broken_moons

Hey guys, guess who remembered to take some in progress shots of a costume she's working on? Correct! It's this gal ^__^

In less than two weeks, Castlefest 2017 is taking place, and I've been working on this costume on and off since, oh, December? No, earlier, because it wasn't yet winter when I bought the base dresses I'm Frankensteining this out of. So, October or something.

Sadly, I did not take photos of the before dresses, so let me paint a picture with words instead:

I got two dresses from the thrift store - actually, from two different thrift stores. The first one was a dark blue chiffon monstrosity, where the skirt was lovely and flowy, but the sleeves were this... cape kind of thing that completely hid my upper arms and my waist. The silhouette was... not good, guys. Not good at all. But the chiffon was lovely, and there was lots of it, so I almost bought it then and there. Only, I didn't.

Dress two I found a week or so later, in another thrift store, and is a very basic blue polyester satin prom dress with spaghetti straps. Sort of like this, but in blue, without the ruched layer and with a sweetheart neckline. It fit me perfectly, and the colour immediately got me thinking that it would look good combined with the chiffon dress - which I had not bought.

Should I buy the prom dress in the hopes the chiffon dress would still be there? I hesitated for a bit but eventually decided that if with everything I was envisioning for the chiffon dress, I didn't buy it, chances were slim anyone else would beat me to it so soon. Luckily, I was right, and the chiffon dress was still there.

The salesperson went on a spiel on how lovely they thought it would look on me, but I was like oh hell no, this thing looks awful, I'm gonna pull it apart and use the fabric for something completely different. At which they were... hesitant, but also curious. I'm kinda tempted to walk in there wearing the end result, but what are the chances the same salesperson will be working then, and remember me?

Anyway.

The idea I came up with was to use the prom dress as the base, since it already fit, and add the chiffon in layers. I pulled out some turqoise organza and shinies in various hues of blue and silver from my stash, and totally by accident found these lovely blue table runners in the same dark blue as the chiffon dress, and got to work.

And that gets me to where I am now! Here's some pictures of me figuring this dress out:


I put the prom dress on Josephine, and then started pinning all the materials I had until I was happy with the general arrangement.


To be sure, I put the dress on, at which point I realised I wanted to replace the lining with something less synthetic (it wasn't even warm and my skin was sticking to the polyester lining that was in the dress). Also, I don't have pictures of the back yet, but it was straight across and I've since cut out a v-shape so that I can do a lace-up back. That means replacing the spaghetti straps with longer cord, going from the points of the sweetheart neckline, to the lacing at the back.

I had already embellished the table runners with more organza and shinies at that point. The next step was to embellish the top of the dress and the chiffon overskirt!


I might add more shinies, actually, but I'm fairly happy with it at this point and decided I'd wait until I have everything assembled to see if I want to add any sparkles anywhere.


And where I am now! The overskirts are embellished and sewed on, as well as the table runner tabard in the back. The front tabard and the wrap are just pinned for this picture; next move is to attach those to the outer layer of the prom dress. After that, I have to attach the cord and the loops for the lacing, and then the lining can be put it.

For the lining, I just put a jersey tank top on Josephine and put the prom dress on over it, then marked the top edge of the dress on the jersey, and the length of the jersey on the dress, and replaced the top half of the lining with the jersey. It is much more comfortable this way, especially as it will still be the height of summer at Castlefest!

Only thing is - I am going to have to wash this dress right before Castlefest and right after I come home, because while I washed both dresses before I started, just handling it and putting it on now and then is already causing the chiffon to smell. The polyester satin and the organza less so, but the chiffon picks up stank like you wouldn't believe. I... might have to wear perfume at Castlefest.

Sigh. This is why I prefer to work in medieval styles, because you get to work with linnen and cotton and much more natural materials. However, I simply could not resist the vision in my head these two dresses gave me, and I am still very excited to wear their Frankensteined lovebaby in two weeks.

I would also still like to make something to wear on my head, but I'll focus on getting the dress done first. I'll post more pictures when it's complete!

Alright peeps, there is one recent costume I haven't even mentioned anywhere yet, for a couple of reasons: 1) I did not have any good pictures of it yet, 2) it was such a spur-of-the-moment thing that I couldn't even really announce I was working on it, and 3) I wanted to make some adjustments to it before sharing.

What it is, is a Regency outfit! As it happened, the weekend after Elfia Haarzuilens a friend mentioned that the Keukenhof would be having a Romance Day on 7-8 May, and people in 19th century costume would get in free. (Romance as in the musical style/philosophical leanings of the 19th century, not just being romantic.)

Since she mentioned this a week before it would take place, at first I thought, "I shouldn't, I've just been to Elfia, and I don't even have 19th century stuff to wear!". But then again, well, why not make something? Regency outfits can be fairly simple if you don't embellish the hell out of it and cheat a little bit with the pattern.

Sooo, on Saturday I was invited to go, on Sunday I raided my stash for fabrics to use and worked out the construction, on Monday I cut everything, then didn't do anything on Tuesday and Wednesday, and sewed non-stop on Thursday and Friday.

Then on Saturday morning I finished up the final hem, put everything on, and off I went!

In the Keukenhof I met up with the friend and her husband, who were technicallly in late-18th century stuff, but then again they are quite a bit older than me and even in those days older folk tended to hang on to the fashions they were familiar with. So we strolled through the park (I had never been to the Keukenhof, even though Castlefest is held each year in the castle grounds nextdoor), getting stopped for pictures every couple of minutes.

There were a few other groups of people in costume, though some of them had taken the 19th century instructions a bit loosely. There was one group, though, who were just picture-perfect. They clearly used authentic patterns, very lovely fabrics, and had parasols and good shoes and great accessories. I think they were a costume performance group to start with.

( Some construction notes )

Now, then, on to the pictures: after wearing it in May I decided I'd wear it again at Castlefest, which was two weekends ago. I added some lace to the lining hem and the neckline of the white dress for some extra detail; I was debating also adding pearls or beads or something to the overgown, but in the end felt that perhaps less was more.

As a nice surprise, the photographer who took my Regina Verdi pictures in 2014 emailed me the day before Castlefest to say he'd got a last-minute ticket and would I be up for an improvised shoot. Given how much I love his pictures of Regina Verdi, I wasted no time in saying yes, so now I have these amazing pictures of the Regency dress!

Some other photographers also joined in at some point, and a girl I know from Tumblr came by to say hi so we had her join in as well. It was a lot of fun!

This style is very comfortable to wear, and there's something stately about the empire waistline, but people will think you're pregnant, haha. (Ask me how I know.)

( Pics behind the cut )

Remember the sideless surcoat I made last year for Elfia Haarzuilens? Well, I juuuust realized I'd never posted pictures of me wearing it. >_> And all the while I'm complaining I don't have anything to post about. *rolls eyes*

So, recap: I made a sideless surcoat to wear with a modified version of my Skyrim dress, along with a matching outfit for my niece. We wore our getup at Elfia last year, and she absolutely loved it! Unfortunately it was too cold for her to wear it without her coat, though she wanted to try it without her coat at first.

Back then, I just wore it with the Regina Verdi crown, though I had plans to make a veil and/or wimple for it. Later in 2015, at Elfia Arcen, I did wear it with more accessories, though for Elfia Haarzuilens this year, I changed those up a little.

Anyway, enough chatter, on to the photos!
( Read more... )

Excuse the crappy selfies down below, but this weekend I adapted my Skryim outfit to work without the leather corset (for better comfort - both to wear and to put on!) and I was pretty chuffed with the results! ^_^ I added rings to the sides of the apron and laced them with ribbon, and wore my belt under the apron instead of over it. It works very well! For an extra layer of comfort I could also ditch the belt and bring a bag to carry my stuff, but then I'd be worrying about losing it.

Also, I used a hairpiece to create a long braid, braiding my own (short) hair into the start of it. Unfortuately it had sagged out almost completely by the time I arrived and taking it out tangled it so much I couldn't make a new braid. :( I did manage to reattach it, just kept the hair loose except for some smaller braids I had made to create more elements in the big braid.

The less than ideal method of attaching this has confirmed that I need a set of clip-in extensions for more elaborate hairstyles, so I ordered some today!

( Pics in here )

So about a year ago my sewing machine broke down in the middle of making a maxi summer/party dress I was intending to wear to a big work party, and I had to abandon the project. After buying a new (and fancier) sewing machine I continued on the dress, though I never quite finished it.

Until now.



Drafted and made using a combination of Medieval methods and some tutorials for tunic dresses I found online. It. Is. Glorious. The skirt is wonderfully full, the waistband is tight but comfortable due to the elastic in the back, and the sleeves will protect my shoulders from sunburn. And in the back I added some lovely beading to hang in the deep V. It doesn't show up nice against Josephine, but it looks gorgeous on me. ^_^

(The right hem appears to be shorter than the rest in these pictures, but that's just disortion from the hem measuring tool attached to the pole which I never bothered to take off. Also, Jopsephine has a bit of a lean to one side for some reason.)

Now if only I'd thought to add pockets. I know, I know, adding pockets is half the reason you'd make your own dress in the first place, but no - didn't think of it until I had all the seams done. Luckily I have a pattern to add an accordion pocket to any dress, and enough fabric left to make one, perhaps even two. That'll get done... eventually ^_^;

Well, I'm cheating a little bit because I'm not quite done with some of the buttons on the sleeves, but if I wait until that's done I might not have time to take pics before I have wear this and then it won't be new and shiny anymore.

Anyway, my sideless surcoat is done! And the full outfit, and the outfit for my niece as well (minus aforementioned buttons). I also created some extra lower sleeves for my underdress, which you might recognize as my short-sleeved Skyrim dress, because it looks better with the surcoat.

Onwards to pics!( Read more... )

I've put my sideless surcoat away for the moment, to work on the other half of my outfit plans for Elfia Haarzuilens - my niece's outfit! I'm making a medieval dress and sideless surcoat for her as well, in the same colours as mine though inverted. So her sideless surcoat will be purple, and her under dress blue.

The sideless surcoat is more or less in one piece, I just need to attach the shoulders and cut the neckline but I'm waiting until I'm sure I know how I want to do the trim - bias tape or gold ribbon. My underdress has gold ribbon as trim, so that would be a nice symmetry, but bias tape will be easier to construct.

While that's percolating I've moved on to her underdress. All the pieces have been cut and are awaiting finishing before I can sew it all together. Yesterday I prepared the sleeves, which because she wants a slit with buttons on her forearm had to be in two pieces each, and the trim has to be attached before I construct the entire thing (trust me, you don't want to do that when the sleeves are attached!). I had found this adorable flower ribbon (at my local Xenos, even) and because it was cheap grabbed 6m of it. It wasn't even until Friday that I thought of using it on this dress, but it looks so cute!


Me trying out the two trims before actually settling on doing it like this.


Sleeve #1 constructed. It's only missing the buttons and the gores for the armscythe.


The sideless surcoat, all the pieces attached except for the shoulders.

The surcoat is lined with synthetic satin to avoid it sticking to the underdress, just like mine is. On the underdress I'm finishing all the pieces with a (cheating) rolled hem* before construction, so that construction just becomes a matter of sewing up everything with simple seams.

I still have two months, so I'd say I'm well on track. I just really really hope it fits her, because I don't think we can swing a fitting in between...

*It's only folded once, because I underestimated my ability to fold a rolled hem twice and still have only 1cm seam allowance :/. It should look nice enough, though, and I'm using a zigzag stitch so that will help against fraying too. And let's be honest, chances are she'll wear this outfit only once anyway. ^_^;

So I got all ready to do this, and then realised I had never posted those pictures from the Regina Verdi photoshoot back in August, oops!

I did put them on Tumblr, and since I don't have them by hand in any other format right now, you can have a look here. They turned out really nice, the guy made me look like a real princess :D

But the reason for this post is to share the results of the Skyrim photoshoot I did last weekend with aien_hime. We were hoping for some snow, and got it! :D

Unfortunately it was not very much, and it was already melting by the time we got to Castle Haarzuilens, but it did make it into most of our shots. By the time we had had a (late) lunch and left it was all gone :( Still, it was more than I'd expected.

( Onwards to the photos! )

The shoot was a lot of fun, we had a great time together. I had put on two extra layers under the white dress (thermic underwear and an extra top and slip) to make sure I could survive taking pictures without the cape. It worked like a charm, and towards the afternoon when we were making pictures on a bridge it was downright warm in the sunlight.

This outfit is so much fun to wear. ^__^ It's comfy and pretty, and in the summer I can wear it easily without the white dress. I hadded the chains to the apron at the last minute, btw, even though I already had them. No idea why I didn't remember that before the Midwinterfair, good accessories really finish up an outfit. The chains are actually a necklace I picked up from goodwill because the way it looked made me think of the beaded chains you see in viking art and reproductions. I just tacked them onto the apron with a button and a safety pin, so I can take them off to wash the apron. It's not part of the outfit in the game, but I think it looks nice. :)

( Bonus shots! )

So... yay, a new year? Had a bit of a rocky start to mine, due to a bit of a freak-out over taxes when something which is stressful for me to start with did not go well at all. I had planned to do some sewing on Saturday as well, but because of the freak-out I didn't start until late in the afternoon.

And then, in the middle of shortening the first sleeve of the white Skyrim dress, I noticed this:


The fabric of the neckline just frayed straight through the stitching :(. I can see two ways to fix it: the first, and probably best way, is to take off the facing, design and make a new neckline shape and embroidery, and sew the new facing on, this time with larger seam allowances. This will take long, though, and I'm scheduled to wear this again on the 24th, so I'll probably go with option 2: tuck in the raw edges, hand-sew it closed and add a blanket stitch along the inside of the neckline both to strengthen the existing seams and hide the fixed area. I can always decide to go for option 1 later, right?

However, after the day I'd had, discovering this meant I shoved my sewing aside and spent the rest of the day reading the latest Shousetsu BangBang issue.

And speaking of Shousetsu BangBang! They announced the schedule for 2015 the other day, and their April issue is going to be about language. Which means they'll accept foreign-language stories or bilingual stories, either with or without translations.

Remember when I wrote Change of Heart, based on a Dutch song about a guy with a wooden heart? I used some Dutch terms and names in it, but even when I wrote it I knew I wanted to do a story where Dutch played a bigger role than that, I just never had the inspiration or push to actually figure it out.

But now! Now I have a specific reason to do this, and a deadline and all. So I signed up, and have been brainstorming ever since. Not sure quite yet what kind of story it's going to be, but I'm having fun already :D

Right! Post-fair thoughts. ^__^

First off, I thought I'd share the post-event carnage that is my sewing room:

I've noticed that as an event draws near I throw out whatever notions of tidyness I have and just grab whatever I need and leave it lying wherever. And when I come back I just pull off everything and dump it wherever. I could probably afford to be a little more organised about that. ^_^;

But onwards! The Midwinterfair was lots of fun. I arrived late because the fur on my hood wouldn't cooperate and it took me about two hours longer to finish that than I'd planned, but it was fine. All the good stuff was happening later in the day anyway, and I probably wouldn't have lasted until 9pm if I'd been there at noon instead of 2pm.

I didn't catch a lot of the storytelling (the story tent was always very full) but I caught most of the musical acts and though they kept starting late they were all great fun. In between I walked round browsing the stalls and chatting with people I know through the costuming community on Facebook. My aunt and uncle were there as well, and I ran into them a couple times.

The Skyrim outfit held up well, though I was very glad I'd made a cape at the last minute by the time evening rolled around. I didn't need it as much (or my gloves) during the day, because the weather was amazing (almost a full 10 degrees warmer than the rest of the week, sunny, not much wind), but as night fell the temp dropped considerably.

Even so, there are some alterations I want to do, mainly on the white underdress and the cape.

I had sewn loops into the seams of the white sleeves, so I could lace them tight. Unfortunately, the loops did not take the strain well:


This is easily solved, though: I'll just get more of the metal D-rings I got to lace the sides of the purple dress and replace the loops! While I'm at it I'll also shorten the sleeves somewhat, since though the bunched-up look worked well enough, a lot of the bunching happened around my wrists. I think it was just too much fabric to be compressed well. It's a quite dense fabric, after all. So I'll be making some strategic extra seams in those sleeves to shorten them.

Also, I completely forgot to hem the thing. *headdesk* It's shorter than the overdress, so it was not noticeable, and it didn't even fray that much, but for the next time I should definitely hem it.

And wash it. The inside has this orange sheen all over it from all the dust and sand and whatever gunk I kicked up by walking around all day.

On the cape I will have to find a way to close it more securely - the closures I posted look really nice, but they're maybe not big enough, or maybe the distance they're placed is not optimal. Also, I think I need an extra hook to keep the base of the hood closed, it kept turning outward and exposing my throat. I had to hold it closed while heading back home.

aien_hime and I have made plans to visit Haarzuilens in January for a little winter shoot. I hope it will have snowed some by then, this outfit deserves some snow. ^__^ I'm really looking forward to that, but I should make sure I've finished all these fixes before then!