Progress

My test bodice, nearly done. No, I don't have a dress form.

I added cap sleeves and peplum, and finished the neckline and bottom front with bias tape. Bias tape is one of those things I love when it comes to making costumes, so I make allowances for it and try not to think about the fiber content and historical accuracy. In other news, the linen arrived today!

Arrived!

Fifty yards of linen!

Aniticipation

Last week I ordered fifty yards of linen from Fabrics-store.com. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of all that gorgeous linen. This session in performance group there are ten couples, and none of the ladies have appropriate clothing for our first planned performance, the Renaissance Faire.

For our more colonial/RenFaire performances I'm aiming for Seventeenth Century clothing. I know I probably shouldn't have chosen what seems to be a difficult era, but it appeals to me somehow. I spent a week or two doing research(many thanks to helpful people) and came up with a basic bodice pattern I can use for the ladies' bodice. About half of the ten ladies are sewing their own outfits, so I needed something simple to give them to sew on their own.

 Bodice back: altered from my Colonial gown pattern. This is made out of some cheap Wal-mart fabric I bought some time ago. There are three layers of fabric here, so the bodice is fairly stiff. I'm not sure if I want to keep the tab or not. This is the test garment; the linen is supposed to arrive today. I pushed hard to get my group wearing mostly linen this time around; maybe next year we will be able to afford wool as well. I have hope.

Sewing historical clothing to be used as rental costumes greatly changes the pre-garment planning. The ladies who will be wearing the costumes will not be wearing stays; and the costumes need to be worn by different sizes of ladies throughout the season. To that end I'm going to have them lace up the front to be slightly more adjustable.

The front before sleeves and eyelets.

Once this project is done performance group will have two standard rental costumes in stock: Regency, which comes in handy for the usual Jane Austen/fancy dances, and Colonial, which works well with the RenFaire/rustic performances. I'm hoping that these costumes will be adaptable enough so that I won't have continue to have such an enormous sewing workload.

 In other news, my quilted petticoat is nearly done!

The Holiday Season

We went caroling with friends twice in one week, and got very hoarse.
We had the Famous Fox Family over for a Christmas dinner. They have such adorable boys. We put the mistletoe to good use.
We visited family friends in town on Christmas day.

And finally Jen and I stayed with the Famous Fox Family over New Year's Eve. Our family traveled to TX for church business without us, so we spent the day out on the town and the night with our friends. We did stay up until midnight and we did drink a bit of alcohol.

And that's how we spent our holidays. Or at least, that's all I can mention publicly.

Finds

This past Saturday my performance group danced in downtown Omaha as part of the Christmas festivities there, and afterwards when we briefly shopped around I bought the book above, "Art of Dressmaking" put out by Butterick pattern company in 1927. It cost $10, which is a lot for me to pay for a book, but I'd like to store up more old books about sewing.

Then in the free pile at church on Sunday I picked up this beat-up leather jacket. It had a hole, a tear, and some stains, but I figured I could cut it up and maybe make a cap or some small bags for my reenacting kit.



Since I can't afford to buy much material by the yard, I often utilize already made garments by cutting them up and re-making them. Here's the coat again with cuffs, zipper and lining taken off. There are quite a few seams, so there aren't any really large pieces of leather, but I'm sure I can still put it to good use. It's always interesting to take a garment apart, especially tailored coats and jackets. There's obviously so much work that goes into these more heavy duty items.

Event of the Year

Yes, I've been.... missing. My excuse is I've been organizing this big event that happened just last Friday. So now it's over and I feel so relieved. I've been working on this event off and on since I paid for the facility in July, mostly sewing costumes. I'm surprised now to realize how much pressure had built up. I feel better now. I'm sure that next year, if I decide to do this again, it will be much easier.

Caleb playing at the Ball in his 1820's military jacket.

The epaulets and collar are still untrimmed because I haven't gotten the white wool and extra button from my supplier, but I think Caleb looks great. Military coatees are the best.

Besides being the dance event of the year, it was also my birthday. I didn't plan it that way on purpose; that was the only weekend the facility was available, and what better way to spend a birthday than dancing? I told Jen that I didn't want anyone to sing Happy Birthday, but they did anyway, and gave some very kind gifts.

If you live in Omaha you might know where this is; I have to say having the Ball in a real ballroom was totally worth the extra cost. I can not say enough about excellent facility and staff. I'm very thankful it worked out to have our last dance in 2011 here.

More details will be posted on the dance website, for those of you who know it. Now that the costumes are made and the public is satisfied, I'm really looking forward to enjoying the last few dance events of the year. Jen and I are calling for a private Christmas party and we have two performances, and then I get to start planning a whole other round of workshops, performances, and public dances!

Sewing like the Dickens

The guest room has become a costume closet for items going to the Fezziwig Ball and coming dance performances. What you see above is about half of what I've been preparing in the past few months; the other half was given out at our dance rehearsal last week. Since this is our first year performing outdoors in the winter, I've been scrambling to add warmer articles for the ladies to wear. I've taken two women's suit coats and cut them down into Regency Spencers. I've finished Caleb's coatee, except for the collar trim which I don't have yet.

Lamentably, Scrooge's coat requires more work. When I enlarged the pattern from a size 38 to a 43 I forgot to enlarge the sleeves, so they turned out way too tight. I added a strip down the underside of the sleeve, and now they're too big, and they hang funny. Poor Scrooge.

This is the bodice for Mrs. Crachit, also known as my mother. How do you sew a historical looking outfit for someone who doesn't care if it looks correct or not, and is only going to wear it once or twice? Plus she keeps insisting it's too tight and it makes her claustrophobic. This is our last year as the Crachit family, since next year Jeremy will be too big to be Tiny Tim. And frankly, our family is not very good at acting, so we don't make the best Dickens characters.