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Something Blue (McCall's 9133)

7/30/2018

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A seamstress friend from my Steampunk days referred this bride to me back in November 2017, when she found her own plate too full.  G. came with dress pattern, her chosen fabric, and even a muslin made up by my friend.  I finished the dress for her by the new year, but am only posting now, after the wedding! 

The pattern is McCall's 9133, and it's view A that she wanted.  She chose electric blue satin for the dress, and white lace for the overdress with sleeves.  In particular, because she's a practical woman, she requested that the two layers be made entirely separate, so she could shorten the blue dress later and wear it to other events.  For notions, I bought a blue invisible zipper, white loops & buttons, and horsehair brain for the hem. 
Picture

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English Needlelace - Hollie Point

7/26/2018

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Picture
Sampler, 1851, with four hollie point insertions. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
England, for centuries justly famous for its embroidery traditions, nevertheless has no strong tradition of needlelace.  The lacy looking broderie anglaise (sometimes called "eyelet lace") is in fact cutwork embroidery, and the famous handmade laces of England--Bucks Point, Honiton, and Bedfordshire--are all bobbin laces. 

As far as I know, only one native English lace is needlelace: Hollie Point. 

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Refreshing a Gap Skirt

7/23/2018

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This skirt is from the Gap, size 2, with a tag that says (among other numbers) "03/Fall".  It comes to me much loved; its previous owner tried to wear it long after outgrowing it, with resulting damage to the side seam and zipper. I picked it out of a free pile because its pink paisley charmed me and it looked like it would fit*. 
* I say "looked like" because I put no faith in store sizes.  My own size could be 36 (old patterns that go by bust size), 34 (modern European sizes), 18 (pre-1957 patterns), 16 (retro patterns), 12 (modern patterns), or between 2 and 6 in modern American ready-to-wear, depending on store and style.  As for Small/Med/Large, it's anyone's guess! 
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(Click here for a good chart of International clothing sizes!)


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A Better Pair of Bodies - In Progress

7/19/2018

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Modern Elizabethan project posts so far:
Elizabethan Inspiration
Blackwork Ruffle
Blackwork Partlet
Elizabethan Stays - first try

I wasn't happy with my first pair of bodies, which I made using the custom corset pattern generator from the Elizabethan Costuming Page.  I'm not saying their pattern generator was bad, just that I should have tested the pattern and altered it substantially before making it up.  Still, I made a bunch of useful mistakes on it that I have learned from.  This time, I decide to combine the old pattern with online pictures of the Effigy Corset, one of only two extant pairs of bodies from that era! 

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Elizabethan Stays - first try

7/16/2018

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My Elizabethan-inspired modern ensemble continues... not exactly apace.  The posts so far:
Elizabethan Inspiration
Blackwork Ruffle
Blackwork Partlet

Today, a post about stays.  I won't go into the history of stays, because so many other people have done so, and so well.  Instead, I'll focus on making my first pair of bodies.
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Bathing in a Semiotic Sea

7/12/2018

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Two friends of mine have been talking about clothes lately.  Here are their situations in brief:

Friend A is a professional woman, a freelancer, whose life and work intertwine a lot.  She works with clients in her studio in her apartment, for example.  She is interested in curating her wardrobe so it works for easy daily wear, but also gives the impression of competence, professionalism, and style.  She wants to be able to grab any item from her closet in the morning, and look like a put-together professional.  She sees it in terms of costuming: dressing for the role she has to play. 

Friend B is a professional woman as well.  Her job requires a college degree, but is also physical and doesn't require dressing up.  A very active person, she likes to wear comfortable clothes, like sweat pants and gym-wear, on her days off.  However, when people routinely tell her she looks like a teenager or young college student, she finds this annoying.  She worries that people are telling her she's immature, or are judging her as less serious because of her clothes.  So now she's wondering: should she make an effort to dress more "adult" in order to forestall those comments?  And if she does, does that mean she's less of herself? 

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Blackwork Partlet

7/9/2018

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Picture
Today I'll talk about the next stage of my modern Elizabethan ensemble!  I make a partlet and embroider it with Elizabethan-inspired blackwork, using modern embroidery floss and all-purpose thread, and my own designs.  This'll be a long post, encompassing the draping of the partlet pattern, sewing it, designing the embroidery pattern, and embroidering it. 

A note about pictures in this post: if you click a pic and it takes you to an enlarged version, it's my picture.  If you click it and it takes you to a Wikimedia Commons page, it's not mine, but I'm using it under a creative commons license or Fair Use clause.  Basically: the historical portraits are not mine; click them to see where they come from. 

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Colorizing

7/5/2018

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When I was in school, I was taught how to make colors with paint, and my understanding of color has been pigment-based since then, so imagine my confusion to find that when mixing light instead of paint, there are different primary colors!  For instance, in pigments, Blue+Yellow=Green; Blue and Yellow are primary and Green is secondary.  In additive color mixing, Red+Green=Yellow, and in subtractive color mixing, Yellow+Cyan=Green! 
Picture
By MichaelMaggs, from Wikimedia Commons

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Simplicity 2758 - Made in a Sheer

7/2/2018

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Picture
This time, the fabric on the right.
Last time I made this shirt, I cut it in size 14 and found the fit perfect except for the bust darts, which were positioned too wide for my bust.  The busy print of the cotton sateen (left side of picture) conceals the darts (as does the fact that I wear a bib-apron at work!), and the shirt is a new favorite in my wardrobe.  However, I want to make it again, changing a few things to fine-tune the fit.  This time, I'm using the sheer striped fabric on the right. 

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    Karen Roy

    Quilting, dressmaking, and history plied with the needle...

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