Announcing: American Duchess’s 18th Century Dyeable Silk Shoes – the not-quite-yet-Saturday-shoe!

Fed up of boring shoes?  Looking for the ideal 18th century footwear for a Lady of Fashion?  Want to bring a bit of elegance to 21st century footwear?

Now you can!  I am rather excited at the prospect of American Duchess’s Georgiana shoes – today pre-orders open for these pretties:

(And, no, it’s not an April Fool’s!)

They’re silk satin, which means they’re completely dyeable to whatever colour you fancy, and they look quite divine.  I am pining for a pair … let’s see if I can scrape some pennies together!

I don’t get to do reenactments or the like, but I would quite happily wear these for special occassions of the non-historical variety.  LOVE them!

 

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Protected: The Birthday Masquerade – at long last!

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In Which I Curse Vivienne Westwood…

… for her 18th century inspired jewellery!  I’ve mentioned the legendary VW previously on this blog – she really is one of the (very) few fashion designers I have any interest in or desire to own the creations of.  And what creations!  I made the mistake of looking at her jewellery collection (silly me!) and found these pretties:

Embroidered jewellery?  A very rococo bow?  What’s not to love about this pendant?  I am sorely tempted by this lovely little cupcake-pretty slice of yumminess, especially as it’s in the sale.  Luckily my wallet cannot stretch that far (even at the sale price!)… Phew!  (But also – cry!)  I was just saying to my Mum yesterday that I was looking for a pair of rococo-esque bow drop earrings – I’ll just have to keep looking!

I do love this combo of embroidery and rococo influence and I thought my lovely readers would appreciate this blend of 18th century and stitcherous serendipity.  But if this one’s a little too simple for you, there’s more:

Or, if you prefer your embroidery at ear-level rather than around your neck (and perhaps within a more realistic price range), there are these:

Or maybe you’re a bit more traditional in your choice of materials and would rather jewellery, y’know, made of metal rather than fabric?  Never fear, Ms Westwood is here to tempt you with more yumminess:

I love jewellery, but brooches are a bit of an obsession for me and this one … wow.  That bow is calling me … must … resist …

But, no – there’s just more temptation!

Bow earrings of WIN!  Damn you Vivienne Westwood!

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Decisions and Deadlines

Hmm… so, the problem is that I’m a bit behind schedule on my three projects: the PoP: Tamina costume for the Historical Costume Inspiration Festival; my Birthday Masquerade outfit (AKA, Lady Luck Pierrot outfit); and a waistcoat for my young man (for work and for his steampunk outfit for my Birthday Masquerade Party).

• Prince of Persia: Tamina - I’ve done a quick mock-up of the harem pants in natural muslin (that is, the English definition – I think Americans call it muslin gauze?).  They are very sheer, so I’m glad I’m going for the long-length tunic over the top, otherwise I’d be a bit of a flasher!  I have gone for a very baggy leg because the fabric is so sheer and drapey, which seem to work well, especially as I’ve also decided to pleat the excess fabric rather than gather it.  More on that another time. Still to do – er, pretty much everything?  I might have to go for just the tunic and harem pants in time for the festival, and leave the cropped waistcoat for another time.  Deadline – beginning of October.

• Birthday Masquerade outfit - I’m still working on these damned stays, but they are an integral part of the costume (and any other 18th century costume I want to make in future), so they need doing.  However, I am currently trimming down the fray allowance and applying fray-check to the edges, so after today the stays will be in a wearable state, even if they’re not quite finished yet (no bias binding).  Still to do – again, almost everything!!  A pierrot jacket, a few petticoats, a sash and a mask.  I had hoped to make a cool hat and a fan, but these accessories might have to wait until a later date.  I have most of the fabrics (just need some cheap white sheets/fabric for the under petticoats).  Deadline – 24th November.

• A Modern Waistcoat for an Architect-In-Training – we have the fabric (including a rather fun tartan lining, which was free from a friend!) and I’ve traced an existing waistcoat to use as a basis for sizing; his lordship has sketched what he wants (it’s a bit complicated!) and we’ve worked out the construction.  To do – tonight I should be pinning a mock-up to him so we can finalise the pattern; then it all needs making (still – argh!).  Deadline – 24th November.

As you can see, I’ve cut down on some accessories I had planned, so I’m going to try to continue with what I’ve outlined above.  But (isn’t there always a but?), if I get any further behind schedule, I might have to put Tamina on hold and use what I’ve done of my Birthday Masquerade outfit for the festival.

So, I’m afraid blog posts might be a bit thin on the ground as I’m so busy at the moment and I also have some work-related news to share with you in the near future (but more on that later), which means more busy times – goodness!

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Stays, Now With Eyelets!

Yep, that’s right – all those pesky little hand-sewn eyelets are done and the straps are attached:

Though they started off a little shaky:

The bottom one that you can’t see very well was my first effort – it’s probably just as well it’s not very clear on the photo as it looks awful!!  I tried out a few different techniques: pushing the hole from the outside from the inside, overcasting or using buttonhole stitch, and stitching from the inside or the outside.  I found the best results came from: pushing from the inside to the outside (first with an awl, then with a wider knitting needle); I drew a circle around the hole; I used buttonhole stitch, pushing the needle from the outside and following the drawn circle.  After a couple of practice ones, they came out much better:

But before I could do the eyelets, I realised that I needed something to go behind them, since I’m attaching the lining after doing the binding.  So, I cut a couple of strips on the bias from the lining fabric (purely on the bias because of looks, I have to say!) and hand-stitched them over the folded over section of outer fabric.  Sorry, not very clearly explained, but here’s a photo:

So when the two sides come together, the stripes form a kind of chevron pattern:

So that’s the progress so far, all that’s left is stitching the ends of the last few boning channels, trimming down the seam allowance and then the evils of bias-binding attachment.  Even so, I think the finish line is in sight!

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Competition Alert: Hyaline Prosaic will make you a shift/shirt

Hello hello my dears!  More apologies for my current slowness in posting – I’m still working away on ‘things’ and will endeavour to take some photos of my stays progress post haste!

In the meantime, though, it would be quite remiss of me not to inform you of a wonderful giveaway from the lovely, the sublime Rowenna of Hyaline Prosaic, particularly as it has just been opened up to international entries!  The lucky winner will receive a custom made linen shift or shirt – more details on her blog.  The closing date is Sunday 8th August, so get your entries in!

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Deliveries

I’ve mentioned bits and pieces that I’ve ordered and a something special for the Lady Luck Outfit, and at last it’s time for show and tell, with some things less exciting than others:

Fray-stop glue (wooo, exciiiiitiiiiing  ;P  ) and spray-on fabric stiffener – that’s a little more exciting as you can build up the stiffness the more you spray it and it washes out.  I think that’ll be useful for all sorts of things, like pleats/ruffs, hat decorations and perhaps even kanzashi.  I also suspect that it’ll be useful to keep bows in shape and for using fabric strips for cockades.

Ostrich feathers – fluffy!  Now I’ve seen them, I’ve decided they aren’t long enough for wearing in the hair (~10″), but they’ll be great for decorating a mini-tricorne or …

… masks!  These two are for moulds for papier mache – they’ve got pretty good shapes, though the black one (which I love!) needs eye-hole adjusting, but with that, it’ll be FAB!

Yay for the Tamina slippers!  I thought they were lovely when I saw them online, but they’re even prettier in reality – very pleased with them, indeed!  I’ve worn them around the house a bit, but I think I need to stretch the front very slightly as they dig in a little, but that’s no big deal.

And, finally – my super-awesome-special-pretty-surprise for the sash of the Lady Luck Pierrot:

I found this lovely on ebay – it’s an 18th century silver and paste shoe buckle that was at some point turned into a brooch.  I slipped a scarf through it to give an idea of how it’s going to look as the buckle at the front of the Pierrot sash.  I really love it rather a lot and am so pleased – it’s my first 18th century antique!

Wow, I really am too obsessed with that century.

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Birthday Masquerade Costume: Inspiration Board

I may or may not have spent most of today messing around on a new toy: Scrapblog*.

The other day I realised that the reason I couldn’t find a picture of the 1780s outfit I had seen in my dream because it didn’t exist!   My unconscious mind must have put together elements of different outfits I’ve seen and put them together.  Clever unconscious!  So I had planned to make an inspiration board/mood board type thing on Polyvore, but I found it was a bit of a pain to import your own images on there.  I hunted around for something else and found Scrapblog.  And here are the results of my efforts:

So we have a pointed-front blue pierrot type jacket with what appears to be gold trim (as modeled by The Duchess of Chartres and painted by Charles Lepeintre, 1776).  I’m not generally a fan of gold, but in this case I think it works very well with the blue.  I think I’m going to have a look at my fabric with silver and gold and see what works best – and what trims I can find!  I already have a pierrot pattern that has a straight front, so I’ll just make it into a pointed bodice.  And that’s where those lucky symbols you lovely people have given me will come into play: self-covered buttons embroidered with lucky symbols down the front and on the cuffs.  Yes, this is how it was in my dream.  I know, I have strange dreams.

Then the sash is from that pretty cream and black zone-front (I’m a sucker for a good zone-front).  I have a little something special for the buckle (yes, I have a pretty little surprise which will be revealed soon!) and I have sourced some red stripe taffeta.  The one thing I’m not sure about for the sash is whether one makes a strip of fabric and carefully hems it, or whether you make a double-sided sash of fabric (with or without interlining of some description – lawn/organza?)?

And lastly, a white self-stripe petticoat.  I had envisaged regular stripes between 1/2″ and 1″ as in the image from The Duchess and the Pehr Hillstrom painting, but I haven’t been able to find the right fabric with that kind of stripe; I have found a pretty white voile with groups of stripes in different widths, so I think that will work still.

The only bad thing is that having seen that still from The Duchess, I now want a really over the top big hat (which is 1780s correct), but (a) that’s probably not a great idea for my first foray into hat-making and (b) I definitely wouldn’t have enough of the blue taffeta left over for that.  I might have enough left for a mini-tricorn, a la Dunst’s Marie Antoinette, but I’m worried that might not look right with a hedgehog (mine probably won’t be a huge ‘hog) – has anyone tried a mini-tricorn + hedgehog combo?

There’s the basis of the outfit, at least – of course, there will be accessories!

* As for Scrapblog – I enjoyed playing around with it; you can pay for ‘credits’ to buy ‘stickers’ (place-able elements) and backgrounds and the like, but there are quite a lot of these things that are free, so I just used those and uploaded my images.  You can even have multi-page pieces that will work as a video slideshow.  There are various options for sharing your collage directly or, as I have done, you can export to a jpeg.  Worth having a look at if you’re interested in creating this kind of board.

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Birthday Masquerade Costume: Question For You – Lucky Symbols?

So, the Birthday Masquerade Party outfit is taking shape in my mind, but for now all I’ll say is that there will be self-covered buttons.  They will be embroidered.  With lucky symbols.  I’m quite a big fan of luck symbolism, whether I believe in it or not (one of my main MA projects was on this very subject), and I like Lady Luck and the idea that she can smile or frown upon us all.  Plus this means I can refer to this as my Lady Luck Pierrot.

The question I have for you, dear reader, is what lucky symbols can you think of?  I have 9 buttons that need decoration.  Here are a few to start you off:

~ Star

~ Card suits

~ Horseshoe

What others can you think of?

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Birthday Masquerade: Necessary Things

Being the Listophile that I am, I’ve been thinking about the items I need for my masquerade party costume – that is, essentials for a late 18th century pierrot outfit:

• Shift – I have one that just needs hemming.
• Stays – I have a half-finished pair, which I’m going to get back to work on tonight.
• Bum roll – I had a torn open pillow with some padding left in it from stuffing Rosie (duct tape body form of not -very-goodness), so I’ve bleached the outer fabric (it was somehow tea-stained) and will use that and the remaining filling to make my bum roll.
• Under petticoats – will be made from sheets from charity shops.
• Outer petticoat – need some pretty self-stripe white voile.
• Pierrot jacket – I’ve got the fabric and some special plans for this – more on that soon!
• Sash – need a red stripe fabric and some sort of buckle/brooch.
• Mask – papier mache over a plastic mask to make a blank to then decorate – but what with?
• A hat – this is lower priority – if I get all the other stuff done, then I’ll try making an over the top tricorne.
• Stockings – even though they won’t be seen under my costume, I’m going to have some stockings.  They won’t be at all accurate, but I think long white socks with the elasticated top cut off will work with some ribbon garters.  If I have time, I might even make fancy garters with embroidery and/or lace or somesuch… Ooh, in fact, they might require cockades – everything requires cockades.
• Shoes – unfortunately I think I’m going to have to go with some very un-historical shoes I already own, but I can live with that.  I’ll make some sort of ribbon or cockade decoration to tie or clip on them to rococo them up a bit.

I’m quite pleased with my recycling work on the bum roll fabric/padding – I do like to spend and treat myself sometimes, but I love a bargain even more and I hate waste.  Huzzah for bargain bum-rolls!

Having a reason to get my stays finished has got me all excited about them again – I can’t wait to get working on them again tonight!

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