I did finish my Elizabeth Dress...

New Blog to come soon.

Have a case of the busys. I have a new full time job and I'm prepping for a feast I'm running in Feb.
Also my pictures of my dress turned out bad =(

Meanwhile, have this cute wolf pic....

Elizabeth Bodice Done!

I'm so excited I just had to write about it!

Hi internet!

I finished my bodice!!! =D

Well, by finish, I mean it is wearable and I put it on and it fit nicely and stuff and I like it!! =D

the shoulders could be a little tighter, but I think with the weight of a skirt on the end of the bodice, weighing it down a little, it will actually pull the bodice down a enough. Alternatively, the sleeves will pad the shoulders out a little with the extra fabric.

My process was the same as normal, however I found patterning myself a little challenging and nearly had a meltdown, but was determined to be able to do it myself!

I cut out bodice pieces in calico that were a copy of my black dress pattern. I altered it slightly, such as the shoulder shape and the front being one piece, not two. I decided to go with one side lacing, and decided to put a zip in there. After putting it on the first time over my corset, I realised the shoulder straps of my corset were the wrong shape and I would have to tuck them in the back of my corset for this dress.

Front Veiw

I also managed to discover what was making my corset so uncomfortable. The way the shoulders were attached the the corset. The strings that tie the shoulders to the body where digging in and without this I found the corset worked much better. I also may have made one of the splits up the side longer, but I haven't decided if that was beneficial or not yet.

 Anyway, after some preliminary pen marks and scissors and cutting I made a new bodice out of more calico  with the changes. After just some slight adjusting I liked the way it fit and drew pen all over it to mark the edges. Here are some of my patterning Pics.

Side View

Shoulder positioning

I then cut out two layer of drill in the front and the back. (I would have used canvas, but I didn't want to use polyester canvas and cotton drill is pretty think). I sewed some channels for boning in the canvas. I use the largest cable ties I could find for the boning. I also cut out some buckram, but just the very front of the bodice, just from the neckline down, between the shoulders. After putting in the cable ties, I sewed the buckram onto the canvas between the boning channels to hold it in place. I didn't put any boning in the back piece. Then I cut out the top fabric in the fancy fabric which was a huge drama because I have never worked with patterned fabric before and I had to line it up perfectly. I also had to line the back up with the front, so when they join it will look like the pattern just wraps around me. Hopefully.

I basted the fancy fabric to the interlining and lightly stitched all the edges onto the canvas, except the outsides of the shoulders, because I plan to attach sleeves here.

And then I finally sewed one side together and the shoulders and turned the seems down and folded it. I decided I didn't need to put a lining in just yet, as I could always do that later and would save me lots of time. I am working on a time budget here. This dress needs to be ready to wear by next Friday night! That is just 5 ish days away!

Ok so I just finished with the lacing wholes down the side and tried it on and I think I am very happy with it!

Here are some pics!

Now all I have to do is the skirt the sleeves the French hood and the forepart/ skirt combo.

I think I will do the skirt next as It will make the dress wearable as soon as possible. Then the hood. I think the sleeves will be super duper complicated and way to warm for this occasion. I will leave the skirt till last as I have a white underskirt that I wear with my black dress that will substitute well If I run out of time.

For the sleeves, I want to be able to devise a way to attach them so they look like they are sewn on, but are detachable for when the weather is far to warm for them. I think because I have no idea how to make them just atm that I will run out of time and they may not work out as well as they should.

I want to make the French Hood because I want a hat. I have always wanted one but never gotten around to it. Maybe this will be the perfect opportunity. Again, it will be complicated and I have no idea how to do it.

Time for bed! =)

Happy Aimee is happy!

Elizabeth Dress Update

EXAMS ARE DONE!

This song is in my head right now, so you should read this with this song playing in the background:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEOem7U2LPE

I figured it was time for a new post, but I have nothing to post about! =(

I guess I will use this space to plan out my new dress.

I want to have it finished for Ellen's Birthday party, but that is 10 days away. I am also now working full time... I wonder if I'll make it?!

Here is the plan again: (apart from slightly different sleeves - see below)

And my red material

I was just about to start on the patterning and cutting stage tonight, but realised I needed more planning. I need interlinings and linings, which I had completely forgot about. I probably forget about that because I don't really follow a step by step pattern/ instructions that probably would remind me. I wonder if I have any suitable fabric.... will have to find some red to line my sleeves with. Which sidesteps nicely into the fact that I have bought all the "outer" fabric for my dress!! WOO!

OK, so this piece I found at Home Craft Textiles and was around $30 or $40 a meter, so naturally I wanted it but new I couldn't afford it at all. Especially considering how poor I am (because all my money is going into savings).I had a look in the remnants pile and I actually found a piece of it. Its a double width fabric, and its water stained for around 1/5 of it. In all I got around 2 meters for $10, which was all there was for cheeps. I was pretty happy. If I do end up needing more it shouldn't be too difficult. This fabric will be the fore-part (forpar?) and the bottom half sleeves - the puffy ones! (see below). Also, this is pretty close up the squares are about 3.5cm/ just larger than an inch.

I wanted red velvet for the sleeves, light the pic below and couldn't find anything cheep. I did find this (left) at spotlight, it was $40 a meter! 0_0. Its OK though! I had a pair of spotlight vouchers for my birthday. Thanks Kim, Ariane and Keenan for the expensive velvet. It looks a little bright in the picture, but its really a lot darker in "real life". I actually love this red. If I win lotto tomorrow I'll make a whole dress out of it.





I think I need to wait till Friday when I get paid to go by more things from spotlight, like interlining material and something for the actual lining. I also need black bias to get this sleeves look:


I think I decided I would go with side lacing, but only on the one side. I got really annoyed earlier in the week because I want to loose weight, and I don't want to have to re-make all my garb to fit me. Figured that It wont matter. I will make it and then make new garb when I loose weight. OK. I need to get started. Going to work on my pattern now!

Not sure if I'll get to the French Hood in 10 days... =(

Goodnight!

Study Break Plans!!

Only taking a tiny study break because I couldn't focus.

I have decided what I'm doing with my gold embroidered red silk!

I have decided to definitely make it into Tudor, not Italian. This is the style I'm planning to make it into:

This is a young Elizabeth in 1546. To make it easy I'm going to use my yellow corset and probably the same pattern as my black Turdor. I MIGHT adjust the shoulders on my black Tudor to be more like this picture. As for the underneath material I'm not sure what I'll use. In this picture the secondary material is the one that stands out, so I might do the opposite and have a more plain material as the secondary one. I think a bit like this picture: (Although I wish I could see more of her sleeves)

This is the young Mary in 1544. I think I would need to do more research but look at the waist line length difference between the two pictures, keeping in mind they are two years apart. I love the first waist line the best.

In the Mary Picture, It looks almost like red velvet. Also, her smock underneath seems to have black work of flowers all over it. *wants*.

On a closer inspection on whether this dress is a "Henrician Lady's Gown" with a placard to close the front (picture to the right), The portrait of Mary looks to be more of that style, Whereas the front of Elizabeth's dress looks rather elongated and more Italian or later period. Additionally looking at the beaded trim in close up it looks like it is on the outer layer, and there is no petticoat underneath. the Mary Picture could actually have a placard underneath as there is that red line that seems to frame her bodice.

With a petticoat underneath it would suggest there is no corset, as the petticoat would be boned. Also, the forpart is part of the petticoat. However, with the petticoat style you can usually see it quite clearly in the picture. There is a picture of Jane Seymour in 1537 where you can actually see the pins on the right hand side where the placard closes, suggesting the petticoat version. You can also tell by the neckline there is an underneath layer that is the petticoat.

In the picture above of Elizabeth, she is on a similar angle and you cannot see this close. However, It may just be on the other side. I still think the neckline of Elizabeth still doesn't show any sign of there being a placard or a petticoat underneath. Thus I'm just going to go with the corset option here. I also would assume side or side-back lacing. (Please leave me a comment if you have a different opinion or actual research about these things).

All right! Decision made. I will go about this much the same as with my black dress, but use the sleeves pattern from the Tudor Tailor. Mary's sleeves are still my favourite here so I might contemplate getting some red velvet and white patterned material of some description.

In Addition to all of this, I think I am going to need to finally make a bum roll for both this dress and my black dress. I'm also going to make a matching French hood! there is NO WAY I'm not! =D

I might have to find some pretty exciting beads for the dress like these black ones

I wonder if these would work.... hmmm

Summer Planning

HELLO INTERNET!!

WOW I had another amazing weekend! This time It was the Baronial Championship camping weekend thing. It was so much fun I had an amazing time! There were soooooo many drama's getting there and thanks to a certain someone (Lachlahn) who fixed all my problems I managed to actually get there. I had someone drive into my car last Wednesday so the complete lead up to the event for me was very dramatic. Then half my tent was missing and I had no where to sleep and again the most amazing friend came to my rescue and said I could use his tent, and he slept in a dorm. So, that meant I got to sleep in a period tent! Not some actual camping tent but a medieval tent! =D

I forgot half my things at home and there were a few drama's but we managed to circumvent a lot of potential dramatic situations. I entered the Archery competition and shot better than I have, in a competition so I was pretty happy with myself, even if I didn't place at all. I beat myself so in my book, I WON! =)

Since this amazing weekend I have come up with a new to do list! Top of my list? A period tent! Now, I know I have talked about a tent before, but I realised on the weekend that the kind of tent I want is far too large for most of our small camping events. It would have a seriously large amount of rope and if I did scale it back, I would find it too small. Decided I want a square tent! I want a white square tent and I want to paint black silhouettes of wolves on it. Or have a black tent and paint white wolves on it, either way. Although I think a black tent would heat up far too much!

SEWING!
Here is my list:
1) Re-do my purple petticoat.
2) Finish sewing up my maroon Kirtle.
3) Red doublet and skirt.
4) Red and gold Tudor dress. (I'm thinking maybe slightly earlier than my last Tudor, but I want to find a picture to model it on first, to have appropriate research and stuff)
5) Actually go through with my heart shaped bonnet. I made a mock up out of linen but never did the real thing.
6) other hats and accessories
7) Fix all my broken garb
8) do something fancy with my red wool - Maybe a red Kirtle with sleeves.


TENT!
As for my tent, I will need things to go inside. My first plan is a clothes rack. I maaayyy just pinch the one my awesome friend has and copy his! =p
I also would like somewhere period to store all of my things. I'm thinking chests. Nice wooden ones. If I can't actually find any, I'm sure I could make some. What a lot of people don't know is how handy my dad actually is. There are A LOT of things in our house he built I'm sure he wouldn't mind the challenge. Not to say I wouldn't help, I have actually always liked wood work things, but it was not cool for me to do that sort of thing in school....being a girl and all...
Eventually I would like a bed. I think a few people around have rope beds. But I'm sure Clan Mum Tex can help me with these things! =P

Ideally I would love to document most of these things. It would be so much fun! It looks like I have a busy summer ahead of me. Already starting my prep. I wonder if I might even have a bed warmer this year... That would be awesome. Still think I've been friend zoned. Must not over think all the things!

Time to get my tax law study on! Exams in 3 weeks and then I will start on all the plans!!! =D

OH HOLY SEWING MACHINE

OH EM GEEE!!!

I Can't believe I TOTALLY FORGOT. I got a fancy embroidery sewing machine for my 21st birthday! =D

So far its amazing. It's a Janome 305e Memory Craft. and here are some of my things:

 I Maaaay have gone a little crazy and bought ALL the colours and threads!

Muff is done... no joke.

Oh Hi there Internet.

I Also finished my muff a little while ago. It was interesting. I think I made it a little TOO large...

I went for a matching thing between my black dress and the muff, so same trim and black velvet. The shape itself is just a large rectangle, then I sewed down some fake fur. I decided to go with the fake stuff just in case.

I wasn't until I started sewing that some silly boy says to me: "LOL MUFF" and then came the overwhelming amount of furry muff jokes. I feel like shouting back to everyone: MY MUFF IS NOT FURY! But that will only bring on more jokes...

I decided I wanted to stuff my muff with wool fibres to make it extra warm, but I was also trying to achieve a pillow like thing... In hindsight, it was a bad idea, I keep getting wool fibres escaping the black velvet and then the fibres also compressed and I can't even tell if they would have made a difference.

I also think my muff is TOO LARGE. and its too big on the inside. Yes it can fit three pairs of hands in it, but who wants three pairs of hands in her muff? *wink* No. Of course I don't! Maybe a second pair of hands...but there isn't a second pair of hands just right now in my life, so its a little pointless.

The one thing I LOVE about my muff is the buttons. I made little buttons, bought some little round wooden beads and covered them with thread using the Tudor Tailor roped button instructions, and I think they are the BEST PART.

Again, I found this website: Belphoebe Muff Research, really helpful with my creation of a muff =)

 Here it is in perspective. The Pic on the right is how it is currently, the left is is it is folded the other way. I am thinking of chopping it in half, using the left proportions. But that would mean reattaching all the buttons. I think maybe if I put more stuffing in it, and chopped it in half using the right picture or even three quarters that could work too. Decisions. I guess I'll see how it goes on the weekend for Championship!

 

and.... I'm out.

Championship Favours

So today I've been madly sewing up a favour for Championship. The Championship weekend is next weekend. Not sure if I'm excited or nervous. Anyway, being a Lady In Waiting I needed to sew up a pair of favours. One for myself and one for the Rapier Champion. After ages of um'ing and ah'ing about what I wanted to do I went with appliqué of yellow silk on blue silk with white linen.

For my favour, It need to have the golden sun of Aneala on a blue background and a black swan. The rapier favour had to have a rapier instead of the swan. I decided to go with black velvet for my swan, which meant it was FUZZY!!! *squee* =P and I split-stitched a pair of rapier onto some white linen for the rapier favour.

Here is the Anealan device:

and here are my favours (sorry they are on such silly angles):

I decided to make mine into a pouch, just so it now is practical. Maybe on the back I should stitch: "If lost please return to Aneala" and wear it festival next year =p hehehe.

So I decided to enter the archery championship-tourney thing what-sit. I don't really know why, just felt like maybe participating for once. Today being Sunday I went to training and did some good shooting, by my standards. I think I finally worked out what I was doing wrong with aiming and anchor points. I also used a glove instead of my silly finger tab, so I'm guessing that helped, A LOT. Anyway, I shot 4 golds! I don't think I have every really shot the gold more than twice that I can remember. I was soooo happy with myself! =D

and....I'm off! =)

Dress Is Completed!

OH HAI THERE INTERNET!

Totally forgot you existed!

Nahh not really, I've just been super duper busy.

I FINISHED MY DRESS!!!!

I finished it, well it held together and there was trim and it stayed on me and it had sleeves and everything! I still needs finishing, and a better attachment of the trim.

So, there were many drama's with my dress. First of all I cut out the velvet pieces and had an extra 3 inches or so in there so when I worked out if there would be an issues with so many extra layers in the dress I wouldn't have an issue with the hooks and eyes not meeting.

I made the inside section separately. I just took some canvas and black cotton and hand sewed boning onto it. I redesigned this staged, like a lot before I actually ended up with a finished product. I toyed with the idea of just having internal lacing and no extra flap section. Also thought about having it sew into the back/side seems, but thought that was too much stretch and worried about it. then I realised that the bottom half (the point) would have absolutely no structural integrity and not be doing anything. I'm pretty sure in fact I threw several tanties at my fabric and mental designing ability before I said, fuck it I'll just do it this way and see what happens. It ended up being like an internal panel sewn about 3 inches in from the seem. It worked ok, but I think it needed more... strengthening.

Ok so fabric cut out all nice and stuff, I sewed up all the seems and into the bodice. I managed to attach the pieces into a bodice shape! yay! then I realised I would need some sort of interlining. I think from memory, I used canvas again. I also sewed in some boning and lined it with black cotton.





This is what the bodice looked like when I was sewing in the interlining and boning.





I then tried it on, it seemed like the originally drawn line was perfect and I was all WOO HOO I'm amazing *CHOPs off excess* and then lo and behold, it didn't fit. I refused to believe something in my measuring had gone wrong and it looked like I had gained 3 INCHES of weight someone around my everything. I cursed my boobs. If it wasn't for one particularly amazing friend who I cried at I would have probably given up right there and then! At this stage it was around a week or two till the event I wanted to wear my dress to.

Here is what I thought It looked like when I pinned it closed before I cut it:

This is what It looked like, you can see why I panicked...




















After about an hour or two of my rage quit I realised I could just add a piece down the middle and it would be covered up totally by the trim. I was a genius! so, I did that, fixed it up and then after about a whole day of what felt like a step back, I tried it on. It was too big. There was some epic grumps here and mad un-stitching and I realised the original was maybe a cm too small, but what the hell I would MAKE it work.  Back on track to the original plan. I think what I actually forgot is that I'm going to have it laced shut, which will hopefully stretch it closed tight enough.




See this ----->
That part that Im pulling in where my finger is?  That is the piece I added, and that was how much it was too large after *face-palm*


I fixed up the edged and sewed in the hooks and eyes, and finally I positioned the lacing under panels to line up with the boning in each bodice panel so they didn't double up. Of course, I did have boning down the line where the middle join was origination measured.

* Moment of Truth*

It fit. Perfect. There was a lot of happy dance.


Here is what My bodice looked like from the side, I don't know why I only have the one pic at this stage, but just ignore the fact the second image has sleeves.

OK so now I think it was T-Minus 7 nights till Midwinter Feast and I had no skirt. I still wanted to do a shaped skirt so that it didn't have a lot of fabric gathered up around my waist and made me look fatter. I did a little bit of research, and asked around and read Jane Arnold's Patterns Of Fashion and how they said it do it. I was pretty sure I didn't have enough fabric. OOH THE DRAMAS. I could go to the place tomorrow and buy more... but there was definitely enough for a skirt if I just pleated it all in. I have never done a shaped skirt and figured, after about an hour of worry (and calm words from a friend) that I should stick to what I know right now, because It's simple, its cheaper, its less stressful and I could do it then. Box pleated the whole thing and whip stitched it on. Oh by the way, I missed out all the drama's I thought I had because I could no work out how to attach it with the point, at one stage I thought It wasn't long enough... Anyway. I eventually worked it out.

Next, Sleeves!
I think at this stage I was running out of time and decided to completely skip having random roll puff sleeves and just skipped that and decided to go with over sized sleeves, so they were not tight around my arms and looked a little puffy and cute. There>>
is a pic of me with my sleeves, so happy at this stage!

 Here is how it looks doing up, with the under lacing panel:
















T-Minus 2 nights till Midwinter Feast. I attached the trim along the bodice. I had to re-cut it out because I needed the design to match up on each side. Because I'm pedantic like that! !

Here is the trim. However, this is it just pinned on, you can see how un even it is =/













I spent all Friday night hemming my skirt and attaching trim to the dam 3 meters of stupid skirt, and still I spent most of Saturday morning attaching more. By the time I got there I was still one sleeve short of trim and tacked that on in the bathroom before hand. I was dressed and I was lovely and I had ALL the trim in the right places Saturday night. I thought I looked DAM AMAZING. and then, the first doorway I walked through in my stupid fathingale... bloody ripped my trim off and my hem. SO NOT HAPPY. Thank goodness I was going to see the Baroness and she was all, here let me safety pin this for you. I avoided doorways all night! *Glares at doorways*. I still havn't gotten any pictures for you of me in my dress.... I might do that soon. Probably after exams though.

Oh, I almost forgot. I the front of too much cleavage, The bodice ended up being almost too high and covered up most of my cleavage. I looked decent.

 OMG I LOVE MY DRESS!!! =D
Here is the only Picture I have at the moment, hopefully I will take more later, probably after exams...

 Here I am in my corset:                                                            and Here I am being a Turtle in my bodice: