Diary of a Costumer

Apparently, I've been sewing and not posting. Whoops. 

Anyway, the Elizabeth Swann gown is nearing completion. It's been going much slower than I hoped, because I forgot just how much hand-sewing is required of 17th century bodices. Anyway, at this point, I have to finish attaching the cartridge-pleated skirt to the bodice, and then I have to hem the skirt and the underskirt. When the frogs I ordered get here, those and a few decorative buttons will be added to the bodice as well.

Until they arrive, though, I'll be moving on to the chemise. I'm not worried about doing this one accurately to the movie, since a) I am wearing it over my stays and a regular chemise, since I didn't feel like boning the whole bodice, and b) the only parts of it that are going to show are possibly the neckline, a tiny strip of the bodice front that can be seen through the bodice h&e closure, and the skirt, since the other skirts are open down the front. So actually, I think I may save myself some time and some heat, and just make it sleeveless! I can always add the sleeves in later if I decide to. 


That's the last full thing I have to make for CoCo. So for my own sanity, this is my CoCo To-do List over the next two weeks:

Elizabeth Swann - attach skirt to bodice, hem skirt and underskirt, make chemise, add frogs/buttons
Turquoise Gala Gown - try it on and add h&e to waist of train, make order sash and medals, figure out hair accessories, make earrings
Mary Poppins - try on and possibly move h&e at waist on waist cincher and skirt.

If I have time, I'd also like to make a new skirt or dress for Disneyland. And today, I have to make a skirt for an etsy order. 

Other than performances, work, and rehearsals, I've been mostly resting my swollen foot for the last few days, but I have managed to get a little sewing done. The Elizabeth Swann underskirt is complete except for the hem, and today, I cut and sewed together my first mockup for the bodice. Hopefully, I'll have time to try it on before rehearsal tomorrow. Fingers crossed that it works!

Oh, and on Sunday, I went to an estate sale, and managed to snag nearly 6.5 yds of navy with red and white plaid worsted wool fabric. I got that, two wooden folding chairs for picnics, a large vintage hatbox, and some flowers to put on hats, all for about $12.50. I'm excited for the wool - I think it's going to be made into a bustle dress. 

Little by little, I'm getting closer to finishing this bodice. Yesterday, I fixed the bertha by adding in two small pieces over the shoulders. I tried it on afterwards with the bertha pinned in place, and it seems to work. I also pressed the hem up yesterday, so that it would be easy to sew today. 

Then today, I added the lace over the pressed hem, so that I would only have to sew it once. And my silk organza arrived, so I started on the box pleating for the neckline. I finished one row of box pleating, and it is pinned in place, waiting to be handsewn onto the bodice, which I hope to be able to accomplish tomorrow, in the hour I have between work and rehearsal (probably overambitious on that one, but I'm going to work on it at lunch at work, too). Then if I have enough energy when I get home from rehearsal, maybe I can convince myself to pleat up the other strip of organza, which goes between the top of the bertha and the bodice neckline. That way I can hopefully get that sewn on with the bertha on Friday, and this project will finally be finished!

Or at least, mostly finished, since I still have to finish the sash and orders. That's going to wait until after I get a good chunk of Elizabeth Swann done, though. Unfortunately, I doubt I'll really have time to start it this weekend. I have plans Friday afternoon as well as a performance in the evening, and on Saturday I'm hosting a costume event, which will end in time for me to get to that evening's performance. Then Sunday is our final show, and I think I'm called to rehearsal in the evening. 

I completely finished the train on Thursday. I felt like I was working on it forever! So much hand-sewing. It took even longer than I had anticipated because I totally forgot about the eight bows that had to go on the train, too, so I made those and hand-sewed them all on as well. 



Friday, I slept in, and decided instead of the bodice (because I wanted to go to Joanns and look at lace options), I would work on the Snow White cape. So I patterned the cape (because I'm incapable of making anything simple), and cut it out. Each of the two back pieces took up the entire open space on the bedroom floor. Then I sat down at my serger to put red thread on it, and discovered I didn't own red serger thread. Sigh. So I showered and got all ready for the day and headed to Joanns to look at lace and pick up the serger thread. Unfortunately, that meant that by the time I got back, I had just enough time to serge the four pieces before I had to head out to my performance, and when I got back, I was too tired to sew. 

Saturday, I put the cape together and hemmed all the edges, since I wasn't lining it. I'm going to pin it closed with a sparkly brooch, so that meant the cape was done! So then I turned to repairing Mary Poppins - I cut new bones for the two open channels on the waist cincher, and spent the next hour or so reattaching all the applique edges that were peeling on the skirt, and attempting to get the weird dirt lines off the back (to no avail).

Then I turned to the ballgown bodice. I used the ruffler foot to gather up two organza strips for the sleeves, and sewed them on over the seam between the two sleeve poufs, and put a piece of the embroidered lace on top of that. I made the strips the same length all the way around, but I'm debating about shortening the length as it goes under the arm, since that part of the sleeve is shorter. Playing around with the bertha, I realized that I needed to make some sort of a base for the gathered sections to go on, so I draped the organza over the bodice on the form, and cut base pieces out of the organza. So far, I have taken three of these pieces and put the gathered/pressed organza sections on top of them. I'm basting them in place for now, and will finish the edges once I put the bertha pieces together. 

At rehearsal tonight, I ripped off the old lace I had put around the neckline, sewed on bows to the sleeves, and hand-whipped closed the two broken channels on the Mary Poppins waist cincher. So Mary Poppins is officially done! I actually won't be able to finish the bodice right away anyway, because I realized that I wanted box pleated white silk organza around the neckline, instead of lace, and naturally, I've run out. Hopefully it will be here within a few days. 

So anyway, I'm hoping to finish the last bertha panel tomorrow before rehearsal. Once those are together, and I make sure they are fitting right on the bodice, I can hem that and add the lace to the bottom, and whip the bertha on. Then all that will be left is the silk organza at the neckline! If I finish the bertha before the organza gets here, I'm moving on to Keira Knopely, which might actually happen, since I don't think I'm called to rehearsal every day this week. 

Ugh. Didn't get nearly as much done today as I wanted to, mostly because it wound up not raining, so I mowed the front and back lawns and did some weeding. At least my yard looks better, and my mower lasted through almost all of both lawns before the battery died. And since my backyard is huge, and most of it was 2ft tall, I call that a success!

On the sewing front, I did manage to dye the velvet ribbon - however, I had to pat it dry because rinsing it wanted to wash most of the color out. Since this train will hopefully never be around water anyway, it didn't seem like a big deal to me, so I went with it. I sewed down the ribbon to the box pleat ribbon, and started sewing that on. I have a little under a yard of it already sewn down at this point, and I have another few yards pinned into place (as much as I could do before running out of silk pins). It looks really great so far, but I have a feeling it may want to flip when I'm actually wearing the train down, which means I have to run a line of stitching towards the other side of the ribbon as well. Sigh. So much hand-sewing!

I also dyed more organza for the berthe, and painted the rest of my ribbon. I went with the actual Order of Charles III, which is one white stripe down the middle of the light blue moire ribbon, but part of me wishes I had copied the artist's artistic license in the portrait, where he made a middle stripe plus some narrow outer stripes. The thing is, I could find no evidence that those smaller stripes have ever been present on the Order of Charles III ribbon, so I should probably leave it as is, even though it's not as pretty. 

Tomorrow I really hope I can get all the pleated ribbon sewn on, and the waistband added, or else I'm going to be even more behind. 

I did so much work on train trimming this weekend. Friday night I got home from opening night and stayed up till 1am so that I could finish the box pleated trim. Then Saturday I sewed from about 11am-4pm, and managed to get all of my net trim cut into strips and then either gathered or ruched, depending on the trim, and I gathered my other ribbon trim before heading off to another performance. When I got home, I sewed down half of the wide net trim. Luckily, I was able to binge-watch Orange is the New Black through all of this. 

Then today after the matinee, I came home and sewed the other half of the ruched net, then started putting the rest of the trims on. I got the wide lace added, and managed to sew down both sides of the ruched ribbon on top of the net. Unfortunately, I realized that the box pleated trim will have to be sewn on by hand, so that's going to be a huge time suck, but luckily, everything else is by machine. 

I'm hoping that tomorrow after work and grocery shopping, I'll be able to sew on the rest of the machine sewn trims (gathered net with narrow velvet ribbon on top), as well as sewing the velvet ribbon on the skirt. I also want to see if the velvet ribbon will take dye, because if so, I'm also going to add it down the center of the box pleat trim before I stitch that on. I would love to completely finish the train by the time I go to sleep on Tues, because that gives me the rest of the week to do the bodice trimming, make the Snow White cape, and maybe even make the orders that go on the turquoise dress. I want it done!

Anyway, here's a picture of the train as it looks now:



By the way, does a train from this era (I believe 1866) just get pleated up to a full waistband that goes underneath the bodice?

I spent the 30 mins I had free between work and rehearsal sewing! I didn't accomplish much, but I got the two taffeta panels for the train assembled, serged the top and bottom, and did the two side seams  to attach the organza to the taffeta. There won't be time to sew tomorrow, but maybe I'll have another 30 mins on Wed?

 I was determined to finish the pelisse last night. I only had about an hour to work on it during the day, but when I came home from seeing Sister Act last night, I went straight into the sewing room to finish. 

I did a machined hem, with the cotton batting inside the bottom inch. I did two rows of stitching higher on the hem, too, to represent where a second padded row should be, but since it's not actually padded, it doesn't really show up. Maybe that's something I'll change in the future, but I doubt it. I also added my tassel/button trim at the CB, inspired by the extant one.

And here it is:

I got about 3/4 of the hooks and eyes attached, of those that I already had. And I stitched closed the lower front of the pelisse. But unfortunately, that was all I had time for today. 

I'm hoping to be able to swing through Joanns on my way home tomorrow, but since I also have to go to the grocery store, that likely won't leave time for sewing. It's tempting to put both errands off till Friday, and come home and do my hem instead, since that's the last "big" part of the pelisse left. I just want to finish it and move on to trimming the turquoise gown!

The pelisse is nearing completion. I've worked on it a ton this weekend, and at this point, all I have left is the hem (or hem treatment, since I haven't decided if I'm going to do the puffed rows that are on my inspiration), stitching or tacking down the facings, making the belt, and finishing off the wrist bands with buttons and buttonholes. Hopefully I'll be able to do all that tomorrow, though I do also have to mow the lawn and hopefully take Lion to get his nails trimmed. 

Oh, and I also need to do the closures down the front, but I'm not quite sure what to do there. Were pelisses ever worn without a dress underneath? I'd really love to wear this with just a petticoat, since that is a) less to pack for CoCo, and b) less heat in Socal. Obviously, that means I would need closures all the way down the front. However, my inspiration pelisse has no visible closures. Would they have used hooks and eyes, and is there a good way to do that down the front of the skirt, where there won't be any tension? Or are there any other closure options anyone recommends?

Thanks for your advice!