Diary of a Costumer

Hmm, just off the top of my head, I certainly haven't done much since CoCo. Maybe going through everything, I'll realize I was actually productive this year?

These were my goals:
1. 1831 Archery dress Done!
2. 1829 Orange ballgown Done!
3. Corded petticoat to go with both of the above dresses Done!
4. 1830s bathing suit Done!
5. Professor Trelawney artistic reform gown for the CosCol Ice Cream Social This got switched to the green and cream bustle gown
6. Daniel Deronda riding habit (already have the fabric) Still have the fabric. Maybe I'll actually make it this year?
7. Little Red costume from Into the Woods Done!
8. Striped silk bustle gown. (Or maybe a sack-back. I found silk at Hancocks today for $8/yd, and I'm determined to not let it sit in the stash.) Yeah... That silk is sitting in the stash...
9. Handsewn 1860s gown. At this point, I'm still determined to do this fully handsewn, so who knows when/if I'll ever finish it. If I let myself do it by machine, I'm sure I would have finished it months ago... Still on the list. I just haven't had the time/patience for that much hand-sewing.

( And this was what I accomplished. )

So overall, I guess that wasn't too bad. I definitely need to start sewing again soon if I'm going to be at all on track for CoCo though!

Wow, LJ was busy this weekend! I don't know how you guys find time to post and sew. This weekend was all sewing for me.

Mostly, because it took me app ELEVEN HOURS to make my bustle gown sleeves. Seriously, eleven hours. And that was without any sleevil. But they're done and they're in, and I stayed up way too late last night because I was absolutely determined to finish the bodice. I'm pretty sure it's done, though I should probably double check, since I was finishing everything up at almost midnight last night.

Unfortunately, the bodice was pretty much the only thing I got done all weekend. I went over to vanessa_lynne's again yesterday, though, and she helped me mark where my bars need to go on the bathing suit bodice. As of this morning's bus ride to work, I had finished a little over half of them, so I know I'll finish them before I get home.

I still have a long list of sewing to do, though:

Tonight
-make bathing suit belt
-make bathing suit hat
-make/paint bathing suit scarf
-mark bathing suit skirt hem.
-make sleeve poufs
-tack bustle tapes in place
-dye hair
-make sure that any accessories too large to fly are ready to be dropped off tomorrow (ie: sewing machine and archery dress hat)

Tomorrow
-hem bathing suit skirt. I haven't decided yet whether I'm doing this by hand or by machine
-figure out hair for bustle gown
-double check that all hooks and eyes are on things
-sew petal bum pad to regular bum pad so they don't have to be pinned
-make bows to sew onto bathing suit bloomers
-pack

Wednesday/if time
-take in gala gown at the top of the CB closure, so that my roommate doesn't have to pin me in
-tack zipper edges down in Little Red
-make world's fastest reticule for bustle gown, because I have nothing that matches a green dress

I really hope that's everything left to do, because I already don't know how I'm going to accomplish all that. I will have about 4 hrs to sew tonight, and probably only two hours each on Tues and Wed. Yikes.


Oh, and since I don't think I ever posted what order I'm wearing things:
Thurs: 1831 bathing suit
Friday day: Miss Pettigrew
Friday night: 1830s Archery dress
Saturday day: Little Red
Gala: Orange 1830s gown
Sunday: green and ivory bustle gown

I got the twill and sateen I needed in order to finish cutting out the bustle bodice last night at Joanns. I also picked up some red fabric for the bathing suit scarf, a weird pleather for the belt (I'm really nervous about working with pleather!), and hopefully almost everything I need for class supplies. Though naturally, once I got home, I realized I had forgotten to pick up the lavendar ribbon for the bustle bodice! *sigh* I guess I'll be going back there sometime this weekend.

The bathing suit bodice is almost done. Yesterday, I finished the sleeves and started on the binding for the neck and hem. This morning on the bus, I stitched down the neckline binding, and got about halfway done with tacking down one side of the CB closure. I plan to sew at lunch and on the bus on the way home today, too, so hopefully I will finish all of the binding/tacking, and maybe even start sewing the hooks on.

I also assembled the rest of the bustle bodice pieces that I had already had cut out, and I cut out the peplum lining for all but one piece (before running out of sateen and heading to Joanns). This morning, I cut out the interlining for the last four pieces, so all I have left to cut are two peplum lining pieces. This bodice should be fully assembled tonight, and hopefully I can start on sleeves, since they will also be another patterning challenge. *grumble* Why did I pick such an unusual bustle gown?!

Yesterday, vanessa_lynne hosted a sewing day, for which I am sooo thankful! She helped me fit (and then refit. and then refit again) the bustle gown bodice. I had been trying to figure out how to have one front piece with no darts, but by around 7:30pm, I finally said screw it, and drafted out a princess seam front instead. Of course, this means that altogether, my bodice will have 12 pieces (not including the crazy sleeves, which I really haven't even thought about yet). She also helped me fit my 1830s bodice pattern, since I couldn't remember what all I had done to it in Feb when I made the archery dress. I woke up a little before my alarm this morning, so I've already cut out the two front pieces of the bustle bodice. My goal for tonight is to get all the bustle bodice pieces cut (in both outer and interlining), and possibly cut the bathing suit bodice as well. And sew them together. I really need to get going on this! I want to be finished with everything by the end of this Sunday, so I can use the next few days to pack, and make sure nothing needs tweaking (like my gala bodice closure, which is probably not going to be gotten to...) Not sewing for three days last week really threw me off-schedule!

This time it's elastic. Apparently, I have no 1" elastic in the house. I have all sorts of other widths, naturally. So my bathing suit bloomers are almost done. All they need is the waistband casing/elastic. I had enough 3/4" elastic to do the legs. And yes, elastic is not period, but this is a bathing suit, and the best way for me to get the poufs in the legs is to have elastic in the cuffs.

I also sewed together the skirt panels, after cutting out a 3rd one - for a bathing suit, this seems very voluminous, but it looks way better now. I gathered the waist, too, so now I need to make the waistband, and figure out how much I'm hemming it, though that won't be at least until I get the bloomers and bodice done.

I purchased a scarf to wear with it, which I think I'm going to attempt to paint the stripes on (I couldn't find any that already had it). I still need to figure out what I'm doing with the belt - it looks almost like pleather belts I've seen at the thrift store, but unfortunately, time is now of the essence! I'm hoping to find some wide ribbon today when I go pick up the elastic. I already have the stockings figured out - I purchased red wide fishnet thigh-highs and will be wearing them over white stockings. I'm good on shoes, too.

Of course, one thing I still haven't decided is if I'm wearing this over a corset or not. The interesting thing is that her waist in the fashion plate is at her natural waist, not that slightly higher early 30s waist, which makes me think she's not wearing that longer late-Regency-style corset. But would she have gone without? I suppose that could also explain those bodice wrinkles... 

Continuing with the posting pictures theme, here is a post with a few pics from events we had way back in Aug/Sept.

First, in early August, theladysarah and I went to the WA Midsummer Ren Faire. It was really dinky, and we were pretty much the best dressed people there (I miss East Coast and Southern faires!) Also, note to self - one should always try on a costume that one hasn't worn in nearly two years ahead of time. Especially if one has lost 15-20lbs since one made said costume. Thankfully, Sarah did some quick hand-sewing for me and took my bodice in while I drove us to the faire.


Next, we had our Labor Day event at the beach. We had four people total (one of whom isn't even a costumer) but it was still fun, and we took some silly pictures. I wore my wool Victorian bathing suit, and brought along one of my antique parasols. More pictures showing everyone else can be found on facebook.




The other event we had was a practically spur of the moment outing to go see Austenland, thrown together by our Puget Sound Costumer's Guild and the Washington Regency Society. Interesting how an event planned on facebook 2-3 days in advance winds up with the same turnout as one planned about 3 months in advance... Anyway, it was a lot of fun getting dressed up to see a movie, and then we walked through Wallingford to go get chocolate after the movie.

I made two new bathing suits for Costume College this year. First, I made the super-quick-and-easy 1916-ish tunic and shorts bathing suit out of the plaid cotton flannel and navy blue wool. I wore that for the Thursday night pool party (or should I say poolside party, since almost no one went in the water) with my matching headband, the Capezio ballet shoes with elastic ribbons, and knee highs. It was very comfortable, though it was amazing how heavy the flannel became in the water. Unfortunately, I didn't stop to think about snapping a picture, so thanks to rebecca817 for snapping the only pictures of me in it. Here is one of them:




The other bathing suit I made was the 1890s one out of the light blue and navy blue wool, with vintage buttons. I wore it Sunday afternoon, while waiting out the terrible noises going on outside from the hotel's strange version of a party, and then afterwards for our own sort of pool party. My roommate, llyrafantasyfae, also wore her Victorian bathing suit that afternoon, so it was fun going around the hotel with her. While this one was very comfortable to wear both in and out of the water, the chlorine did strange things to it. It wound up softening the light blue to a grey-ish blue mottled with some light brown. And it also destroyed the Capezios, which I wore with this suit as well - after two wearings, there were holes going all the way through the toes on both shoes, and they turned reddish. So RIP Capezios. I also wore the knee highs with this one, and left my hair down in its post-teased and curled state (which wound up with surprisingly the right look for an 1890s bather).


first photo of the 1890s suit by Andrew Schmidt


So now that I've posted my wrap-up, how many days left till next year's Costume College? ;)

All the bathing suit needs is a hem, and otherwise it's complete! And I'm off tomorrow, so I'll hopefully get a lot of sewing done. Maybe I'll even figure out what I'm wearing to the gala night. :)

I finished the sleeves of the bathing dress, and patterned, cut out, and serged the pieces for the pants. I don't know if I'm going to get to sew at all tomorrow, though.

Today I had a wonderful time hanging out in Volunteer park at my first SITU event, playing croquet and having a picnic. Being with so many other costumers again (and the fact that we had a great "OMG it's one month till Costume College" freakout) put me in a major sewing mood. So when I came home, I wound up with a huge case of CADD. I cut out the patterns for my Victorian bathing suit and my pink 50s dress for the princess party (I picked up a cute Vintage Vogue pattern at Joanns today), as well as the two body pieces for the bathing suit, and all the skirt pieces for the pink dress. Of course, it was after I cut out and serged the wool for the bathing suit that it dawned on me that I wasn't sure I had ever pre-washed the fabric. Oops. So I put it all in the washer, along with the two pieces I cut out, and I'm just sooo thankful that it's a gathered dress, since it did in fact shrink about 3" all around. I also sewed together all of my pink dress skirt pieces, and started handsewing the trim onto the other armseye of the 1869 overbodice (I finished the first one yesterday).