Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Winterhalter Eugenie Gardums!

 Mum and I went to Gardums- a very good Brisbane-based fabric store, on a lace-and-trim trawl. Gardums is a lovely upscale fabric store with three locations across the city - it deals mostly with high-end fabrics and believes in getting good money for the value of it's stuff - the fabrics are lovely but the prices are heartbreaking. No bargains here - not even in the remnant bin - you'll be charged as close to market value for that 20 cm scrap of lace or 40cm of sun-faded silk taffeta as the market will bear!

But the fabrics are exquisite and the laces and trims are the real thing, and once in a while, there's a lovely fabric on sale.
 
 
I bought four meters of this to make myself a dress - Vogue 1102 - one of my favorites. I'm hemming a version of it in black and white linen right now.

I bought yards of gorgeous lace at AG doll scale!!!!  I can stop hoarding my slender supply - at home I have very little and consequently never use it - I'm always save for the next thing!
And in the remnant bin I found a lovely stretch of silk chiffon and some gorgeous apricot-y silk charemeuse and on the trim shelf I found a fabulous ribbon-flower trim -



And naturally one thinks of this painting - Empress Eugenie and her Ladies by Winterhalter:


So…..
Introducing: The Gardums Remnant Ballgown!

The flowered trim will be a wrap - of course - something like this, lined with matching silk satin so that it drapes…


As for the dress - there's enough apricot satin for a skirt and a bodice. An over skirt of chiffon, looped up with ribbons and roses, and a chiffon bertha - pleated or draped -

I'm thinking very classical - something you could have worn from the 1840s until the very end of the 60s - suitable for passing down through a row of children.

(this image from the V&A is from the 1840s, but the look stays remarkably consistent through the period)



Vintage Victorian has a fabulous page with lots of 1860s fashion plates of evening dress.

Inspirations for the skirt:

Love the sleeves and bertha on this one as well!



And the apricot one on the left with the bows and streamers -


Inspirations for the bertha:





I rather like this one, on the blue ballgown - I'm trying to imagine how layered lace sleeves would look underneath it:




But I think that I rather prefer something along these lines:



The sleeves will have to evolve a bit, I think. My original idea called for puff sleeves in the satin layered with tubes of chiffon, but this will be completely lost under the bertha, I think. Longer and larger puffs? Layered with lace, possibly.

Reckon I'll start by hand-hemming the skirt layers and see what bubbles up.


Friday, November 26, 2010

Silk gift bag


This embroidered bag was a bachelorette gift for an artist friend (Zoe) who was married last month - I sewed the outer bag of green silk and lined it with calico - so that it would be strong enough to hold a large bottle of chocolate body paint and a paintbrush!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The Straw Basket Bonnet

How to make an 1860's doll bonnet from a craft-store straw basket:


Take one small straw basket from Lincraft. (Home furnishings section)
Slice in half, bind the raw edge with cotton bias, line the shell with silk taffeta and lace, attach a silk curtain round the bottom edge, and go wild with feather biots and fabric flowers and white taffeta!



Friday, November 19, 2010

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Finalist in the Historical Inspiration Festival!

Good gosh! - I went over to Story of a Seamstress tonight and discovered that my 1850s Child's Dress has been nominated as a finalist in the Most Creative Category!

Saturday, October 2, 2010

The Historical Inspiration Festival - Part 3

 
Story of a Seamstress is hosting a Historical Inspiration Costume Festival.  She has kindly invited doll costumers to participate - so I'm putting up a few of my 'historically inspired' outfits!

Introducing Bella:

Bella is a mid-century summer costume, inspired by several fashion plates showing breezy summer outfits worn with straw hats:



The dress is sewn of chequered cotton poplin and trimmed with vintage velvet ribbon.  It is ornamented with self-pleats, positioned to take advantage of the striping in the fabric.  The pelerine is made from a vintage cotton collar:



The shawl is sewn from silk charmeuse, blind hemmed by hand and embroidered with silk ribbon roses:


Embroidery Detail of shawl:


The hat is made from half of a vintage straw purse - steamed to shape and trimmed with wired silk ribbon roses:


Under her dress, Bella wears a lace trimmed cotton petticoat, a set of hoops (courtesy of the AG company) and white voile pantaloons:

The Historical Inspiration Festival - Part 2

Story of a Seamstress is hosting a Historical Inspiration Costume Festival.  She has kindly invited doll costumers to participate - so I'm putting up a few of my 'historically inspired' outfits!

Introducing Regency Lilly:


This small gown was put together as a rather drastic holiday from reality during my final fortnight of grad school presentations. Unsurprisingly, is an unholy mess of bad construction decisions (and no lining under that crepe bodice? Really?!) It was based on this c.1815 color plate of an EXTREMELY decorated ballgown:


The underskirt and under-sleeves are sewn from white silk charmeuse, and the overdress of lavender silk crepe.
The dress is trimmed with vintage cotton lace and bands of 7mm lavender silk ribbon.  The three-dimensional flower bouquets are made from wired silk ribbons in varied widths and colors:



A view of the wired silk ribbon bouquets on the white silk underskirt:


The back detail is composed of a sprig of wired silk ribbons and a three-color fall of 7mm silk ribbons in purple, lavender and white: