Chemise a la Ikea

Well, so much for having pink hair, that lasted for a day until it faded to this burgundy red color...which is one of my least favorite hair colors ever after the huge boom in this red shade thanks to Rhinanna a few years back. Call me a hipster, but that crazy over popularity of this hair color ruined it for me. No offense to anyone rocking the deep red shade, it does look great on other people, but it really just isn't for me. I started going through these photos, got fed up looking at the color, and immediately went to shampoo my hair twice to try and fade the color to something lighter so it would be at least a bit more pink...why didn't I just let a professional do it? I'm so DIY in every aspect of my style, but some things, like pink hair apparently, need to be left to the professionals.

Aren't I a grump today? Shall we continue with my gripes? (answer: not really...) Well, moving right along, I don't think this dress is very flattering on me. I loved how it came out when I finished sewing it, it fits quite well, and the faux chemise a la reine front turned out just as I planned, but perhaps it's the curse of the color white that this dress just isn't very slimming. Maybe it's the square neckline I don't find flattering? I dunno. I could have gone further with the 18th century idea and build boning into the bodice and made it more conically shaped, as stays help anyone look less frumpy I imagine. I'll brag and say I got tons of compliments wearing the dress to the botanic gardens this weekend, but I think people just like seeing a petticoat. Perhaps it's fine and I'm just too grumpy to see it clearly, its always hard to say. I am really happy with the construction of this dress at least, and I have enough fabric left over to make something else, but I think I'll be over dying the extra fabric with light blue or green RIT dye before I make anything else as to avoid the same frumpy effect white can have one me.

This dress is made from an Ikea duvet cover. Yes really. I bought it to make an 18th century gown, but as I do a lot less costuming these days, I decided to make a 1950's version of a chemise a la reine/round gown instead. I made the back have a princess seam instead of a dart for a more 18th century style effect, and then separated the bodice front into two sections with the center front being a triangle-ish shape like an 18th century stomacher with gathering in three vertical sections like the drawstring channels of a round gown. The drawstring gathering is further simulated by adding small white bows of ribbon in the centers of these "channels" along the "stomacher" of the bodice. A little bit 18th century, and mostly a 1950's dress with the skirt cut as a circle style with only one seam down the back. The sleeves are a bit baggy as I cut them on the bias and it stretched quite a bit while worn. I cut them on the bias as I have never used this 3/4 sleeve pattern with a non-stretch fabric before and didn't know how a regular woven would fit if cut on the straight grain. I am also having trouble with my sleeve pattern lately and am wondering if my armscye has somehow shrunk on my bodice pattern as the sleeve caps keep coming out too big. It's not the most horrific thing as I can always gather the sleeve tops for a bit of puff to fit, but it's something I need to fix!

I suppose it doesn't matter what the photos look like if you felt like a princess in the dress at the time? Hmm. Blogging can be weird sometimes. I felt great in this outfit on the day, but I don't like the look of it now in pictures? I think my hair really is clouding my vision, and like my mom keeps telling me, its all in my head and no one else will see what I see. I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to these things you know, I should probably just chill.

Dress: Made by me
Shoes: Royal Vintage Shoes
Handbag & Jewelry: Vintage
Belt: Target
Hosiery: What Katie Did

Sunday Spotlight: Love & Friendship

I think it's safe to assume most of you reading this are Jane Austen fans, I mean who doesn't love Jane Austen? The latest film inspired by her works, an adaptation of her early work called Lady Susan, is a film called Love & Friendship. Was this a terrible choice for the title of the film? Possibly. Would Lady Susan have been a much better title? Absolutely yes. Sill, I'll begin by saying I really enjoyed the film!

Goodness knows I'll go see most films set in the 18th century just for the costumes alone, but with the addition of Jane Austen I'll see it opening weekend! Lady Suasn (Kate Beckinsale) is recently widowed, has next to no income, and has been living by visiting her relations. Her neglected daughter is of little concern to her as she doesn't see much of herself in her and she has recently refused a wealthy suitor (who is a bumbling fool, but 10,000 a year ladies!). Lady Susan is a bit Becky Sharp in the best way, sure she is manipulative and arrogant but she has mastered the art of living as a woman in her time. She navigates trying to get both herself and her daughter married to wealthy men, all while keeping her own married lover on the on the side. I won't say anymore as I think you should all go see it! The film is definitely on the comedy side of Austen's work and I found it quite funny indeed :)

As for the costumes, I'd give the film an 7 out of 10. There was a nice use of the stages of mourning for lady Susan with her costumes starting out all black, moving into black and purple, then lighter purples, and finally regular colors once more. The costumes were definitely modernized for a modern audience and mostly with success, for example the black velvet coat with the large black fur was glamorous and lovely. I also liked the use of sheer fabrics and tulle overlays even if tulle isn't historically accurate. As for the costume misses, there were a few gowns where the necklines were just ill fitted and awkwardly high? The lavender dress at the end of this post and another dress Susan wears in light pink both have this strangely too high neckline, and you can see the neckline of the stays is lower which created a weird look. There was also a gown of Susan's closest friend Alicia (Chloe Sevigny) that had an unfortunate stomacher situation going on. Mostly I quite liked the costumes, I'd love to have the black velvet coat and the epic hats!

Time Traveling

If you live anywhere near Los Angeles and you haven't been to the Getty Museum you are really (really) missing out on an amazing museum. When I lived in LA for a year I would come at least twice a month! The 18th century rooms and art galleries are my favorite of course, but the 19th century art is marvelous too, and the medieval manuscripts, and the garden with its magnificent view...you get the idea, it is an amazing place! 

I didn't get the best photos as we were in a bit of a rush (I packed my one day in LA rather full...) and we had met my lovely friend (and college roomie) Nicola at the museum so the blog took a bit of a backseat (Quelle horreur!). I tried to get some outfit photos outside but the grumpy guard said we looked too professional and asked us to stop taking pictures! I'm just a little blogger people calm down! Anyways, I wore a new dress I made for my trip in black cotton sateen. It is super classic with a higher neck, 3/4 sleeves, and a straight cut skirt. Despite its simplicity I LOVE this dress. My new favorite LBD for sure. I paired it with a mid-century modern/brutalist silver brooch, similar silver earrings, and heels that were no good for walking around a museum for a few hours (my poor feet, oops). You will be seeing this dress again soon in some better lighting as it goes super marvelously with my big black straw hat and I can't wait to wear it again! It is still occasionally wintry here with random days of snow, though it was quite warm today so who knows what kind of clothes I'll be wearing while I wait for spring to properly arrive!

I hope you all have a nice start to the week! Happy April, it came out of nowhere for me and I'll be playing catch up all month!

Dress: Made by me
Shoes: Modcloth
Belt: Banana Republic
Brooch & Earrings: Vintage

The Spirit of Winter

I made this bodice back in 2012, embroidering the sequin and rhinestone zone front from the comfort of my dorm room in London. The trimmings and sequins were bought in the lovely little haberdashery shops around Regent and Berwick Streets. I finished sewing it all up while in Paris that summer, and since then it has sat untouched and unloved thrown in with the rest of my sewing graveyard. This week I finally stitched some eyelets down the back and got to wear my sparkling blue bodice!

Is it in any way historically accurate? No. So I decided to pair it with a brand new glittering organza skirt. The skirt turned out very princess worthy, and shed glitter ALL OVER my sewing room. I am storing it in a trash bag because this skirt is a glitter bomb, I'm sure I left a trail of silver glitter in the snow! The white cloak is one of the oldest costume pieces I have and was made for me by my wonderful mother back when I was a tween (for an Arwen Halloween costume). What could be better than a fully lined crushed velvet cloak?!

I had originally wanted to post photos of this wintry costume for Christmas Eve, but it hadn't snowed in a while and I knew I wanted photos in the snow! It snowed on Christmas day, and then again that night, meaning Saturday was perfectly winter wonderland worthy. I can't say this ensemble kept me particularly warm (I'd need a flannel petticoat and nice mitts for that to be true!) but it sure was fun prancing around in the snow despite the cold!

I hope you all have had a lovely holiday, I am looking forward to many things in the coming new year, including lots of sewing projects of course! I have been using my time off to sketch and plan my next few projects and can't wait to get started, except that I have promised myself I will clean my sewing room before I start anything new....It may take me a while to clean up the glitter from this skirt!

Outlander Ensemble: Stomacher Embroidery Update

Trying to get good photos of anything in my sewing room always proves to be impossible... Anyways, here is my progress on my embroidered stomacher so far for my planned Outlander ensemble. I had forgotten how long embroidery takes, which has been trying my patience, but I really enjoy the actual process of embroidering so that makes up for the time suck of it all.

The first of the big leaves is finished. I used chain stitch for both the outline and to fill in the shape with gradated shades of green. The swirling stems of the leaves are all done in chain stitch too. The smaller leaves are outlined in split stitch (similar in look to chain stitch) and the filled in with long and short stitch to shade them. I'm not exactly sure how I want to fill in the thistles yet. I know I'll just use long stitches for the purple "fluff" part of the flowers, but I think I'll try some sort of padded laid work for the round bulb bit of each flower. I'd love to add a few spangles (aka sequins) somewhere too but we shall see.

Seeing as we are having a snowy week here in Colorado, cozying up with a mug of coffee, QI on the ol' laptop, and my embroidery sounds like just about the perfect way to spend an hour :)

Outlander Ensemble: Stomacher Design

Today I began work on what I image will be the most time consuming part of my planned Outlander inspired 18th century ensemble, the hand embroidered stomacher. I have never made a costume from the earlier half of the 18th century, but I have made a few embroidered stomachers before. I have a half finished evening bodice knocking about with a zone front I embroidered in silver beads and sequins that one day I will finally add eyelets down the back of so I can wear it! This will be my first more traditional style embroidered stomacher, and I am already thoroughly enjoying the embroidering process!

The first step was to settle on a design for the embroidery, and as Outlander's costumes are a mix of historical and more modern/fantasy elements, I decided I didn't need to be too exact in replicating a historical stomacher. Still, I looked at some extant pieces for reference as luckily many embroidered stomachers from the 18th century have survived. I want to use similar stitches and style for my own embroidery even if the motif will be a bit more modern.

England, 1730-1750, V&A

England, 1730-1750, V&A

British, 1720, MET

British, first quarter of the 18th century, MET

A close up of the last stomacher

 In this close up view you can see how the leaves are filled in with lines of very small chain stitch embroidery. I plan on using this same stitch style for most of my design and the same gradation of colors from a dark green outline to a more yellow-green center.

Of course when it came to the actual motif of my stomacher, there really only was one option, thistles of course! I mean this is a Scottish inspired ensemble after all, and what could be more Scottish than thistles? Though I would rather be using wool thread for this embroidery, I already have plenty of cotton thread and my budget for this costume is rather thin, so cotton it is!

Above is my design, a swirling thistle branch or two with large leaves.

After I sketched out the design, I traced it onto some thick linen-look cotton fabric and got to work! I worked for a few hours and only finished one of the large leaves, and only half way! It's slow work, but work I really enjoy. I have missed embroidery as I haven't done a project in a long while. One of the best parts about a historical embroidery project like this one is just how connected you feel to the craftswomen of the past. No machine, just your hands, and a needle and thread, just like they did it in the 18th century. It was a very peaceful way to spend the afternoon! I may have had the 1st episode of the show on re-watch in the background too...