Diary of a Costumer

I managed to finish everything, and wore it all this last weekend at the Victorian Festival. I wore my old plaid 1890s on Friday evening (no pictures of that, because I've worn it so many times), wore the 1830s during the day on Saturday, brought out last year's turquoise gala gown on Saturday night, and wore my new burgundy/mauve stripey bustle on Sunday. Unfortunately, the festival was really not great this year, but we've all kind of committed to attempting to make it better next year. If that fails, then I might not go again. 

Saturday, I attended a lecture on the history of the buildings in Port Townsend, wandered around the shops for a while, went to tea, and participated in the fashion show while wearing the 1830s outfit. I actually did wind up sewing on the bit of lace around the neckline, but even better, I was loaned a lovely antique piece of lace to fill in the neckline, which went perfectly! And the bonnet wound up being pretty perfect, too. Then I changed to the gala dress, went to dinner, and to the dance. The ball sucked this year, so I literally danced half of two dances before someone ripped out 5" of hem ruffle, and then it put me in a mood. I stayed maybe 30+ mins more before calling it a night. Sunday was better - I donned my new dress and we went out to Fort Worden to take pictures - it's my favorite backdrop for pictures, since it has lovely old buildings and goes out to a point with a beach on either side. We were only there for a bit, but it definitely made the weekend end on a much better note. 

Anyway, here's what you really want - pictures!







If you would like to view the rest of my pictures, please click here.

Okay, at this point, the stripey bustle is happening for this weekend. I got pretty much everything I wanted to done on the bodice yesterday. It has sleeves, buttonholes, and the collar is finished. It still needs binding on the hem, buttons, and preferably, trim on the sleeve ends (especially since I machine-hemmed those, since my plan was for trim). I also wound up tweaking the darts, neckline, armseyes, and side seams yesterday, so I think it fits nicer now, too. I found some pleated wide eyelet lace at Joanns, which is working for the collar.

I also tried everything on at once, and realized that I hated the pleats I had pinned in on one side of the overskirt. So now it's just getting pleated on one side, and I have to get used to the 1880s love of asymmetry. Between work and rehearsal tonight, I'm pressing the hem of that so that I can sew the hem when I'm not being used. I've already pressed up one turn of the hem on my underskirt, and it's honestly a perfect length as is, though I was planning on turning it up twice so that none of the serging is visible on the edge. So now I'm a little torn - I can always put binding over the the edge, so that I don't lose any length (I have no extra length in the back at all), or I guess I can leave it as is and just have the serging showing. I'll have to make that decision by about 4pm today, because ideally, I'd love to get both the overskirt and underskirt hemmed and with hooks and eyes at the waist by the end of today. 

I realized that my somewhat crushed up 1850s bonnet is the perfect color match for this bustle gown, so I'm bending it into a hat shape as much as possible, and I should be able to wear it this weekend with almost no work done to it. So that's nice. 

I also looked at Joanns for lace for the inside of the 1830s bonnet, and came up with absolutely nothing I liked (so much cabbage rose lace. Ugh). So I'm not exactly sure how to trim that, but again, I need to decide stat! I did at least get ribbon ties for it - it was the same ribbon I bought for the cap, but it's a much nicer quality than most of Joann's ribbon. 

To-do list for my sanity:

• Hem overskirt
• Hooks and eyes on overskirt waistband
• Stitch three pleats in place on overskirt
• Hem underskirt
• Hooks and eyes on underskirt waistband
• Bind bodice hem
• Trim on bodice sleeves
• Make and attach buttons to bodice
• Slit open buttonholes
• Finish binding bonnet
• Finish trimming bonnet
• Add lace to 1830s neckline (probably not going to happen)
• Figure out sausage curl hairpiece (probably will happen as I'm getting ready in the morning on Saturday)
• Pack!

Hopefully that's everything. Did I mention that I'm leaving late morning on Friday?

For the bonnet, I wound up going with the light yellow silk that I used for Titanic and am almost definitely using for my CoCo gala gown. So that is really going to be my color of the year this year at CoCo! The bonnet is coming along, though somehow between the paper pattern and the buckram, the crown seemed to lose at least an inch of circumference. But by the time you join the brim with the crown (which is when I realized it), I had basically done everything, so there was no way I was redoing any of that. So unfortunately, it's a bit off of what I would like it to be. I'm also trying to figure out how to decorate it. I have wide green-embroidery-on-net lace that goes around the brim, and a matching green velvet ribbon at the base of the crown, but that's all I've decided on so far. Right now I'm a little over halfway done with binding the brim edge, and I still have to put the crown lining in, but otherwise it just needs some more decorations on it. I think it will work. 

I decided yesterday that I was at a point with the bonnet where I could focus on other things (because all that handwork and gluing I can do at rehearsal on Wed or Thurs), so I moved back to work on the stripey bustle dress. I highly doubt that I will be able to finish it by the time I head to the Victorian Festival, but I figured why not work on it as much as I can this week. 

If you remember, I made most of the skirt (except the ruffly bits at the bottom of the inspiration plate) last fall, but when those ruffly bits wouldn't play nicely, it went in the naughty pile. I've known since then that the two main problems were A) there wasn't enough fabric in the skirt, and B) double-faced silk satin just does not drape the way whatever fabric was originally intended does. So yesterday, I picked out (and attempted to press out) the old hem, undid the back of the waistband, and opened up the back seams of the skirt so that I could add in another back panel. Then I pleated the back sections instead of gathering (which is what I had done before), redid the waistband, and pinned the hem so that it would be as long as I could make it. (It was originally a shorter hem so that the ruffles could go underneath.) So now I just have to sew the new hem, and the underskirt is at least wearable. I may add a ruffle to the hem, but it won't be in the style of the plate, since I can't figure out how to make that work. 

Then I moved on to the overskirt. The back section is all pleated to fit, and I draped the front section, which is on the bias. I just have to hem the edges, put the two pieces together, and put them on a waistband, which I'm hoping I may be able to get to between work and rehearsal today. That said, I still don't think I can make the bodice wearable by Friday, because it still needs sleeves, closures, hems, decorations, etc, and I basically have tomorrow after work, and maybe a couple hours on Wed to do all that. But at least I'll have a lot more of it done already for CoCo!

Here's a pic of what it looks like so far:

I hardly worked on the bodice at all on Friday. I honestly don't even remember why. I took apart the mockup, got all the interlining pieces cut out, and cut out about half of the silk pieces, but that's it. And then I had the four closing shows of Oliver and strike, so there was no other time for sewing this weekend. 

I was supposed to go to an audition tonight, but I'm not feeling up to it, plus I have a bunch of stuff I need to do before Europe (like dyeing my hair, laundry, and packing), so I'm staying home to do that instead. So maybe I'll be able to get sewing done today or tomorrow? At this point, I think the most I could possibly complete on it is just to sew the bodice pieces together. But at least that's something, and it might mean there's still a chance I could finish it before the Victorian Festival at the end of March. 

I found that I really wanted to relax and binge on Parks and Rec for most of the weekend other than while I was at the theatre, since I was so tired after tech week last week. So I slept in every day, did a little cleaning around the house, and ran a few errands. I did do some sewing, though. The pieces for the bustle dress underskirt are all together - next step is the waistband, then a hem, then ruffles and it will be done. I also got an etsy order for Princess Sofia over the weekend, so I worked on that yesterday instead of the bustle skirt. It's almost done, but I forced myself to go to bed before I had finished it. I should finish it in about 30 mins this evening, and it will ship out tomorrow. I'm hoping I might also have the time/energy to pleat the skirt into the waistband, too.