long time to make although I can't say exactly how long because I worked on it on and off for a month.

That's it for now, I've got more hat plans for the summer so I'm sure I'll be updating with some more giant headwear in the near-ish future, for now though I've no idea what my next post will be about... We shall see!

Of warlocks and pirates

A couple of weekends ago I attended London May MCM EXPO, it wasn't the best con I've ever been to but I won't get into that, what I will get into is who I went as!

You are all familiar with my Tessa Gray cospaly, if not then you can find more about it here.
I went as Tessa on the Saturday with my sister cosplaying Cecily Herondale from the same series of books. Her costume was originally going to be made by her with a little help from me but she only managed to get the petticoat done and the skirt pieces cut out before procrastination set in and exam season started, so I finished it off. I did most of the sewing in the space of three days, around university, so it's not my best work but I'm certainly very proud of it.
Ruby also took some lovely photos of my Tessa cosplay with me actually in it. Victorian
sisters-in-law kicking demon butt together!

This photo was taken by my friend Emilia

Ruby's dress is made from faux shot silk taffeta and some left over black cotton velvet. The bodice is flatlined with black polycotton and the buttons are all metal self cover buttons that Ruby covered on her own. I draped the bodice pattern myself, it's loosely based on a couple of bodices in Janet Arnold's 'Patterns of Fashion 2'. The skirt was inspired by some simpler skirts found during google images and pinterest searches. It was meant to be cartridge pleated at the centre back but I didn't know how to do it properly when I made the skirt so it didn't work. Underneath she is wearing a (ebay) corset, bustle pad and ruffled bustle petticoat.

Onwards to Sunday!
I managed to finish my Elizabeth Swann cosplay in quite a leisurely amount of time but I am just not destined to have a relaxing build up to EXPO because I spent the last week before the con madly rushing around trying to finish Ruby's costume and my wigs. Everything worked out in the end though!

The Thames looks nothing like the Caribbean but lets pretend it does, shall we?
I wore my American Duchess Kensingtons all day and they were super comfortable, even with bare feet! Not exactly accurate since they're nothing like Lizzy's shoes but closer than anything else I own so I wore them. The entire costume was really comfortable. I basically got to wear pajamas all day but they were really, really elegant pajamas. I can't wait to cosplay her again.

The nightgown is made entirely from a pair of muslin Ikea curtains so it was actually incredibly cheap (only £15) to make. It took me forever to finish it because I kept putting off doing the smocking across the front but after doing the smocking on the sleeves of my Loras shirt I wasn't so frightened of it anymore and decided to give it a go instead of chickening out and gathering it. I'm glad I did smock it because it looks so pretty.
Underneath the nightgown I'm wearing a slip made from two cream coloured primark vest tops, you can just about see its hem in the last photo.
The bedgown is made from 18th century reproduction printed cotton from Colonial Williamsburg, a nightmare to get hold of since I'm based outside of the US. I've got 5 yards of it in red too because originally I was going to use that but didn't order enough so had to buy more in blue from Renaissance Fabrics. I think I ended up using about 7/7.5 yards. It's those damn watteau pleats on the back, they just eat fabric. It's lined with lightweight calico, also from ikea. Along the front edges are sewn tea stained satin ribbon roses with green embroidery cotton vines linking them together, the sleeves are cinched up by braided loops of embroidery cotton hooked over normal (shankless) plastic buttons that I covered with the printed cotton fabric. It's a surprisingly heavy costume.

Next up, the bonnet I made for university!