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Jenna dress by LouLou James

10/28/2014

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So lets see how long it takes to make something with a baby...
8/10-9/10 I stuck together the pattern sheets and cut out my size
10/10-11/10 Washed and dried the fabric (yep, with a 2 month old baby there is a queue for space on the airer)
13/10-14/10 Cutting out the fabric
15/10-21/10 Got as far as making up the bodice, sleeves and skirt to do.The fabric I bought is horrible - it was really difficult to cut because it woudn't lie flat after folding (the cutting layout calls for foding both sides to the middle which makes it worse), and it also has really poor recovery - after the camisole edges ended up badly stretched from applying the binding, I had to switch to stitching everything with the waking foot, which is a shame cos I just figured out how to use one of the feet that came with my machine to do perfectly spaces top stitching! Oh well, hopefully a wash will sort out the bits that are already stetched as I don't have any extra to cut new pieces.
22/10- ?

So in total, it took days! The funny thing is that it didn't actually feel that long, maybe because the general trend of how much I could do each day was upwards (notice I said general trend - he has good days an bad days!) There was a bit of a break through when i realised that he actually sleeps much better in the living room with the sound of the TV and the sewing machine than he does in the quiet bedroom in his bed.

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A shopping spree in white...

10/21/2014

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I've been on a bit of a fabric buying spree, and nearly all of it in white! Here's what I bought.
1. White cotton lawn - fabricland, 3.59 pm
This will be used for Victorian undergarments and baby clothes - the second row of pictures are of antique combinations which I purchased to study/recreate. The weight and hand of the modern lawn are very similar to the antique fabric, but the antique stuff is a comparatively coarse thread with a less dense weave - on the modern lawn you can't even see the individual threads.
2. White cotton - fabricland, £2.69 pm
This is an appropriate weight for Victorian petticoats - again, the second row of pictures are of an antique petticoat I purchased.  The antique petti is very slightly heavier weight fabric.
3. White cotton drill - fabricland, £4.99 pm
This is for a second version of the 1830's corset I made previously - I felt that the lack of correct fabrics in my last attempt really impacted on the end result - the fabric needed a little stretch to work with the straight lines of the design. I'm hoping to make a nursing version, and was thinking of using my embroidery machine to stitch the cording channels - we shall see if that happens!
4. White cotton organdy from this etsy seller and white cotton cordonnet from amazon
Cotton organdy is a really interesting fabric! These were bought so that I can have a go at making my own entredeux and insertion, to use when making my underwear. Cotton organdy is a really interesting fabric - incredibly light but stiff, I'm excited to try sewing with it. The second picture is some antique insertion which I bought, thinking i would use it... but now I don't think I should, so I'm going to try to replicate it instead.
5. White silk damask - an ebay remnant purchase for a very good price,  It's lovely, very light weight but stiff. I'm thinking I'll use this for the bodice and peplum of the dress below. I have loads of blue velvet left over from the Calamity Jane dress which I'll use for the trim.
6. Last but not least, PURPLE stretch cotton & elastane (I think) to make a Jenna nursing dress, pattern by LouLou Jmes Creative. This should really be the first thing I make as I'm desperately short on suitable clothing, but free time comes in VERY short slots at the moment (if you're wondering I'm typing this one handed with a baby sleeping on the other arm) so I may end up doing some instant gratification sewing first.
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Enchanted inspired wedding

10/12/2014

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Around 5 years ago I made 6 bridesmaids dresses and a wedding dress for a friend. She really wanted dresses inspired by the curtain dress in Enchanted, and we had fun visiting the local fabric shops to pick out the fabric. This was the first wedding dress I made and I was pretty nervous about doing it but she begged me so I gave it a go, and looking at the pictures now I'm proud of the results, and excited to hopefully make some more soon :) She just shared these pictures on Facebook so I thought I'd share them with you.
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1880's bustle

10/6/2014

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This mid 1880's style bustle was made as part of a course at The School of Historical Dress in November 2013. I learnt so much on this course (although I did promise not to give away any trade secrets, so this post won't be super detailed), and the end result is a 100% accurate duplicate of a extant bustle. The bustle has a horsehair pad at the top and thread covered steels to create the shape - notice how much narrower they are than the plastic covered stuff you can buy on the high street.
Check out my stripe matching - I'm super pleased with it, and it was achieved through marking the stitching lines with chalk then with thread, then basting everything before stitching it. There was a LOT of hand sewing in the course, and I actually learnt how to use a thimble properly!
Notice in the second picture that the bustle is actually narrower than I am - this is a feature of the second bustle period. Useful because it means that bustles at this time are one-size-fits-all. The first bustle period is a different shape, adding width to the body as well as sticking out at the back. I'd never noticed the difference before, but after Luca (the teacher on this course) took us through Harper's Bazarre pointing out the feature of each period it's super obvious. And a really good lesson in the importance of primary sources - after looking at the fashion plates of the time we looked at pictures of extant garments in books, and with out new knowledge of trends over time it was obvious that some of them had actually been mislabelled.
Below you can see me wearing the bustle along with the rest of my victorian underwear (which I now need to remake to be more historically accurate, and of course to fit my post baby body!) It's interesting to see how the weight of the petticoat affects the shape of the bustle - in the pictures without it actually sticks up slightly.
Hopefully my remade underwear will be done using some of the principles I learnt on the course - using primary sources to identify the correct shapes and draft the pattern, and studying the construction of antique pieces to find the correct techniques to use. More on that later.
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    My crazy costuming, sewing and maybe other stuff too blog! Hopefully others can learn from my mistakes and I can learn from your comments :)

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