Medieval Fair in Leksand

The medieval fair in Leksand is one of the better ones, and me and two friends from the Cosplay Dalarna group decided to go there. Of course I wanted to dress the part, but I don't have anything medieval. I do have my undergown for my 16th century project though, and figured that would do. The evening before the fair I experimented with faking a suitable headdress, but when I looked around on pictures it was painfully clear that the gowns in all the original pictures had sleeves, while my undergown is sleeveless. As we all now the best time to start a project is a couple of hours before it starts...

So on the morning I decided to add some sleeves. I were lucky and found that I had enough fabrics left to make a set of sleeves.

 I used a modern standard pattern and added some extra seam allowance to it. I also decided to make the sleeves tied on, since I figured that would be easier and faster than setting the sleeves.

I did have to take in the sleeve quite a lot afterwards. As you can see I sewed the main seam on machine, but I handsewed the hems. Once that was done I cut the sleeve in half, since I wanted to have a slashed effect. Well that too enough time that I had to sew the ribbons to tie the sleeves on in the car going to Leksand.

For the hair, I didn't have time to take any more photos, but in order to create something similar to a wulsthaube I stuffed a pair of tights with some wadding and put them on my head. It worked as a charm, then I simply tied a very long and narrow triangular piece of fabric around the head, and the extra fabric was wound around the head.

We started off the fair by watching a medieval fashion show. The showed clothes from the Viking Age and up to the late 15th Century, and it was quite entertaining and informative.

Monika and Niklas from Cosplay Dalarna are historical reenactors and they have a camp there for the whole weekend. It was nice to sit there, and we could see the jousting from their table.

I also used their tent as a backdrop to finally take some photos of me in my gown, just before we left.

Having worn the gown for a day there are some things I need to fix. First of all the gown is a bit too big in the bust, not something that I will easily fix but I need to remember to make the eventual overgown smaller there. The tied on sleeves worked ok, but they pulled the straps down all the time, and made the upper slit too large, while the smaller one disappeared. I think I will try and sew the sleeves on at the top, to keep them in position.

All in all I am getting inspired to finally make a gown to wear over the undergown.

Pet en l'air main part finished

The last time I posted about my pet en l'air was in September. Over the winter I brought it to a couple of sewing meets, but when I started to work on my kitchen it was thrown in a bag and packed away. Then I had to clear up my living room after it had been used as a storage, and I found the bag. I simply didn't know where I should put this UFO, so I just threw it onto my dressform...and realized that it looked pretty nice and didn't have much left until it was finished.

Basically I just had to hem the sleeves and skirt and sew the front skirts to the bodice.

Now I need to finally decide on what kind of closure and if I'm going to trim it. The next step will probably be to make a loose stomacher and add ribbons so that I can tie it closed. After that it will be wearable, and then I'll see about the trim. This is supposed to just be a trial version, so I'm not sure that I want to add too much time on trim for it.

Wig work day

Today I decided to try and untangle my Rarity wig. I've had it for two years now, and I've been so worried that doing anything would destroy the beautiful curls. Now the curls weren't beautiful anymore though, it looked like a matted mess with some curls.

 There are a lot of tutorials for wig care out there, but the basic thing to remember is to work with a small piece of hair at the time, and work from the bottom and up. It takes a lot of patience though, not my strong suit and a big reason why I have put it off even if I've seen that it was needed. I didn't wash the wig before untangling it, since I haven't used any Products in this one. I also didn't have any kind of detangler/lubricant in it, that would probably have done the job easier.

After around three hours of work the wig had turned into this.

It's not as curly, but it's tanglefree and still quite wavy. My plan is to recurl it, but I couldn't find my curlers. Still it's looking so much better and I wouldn't mind wearing it in this more wavy shape either. I have braided and put it away for storage now. Long wigs should always be braided when they aren't in use.

Now I need to work on the tail. The tail is basically the same wig, but tied up. It's in a worse state, since I've been sitting on it for example, and the hair is veary teased from rubbing against stuff. I also need to take a break from the work due to my bad left shoulder. I hold the hair that I'm working with in the left hand and pull with the right, the pulling motions were simply too much and now my shoulder is aching.

The finished 1950's half-hat

I've had these photos in my phone since Star Wars Celebration, but my phone has stopped communicating with my computer, so I just haven't uploaded them.

The 1950's half-hat that I started this winter was going to go with my Vintage Amidala.

The headpiece worn with the original Amidala costume

 I chose the half-hat shape because I felt that it was pretty similiar int he general shape. I ordered a fairly large brown lace applique and attached it to the middle of the hat, to look like that rustcoloured center ornamentation. I also added some brown veiling, since I definitely wanted some of that on my hat.

When I got the center lace on it was obvious though that the hat wasn't perfectly symmetrical. The shape had gotten a bit bent, and it was made very obvious when there was a symmetrical piece of lace in the midde. So I took it off. I decided that instead of going for the more obvious reference to the original headpiece, I wanted a hat that looked nice. The answer was to add the lace to the back instead, and hide a bit of the triangular shape under a cockade of brown satin ribbon. I had bought the satin ribbon in order to try and do something similar to the braided hairstyle of Amidala, but this looked better.

And then it was only to wear the hat for the Ladies of the Legions tea.

As you can see, or rather not see, the brown veiling is almost invisible agains my red hair. I'm also not happy with the shape of the veil, so I might do something about that before I wear it again.

Vintage Amidala

Last year when I ordered the Greedo print, I also picked up another fabric from Spoonflower. It was a fabric mimicking the fabric in Padmé Amidala's peacock gown from Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

If you don't recognize it, it's not so strange. Eventhough it featured in the marketing, and is seen on the film poster, the scene in which she wears the gown was cut out from the final film. The original costume is made is mainly made up of a coat in Brown shot devore velvet worn over a fortuny pleated shot brown/blue satin gown.

To be honest it was never a favorite of mine, but I really liked the pattern of the reproduced fabric. At Spoonflower you can have the pattern printed on a variety of fabrics and I chose to have it done in cotton satin, by recommendation of the creator of the print. I only ordered a meter or so, hoping to be able to some day just make something Amidala inspired from it.

Last spring I also picked up this Vintage Vogue pattern (V2401)

I even took the time to copy and cut out the pattern pieces, but didn't go any further. Now when my silk for my Lady Poe ensemble disappeared I still wanted something new to wear for Celebration. This pattern was similar to the peacock gown, in that it looked to be a coat worn over a petticoat, so I ordered some more of the peacock gown fabric.

Overall the pattern was easy to follow. There were some steps, especially around the collar, that I didn't quite understand but I simply followed the instructions and the result came out good. I had read a review that said that the pattern was fairly tight. It's closed all the way around, so you need to pull it over your head and then get the waist by tying the sash. I don't know why but I had cut out the pattern a size or two too large, so my problem was actually that it was too large and bulky. Since I still wanted to have a fairly large skirt and be able to put it on and take it off with easy I didn't take it in too much though. I made the center back seam more curved and made the darts belowe the waist larger, but kept it fairly large above the waist. One difference to the envelope picture is that the skirt portion is a lot slimmer, which suited me fine but don't expect a traditional big 1950's New Look-skirt from this pattern.

Except for the size adjustment I made three major changes from the pattern. I did not sew the center back seam all the way to the hem. Instead I have a split skirt in the back, making it look more like a coat than dress. I also didn't add the front skirt portion. I wanted to be able to combine the coat part of the dress in different ways. Without the front skirt though it ended just at the waist, showing off my tummy. To hide that I lengthened the bodice front section down to the top of my hip.

At the Ladies of the Legions' tea I wore the coat with a blue summer dress under, to make it look more like the original. I also wore the dress to a party on Friday night, and then I paired it with a pair of tight black trousers instead. I actually prefered the trouser look, but I didn't have any photos of that.

Overall I can really recommend the V2401 pattern. It gives a really nice classic look, and since the skirt is quite restrained it doesn't scream 1950's. There is also no need for buttons or other kinds of fastenings. I made the whole outfit in around three days. If I was to change one thing it would probably be to make the sashes that tie around the waist a bit longer.

This is really an obscure fan fashion, no person that I ran into at SWCO recognized the Amidala inspiration for the outfit. I'm looking forward to wearing it and feeling like a queen at non-Star Wars events though.