Sabrina

Things I made in 2014 (some still need a bit of finishing, but are mostly done), with comments:
1. Smooth Sailing grey wool trousers: need hemming, nice wardrobe staple, will be good for when I have to look professional or something like a grown-up ;p

2. 1790s plum silk stays: technically need tape over the seams, but wearable as is, SO GLAD to finally have these done!

3. 1790s cotton-linen shift: practical and useful
( More behind the cut! )
I did a terrible job on my 2014 goals, but don't care at all. I ended up wanting to sew different things. It happens. :p

On average I managed to sew one thing per month. Not bad for me. I also tried out a lot of new techniques and made a wide variety of garments. 2015 will mostly be CoCo sewing: lots of 1880s stuff and possibly a couple of other eras thrown in, plus many more accessories! :)

Today doesn't seem to be a very busy day on my LJ Friends page, so I'm filling up the silence with a fun discovery that I made the other day while browsing in my university library: a book of embroidery patterns from 1780-1820! It is called Embroidery Designs, 1780-1820 by Mildred J. Davis and is from the manuscript collection at the Valentine Museum in Richmond, VA. I didn't get a chance to look at it too closely, but it appears to be a bunch of designs drawn by some guy from the era that have been collected and published. It's mostly pictures of the designs, with just a bit of text at the beginning and end of the book. I guess this means I need an embroidered dress or two soon, before I'm not a student here anymore. (I've already been thinking of a 1790s gown with silk polychrome embroidery and a 1810 gown with white embroidery. My tambour needle is going to come in very handy.) The patterns are really pretty, lots of different sorts of borders (wide and narrow) and corner designs. (The narrow designs really remind me of the ones jenthompson painted on her most recent gorgeous gown.) Mostly plant-like designs, sprays of flowers, acorns with oak leaves, scrolling vines, etc. They are very reminiscent of the ones by Ackermann's Repository, although those designs are mostly later (I think 1809-1829), so there are some differences in style. Some of the designs are also done in colours. I was pretty excited when I saw this book randomly on the shelf. :)

In other news, aside from being slowly crushed by the weight of all my end of term essays, I've also been working a little bit on my 1790 stays. The bottom is almost entirely bound. Then it's just binding the top, the eyelets for the straps, and putting in some horizontal boning at the front. I want to add tape over the seams but can't find any narrow enough locally, which brings me to my next point...

In other, other news, I will be going over the ocean for about a week and a half on May 1st to visit Paris, London, and Edinburgh! Definitely hitting up a few fabric stores while there. Right now I'm thinking Edinburgh Fabrics and the stores on Goldhawk Road. Also going to check out all the pretties at the Victoria and Albert Museum. But first, I need to get through these essays. And hopefully finish my stays in time for the HSF UFO challenge. And I may be left with enough time to try out this pants pattern with some tan stretch houndstooth I have sitting in my stash so I have more things to wear on my trip.

So, I dug out my twill tape to start binding my stays and realized that I only have enough to bind the bottom half. And I also discovered that my original plan of machine sewing on the binding first (before flipping to the back and handsewing down) was not going to work. Thus, HSF #1 is not to be. I won't have a chance to get to the fabric store until this weekend to get the twill tape that I need and finishing will be a much more significant time commitment. The stays have now been pushed to the UFO challenge, for which they should definitely be done. It's not a huge deal that I didn't get #1 done on schedule because I was only planning on doing the even challenges anyways, with the first one as a bonus. But it makes me a bit sad that my first challenge was a bust. I guess I should get going on #2. Luckily, grey pants should be much easier. Especially since I'm using a pattern I've used before.

I feel like I've been so busy this summer that I haven't had time for anything. But life is good, especially the life of a research assistant at the university. I mean, they pay me to read! How awesome is that? I've been doing a little bit of sewing, which I will have picture proof of some time. I'm trying to get my plum silk stays done and have sewn all the pieces together by hand after taking them apart. I had originally sewn them by machine, but after holding them up against me, they looked too small. The tiny bits in the seam allowances that have been released by whipping and opening the seams by hand has made them a little bit bigger, and I hope it's enough. Up next is eyelets (by hand) and boning channels (by machine).

I've really enjoyed seeing everyone's Costume College pictures this year. It's a highlight every year seeing the finished products of all the weeks and months leading up to the event. Even though I've never been and may never get to go, it's still fun to live vicariously through the fabulous pictures on my friends list. So thank you all for sharing!

At the moment the eyelet count is: 6 done, 14 to go (not including the ones in the straps).

Due to the ridiculous weather, my brother and I declared a snow day for ourselves and are playing hooky from school. It's incredibly windy and impossible to see anything because it's also snowing and the wind is blowing that snow and the snow from the drifts (since we got tons of snow on the weekend as well) everywhere and everything is just white. (Just for reference, it's -14 C (-27 C with the windchill) or 7 F (-17 F with the windchill), the wind is at N 48 km/h (gust 63 km/h) or N 30mph, and a blizzard warning is in effect.) So calling a snow day is totally justified. Plus, with all the drifts, if we got stuck, I'd have to be the one pushing the car because my brother can't for health reasons. Little 5 ft tall me just does not have the mass or strength to be pushing a whole car out of a snowdrift. :p However, since my prof is a jerk, I'm pretty sure that he'll make being in class today worth extra points or something.

Anyways, on the sewing front, all I want to do is make corsets. Is that weird? No, of course not. I got a little bit of work done on my stays and have re-sewn the fronts by hand. Next up is starting the boning channels and eyelets. But what I really want is more canvas to make corset mock-ups in. I really think that the whole playing around with the historical pattern and getting it to fit right is my favourite part. :)

So here are various pictures, just because I was in the mood to take some and say, "Here. Look. I'm sewing things!" These are the pictures of the stays-in-progress. :)
( Pictures! Yay! )
Up next is undoing the front seam. (There won't be any seams in this thing left un-redone after I'm through with it.) I decided the "right sides together then flipping" resulted in a not good result, as in the lining will be a little visible later. So I now need to sew the outer fashion fabric layer over the edge, but not a big deal. 

Ok, I'm back at school, so sewing has slowed, BUT it  has not halted. Yay me! I decided that I'm not exactly happy with some of the seams I've whipped together on the stays and want to redo at least one (maybe two) now that I'm getting better at it. So far I have half the seams done, but with the redo well, less than half, I guess. I can't decide how many to redo. For sure the front one, since it's the most visible. (What's happened is that I didn't make my stitches far enough away from the first row of stitching that holds under the seam allowances, so when there's tension on the seams, some of the other stitching shows.) But for the under arm seam, where it's only in one spot and for the back seam where it's also only in one even smaller spot, doesn't seem worth it. Redo-ing isn't really my idea of a good time, however, there's only six seams altogether so it's really not that bad. It's just that pushing the needle through all those layers is tough on the fingers. I think that next time (even though I'm really hoping that there won't need to be a next time for 18th century stays any time soon ;p), if I'm not feeling like a stickler for accuracy, I may just sew all the seams by machine after sewing under the seam allowances.

On an unrelated note, the weather is all sunny and it's super mild out (well, about as mild as Canadian Prairies in January ever gets), which makes me happy. It's actually supposed to be above freezing this week, which is just ridiculous. :D

Our computer was out of commission for a little bit but now it's back on track. As is my sewing. I have a new pair of 18th century stays on the way. Since last time, patterns were cut out, a mock-up was made that fit almost perfectly, it was adjusted, pieces were all cut out and marked, and today I ironed them and have begun the sewing. I'm using the method used by koshka_the_cat and have turned under all the seam allowances and sewn them close to the edge (but by machine instead). Now I'm whip-stitching the seams, but this is taking a while. Pushing a needle through twelve layers of fabric (three layers and their seam allowances for both pieces) is rough on the fingers. But they're looking pretty! Which is, of course, the important thing. And they're coming together super fast. They're a little on the short side, but I guess that's to be expected with stays from 1790, nearing being transitional and all. They end at the natural waist with the tabs below that. Will definitely still work for 1780s and 1790s, which is what I wanted. So, overall, so far, Sabrina - 1, Stays/Corsets - 0.

However, at the same time of enlarging this pattern, I went enlarging-happy and also did a pattern for an 1860 corset and an 1890s one. I've cut out the 1860 one and did a mock-up which is aptly named because it's mocking me. It doesn't fit so well. Although, I did not put any boning in it when I tried it on, which may have contributed. But there are some things that I think really need changing, like it was just too big. So I'm going to make some adjustments to my mock-up (luckily, I left lots of room in the seam allowances to play with) and add some boning and see how that goes. It's tough though, because I'm not entirely sure exactly how it's supposed to fit, so making adjustments is a little sketchy. And now the score is Sabrina - 1, Stays/Corsets - 1. Which isn't too bad.

The 1890s one is a little more promising, because it appears to have the perfect measurements for me, so in theory I shouldn't really have to adjust much, right? I don't know though, because I ran out of fabric to do mock-ups in. I also have no plans to make anything from that era. I mostly want to make this one because I have some pretty ideas for it and hey! it's the right size for me. But what I'm getting to is whether it'd be OK to use an 1890s corset for earlier. This one has two bust gussets and a separate hip piece, which I've seen a lot in 1860s corsets. How much change in silhouette do you think there was? Is an 1890s corset going to be alright to use for 1870s clothing? I mean, using an earlier style corset always makes sense, but a later one gets kinda questionable. Well, maybe the 1860 one will just start to behave and this will no longer be an issue. Input? Opinions?