Sabrina

Overall, a very productive year for historical sewing because of Costume College, at least for the first half of the year. Sadly, no modern makes and not much done lately.
1880s Undergarments: Chemise, Corset, Bust Pad, Ruffled Bustle Pad, and Petticoat

Felt very accomplished in making all of these. Not pictured is the little ruffled panel that I made to button on my Edwardian petticoat that I wore underneath. This corset is pretty and kinda fancy (gives a very curvy shape) and fits almost just right, but I still need to finish the flossing on it and want to make a new corset this year that is more comfortable and fits exactly right.

( See the rest here! )

Altogether about 12 individual items. Not too shabby and definitely a productive year for me. My 2015 goals were to:

1. Make clothes to wear over historical undergarments


2. Focus on fit


3. Make accessories


4. Use the stash


5. Figure out hair

I definitely made clothes, 3 outfits/dresses! I am pretty happy with the fit on all of the things I made, although there are a couple of small tweaks that I can and will make in the future. Did better on accessories for some things, although still weak in the hat department. All 3 outifts used stash fabrics (print cotton, green silk, purple synthetic, black chiffon). Hair was OK, but nothing to brag about. Mostly curling and some braids. Having bangs was definitely key with all the bustle stuff I was doing.

My goals for 2016 are looking pretty similar. I want more clothes, especially since I have so many undergarments now, although some more are on the list. Fit will always be a priority with me and something that can always be worked on. I want more comfort (range of movement in arms, waist placement) and I know how to do that, so I can put it into work this year. More accessories, for sure, especially hats but also a couple of other things that are on the docket. I got a bunch of straw hats for Christmas that I can cut up and take apart to make new hats! I bought a lot of fabric this year, so next year needs to be about using them! (A problem you can all sympathise with, I know.) Hair, well mine's getting longer, so some styles should be easier. Also, I have Kendra's 18th Hairstyling book, so that may come into play some time.

Whew! So that was sewing in 2015!

I made a ruffled bustle to replace my excessively large bustle pad. You can see the couple of different ones I based this on on my Pinterest board. The ruffles are made out of hair canvas bound with store bought double fold bias tape. (I figured that if the hair canvas is already part poly, it doesn't matter if the binding is too.) They're box pleated and bound with a cotton broadcloth band. The ties are cotton twill tape. The ruffles are 2 U shapes, the under one is 12 inches long and the top one about 5 inches. The top one is also twice as wide as the bottom layer. Gives a bit of a lift to the skirts.

I also took a picture of the flossing I did the other day. I think this will be my new project to work on while watching hockey games.

I'll get a picture of all the different layers on once I put the hook and eyelet on my petticoat and make some sort of bust padding.

I finally put in all the boning channels and eyelets and boning. All that's really left is the binding and any decoration. So I decided it was time for a try-on! This is, without a doubt, the curviest corset I have ever made. I managed to lace down my waist over an inch more than I usually can with a corset. (Measurements in this are 34.5 bust-24 waist-36 high hip) I'd probably be able to lace down even more if I wasn't so very short-waisted; my ribs get in the way. ;p

I've got a little bit too much room in the front bust and hips, but nothing terrible and the excess can mostly be tighted away in the bust. This is partly why the lacing gap is so uneven in the picture of the back. Maybe I should pad the bust a bit? The excess in the bottom front will be hidden by petticoats and such.

I'm wondering if the weird bunching at the back waist that can be seen in the second picture could be fixed by putting a flat spring steel bone in there instead of spirals. I should give that a try before I sew on the binding.

ETA: The flat did solve the problem in the CB. :)

Here are some pictures of the corset in-progress. I applied the CF-most casings today. You can see how curvy I tried to cut this corset. Hoping for some good hourglass shaping.

I trimmed down the seam allowances and pressed the seam open. Then I sewed the casing over the seam so that it's covered. Because the stitching on the sides of the casing is so close to the edge, from a distance it doesn't really even look like there's a casing applied. These casings had the tiniest edges, only 4mm turned under on either side.

And the inside looks nice and clean with the felled seams and the seam allowances on the outside for the front 2 seams.

I had my thesis defense this morning and passed! So I'm almost done with this whole master's thing. I'm not used to being up so early in the morning and, of course, I was a little bit nervous and stressed so I had trouble falling asleep last night. The sleepiness and the (minor) trauma of the defense itself make me not remember it very well. It was all a blur of trying to understand questions and answer them adequately. I remember people saying interesting things, but I only remember that they were interesting, not the things themselves lol. But I'm glad it's done and all that's left is to format the thing and submit it to the online database by April 1st. Then I graduate!

...and have to get started on that PhD thing. :p

I got a bit of sewing done yesterday on the corset, but having to sew almost all of the seams twice reminded me of why I was so glad to take a break from it and make a petticoat. At least the back facings and boning channels are in now. Next is felling seams.

Today I evened out the bottom of my corset, looked at a bunch of pictures of 1880s corsets, measured my corset, and ordered the appropriate boning. Not much, but better than nothing. I had originally thought that I could have 2 groupings of 3 bones at the front of the corset, but it is not to be. The area is just too small at the waist. Instead it's a pair then a group of 3 moving toward the side. My research (staring at many pictures) showed me that, although the groupings of 3 or more are most common, sometimes groups of 2 and 3 are mixed. I also changed the groupings of 3 toward the back of the corset to pairs for the same reason. So I spent less on boning than I was expecting. :)

Now I need to put on the back facings (which I had to recut and Just Barely had enough coutil for), put in the grommets, and remove all the basting. Then it will be time for boning channels and binding. Flossing will be last, but will probably be something I take a long time completing. I want to floss everything and make it look all pretty. More work, but, like the knitting, something that's easy to just pick up and do in front of the TV.

Knit a couple more rows on the shawl too. It's definitely looking more like a shawl now!

The 1880s corset is so fiddly I needed a break. Plus the living history stuff is more Regency-focused. So I went back to working on my Regency stays. Now the back pieces have boning channels! :) Unfortunately, sewing by hand for several hours on the couch all slouched gave me bad back pain, so that's on hold for the next couple of days. I'm going to an event on Saturday and will bring the stays to work on there.

My goal for the week is to finish up my 1880s petticoat. I now have the flounce trimmed with embroidery (store-bought eyelet) and tucks. I'm going to gather and attach the flounce with a facing to hide the raw edges inside. Then I'll just need to sew down the facing by hand and put on a waistband and closure. The closure will wait until I'm done the corset though, so I have an exact waist measurement. It won't matter if the waistband is a tad big. Then it'll be back to corsets and stays.

I got half of the corset together the other day, but also managed to run out of thread. So corset is now on hold until I can pick up some more silk thread. Having to re-sew things three times probably didn't help the thread situation. Also, I had put in a waist tape, but forgot to add it in until I had sewn about 1/2" past the waistline. I threw in the waist tape there, but once I got all the pieces together it was pretty clear that the waist tape was too low. I gave up on the waist tape and just cut it out of the seam. Oh well...

Since I'm out of silk thread, I'm going to get my petticoat cut out today and maybe put together. I can use cotton thread on that. If I get it done tomorrow, I can use it for my HSM 2015 foundations challenge.

Turns out I totally cut the front facing wrong. I cut out a long rectangle instead of accounting for the curves at top and bottom. It's fine for the CB facing because the back is fairly straight across, but I now need to cut out a new front facing. Colds make my brain not work. :p

I got half of the corset pieces basted together yesterday. Hoping to get the rest finished this week and start actually sewing the darn thing together. I don't think it'll get done this month, if only because I then have to order the boning, but it'll be mostly done. And I can get started on my petticoat in the meantime.

Slighly off-topic, I totally need a tiara. I don't have one! I've been looking at this one from Venus Jewelry:

I like the mix of pearls and rhinestones; sparkly and sort of with the "under the sea" theme for my Gala dress. But I want to wait a little bit and hope that the exchange rate gets better. The Canadian dollar keeps going down. :p