shiny new fabric time!

well i did a very bad thing on my day of on saturday....i went to the factory fabric shop......

i went the intention of buying calico for the elizabeth dress toile (not that i did one for the marie antoinette dress but apparently one can never underestimate the importance of a toile, or rather one doesn't get the extra marks from uni if i don't make a toile, so guess i have to do one for this dress)

unfortunately i saw a biiiigggggg box of marked down ends of rolls, discontinued fabric etc before i managed to get to the calico, and it had lots of pretty fabric in! i found 100% cotton velvet that would be perfect for the elizabeth dress, and marked down to £1/mtr i couldn't say no! I managed to find just enough for the dress, cut very carefully! found a few odds and ends of damasks and other prettys too!

luckily i did eventually manage to get to the calico for my toile at guess what, £1/mtr again!!

the OH wasn't too amused at my mass fabric buying, but i managed to justify it with 'i've bought it all now, so i won't have to go fabric shopping again this semester'!

paper pattern and toile will be done tomorrow, so pictures of those will be online tomorrow night!

marie antoinette inspired dress - corset

front of corset

back of corset

side of corset (or rather side of 'pair of stays')

Well i finally got a whole day off uni to concentrate on the marie antoinette dress on thursday, so i sat down and got as much of the corset done as is possible for one person in a day!

I managed to get the pattern drafted, calico cut (the two inner layers which hold the boning, there will be a lining layer and an outer decorative fabric layer hiding these two), boning placement all marked, all of the sections sewn together, and the boning channels sewn (note for the future - its probably easier to sew boning channels then sew all the pieces together...i think i chose the bloody hard way.....) and finally all the boning slide nicely into the channels and the ends sewn up!

I did run into a slight problem here, i bought my boning on a roll (poly boning, yes i know not very historically accurate, i'd have loved to use wooden bones to be accurate, or even just metal bones, but they were REALLY expensive, and my skint student status must be remembered!) because my boning was on a roll it was curved, so when i put it in the boning channels in stayed curved, and the whole corset erm.....curved. (note to self - find out how to flatten boning!) I pinned the whole thing to my mannaquin in the hope that it'll somehow mould but i'm not betting on it!

Next on the ever- growing list of things to do - cut the outer fabric (going to be the same as the dress fabric) and find a pretty lining fabric (yeyyy fabric shop mission!!), sew all four layers together, place eyelets and sew binding! I'm thinking of separating the bottom into tabs like most of the 18th century stays i've found online, so it looks a bit more authentic?

day off tomorrow so hopefully i can get plenty done then!

uni make module - revealed!

well i know i was quite mean in my last post and tempted you with hints of a new project but all will now be revealed!

my new module at uni lets me chose whatever i wan to make, as long as it is somehow related to what i want to do during third year. having greatly enjoyed making the marie antoinette dress for photography i have decided i'm going to spend third year doing historic theatre costume (i may as well do something i enjoy rather than trying to break into the haute couture or ready to wear market, which i don't really enjoy designing for) so this module i'll be recreating an elizabeth 1st tudor dress, somewhat similar to this -

My version will be pink though, and thats all i'm letting slip today!

designs for this new dress to follow soon, and i'll try and post up a few updated photos of the marie antoinette dress, it's getting finished just quite slowly!

fashion illustration; inspiration and technique, Anna Kiper

well i had a wonder around WHSmiths when i finished uni early this afternoon (looking for the OHs magazine) and found this delightfull book, 'fashion illustration; inspiration and technique', by Anna Kiper.

Maybe i was attracted to the pretty picture on the front i don't know, but something about it caught my eye. After a quick flip through i was sold and bought it, for once this is a fashion illustration book that doesn't rant about 'the right way' to illustrate! it promotes that every illustrator should have their own style, and thats it absolutely fine to illustrate using different mediums! (don't think i've mentioned before that at uni we are taught that the only way to colour illustrations is with tria markers, not only are they about £5 each, they don't last 10 mins and they're bloody useless, all of my marker coloured illustration look like a 5 year old coloured them in!)

Anyways hopefully some illustrations to follow soon, now that i'm quite inspired!

Also, uni has thrown a fantastic project at my this module! not giving anything away yet through, will only say its a make module and its going to be fantastic!

marie antoinette inspired dress - prepare for a bombardment of posts!!

well prepare for a bombardment of posts today, finally finished bloody uni work work (thank god, i was ready to give up!) and i've finally got a day off from work so there'll be lots of work on the marie antoinette dress today!

i'm planning on getting the dress finished (binding done, hems fixed etc), petticoat gathered (again) and hopefully corset started but that might be me getting a bit ahead of myself, not sure i'll get quite that far in one day!

Next semester starts on wednesday though so need to get quite a bit done today, otherwise i'm going to end up falling behind with it and the dress will get pushed to the back of my head, and forgotten about!

more to come probably about tea time, i'll post photos i promise!

of lost things and found things and wonderful university IT technicians!

well i managed to leave my usb memory stick at uni for the 3 time this week, after being pretty sure i put it in my bag! after a screaming match with the boyfriend (in which he said lots of mean things but did tell me to buy a bag things couldn't fall out of, so i'll take that as 'go and buy another handbag darling') i went to bed last night very annoyed an angry, more with myself for losing it than him for shouting really, since i did start the shouting.

Luckily the technician at uni has learnt that i'm pretty useless and regularly lose important things, he remember which memory stick is mine when someone hands it in! I walked past his desk this morning mumbling to myself about having to start work i'd done all over again and he waved my memory stick at me!

so of lost things and found things! and an ode to wonderfull IT technicians everywhere! thank you!

marie antoinette inspired dress - part 4

well here we go as promised, a few teaser photos taken during my test fitting on my model! since i now have my very first follower (hi martine!) i thought it's time i started posting things when i promise i will, instead of my usual rambling promises and losing track of time and forgetting.

so here we go, a few photos of my model test fitting, the dress is still in the same condition as it was on the mannequin, the smaller sections sewn together (eg. bodice is all sewn together, skirt pleated, petticoat gathered......well sort of......you'll notice the petticoat is worn in some of these photos but not others as we had a mass-ungathering problem when my model got a bit over exited!)

Full body photo (try to visualise it being worn with paniers, the skirt looks quite flat here, it's fully pleated to be worn for lots of volume but really needs paniers as the fabric is not very stiff and so doesn't really look as i intended it to)

front/side view (arms definately need to be adjusted, they're intended to be quite fitted but my model has much slimmer arms than i guesstimated)

Back view, showing the pleated sack back i incorported, i'm quite proud of this bit, i had no idea how to patterndraft it so just guessed once i'd finished the back and fitted it to the space between the shoulders (it involved lots of pleating and pinned and rather a lot of swearing loudly but i figured it out eventually!)

These were photos taken for my sketchbook for university, to document the development of the dress from fabric to a full garment, they were supposed to be professional looking photos, but i loved my model enjoying wearing the dress so much that i got a bit carried away taking photos.

To quote my model to the letter 'ohhh its for flashing (refering to the open front of the dress after she managed to ungather all of my gathering) quick quick take a picture of me flashing!'