I've trudged away at the striped cotton anglaise, and I'm so close to the finishing line! In an attempt to get that fabled picture of the dress with matching fall leaves and crispy skies last weekend, I did an awful marathon hem on the petticoat, so that needs to be redone, and then it just needs the rings and strings for the draping and the sleeve lining needs to be sewn down.

Oh, the photoshoot? It ended in epic fail with me having a hangover and Jo being dizzy from the swineflu vaccine and us, despite all this, being in a hurry to get to the cottage for the weekend. I put on the dress over my old stays and when trying to pin it close I realised the stays weren't laced tight enough so I just said *f* it. That picture will just have to be arranged later, with or without my perfect coloured leaves...

I'm 99% sure I'll wear this for the Tolkien Society event next weekend, so pics might follow that.

Anywhoo, in the meantime, here are some more progress pics from the weekend before last. First the skirt pleating. I wanted to do the pleats so that it looked exactly like the stripes (you know what I mean), but them being an uneven number that didn't work out. But I think the stripes are at least somewhat mirrored so I'm not majorly displeased. To the right you can see how I stitched down the back of the pleats a few cm below the seamline - it doesn't show on the front but it makes them lie flat. Nifty.


And then, since you all have cute costumers' cats I thought I'd share my little helper, the red ear slider turtle Frida, my soulmate since 1991. She just loves to nap on or clamber all over whatever I'm working on, whether it's a book or a dress with a thousand pins...

Back in June 2007 during the Marie Antoinette craze, I bought 15 meters of striped cotton in order to make the dress I sketched up to the right. As you can see on my moodboard, I was completely in love with the pale blue striped en fourreau back MA dress and that en fourreau has been my demise. I made up the petticoat and then full stop. This dress has been on my 'must-finish' list since, and every fall I've made a new mockup in the hopes of getting it done but then, meh. So this year I had a sneaking suspicion the en fourreau was to blame, I just decided to save that for a future project and play around with the stripes on this one instead.

This time I didn't start out by draping a new mockup or tracing off a new pattern, but just used the bodice pattern for my pondicherry jacket, which fit me well. Just to doublecheck, I made the lining first and tried it on (over my half-finished new stays).


Then I played around with the pattern on the fabric (LOVE using transparent plastic for patterns!) and decided I wanted to have the brown stripe run from the back via the shoulder strip to the front creating a slight V-shape in the front and a more dramatic one in the back. To the left you can see how I laid it out on the fabric (I cut out one side first and carefully pinned that on top of the fabric to make sure I got the exact same pattern for the stripes on the second piece). In the second picture you see how pinning the fabric along the stripes when making up the garment helps keeping the stripes in check, and the last pictures show the result, back and front.



So after a two-year hiatus and snail pace attempts I've managed to make up and trim the bodice and sleeves in one weekend. =)
I've also cut out the overskirt so basicly hemming and pleating it to the bodice and sewing on the strings for the drapery is all that's left! Yay!
Oh, speaking of the drapery - this dress has been called the polonaise en fourreau, but since it's no longer en fourreau and due to my new conviction that these dresses aren't strictly polonaises, I'll drop that name and just call it a draped up anglaise.

The reason why I've always picked this project up during the fall is because I have this perfect photo with fall leaves and the sky matching the dress in mind, and hopefully I'll pull that off before all the leaves are gone.

And since I was going on and on about the fabulousness that is Your Wardrobe Unlock'd in my previous accessories post, I thought I'd give you all a chance to see exactly how fabulous its proprietor Cathy is.

She has just posted a FREE masterclass to draft any corset pattern to size as a teaser for the soon-to-be-launched sistersite to YWU: Foundations Revealed - the Corsetmaker's Companion!
Cathy says this tutorial is "A tool with which you can take your measurements (instructions included), select a historic corset pattern - any corset pattern, in fact - and reproduce it in your own bespoke size." I can't wait to try it out!

I think you should become a member of course, but even if you don't, this tutorial is free for downloading! =)

How superb is this?
Massively!

I'm very much in the mood for sewing, but not on the projects I'm currently working on, so instead of CADDing out, I though I might get planning on some new 18th C accessories. So I thought I'd share some tutorials and resources I've collected.


Here's what I had in mind:

	• A cap, mainly for my pondicherry jacket outfit, but a cap can be used for undress wear with anything. I'll be making up the cap and coif patterns from the lovely Duran Textiles newsletter, and the instructions from here. (Picture borrowed from Duran)
	• Miniature portraits, from bauhausfrau's excellent tutorial at Your Wardrobe Unlock'd. Yes you'll need a subscription to get to all the goodies there, but I've subscribed since the beginning and promise you it's such a wealth of information!
	• Hats, from Madame Berg's tutorial on how to make an 18th C hat from place mats =) I've already bought my place mats and I've been itching to try this out!
	• Making ostrich plumes for the hats using Lynn McMasters thoughrough tutorial on YWU. And as I just said, this subscription is really worth your bucks! I've bought ostrich plumes in several colours from one of my favourite eBay suppliers, so I'm all set for this.

She's back! I sent my Sooah away for a new faceup by Heceta, a danish artist, and she's finally come home!
While her head was gone I took advantage of her body (wait, that came out wrong) and made her a new dress as a welcome home present. I was inspired by the over-the-top dresses in the MA movie and dubbed this the I Want Candy dress. The great thing about bjd costuming is that I can go nuts on colours and trimmings the way I'd never do for myself...


Clicketyclick to enlarge.

Wig and fan by Court and Castle, and she's got new glass eyes from Triskel Fantasy.

I've always called draped up skirts from the 18th C á la polonaise, and for simplicity if anyone would ask, I'd say that a polonaise was a draped up anglaise. I had assumed that the á la polonaise refered to the style of draping, but it seems I (along with the majority of the costuming community) might have been wrong. Sparked by a discussion brought up on the Historical Sewing Forum (which you should join if you're into the 18th C and haven't already) I dug around a little, and found some tidbits about what a polonaise actually might have been.


Here's a passage from Waugh's Cut of Women's Clothes page 73:
Though this term is often applied to any 18th century dress with back drapery it belongs, strictly speaking, to an over dress that appeared c. 1775. This was cut like a man's coat of the same period, with centre back and two far-back side seams all terminating in inverted pleats, the front being in one piece with an underarm dart. It was caught to the top of the bodice centre front, and fell back into slight folds shewing a tight-fitting bodice or corsage, and the petticoat. The side seams of the skirts had tapes, or rings through which tapes could be threaded, to loop the material into puffs.

So the bunching of the skirt seems to have been optional, and yet nowadays any bunched dress is called a polonaise. Oh the irony...
I won't risk copyright infringement by scanning the pattern, but there are patterns for these 'real' polonaises on pages 94 and 96)

From "18th-century French Fashions in Full Color" by Blum:
Polonaise. A robe with skirt fronts pulled back to form three coattail sections which are held up by ties or drawstrings. It is worn over a matching or contrasting skirt having a flounce or deep border around the hem.
Polonaise á deux fins i a gown with a skirt back made to be worn either draped up or released to hang in a train (thus, "two-purpose polonaise").
Robe á la Reine or á la polonaise. In fashion from 1776 to 1787, this robe consisted of a bodice with an attached overskirt whose fronts were pulled back to show the underskirt. Often the cords that drew up the overskirt were decorative and ended in rosettes or tassels. The bodice was held in place at the top with a pin (agrafe) covered by a bow (parfait-contentement). The ceter was left open to show a vestee. The robe had short split sleeves and was richly decorated.

So after reading this and scrutinising all polonaises in the 'Galerie' that I could find, I'm surmising that none of them were draped up anglaises with a fitted back but had the pleated jacket style backs. Polonaise was not the name for the draping but for the style in which the back was cut. Therefore a caraco could be á la polonaise and not be draped at all; while a dress could be either made to be draped, generally called a robe á la polonaise; or be made to be either draped or not, called polonaise á deux fins since it could be used both ways. They all seem to have had curved edges on the sides, and all of them seem to have been worn over petticoats with rather large flounces or borders.

Here are three examples of a fashionplates (and I hope I don't end up in hell for posting these...)

First up is the caraco á la polonaise where you can clearly see the back seams, and nothing is draped up.



Then the robe a la polonaise where you can sort of see that the front isn't as fitted as an anglaise and is one with the skirt. This one is made to be draped and looks like it would never be undraped. I also noticed that this bunching up doesn't look very much like the pouffy draped up anglaises - it's more draped than pouffed, if you see what I'm getting at. ;)


And at last the polonaise á deux fins which apparently was made to be either draped or not, and is shown undraped here. If I hadn't read the description I'd have taken this for an ordinary anglaise that could be draped up, but I don't see the seams in the back so I'll trust Mrs Blum.



So, is a polonaise as we know it not really a polonaise? Did some historian at some point assume that because most polonaises were draped, that polonaise refered to the draping and not to the style of the cut?
The little polonaise that couldn't?

I'd love to hear others' thoughts on this!

I just rediscovered Blackadder III the other night =)
For some reason I've only watched the elizabethan and WWII reruns on TV lately, and had completely forgotten that there's an 18th C season!!
Ok, so the costumes aren't super-über-accurate, but they are foppishly yummy and there's lots of lavish embroidery and pretty hats. A perfect combo of my beloved late 18th C and brittish humour =)

(And in sewing news I'm sans man this week and spend my coveted evenings to myself sewing on Sooah's homecoming 18th C sherbert dress)

Before leaving for Japan I had arranged for the very talented Heceta to do a new faceup for my Elfdoll Sooah. I've always loved Sooah, but her faceup was too peachy/orange and just didn't feel period enough for me, and I wanted something a little more unique.

I was very specific with what I wanted and send her several pictures of other faceups that I liked with exact info on what I liked and disliked about them.

But I still don't think I was quite prepared for the fantastic result. My heart literally JUMPED when I saw her preliminary pictures! She is prettier and more perfect than I could have imagined =)
Pretty, flushed cheeks and gorgeous beauty spots! I even like her old blue eyes now!

I can't wait to get her home...
I'm sewing a very "I-want-candy" 18th C dress for her as a welcome home present!

The old faceup to the left and the new one to the right ;-)

Whoohoo!
I was very kindly given the Amadeus Award for Taste & Excellence by the very inspiring Lithia Black! =)


This means I now get to pass this award on to 5 other blogs or journals, and, in no particular order, I would like to present it to:

Maggie of padawansguide fame, because she's such a sweet person and gives so much time and energy to the costuming community via her LJ and the Costumer's guide Loren, our bauhausfrau and dollhausfrau with the froufy dresses and one of the perpetrators who lured me into the bjd world. Kat, madamekat who's wonderful and often gothic influenced victorian dresses make me leave the 18thC for victorian forays every now and then. Katherine at koshka_the_cat, who whips up the most amazing creations in no time at all, with the best eye for detail. Bjarne, tailordrews, the most authentic 18th C costumer I've had the pleasure of following, who makes both ladies' and gents' creations - a silk fanatics dream.

I'm sure all or some of you talented people have already been given this award, but if not, please grab the picture, and pass this along to 5 other (supposedly 18th C) bloggers who've inspired you!

As I didn't finish the Pondicherry jacket before leaving on vacation I have decided to wear it to an event I'm hosting some time in October, but I have loads of other projects planned for this fall so I'm eager to finsih it off. It's a relatively simple project, but since I'm sticking to hand sewing, it's taking a little longer than whizzing through with the machine.

I really love hand sewing though, it's very relaxing and it looks so genuine with the visible seams. I'm using the technique described in Costume Close-Up, which is new to me; sewing three layers in one seam and then slip- or whipstitching the last lining into place. It results in no visible seams on the inside and a decorative seam on the outside.

Since it's new to me and I really like it, I thought I'd share. =)

So when I left you all back in July I was franticly trying to finsih either my new 18th C stays or my 18th C jacket in time for the annual Tolkien Society summer event. As it turned out, my scatterbrained indecisive attempt to finish either of two garments obviously resulted in neither of them being finished. ;)

I couldn't stand the thought of going to an event without something new to wear, and the great thing about the society is that there's no need for period accuracy, so I threw something together, none of which had been seen by them before, but none of which was actually intended to be worn together... So I give you: - my handsewn 18th C linen shift - my modern leather underbust corset - the linen 18th C petticoat meant to go with my new stays. (please pardon my weird expression and all the society bling covering the costume)(PS. that's Jo's and my viking tent I'm standing in front of =) Despite my disapointment in not finishing things as planned, I'm quite pleased with my Quasi-wood-elf-ish costume - and after all, quasi is what I do best ;) Now onwards and upwards! My stays and jacket obviously need to be finished, and then I want to get cracking on my 18thC/modern jacket.

So my 3 weeks in Japan are over. I went from Harajuku girl to office drone in one day and now it all seems like a dream...

The trip was so great! We had 2½ weeks in Okinawa in southern Japan, being earthquaked, diving with Manta rays and soaking on the beach. Then we had half a week in Tokyo, and it's a good thing we'd both been there before and knew what we wanted to see (where we wanted to shop), cos those last few days were so (hot!) few.

Apart from coming home with half the Harajuku Spinns and Wego secondhand stores I got a chance to indulge in two of my "special" interests, Gothic lolita fabric shopping and BJD voyeurism at the Volks store ;)

I got 5 meters each of two pretty Cosmo fabrics which were only 680 and 780 yen/m =)

And I schlepped Jo to the Volks store and he actually didn't seem all too bored. Since I excuse my BJD ownership with costuming for them I couldn't justify buying any of the gorgeous costumes for sale there, but I had allowed myself to buy a wig or shoes if I found any, but, luckily for my wallet, i didn't and only ended up drooling over the displays.



We stayed at such a great hotel smack in the centre of Shibuya, and I could sit for hours in the window looking at the Shibuya 6-road zebra crossing and the Shinjuku skyline...

I love Tokyo so much! In hindsight I wish we'd spent a few more days there, but I'm still hoping Jo will get a job transfer there some day. If not I'll just have to tag along on one of his business trips there again, like my last 'lost in translation' trip. ;)

I had persisted so well with my handsewn eyelets, and was beginning to think that I might wear the new stays at the Tolkien Society event this comming weekend. But. Then I went to the store to pick up the binding I had picked out and they only had about a meter or so... Oh woe.

It is such a difficult colour to match (yellowy warm green) and the other stores I'd been into hadn't had anything close, so while I had a few stores I hadn't checked out yet, the hope was quite slim. So this weekend I've been in limbo. I can't go to an event without at least one new thing. Should I hope for binding and thus continue with the stays or should I drop them and instead pour my efforts into finishing the pondicherry jacket? Of course I ended up doing both, silly me. ;)

I made some adjustments to my old (pinned) mockup of the jacket, changed the pattern and made a new (sewn) mockup, which fit quite well. (I always pin my first mockup as they're easier to change, then either sew that one or sew a new version). So I've started cutting out the fabric. On my new sewing table, yay! Here you can see my second mock and my pretty Frankenpattern =)



I'm not wearing stays in the pictures, and it's only pinned with one pin in the front where it will be laced, and I haven't tried the sleeves, but still ;)

Yesterday as I went to the neighbouring town to get my hair cut I had gone half an hour earlier to go to check for binding at a store I'd heard of, but the f-ing buss was late so I missed my connecting bus and the next one was - you guessed it - half an hour later. And of course the store was closed when my hairdresser was done. (But I like my hair - I'm back in black, yay! It feels like coming home after my honeyblonde spell.)

So I've decided that there's no way I'm, gonna find binding and get the stays bound by thursday, so it's all guns geared towards the jacket now. We have guests over tomorrow, so I really need to get cracking on it tonight =)

Ah these last minute panics, what would we be without them, right? ;)

Last saturday Jo was kidnapped for his stagnight, and for the first time in about two months I was left to myself with no real plans for the day =) The weather was lovely so I decided to take advantage of having my own garden and sat in the sun for a while, sewing eyelets on the stays, but I also decided to get some quality sewing time! =)

I cut out a mockup for the pondicherry jacket and I got half way through the petticoat to go with the new stays.

Aaand I tried on the new stays for the first time and I loved them! They are so lightweight with the artificial whalebone and I loved having both front and back lacing so I could easily get them on and off myself. And they looked purdy! =)

I only today got the chance to upload the pictures to my computer, so here goes.



Of course they still need the straps and the binding and lots more eyelets (only done a 4th of them). I've done heavy duty grommets, which I'm covering with embroidery thread. I've done this on a dress before and I thought this would be faster, neater and more sturdy than trying my hand at handsewn eyelets. Neater probably, sturdier dunno, but faster - no way José! (about half an hour per eyelet, jeesh)

They look uneven at the top, but that's since I cut the fabric a few cm's outside the markings just for safety.
The right picture shows the covered eyelets and the matching petticoat. The binding on the stays will be in the same colour.

I finished the bjd breeches in May but with the moving and weddingplanning there just hasn't been time (or place for that matter) to take any pictures of them. The breeches are handsewn in navy wool and are to be a part of the whig themed suit Charles Gray wears when canvassing in the Duchess movie. [pic courtesy of padawansguide ]. I'm incidentally also hoping to make Georgiana's whig themed riding habit for Sooah. Manana manana...

So here's Mano talking alittle stroll in his botanical gardens. ;)


[to enlarge: rightclick>view]

Since moving at the end of May all my sewing projects have been boxed, and I've hardly touched niether needle nor thread, so I feel a terrible withdrawal...

I can't wait to get my new sewing room (or hobby room to be more politicly correct) up and running! I used to only have a corner of our computer room for sewing, but now I'll have a very pretty new room all to myself (well, and Jo's hobby stuff).

The few things I have done include sewing eyelets on the stays (front- and back-laced so that might take forever) and some SHOPPING!

• I've ordered a beautiful hedgehog wig in light pink and also in a gorgeous red chestnut colour for Sooah, and I'm watching the mailbox eagerly.

• I've also arranged for her to be sent off for a new faceup. I do like her current one, but it just doesn't feel period enough for me, and I'd like something a little more unique. This will be a first for me, so it's very exciting!

• And quincy134 has been so amazingly awesome and helped me buy some of this gorgeous fabric!