Christmas celebrations

The Christmas days are over, and this year I celebrated Christmas in a new skirt.

This is one of the best skirts that I have made in a long time, because I actually took my time with it. It's made from a fabric that I found on spoonflower. Since it had a very clear pattern on it I wanted to keep it all on even rows. I simply took two lengths of fabric and pleated them into a waistband, I added a hidden zipper and hook and bar in one of the side seams. To make it easy I even hemmed the lengths before I added them to the waistband.

It's bad light, but this is the photo that best shows off the volume. I'm wearing my shortest and poufiest tuille petticoat under it. I just loved twirling around in the skirt all Christmas. The shoes I'm wearing are my Christmas gift to myself, a pair of Irregular Choice Sweet Ginger Love. I got a pair of big pink, fluffy Christmas tree earings from my aunt and they were perfect with this pink/purple floofyness.

Talking about Christmas gifts, this is my haul with gifts in connection with food and sewing.

There are two things that will probably be seen later on this blog - The official Downton Abbey cookbook, filled with wonderful Edwardian recipes and the bundles of lace at the bottom of the photo. It's bobbin lace, and my sister has made it herself, which must have taken her soooooo many hours since the lace is so fine. Two of the lengths will go to the shirt for my folk costume, so now I need to buy fabric and make a new one, and the third length is just a general lace that can go on anything.

I hope all of you who are celebrating also had a nice Christmas.

Merry Christmas

In Sweden we celebrate on the Christmas Eve, so this is the last day before Christmas. I have just finished up a new festive skirt and I want to wish you all a very, merry Christmas.

The skirt was a remnant I found in a fabric store in Uppsala, it's alot more emerald green and blingy in real life. I've simply made a wastband and pleated the whole length of fabric to it. I was lucky and found a green zipper. The fabric doesn't ravel so I haven't even hemmed it.

Merry Christmas everyone!

My costumes at Celebration Anaheim

Costumes are one of the best things about Celebrations, it's just wonderful to see all the talent and creativity that are out there. My main costume was the gold handmaiden costume, and I did manage to finish it in time. I will try to do some more posts about finishing it, but since I was stressed at the end I didn't take a lot of photos.

I wore the handmaiden on the first day, so that I could bring it to the Rebel Legion Galactic Senate Detachment photo, that's the subgroup for senatorial and royal costumes.

I was happy to have my photo taken with "my" Amidala.

Wearing a corseted velvet hood and robe in the sun and heat was too much though, so even if I had planned to wear it the whole day I changed into my Endor Trooper for the rest of the day. It also wasn't easy to walk in it. The round circle held it's shape pretty well when I was standing, but I need to make it sturdier to I can kick it away from my feet when walking. I have an idea on how I can manage that though.

That evening the Rebel Legion and 501st Legion had a social event in the evening, and my Celebration/Convention companion David had come up with the idea that we should really dress up for the occasion, and so we did. It was a lot of fun, and that ballgown is a bit heavy, but it's perfect for travelling since it doesn't wrinkle at all.

On Friday it was the main Rebel Legion photo, and I wore the handmaiden for that, but then quickly changed into the Endor Trooper again. I love the Endor trooper at cons, it's so comfortable and has a lot of pockets for all the things you need to carry with you. In the afternoon I took part of the Rebel Legion Trooper march, where we trooped all through the convention centre in formation. I hadn't brought my backpack, and I have lost my wrist comm so I felt a bit underdressed, compared to the other troopers, but I got inspired to continue to add things to it.

Ready to march

On Friday it was also the Cosplay Contest, but I didn't go to it. I was part of a panel called "Ladies of the Legions" - about female Star Wars costuming and it was scheduled against the cosplay contest. In the panel we talked about opportunities, challenges and problemsolving revolving around female costuming.

The Running of the Hoods crashing our panel

 
Saturday was the day for the 501st photo shoot, so I had slated Saturday to be jawa day. Then I got scheduled to do a Queen Amidala make up presentation for Saturday as well. Then Del Rey, the publisher company for Star Wars books, had declared Saturday to be Aaron Allston appreciation day, and they were having an Aaron Allston tribute panel. Aaron Allston was a wonderful authour and person that passed away too soon. Since he was known for always wearing awful shirts one way of honouring him was to wear a hawaii shirt. That total mash up made me run around like this all day. The tiara was added when I looked myself in the mirror in the morning and I realised that I looked really silly and needed something to just top off the look, thankfully there was a Disney/Souvenir store in the hotel.

It was really comfy though, the jawa costume isn't very hot when you don't wear the mask, so this is definitely a costume that I'm going to develope for future cons. Well the Queen I'majawa look, not necessarily the hawaii shirt.

Here is me and Joslynn after our make up presentation, where I basically went through the tutorial from this blog, while Joslynn was putting on her make up live. I had removed the shirt and the hood for that.

After the presentation I dashed off for the 501st photoshoot, only to realize that it would take too much time, so I would miss the Aaron Allston panel. I chose to go to the panel instead. Being with friends talking and hearing stories about him was brought both tears of sadness and joy, which is exactly like Aaron did when his wrote his stories.

On Saturday the group that I spent most of the time with were pretty tired, and they were going to line up early to get into a specific panel on Sunday morning. I went up to my hotel room, but wasn't tired, so I decided to try and roll up my hair and do pin curls for the first time. I could actuallly sleep on the curls, unlike when I've used rollers, and even if I only did a fast and dirty job with them,  I can definitely see that it will be worth practicing doing them. I did roll up my hair because on Sunday I had decided to not wear a costume, but my Star Wars cocktail dress, together with a fabulous pearl necklace with an R2 pendant that I had picked up from Her Universe. There were definitely a lot of dresses made from Star Wars fabric, but I think I was the only one with  a tight skirt. Most others were variations of a corseted or tight bodice and a poufy skirt. Once again I was actually glad that I hadn't bothered to bring the can can trooper, since there were so many corset/skirt combos there.

When lacking a hyperdrive, some greenscreen magic can bring you to Bespin

I had a great time in Anaheim, but with more than 100 000 tickets sold there was a lot of people there, and the only sad thing is that I didn't meet all the people that I wanted to meet and talk to.

Glamorous and fun 1920's

Yesterday I was invited to a birthday party with a 1920's theme. It's actually one of my least favorite fashion decades, so I don't really have anything in my wardrobe from the decade. Some years ago I made a ballgown in purple, it was actually the leftovers from when I tried to collect fabric for the first time for the purple travel gown. I was never really happy with the ballgown and some years after that I remember that I had simply cut off the bodice and turned the skirt into a new ballgown. I also remember that my first instinct when I saw myself in the new ballgown was "I've been watching too much of House of Elliot lately". I went up to the attic and found the gown. I took away the longer underskirt and pushed the belt as far down towards the hips as possible, not easy since it was supposed to cinch the waist.

I added some plastic pearl necklaces, a pair of black shoes with a strap and black evening gloves for a glamourous 1920's look.

I'm quite happy with how I managed to style my hair. I am getting better at doing things with my hair and that's fun. Now there are tons of tutorials on how to make flapperstyle hair, and I can't really find the exact videos that I used. I basically washed my hair, parted it to the side and clamped it with hair clips to make the wave pattern. The rest of the hair i put into foamcurlers and then I let it dry. The back hair was looped up in the back and the waves were put in place with a ton of hairspray. I put an elastic silver/black headband over it all. I think I'm going to try and make more hairstyles like this, and practice the finger weave more so that I can get a more distinct weave.

This was a fun dressing up thing, and I am actually surprised on how I liked the style, so maybe there are some good things when it comes to 1920's fashion and I shouldn't totally dismiss it.

My outfit at the wedding

For the wedding I of course also wanted make something for myself. In my stash I had a piece of this wonderful gold/blue brocade that I had gotten from my sister and her (now) husband when they visited Cambodia and Thailand. It's gorgeous fabric, but I had really no idea what I should make with it. It's splashy with all the gold, and the fabric is quite stiff as well. It had always screamed corset to me, but I couldn't justify making another party corset, without knowing how much I could use it. Now when my sister decided to get married I felt that it would be a great opportunity to actually make something out of the fabric. My plan all along was to make a corset, skirt and jacket. The idea is that I can combine the pieces with other things, and then I might get more use out of them, compared to if I had made a cocktail dress out of it.

The skirt is B4451, the same pattern I used and tested for the HSF14: Plaid and Paisley challenge. The fabric has a very distinct border with three different rows of pattenrs before going into the main pattern of the fabric. Since this pattern ended with the selvage I didn't hem it but kept that selvage as the bottom of the skirt.

The corset is once again Truly Victorian TV110. I lengthened it a bit at the top, but if I'm making another corset that shouldn't be worn with anything under I would lengthen it a bit more. I couldn't lift my arms over my head without some serious spillage happening. For this corset I actually splurged out and bought a busk with gold fastenings. It just didn't feel right with the ordinary silver ones compared to all the gold of the fabric. The foundation layer is coutil and the boning channels are sewn between the brocade and the coutil. I've used two spiral steels on every seam, except for the back where I used spring steel around the grommets. It's bound with purple bias binding and I also used purple lacing. This corset has totally converted me to using spiral steel instead of spring steel everywhere but around the grommets. It's easier to move and bend in it, and it still laced just as tight as with the spring steel.

For the shrug I didn't use B4451, but instead a drndl-inspired pattern from an old Burda magazine. The fabric is some kind of shiny polyester that I stumbled upon when I discovered that there is actually a really good fabric store in Mora, only an hour or so away from here! I cut out pieces of the border of the fabric for the edging. The original pattern came with a very puffy sleeve, and I wanted long fitted sleeves. I decided to actually draft my own sleeve pattern for this. I used the instructions in Constructing Historical Clothes, and now I have a base pattern to work with for sleeves. It's not finetuned, and I definitely need to work more with learning how to shape the armscyes to make the whole sleeve fit better, but it's a better start than in a long, long time when it comes to sleeves. I should also say that this took a lot of trial and error, and at 00:30 the night before the wedding I cut off the sleeves that I had worked with and started over. For that reason the sleeves aren't lined and I couldn't find any buttons to close the cuffs.

Now as I mentioned in the post about the wedding I didn't get any photos taken with me and the bride, or even of myself.

Here I've dressed up my dressform in the outfit, and I could only pin the corset on so you can't really see the fit. It's also quite wrinkled and crumply after a day/night of dancing and being thrown into a bag when I decided to skip the corset and shrug and continue with just a tanktop and skirt.

My sister got a shot of the people waiting outside of the church, and it's the best I've seen of the outfit on me, unfortunately I'm in the shadow and holding my bag in front of me.

The facts
Fabric: 2 m of gold/blue brocade, 1 m of white coutil, 2 m of poly satin (?) (it was good that I had bought some extra when I needed to redo the sleeves), 70 cm of blue lining for the skirt.
Pattern: Corset - TV110, skirt - Butterick 4451, shrug - Burda drndl bolero and my own sleeve pattern.
Notions: busk, spiral and spring steel boning, bias binding, lacing, zipper
Hours to complete: 3 days
First worn: my sister's wedding August 9
Total Cost: The main fabric was free, since it was a gift, most of the cost was for the coutil, busk and boning. In total I end up with probably around $70

What I learned with this project
I drafted my own sleeve! It's not perfect, but it's not worse than any of the commercial sleeve patterns that I have used. I have written quite a lot of comments on the sleeve so when I implement them I hope that I can finally make nice looking sleeve.

Future plans
Now when I've made this outfit I want to use it again. I happen to be invited to ball, it's the 375th anniversary for a student organisation I was part of, and my first plan was to use some of my old ballgowns from those days or one of my 18th century gowns, now I'm thinking about using this corset and shrug and sew a late 19th century inspired skirt for them.

Fun story from the wedding day
The wedding was in the afternoon and I was going to deliver the wedding gown to my sister when she was at a hair salon in town. I did that, and then of course we wanted to eat lunch, something that was easy and not too messy. I ran down to a sushi place dressed in this and when I came in the women working there immediately recognized that the fabric must be from Thailand/Cambodia, it's apparently quite a special pattern on it.