Lobsters and Petticoat's

I haven't had a ton of time for sewing lately, even though I have about a million things I need to be working on right now. But I did manage to squeeze in a new lobster bustle and crinoline petticoat last month!

Being that Halloween is just around the corner, and I'm the crazy costumer that I am, I started thinking about my Halloween costume early in August. I had decided on a costume that I've wanted to make for a long time now, but unfortunately I don't have the funds to do it properly at the moment.

The costume was Christine Daae's wedding dress from the stage version of Phantom of the Opera. It's always been a favorite of mine, but unfortunately will have to wait until a better time when I can do it right.

Anyways, that was what got me going on these foundations. While I was playing around with that idea and researching materials, I started with the undergarments. I knew I needed a larger bustle than the half bustle petticoat I made a few years back for my 1870's ensemble, and because it was a stage costume and I didn't need to be particularly historically accurate in material's, I decided I should make a crinoline petticoat.

This was something I've been meaning to do for a while, but just never got around to because I really don't like working with tulle of any kind.

And this crinoline lived up to my expectations. It was a beast to work with. Partially because I was making up the pattern as I went, when I really should have sat down and crunched some numbers before sewing, but I'm just gonna blame it on the crinoline. Fine? Fine.

In the end, the petticoat turned out quite nicely. It's made up of two layers and is stitched onto a bask with an elastic waistband. I actually added another small ruffle along the bottom edge of the top layer to help keep the shape around the hem, but I haven't gotten any pictures of it at that point yet.

Please ignore my hideous carpet. We just moved and haven't had a chance to update the floor in my sewing room yet.

The lobster bustle came together quite easily, and is taken directly out of Period Costume for the Stage and Screen. I think I will end up making another one that's just a little bit biggest, particularly on the bottom half, but otherwise I really like it! It isn't quite done, it still needs a ruffle along the bottom edge, but it's wearable.

Sadly since my costume plan's have changed the bustle won't be used, but I'll may still use the petticoat. But more on that in another post!

"Portrait of a Lady" 1870's Costume | Halloween 2017

As promised in my last post, here are the photo's of my Halloween costume this year.

Yesterday I attended a Halloween gathering with my family and friends and debuted my costume. I usually tell everyone what I'm dressing up as, but this year I wanted to keep it a secret and for the first time I actually succeeded. Ha!

For lack of a better name, I'm calling this outfit "Portrait of a Lady". I'm not sure if I'm unintentionally plagiarizing something famous, or if I actually came up with an original title, but that's what kept coming to mind when I was wearing it and it seemed like an appropriate title.

 

Photo's courtesy of my sister, Sereina.

I love this concept for a costume because it can be used to turn any historical costume into a perfect Halloween costume. :D

Skirt - this is the skirt from my 1871 dress I made last year, but with the train bustled.
Blouse - cotton shirtwaist drafted by myself with a pattern from Period Costume for the Stage and Screen as a reference.
Sash - self drafted and made from an upholstery velvet.
Wig - heavily modified wig from Arda Wigs. This is my Christine Daae wig I made several years ago and I'm so glad I finally got to wear it after putting so many hours into it!
Boots - Funtasma via Amazon

This is actually a dream costume of mine. I've always loved the 1860's shirtwaists and how informal and casual it looked. The dress the skirt was original made for was less than perfect, and at one point I almost threw it out all together, but then I came up with the idea of bustling the skirt and wearing it with a shirtwaist.

I had attempted drafting a blouse several times before but it wasn't until now that I was actually able to figure it out. I'd still like to go back and make a nicer blouse and add more details to it, but I love the way this looks.

Things I learned from making my first Victorian dress...

Over the course of the last *cough* year and a half *cough* I ventured into a new area of costuming for me, the Victorian era. More precisely the early bustle era: the 1870's. Before this I had read a bit about the era (though more about the 1860's) and had seen countless other costumers works on the era. But this was my first time trying to do something this big. And I learned a lot from it.

This post is going to be a compilation of a bunch of things I learned from this journey/things I would do differently next time.

• The Victorian era, particularly the 1870's, is great for beginners because they can easily cover up their mistakes with lots of trim. I made so many mistakes with this dress. Like a lot. Some of which were not able to be recovered and had to be scrapped completely, such as my first bodice. But due to the fact that the Victorian's loved their trims, I was able to hide a few of my bigger, armature mistakes such as my un-even dress hem. Yep. That black ruffle along the bottom of my skirt was a backup plan because I accidentally cut some of the panels to short.
• Start with printed patterns. Don't try to scale up patterns from a book if this is your first time venturing to this era. That ended up giving me a ton of trouble on the skirt and bodice, which is why I ultimately had to re-make the bodice.
• Do not underestimate the power of having a lot of trim on your dress. The biggest thing I see looking at this dress now is the severe lack of trims. I put what I thought was a lot at the time, but it seriously needs a lot more.

• You can hem your skirt up higher than you think. I hemmed this dress so it was barely off the ground at the front (maybe an inch off the ground). After talking with my friend Michaela, who has a bit more experience with historical costuming that I do, I learned that I would have been good with 2-3 inches off the ground. It ended up working out okay for me this time, but in the future I'll be hemming just a little bit higher.
• Don't stress about being perfectly historically accurate. When I set out to make this dress I wanted it to be as accurate as possible, which ended up putting a lot of pressure on myself and I ended up procrastinating a lot. I lost motivation for the dress about half way through because of this. At that point I decided that I wasn't going to stress about it being perfect (at that point I knew it wouldn't be) and I told myself that I just needed to finish it. I had period appropriate material, the right underpinnings, and to the best of my ability the right silhouette for it (although not perfect). It's okay to not be perfect as long as you finish and learn from it. Costuming to me is about learning and having fun either while making and/or (though hopefully both) wearing the costume, and once I remembered that I was more motivated and actually finished the thing!
• Having cute shoes that match the era (even if they aren't entirely historically accurate due to budget limitations) will make you feel like your outfit is complete. I purchased a pair of Funtasma lace up boots to go with this since I couldn't afford the American Duchess shoes (and because I wanted lace up boots), and putting them on made the whole thing feel so much more real. It's amazing what a pair of shoes can do!

Michaela and I at Costume College

And I have to add, wearing a bustle with a train is one of the funnest things I've ever worn.

The Great Costume College Adventure

As you are aware, I attended Costume College for the first time this year and I wanted to make a quick post about it. I wish I had more pictures, but I was so busy with the classes and looking at everyone's costumes that I wasn't even thinking about taking pictures.

The event was SO fun and it was so awesome to get to meet a bunch of costumers I've been following for a long time, as well as meet a lot of new people. I learned a lot of awesome stuff from the classes but my favorite part were the social events.

Friday night I wore my green Regency dress. Regency isn't necessarily a favorite era of mine, but it's so easy to make and wear! It's just so simple compared to other eras.

Saturday night was the big event of the weekend, the Gala! I finally got to wear my finished 1871 dress that I had been working on for far too long. Michaela wore her 1860's plaid dress, which was so pretty. We took a couple photo's together and are still waiting for the photographer to post them so we can share.

The only part that wasn't fun was that I got sick on the way to California. During the drive down I started getting sick and for most of the weekend I could hardly speak because my throat was swollen. I was still able to have fun, but speaking was difficult.

I really hope to go again next year and already have so many costume idea's.

I don't remember exactly how this came about, but somewhere along the weekend I got it into my head to make a 1840's dress. I've recently become obsessed with Jane Eyre after watching the movie and reading the book. So on Monday at the fabric district I picked up some plaid linen for a dress along with 10 yards of white cotton for petticoats. I'll be posting about that soon.

Victorian Hairstyles

As I'm getting closer to finishing my 1871 dress I've started thinking about things like accessories and hair. Earlier this year I chopped my hair off to a nice long bob, which is currently just above my shoulders. While it's technically long enough to put back in a ponytail, there's not much else I can do with it right now.

Now, it's no secret that all throughout history (but especially in the mid to late Victorian era) women used fake hair pieces. With that in mind, I've started to come up with a plan for some historically accurate hairstyles.

First off, I purchased some extra hair. It sounds kind of weird when I put it like that, but that's essentially what I did. For a while I thought about investing in some good clip in human hair extensions (the one's I was looking at were from Luxy Hair), but since it would cost between $200-300 to get a good length and thickness (I have very thick hair), I ended up with a different plan.

I purchased clip in bangs and a curly clip from Arda Wigs. Since I've purchased wigs from them before I already know that the color Spanish Brown is very, very, very close to my natural hair color. I just placed the order the other day, so I should be receiving it in about a week.

One of the limitations of using extra hair pieces, is that unless you hair is already long and you're just using it for thickness, you cannot do any sort of updo.

With that in mind, here's some of my hair inspiration. I'd like to note that some of these hairstyles are from the later 1870''s/80's (and even some 1860's). But that's okay.

Here's my plan. 

I want to do a half updo, with the hair pulled away from my face, but use the clip in bangs to do the frizzy/curly bangs (I'm not sure what that style is call or if it even has a name), and have the curly clip used in the back to create the illusion of long luscious locks.

I came across THIS tutorial while doing some Victorian hairdo research, which I think I'll use for a base and build off of. It's going take a bit of experimenting, and hair is not my strong point. So it'll be interesting to see the end result.

Look, I made a thing!

It feels like forever since I actually made something! Other than mock ups I haven't actually made anything in a couple of months. And I made it just in time for the 3rd HSM challenge, YAY!

This last week I've been sick but I was feeling good enough to sew over the weekend. I was working on the mock up for my 1871 dress and I decided that I would need something to add some modesty to the low neckline.

In my research I've noticed that this type of thing wasn't a huge fashion fad at the time, but I was seeing similar things, coverings for the low necklines (a lot of them, I suspect, were removable to so the dress could also be worn in the evening without having to make a whole new bodice).

I pulled out my old Simplicity 1818 pattern that I've had literally forever (it was one of the first patterns I ever bought) and dug through my pathetic excuse of a stash to find some fabric. Luckily I actually had fabric that would work and that I liked!

I had the hardest time with the collar. As usual, the instructions were making no sense to me and the only reason I figured it out at all was because of the pictures. And even those were tough to decipher. What's worse is that the pieces weren't even the correct size!  It ended up taking me till the next day to figure it out.

 

The Challenge: Stash Busting

Fabric: White cotton (I think were old sheets) and printed cotton

Pattern: Simplicity 1818, although I did deviate from the pattern just a little bit.

Year: Technically 1860's but I'll be using it for the early 1870's

Notions: Buttons and ribbon

How historically accurate is it? I really have no idea, but I'm just gonna say 60%

Hours to complete: Probably around 5? It took me forever to figure out the collar

First worn: Not yet, as soon as I finish my 1871 dress

Total cost: $0.00! Wahoo! I suppose if you were to buy it new it would cost around $10-15?

The Historical Sew Monthly January Challenge | Bustle Pillow Tutorial

So I did do the first challenge of the Historical Sew Monthly in January, I just haven't gotten photo's of it yet. But, I did make a video tutorial for it. I was going to get photo's and post them at the same time I shared this tutorial, but they weather has been pretty rainy and I've been really busy lately. So I thought I would just make a quick post and share the tutorial.

Here ya go!

I'll write up the official post for it with all the info on the item after I get pictures. Which will hopefully be soon. ;)

The 1871 Dress

I've decided that before I make the Wishing Dress that I want to make a dress from the same era I'm basing the dress off of, the early 1870's. I'm doing this since I've never made a historical dress before, and while I'll learn a lot when I do the mock up, I want to be familiar with the techniques and other aspects of the dress. Also, I want to make it with directional fabric since the Wishing Dress has directional fabric and I don't have any experience with matching up patterns.

The pattern I chose is from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 2; the 1870-1 dress. I still need to get the patter enlarged, but I got impatient and started on the skirt. I measured it all out myself and have the muslin cut and the pieces pinned together.

I'm thinking I may change the neckline to this though. 1 because it's almost identical to the Wishing Dress, and 2 because I think I like this better than what the pattern has.

Dress ca. 1875

As for the fabric, I'm still figuring that out. I want to make the dress blue for some reason (perhaps because that's what the dress the pattern is based off of is) but I still don't know what type of material I want to use.

The pattern has 2 difference bodices, one for day wear and the other for the evening, so I'm going to need a fabric that would be suitable for an evening dress as well as a day dress.

Let's talk about bustles

I know I'm getting a late start on this, but the month isn't over yet, right?

The first challenge in the Historical Sew Monthly is foundations, which leaves the door open to all sorts of possibilities! I really want to work on the mid to late Victorian era this year and build up my wardrobe for these era's. I've started with the foundations for the Wishing Dress, which I'm making historically accurate for the early to mid 1870's.

There were several types of bustles used to get the desired shape during the 1870's and 80's. There were cage bustles, bustle pads, lobster tail bustles, elliptical crinoline bustles, and bustle petticoats. And each of these had several variations in the way they were made.

From left to right, bustle pad, cage bustle, lobster bustle, elliptical bustle.

I've actually found in several of my mockups that having a simple bustle pad has been helpful to give me an idea of what I need to do for the finished garment. So for the first Sew Monthly challenge I've decided I want to make a nice bustle pad.

I've chosen this for my first project mainly because I recently got a new job which will be taking up my afternoons. It will be a quick and simple project, but still a good project.

Here's a few examples of bustle pads for inspiration.

Bustles, bustles, and more bustles!

Before I started working on the wishing dress I never realized just how much I love bustle dresses from the 1870's and 80's. They're shape is just so different from any other era and they're so pretty!

Now that I have the proper underpinnings for a dress from this era I've been thinking that after I make the wishing gown I will make another bustle dress, but more historically accurate.

Here's a little history on the rise and fall of the bustle.

The bustle started to appear in woman's fashion in the last few years of the 1860's. The bustle continued to grow larger while the skirts grew smaller and the cage crinolines went out of style. In the early part of the 1870's the skirts were still quite large, flat in the front but still fairly full in the sides. But as time went on they started to get smaller while the back increased in size.

Originally the bustles were high up, but as the years went by it lowered until it finally disappeared in the middle of the decade. For the next several years it was fashionable to have a very slim figure, known as the natural form, which had a long straight bodice and the back was also long and straight.

The bustle returned in the 1880's. The skirts were much smaller and not as full on the sides, but the bustle had returned. They grew larger as the years went by and were quite large in the late 1880's before the bustle went out of fashion again by the early 1890's.

Here's some gorgeous bustle dress inspiration ranging from the early 1870's to the 1880's.

ca. 1885

ca. 1875

mourning dress - ca. 1872-74

ca. 1885-88

1887 Wedding Ensemble. Made of Wool.

Victorian Undergarments

I (mostly) finished my Victorian under garments. YAY! I'll probably need another petticoat and I still need to get some longer ribbons for my chemise and 2nd petticoat drawstrings. But I'm off to a good start!

So the last few weeks I've been working on a second petticoat for over my Truly Victorian bustle. I drafted my own pattern based on Truly Victorian 107, which surprisingly turned out really good since I pretty much drafted the whole thing with math (which I'm not very good at).

The chemise and drawers were drafted with a tutorial from The Sewing Academy. I ended up putting a drawstring neckline thought so I could adjust it for the Wishing Dress neckline.

I also finished my first corset! I drafted it with this tutorial. Over all I think it turned out pretty good for my first completed corset. The back has a bit of space but I think that's because I laced it myself. I could definitely get it tighter if someone else was doing the lacing.