|
|
June 11, 2003: Last night at work I was cleaning up the fake floral floral department when I came across the dollar version of a fake calla lily. I thought to myself “wow, that’d make a great faerie skirt” and kept on working; today, as I have a day off, I’ve sat down to design the dress that I will wear to a formal next April. The inspiration for this dress is the lovely simple calla lily. I know for a fact that in about two to three weeks when I’m getting closer to the end of this I will eat my words, but until then, tally ho!
After a morning of deliberations and structural problems, I consulted with my father, engineer extrodinare and ex-sportingware designer to see what could be done about the skirt. Fortunately and unfortunately, we have a painting of calla lilies in our hallway which I failed to notice in the many years of existence. From this both my father and I deduced that it would be better to, instead of having the opening right in the middle as initially planned, it would be better to have the skirt fold over onto itself and open over the left hip. The designs for the skirt quickly followed but as for the bodice, I’m still not certain. Anything thus far has ended with me singing a rousing rendition of “Robin Hood”
June 13, 2003: Happy Friday the thirteenth! It’s about eleven o’clock at night and I’m quietly searching the net for any inspiration for this lovely bodice. So far no set idea, but I’m looking fondly at a sleeveless and strapless number, perhaps even a corset.
June 15, 2003: The bodice has been decided upon; I’ve chosen a 19th century inspired corset, finished the design, and started drafting a pattern. The entire faerie dress (it's hard to see the penciled in wings and antenna in the design) could very well be inspired by a late Victorian bustle dress, 3rd stage i think, or maybe i’m picking at flies and it’s an early bustle dress from the 1st stage, or maybe i should just go and look up my sources again. Anyways, it’s Victorian, maybe, bustle of some date. I've always wanted to do something like it.
June 16th, 2003: Right, so drafting a corset pattern is easier said than done when all you’ve ever done is a poorly attempted pair of bodies from Elizabethan England and an underbodice from Florence c. 1515-20. I was about to break down and buy a pattern but my Gran offered to pick up the bill for me and bought the fabric and tape needed along with the dye which is currently curing in the washing machine; I call this the tea bag test: how well does it hold up in hot water.
Dying the fabric was fun even though my nails are a slight green shade. this isn’t a bad thing considering my adoration of the colour green. my Gran picked me up some green brocade (the same I’d used in my Florentine almost dress. Better pictures will follow, i hope) and I spent the night dying it to get a deeper warmer colour. Well, I forgot about it and left it in the basin an hour and a half too long. I love phone calls, partially cuz I so seldom get them unless someone wants money. but anyways, the laundry machine just stopped so I’m off to hang my cloth to dry and we’ll see what happens come the morning. Turah!
June 21, 2003: It’s about three in the
morning and I’m almost heading off for bed as soon as I clean up the scraps of material.
The fabric, bless RIT dyes, is finally at a decent shade of apple green, however, in the picture the scanner ate the colours for breakfast and
the dark portions are the shade of the lighter and the
lighter are a shade or two lighter; ugh, it's the idea, but the taffeta came out just right. I’m starting to feel
like I should be sitting on the material rather than wearing it, but it’s a bit late for that
now. Wednesday, along with the final dying process, I managed to snag three metres of
ivory taffeta on sale along with some cheap pale yellow lining. this will hopefully make
the overskirt; all that’s left to find is a decent yellow for the underskirt. My fingers
remain crossed.
Tonight, after a hellish week at work, I finally started cutting the pattern for the corset. It’s taken me a good two days to figure out, alright, half heartedly figure out, how to piece and sew the pattern together; I’ve chosen a medium weight deep gold coloured satin for the lining because a) it matches the weight of the brocade, b) I have a lot of it, c) I love the colour. I have absolutely no clue how well this will turn out but at the same time I’m up for the adventure; this could spell disaster. whee!
June 22nd, 2003: I started sewing the corset pieces together and have since discovered that it’s far too big around the hips. The plan is to make a dressform to help with this problem; thanx to Jen Thompson and all her lovely links and information and galleries. Highly recommended to visit her site! Like CN Tower high! If you like, check it out, you can make a paper-tape dress form too!
July 2, 2003: It’s been hot, humid, and sewing has been a no go. I picked up a book from my local Chapters some time last week entitled Corsets: A Cultural History by Valerie Steele. It’s on amazon.com somewhere. There's a lot of good information and lots of pictures squeezed in between it's covers.
Today, however, after a nasty run about town in the muggy 35°C+ heat and a nasty air quality (swear the sky was brown), I stopped into HomeSense and picked up an oversized fake, foam calla lily to destroy and copy the pattern out. When I learn to use photoshop better, I will put the pattern up.
The day was also marred with a rather unsuccessful attempt to find a decent underskirt material. The only thing i can think of doing is dying whichever material or overlaying a paler yellow with a brilliant yellow sheer. Of course there is the other option, which i’m trying to steer clear of, to change the underskirt colour. I suppose that will have to be decided later on. I can’t order anything off the net and seeing as this is my second attempt at a full dress (I made an early 16th cent florentine gown as a study aid for my costume history term paper) I’ll just have to keep my eyes open. However, it’s getting on four thirty on the 3rd so I’m going to call it quits for tonight and see if i can’t get some sleep. Ooh! One more joy of country life, a big white moth just landed on the monitor. Very pretty.
July 19, 2003: It’s about quarter to three in the morning and I’ve come to the conclusion that I might never finish this silly dress. Why do I say that? There is a) I have yet to draft a proper pattern for the over skirt that will fit the way I want it to, b) there is still no luck with the hunt for the underskirt material, c) the bodice looks like i threw it into the pond, let it play with the tractors whilst they were disking, and washed and dried it and five pieces have shrunk to six different sizes, d) I haven’t any time, only enough to breathe, well, short breaths, and e) I’m starting to hate calla lilies. But other than that and the currently flat dressform, things are going great!
The Dressform: a tragedy in two parts
I spent a good week or so hunting down brown packaging tape and managed to find
something that remebled it, however, looks are deceiving. It’s much more like reusable
stickers than tape, and it’s been so humid lately. Any attempt has turned out with
disastrous results. However, I was able to use a space of about 6hrs between completion
and pancake stacks to utilize it for the one and only purpose of shrinking down the bodice
to fit properly. I must admit, it is rather unsettling to see your body (hehe, i dressed mine
in my fave work t) sitting on your desk. It’s even more unsettling when it’s five in the
morning and there’s a headless, armless body “floating” just past the chair... But that’s a
whole other story all together! Perhaps some day i’ll be able to fix it, but at the present
second i think it’s flattening itself out nicely in the hallway.
The Bodice: A love affair with Satin
I love satin, there’s nothing much more to be said about it. If i still had enough green
satin to make the bodice, what am i talking about, if i had my green satin here and not at
school, I would have a green and gold satin bodice which i would never remove.
(well, to wash, or i could wash it whilst washing myself... oh the possibilities...) It’s so
clean, it’s so straightforward, so perfect for this dress, and also quite out of my price
range. (I blew way too much money on the satin overdress/vest, as my mother calls it, a
friend of mine designed and i swore to make. Some day i’ll take photos; it’s Italien Ren
inspired, from the pre-Savonarola, Il Magnifico era. All that is left to do is make some
decent sleeves and really rework the underdress/gamurra construction and finish sewing
the eyelets. A camicia might be nice too or i’ll just repair the first/last one i did.
However, I think the really sad thing about that one was that all in all it took me about
one afternoon to do. I did try making a shrunk version of the overdress/vest b/c i wear
the full length one out in public. I will continue with Ren inspired clothing line some
day, as soon as i locate my design book...) The majority of my green satin went to lining
my Floretine dress’s bodice (the skirt was lined with a bed sheet hee!) and the rest went to
crafting a concept for the Italien Ren overdress/vest. It’s made to measure for a stuffed
cat that sits on my bed. But anyways, back to the bodice...
So, thus far it’s been sewn together, refit, shrunk down because I am virtually hipless, and is sitting in its respective left and right pieces. Are you as excited as I am? or just as scared? Some how, some way, perhaps even some day, this will be done, maybe? Yes! yes it will be done! If nothing else, this diary amuz’s me greatly whenever i read it next; i hope it does the same for you too. whee! I’m going to bed, it’s getting closer to three thirty every second.
July 19, 2003: It’s about ten to eleven of the
same evening as the above entery. You would not believe what can happen in a day!
Alright, so that’s a little bold, but today, on a whim, whilst we were out, I managed to
snag a roll of the proper packaging tape to make the form (whee!) Testing my good luck,
I took a little trip to the fabric store and lo and behold, yellow ochre satin that, with a bit
of dye, would warm right up to the right colour. An afternoon of dying later, we have the
underskirt ready to be cut, well, traced first, then cut, but it’s done! done! done! Whew,
alright, it’s been a long day and i’m off to bed. Goodnight!
July 24, 2003: Alright, so I lied, a little, it’s quarter to three on the 25th, and I’m certainly noticing a trend with the hour of these entries... Anyways, what is new this week. Right, so, work has had me just drooling over my material which is still intact sitting draped over that chair, no, the other one, no, the one behind it, yeah, that one. Anyways, i’ve spent a fair bit of time working on the underskirt, alright, two nights, but the pattern has been drafted, and is in the process of being cut out. Tomorrow I hope to trace it out on the satin and start cutting. I am afeared that I don’t have enough lining to line the skirt, but we’ll get to that when the problem arises. The one slight decoration, bit of embelishment, for the underskirt is the same for the overskirt, a series of pleats over the rump, well, mine. Hopefully this will give it a bit of height and hide the seam. I think that’s all I’ve done this week besides work. I did start illustrating a poem I wrote two years back in comic book style. I think, in the future, i’ll stick to clothing. G’night! Oh! Pictures will soon be up of the process, I hope, if they turn out... G’night again!
August 6, 2003: It’s 18mins into the new day and so little and yet so much has happened this week. Between sleep, work, and breathing, I’ve managed to finish, or nearly finish, the underskirt. All that’s left to do with it is to turn it up about two inches and sew it into place. How exciting is that?? After two months of nothingness, finally there is a piece of this puzzle done like a dinner! I must admit I am thrilled. The skirt panels were cut on a Monday, lay about until Friday, when, on Friday morning, at about seven (I’d gone to bed around four) I sat down at my sewing machine and shook my head and started to sew. How many times did I ask myself “why am I awake?” Far too many times to count! But what the hell! It’s all part of the game! Sewing whilst not really awake is/was fun, however, it did allow me to find new ways to curse at linen. I know it’s stretchy, but wow, it’s really stretchy, esp when you do not wish it to be so. A long story made short, ouch. Along with ouches, I sewed in two hook and eyes and put one box pleat and four knife pleats into the back, hoping to add a bit of fullness and raise the back up some; however, when trying it on i found that i’d measured wrong, well, did my calculations wrong, and needed to put in another two knife pleats, one on either side. Up until this point all my pleats were hand sewn and my fingers were beginning to sting. I tried the skirt on once more and found, again, that i could fit another two pleats in, however, this time instead of handsewing, the pleats were done with the sewing machine. I could have been sick how quickly they went in. My machine’s temperamental (or just plain mental) and by this time i was having one hulluva time staying awake, so i decided not to press my luck any more and just go back to bed in order to be somewhat alert and awake at work. (Well, I was alert, awake, not really, however I did manage to get a woman to eat her foot. That was entertaining!)
Saturday morning I gave up the idea to have my skirt close with only hook and eye. My father had told me the morning previous about how he and his partner use to sew in the zippers to the wetsuits the use to make (also about how they made industrial sewing machines smoke) and the special “techniques” they used to get them to stay. By Saturday afternoon I was purchasing a zipper that, with a couple adjustments, would fit and close up my skirt nicely. Now, with all that said and done, sewing with my machine can be hell at the best of times, a zipper was certainly not one of these better times. However, about 33 mins and 49 seconds later it was locked and secured along with an eyelet to close the waist. All that is left to say is a resounding “whew!”
Yesterday, the 4th, sorry, two days ago, my father and I tackled the dressform problem, well, the lack of a dressform and a whole bunch of paper packaging tape, a shirt, some scissors, and a sponge. It started out with me bored to tears and taking the materials and starting working away. (the t underneath was coral coloured to commemorate my last hair colour (it’s changed twice since i bought it, but that was my excuse)) It started drying and my arms stopped working so we called in reinforcements, my daid. He did my back and shoulders. By the time the thing was starting to dry and harden, I was starting to have problems breathing. That tape is unforgiving! It might have had something to do with the fact that it was indeed reinforced with glass fibre, but it’s all in the day’s work, right? Tomorrow, er, today? the plan is to make a trip to home away from home, Canadian Tire, and pick up some foam to fill the thing. That puppy’s gonna be solid! So, as it were, I believe those are all the updates for this week, skirt’s done, dressform’s on it’s way to completion, and I head back to school in just two and a half weeks. Lets see how much I can get done before that blessed event!
The dress form is now full of foam and is quite light but also quite solid; as for sticking
pins into it, i’m certain it’ll work quite well. This evening after work, I started making
the lower half of the form so that it’ll cover my bottom area as well as my torso. One
more can of foam should do the trick to fill it and attach it to the main form. I suppose
this has been somewhat of a productive week, g’night; hali in 12 days.
February 23, 2004: It has been months since the last update; this is due in part to
two reasons: I forgot to update and I haven’t had time to work on the dress let alone
update. So what has happened between now and then? Quite whole lotta nothing I
would wager; well, that’s exaggerating slightly, I have done a fair amt on it thus far.
So far the skirts are within inches of being complete, yes, both skirts. The underskirt has
been drawn in for yet two more pleats. I’m thinking about taking all of them out and
redoing it else suffer small pleats, but even at that, who is going to see them?
Perfectionism strikes again. I’ve also bought enough material, save a lining, to redo the
underskirt entire. It’s a lovely buttercuppy yellow ochre bridal satin and far lighter than
the satin I have been using. A nice light lining will make the underskirt lovely and
“floaty” but I don’t know how much time I’ll have between now and the formal in April.
The overskirt is made up of a crushed ivory taffeta with a rolled back, slightly padded
hem that varies from 1cm at the waist and tip of the train, to 4inches at it’s fullest. It’s
pleated, or will be pleated into the waist over the bum and looks frighteningly like my
design, well, save all the excess fullness. Sometimes I even scare myself, well, no, I
scare myself quite frequently, but the fact that it’s looking like the design is getting me
excited. Once I hem and sew in the pleats, sew on hook and eye closure, or a button,
dunno yet, and finish the last 12inches of hemline the overskirt, unlined, will be done like
a dinner. The underskirt, should I decide not to redo it, has the hem guard to be finished;
i think I’ll handsew or tack it down then run over it with the machine. The bodice,
however, is a completely different story.
For Christmas/Solstice I was given a dressform to whom was given the name Florence.
She’s been a great asset in the construction of this dress and a corderoy cloak that I’ve
been itching to make for a while. Currently the skirts for the Calla dress are pinned onto
her as is the bodice for the cloak. Florence is temporarily residing in Halifax Canada in
my apartment, however, I currently sit in the middle of nowhere Ontario on a break from
school. I suspect that Sunday next will be spent in sewing and piecing everything
together. We’ll see what time allows. Right now we’re into the fourth show of a four
show season at school. With work, school, and crew hours, the evenings are often spent
in sleep or an attempt to get some homework done. So sewing has been put on hold for
now. Hopefully this project will be done by April. Oh! gotta chase after my kitty!