The annual Christmas fair

 After a cancelled fair last year, due to the pandemic, work was back with a wonderful Christmas fair. I will say that it was the best weather in a very long time, it was really as romantic and picture perfect that you want a Christmas fair to be.

As usual my job was to make sure that there were historical characters running around. I first invited our 16th century guild, so they came and had a little camp on the outskirt of the market.

Then I was part of a group that recreated two scenes from the 17th century. And I was really happy to finally have clothes that I feel I can call 17th century without a bad conscience. I was using my yellow sleeveless kirtle and the reversible jacket that I made last winter and is a very generic 16th-18th century shape. I also wore the cap that I usually wear over my wulsthaube, and without the wulst it looked really good as a later cap. My goal for the year was to recreate a long cap seen in a drawing from the mine from 1683, but I simply didn't have thet time so that will be a future project.

Photo: Olle Ekman, Dalarnas Tidningar

This is from when we did our dramatized scenes. The other women have some decent clothes, except for the caps but I still felt the caps were better than just using a shawl, they are also sitting a bit strange since it was cold and they wanted to wear knitted caps under their white ones. The male costume needs to get a pair of warmer breeches to look better, it was too cold for the very thin breeches that we have in our little costume wardrobe.

This was from earlier in the week, when I didn't have time to put te neckerchief on.

Fake it 'till you make it part 3

For the men at the Christmas fair I had to fake it, for the women it was easier to make historically plausible clothes.

I spent most of my time with the costumes sewing skirts for the staff at the entrances. I made the basic 18th century skirt that you tie around your waist, since that makes it easy to adjust them. I also made the skirts fairly wide so that they could wear thermal trousers under them. All in all I made 15 skirts. They are sewn on machine and quickly gathered to a waistband. The wool for the skirts didn't fray so I didn't hem them either. The men working had a cloth tabard, from the museum storage, and dark clothes, and then we also provided caps and scarves for them to wear. The aim was to get a generic late 19th century vibe.

One thing was evident, that I haven't really thought about. It was easily visible who felt comfortable in their clothes, and who felt strange and dressed out. That is also important to remember when working with a lot of extras. The body language can also give a lot to the authenticity, if you can believe that the person wearing is from another time period just from they way the move and stand. For many of the women working at our fair it was clearly unusual to wear a long skirt and walk around in it the whole day.

For the dramatizations we did I played the female characters. And for our poor working woman I would say that those clothes are not fake, they are quite accurate, even if I ended up with a bit more 17th than 18th century.

I'm wearing a simple skirt, a linen apron and a mid-17th century cap. The jacket is a shortgown based on a preserved shortgown from Visby from the middle of the 18th century. That jacket is made to be worn over pocket hoops, so for this version  made it narrower, I also made the sleeves slightly larger. The shortgown is sewn on machine. The only fake thing is the scarf that I wore, but it was cold and I needed something warm around my neck. Overall this is a look that I feel confident in that it is pretty accurate, and not just plausible, for a simple woman in the late 17th and early 18th centuries around here.

The other character was the landlady of the tavern. I needed to make her look like she's from a higher social status than the poor woman. Here I totally mixed what I could use. 

The foundation garment is my 16th century mustard kirtle, I wanted to give her more colour than the greys and browns of the poor woman. The jacket is a grey jacket from the costume storage. The pattern is nice, but the fabric is dreadful. It's ok from a distance. I added a white neckerchief and a white apron for her. I had planned to use a silk cap to cover the hair, but we had a heavy and wet snowfall on the day of the fair so wearing silk outside was out of the question. I stuck with my 17th century cap, but for her I tied it further back to show a bit more hair than for the poor woman.

The rolling pin is there because I've had to chase out one of the customers of the tavern with it.

Fake it 'til you make it part 2

Something I can recommend for any museum is to reach out to historical costumers and recreators, are they willing to come and help by showing up in costume? This year we had decided to stage some historical scenes set in 1719. I reached out to my colleagues in Sala, the ones who invited me to my very first 18th century event, since I knew that they are actively working with recreating the 18th century. December is a very busy time for them but two of them showed up in costume.

The man's outfit is based on a picture of a map from 1683, and that is a picture I had as a reference as well when I wanted to create a working man's outfit for the late 17th and early 18th century.

The other reference is the woodcut of Fet-Mats Israelsson, who's the reason we had picked the year 1719 for our dramatizations.

I am pretty happy with the costumes that I managed to fake for "our" characters

In Sweden we don't have any webshops that sell 18th century clothing, but we have a lot of viking/medieval shops. Our miners are actually wearing Torsbjerg-trousers, since they were the best wool trousers we could find. To simulate the trousers being breeches they wore either knitted legwarmers or wool legbinders (also viking but it looked good).The vest is from our storage, and it's really nice with proper copper buttons. It is winter though, so they needed some kind of jacket. I made a very quick unfitted jacket, that was basically just a fabric folded double and cut in a T-shape. I then cut off the sleeves so I could make them a bit more shaped and slimmer, and sewed them on again.

The least accurate costume was for the head administrator. Already when we started planning the dramatizations I said that we would not be able to make or buy an upper class outfit. Everything was resolved when we were told that we could borrow a costume. Phew! Then one week before the fair it was clear that we would not be able to borrow the costume as we had thought, so I had less than a week to come up with something.  Based on the portrait of the head administrator I decided that we needed to get some things done so that people only saw the focus details, and not the rest of the costume. I decided that a wig and tricorn hat, a cravat and a vest in a bright colour would make him stand out against the workers.

I have described the work with the wig here. It is a cheap party wig, sprayed white and powdered. For the vest I found a remnant of fake damask fabric in our storage and made a very simple pattern for an early 18th century vest.

I didn't have enough fabric to get it quite as wide in the skirt as I had hoped. I also found some gold braid, and since this vest was a 2 hour job on Friday afternoon I really cheated. Instead of hemming the vest I just zigzagged the edges and put the trim over it to hide the stitches.

I actually think it looks best from behind

 There was just enough trim that I could also take one of our black round hats, apply the gold trim and turn up the brim to create a tricorne from it. The trousers are simply called "fantasy" trousers, that we had in storage, and he brought his own jacket. The jacket was quite short though so he chose to tuck the vest into the trousers to make it even with the jacket. To finish it all off he wore one of my linen veils as a cravat.

accurate, fake, plausible

I must say that in the end it looked fairly good, as long as you stood some distance away.

The drama is in full swing - Fet-Mats has been found after 42 years.

A quick fix for a cheap wig

On Sunday it's time for the annual Christmas fair at work, which is one of the most respected and well-known fairs in Sweden to be honest. Since last year we have worked with creating a more "historical" atmosphere. Our problem is lack of money and the fact that the costume department at work is basically just me, outside of my regular work. I will probably make a longer post about the differences between being a serious historical costumer and having to work within the confines of a small budget, lack of knowledge and lack of time.

Anyway one of the things that was a last minute thing to create a decent costume for a person to portray Anders Swab, the head administrator in the year 1719. There is a portrait of him looking like this

A wig was essential. The original plan was to borrow a decent outfit, but when that fell through I had to make things work. This I realized on Monday, yes this Monday. The only opportunity was to go out to one of the cheap party shops that I can rely on delivering within one or two days, and so I did. I found this awful and cheap pirate wig, but it was still the best option they had. Don't get me started on what they called their 18th century wigs or layer/judges wigs.

Even before it arrived I had a plan though. I tried to take photos of the process, but the bad light in the shower at work didn't really show any differences between the stages. I started out with a can of cheap white spray-on haircolour. I emptied the whole can, and that was enough to turn the wig from a shiny black monster and into something decent. The next step was to apply generous amounts of hair powder. I didn't use my proper 18th century hairpowder for this, but instead I mixed potato starch (potatismjöl) and baby powder (talc) in equeal amounts. To make the hair powder stick I used a regular strong hairspray. I sprayed the wig and then brushed the powder on with a regular paintbrush in layers. I finished it all off with a generous dose of hairspray.

This was the end result

I haven't styled the wig at all, so it will stay in the same shape as I bought it, but the new colour, shine and texture of it has really turned it into a believable 18th century wig, instead of a cheap party wig.

Cost - wig $25, haircolour spray $5, potato starch $1, baby powder $2. Total cost - $33

Spirit of the Mine 2019

Over the autumn school holiday and Halloween we have special tours in the mine that talk about the scarier histories. This is the time when actually talk about gruesome deaths and the mine spirit - the Lady of the Mine/Gruvfrun also makes an appearance.

I like playing the Lady of the Mine, but I have to work with what we have. There is an old white gown that has been used for a very long time in the mine and last year I bought several meters of organza to use for these special tours. I don't like the Lady being only dressed in white, since that according to folklore is a special sign and there are other stories of her being dressed as a rich woman in colorful clothes. Also during the tour I need to be able to run, quickly get out of the gown and back in again, so it still needed to be a loose garment. The solution was to simply pin swathes of organza on the white gown. My aim was to make the skirt look like she grew out of the floor and took a solid shape just above the waist

I also brought with me my own make up to try and paint her. I did use some UV paints in red and yellow to accent some features, because I show up in the dark in a segment. That's why I have a red stripe on my nose, but I still thought it looked good.

This is what I ended up looking like. The photos are taken with my phone, so they are a bit washed out, my hair and the organza are much brighter in real life.

And for some mysterious vibes

My cute wool garters

For the hose that I made earlier this autumn I of course need something to hold them up. At the event where I wore them I simply tied a ribbon under the knee, and that worked really well. Now I have something nicer though.

My mother actually knitted a pair of garters for me. Knitted garters are not accurate for the time period, but I like them anyway. They are made from wool yarn that my mother said was so tricky and uneven to work with that it's probably part of the stash from my paternal great grandmother. So now I have a piece that I can use that my mother has made, and that is made from yarn that has been in the family for probably almost a 100 years. That is much more worth it to me than accuracy.

Happy Halloween

Halloween isn't a traditional holiday in Sweden, but it is a good reason to dress up and play around with horror stuff. For this year the Falun Mine decided to do a scary tour of the mine on Halloween, and I jumped at the chance of portraying the spirit in the mine, the Lady of the Mine. Earlier in the autum we did a photoshoot to advertise the tours, and here are the photos.

The photo above has been on the billboards along the roads leading into Falun, so I've felt like quite a poster girl.

The tour was so popular that we had to put in three exta tours due to demand, two of them will be tomorrow but I'm not doing them. This was definitely a success so I'm looking forward to them next year.

A quick apron for Mrs. Santa Clause

With The Last Jedi premiere over and done with it's time for me to clean up my workspace, which has taken up my whole living room, and prepare for Christmas. I can definitely say that this is a year when it would have been nice if Chrismas Eve hadn't been on the fourth of advent, basically robbing me of one week to prepare.

Anyway I have some small things to post about before it's time to summarize my costume year.

At my job we have one of the largest Christmas fair's in central Sweden on the second of advent. We go all traditional on it, and our Santas are traditional Swedish Santas or rather Tomtar/Nissar. You can read up on them here.

This year our Tomtar were to be outside the whole time, so they needed a new warmer wardrobe. Most of their clothes were bought, but when our female tomte needed a new apron, and we found a nice green fabric in the storage I sewed one for her.

It was a nice wool fabric in green with yellow and wine coloured stripes. It's pleated to a waistband in the same material. All sewn on machine.

I didn't get any photos of our female tomte, but here is one of our male tomtar wishing you a Merry Christmas.

1980's theme party

I took a break from Mon Mothma and went to an 1980's theme party this Saturday. I had great fun getting dressed as in the 80's. I was a kid in that decade, but old enough to be jealous of my sisters who were teenagers and dressed in such nice clothes. There are a lot of hate towards the 1980's fashion, but it definitely helped develop my sense of what looks good or not. I also didn't have to look too far to find suitable things in my wardrobe.

Startint from the bottom and going up.

Black court shoes - these are my favorite shoes at the moment.
Training leggings -
Black bubble skirt - I quickly threw it together with some polyester lining fabrid and elastic in the waist.
White belt with eyelets - borrowed from my sister
Training t-shirt - it was the biggest I could find in my stash
White/pink satin bomber jacket - the only thing that I bought, at an outlet store, for the eveninng.
White fingerless lace gloves
Faux pearl necklace and bracelets
Hairband
Pink and black leather handbag.

Things are happening

I haven't updated here in a while, and it's mostly because I haven't finished anything in a while, I have a couple of UFOs that I'm working on though, so here is a little update on them.

1. TFA Leia - I did take approval photos of it two weeks ago, but I wasn't happy with how they turned out. I have also ordered materials to make the ring for it, so now I'm going to wait until I have the ring before taking new approval photos. That will unfortunately mean that I will probably not have it approved before comic-con.

2. Pet en l'ar - The pet was mostly a way of trying out a sack dress pattern. It worked out fine, and since I don't have any deadlines for it I'm going to take it slow. It only needs some finishing things, like hemming and adding ribbons, and those are things that are nice to do at the monthly craft café that I go to, so I'm not working on it outside of that.

3. Ballgown. I'm going to a ball on Saturday. I have decided to make a silk jacket and black skirt, both of them are half finished, and since they have a definite deadline I'm hoping to show them after the weekend.

I have done a mini-project though. I was invited on short notice to a surprise birthday celebration for a friend. The theme in the evening was going to be Oktober-fest. On Friday evening I tried to find something suitable to wear. I had a blouse and black skirt, but felt that I miseed something, so I sewed a drndl-like bodice. I found a remnant of a cute cotton print in my stash and used the bodice pattern or my 16th Century gown. I used the eye part of two lengths of hook and eye tape that I could pull a lacing through to close it. It's not lined or has any boning, but I got quite a few compliments for it.

Not too bad for 55 minutes work.

The only picture of most of the outfit.

Tudor/Elizabethan Leia

My most fun costume that I did for Celebration Europe in London was the Tudor/Elizabetan Leia. I meant for it to be an Elizabethan costume, but it ended up more Tudor when I tried to mesh Elizabethan with Star Wars. The inspiration for this costume came when I was in London in April. At that time I was simply put quite worn out and I didn't have any inspiration to sew at all. Still when I was there and had the chance to go fabric shopping with another Star Wars-costumer, and then came home to the hotell and watched the BBC Shakespeare 400th anniversary gala,  I just felt that it would be so suitable to mix the fact that it's a Shakespeare anniversary year with Star Wars Celebration taking place in London. My first idea was pretty simple. I would use my 16th century undergown, since it was white, and my 16th century shift, and then I would buy a cheap ruff and add my Leia belt. When I came home the project started to grow though, and in the end everything was made from scratch.

The under layer is a shift of cotton voile with pleated ruffs around the neck and wrists. I was not going to make a full boned farthingale, so I put my two 1950's style tulle petticoats on top of each other, and that gave a nice enough volume. The petticoat is three lengths of satin cartridge pleated to a wide cotton tape.

I did not have any historically accurate goals, and all the materials are wrong. This was going to be a cheapish costume so the satin for the gown and petticoat was the cheapest I could find, ugly, slinky polyester. Still the hems and the pleating is all handmade, it simply looks so much better.

For the gown I started with my 16th century bodice I made earlier this year. I lengthened the front to give it a point though. The bodice lining was made in two layers of cotton/linen fabric. I then made boning channels on most of the back and the front.

I added two rows of lacing holes to the front, and yes I made them by hand. It's not my most beautiful work, but the function is there. Even if there was boning channels all over the bodice I only put actual boning in some of the strategic places on the front, like around the lacing holes.

The fit was nice and smooth in the back without boning, and I more wanted to give the illusion of a fully boned bodice. Also since it was a fun and non-accurate costume I wanted it to be as easy to move in as possible. There was enough boning that I didn't need to wear a bra under it, and the front was straight. All the boning was reused boning from when I have slaughtered my worn out corsets.

The next step was to put the outer satin layer on top of the lining. It shows that even with a dreadful fabric like this it's possible to get it wrinkle free if you are careful with having the layers line up with each other.

The edge of the front pieces got a piece of plastic boning and hooks and eyes so it could be closed over the lacing.

To finish the bodice and skirt part of the gown I added a silver lace to the neckline and the front, to hide the small amount of gaping that was there. I had a big problem finding any suitable trimming, in the end I bought some white lace and sprayed it with silver paint. The skirt was once again three lengths of satin cartridge pleated and sewn to the bodice edge.

The next step was to make it more Star Wars-y, and for that I added the flared sleeves and hood from Princess Leia's classic white gown. This is what turned the dress into more Tudor than Elizabethan, but I felt that the sleeves really neded to be flared to make it look like Leia.

The headpiece was really fun to make. I found this tutorial for an Elizabethan headdress, but instead of using buckram and millinery wire, I shaped it with worbla. This was the first time I did something serious with worbla, and it was fun! It was so much fun that now I'm already wishing for a heatgun as a Christmas gift ( for this project I borrowed the heat gun from work).

After I had made the worbla frame I simply covered it with scraps of the white satin and some silver braiding. Everything was done with the help of hot glue. I finished off with adding two combs to it to hold it on to my hair.

The final touch was a long, cheap Pearl necklace that I added a silver Rebel pendant to abd my old Leia belt. As you can see the petticoat and gown is just calf length, so that I could show off my white Leia boots as well.

Overall this was a really fun project, and I'm very satisfied with the final look, and how I could cheat the bodice to look like a 16th century bodice even with a flimsy poly satin.

A last minute miniature Ice Cream Maker

I'm packing the last things for Celebration, and I even got time to make a last minute prop. As I've mentioned I have a Willrow Hood costume, but there's no way that I could get a proper ice cream maker into my luggage. Since this is a fun costume, I came up with making a miniature version of it.

Willrow wants to run

The ice cream maker basically looks like this, but painted white.

The top part of the lid, that looks like a handle, isn't there though. I decided to look around to see what I had home and if I could make a miniature prop, that will fit in the luggage.

I started off with a plastic can and a travelsize shampoo bottle

I glued the bottle to the middle of the can, and then cut out a piece of worble and put it over the top. There was some slight warping on the bottle from the heat of the worbla, but it worked. I then painted the whole thing with gesso and then with the only whitish paint I had at home. There was no time to sand down the gesso and make it smooth.

Then of course I also needed ice cream.

I took some wadding and poured some blue hobby paint on it.

Then I squeezed and kneaded the wadding to distribute the colour.

I didn't want it to get totally blended, so I stopped at this stage. Doesn't it look like delicions blue milk ice cream?

And here is the final mini ice cream maker!

Now I'm ready for London and Celebration Europe!