Pirate Shirts are Big

Well, I finished the construction of the shirt from Simplicity 4923, the pirate costume. As I mentioned earlier, it was a very simple shirt, and I made it difficult for myself by deciding to embroider it.

It uses a dropped shoulder as a feature, and unfortunately they accomplish this by making the main torso section huge. They could have chosen a yoke, like the style of Simplicity 3519, and had the torso fit more comfortably.

Yarr...It be a Puffy Shirt

So, I have begun the construction of the pirate shirt I promised Jon for last year's pirate fest, and then last year's halloween. :/

In actual fact, it's a very straightforward shirt: I could finish it in an evening.
So, naturally, I decided to embroider the cuffs and neckline.

I'll have to get a better picture later. But long story short, I make life difficult for myself.

Oh, ruffles...

So, when I bought a whole bunch of eyelet trim for the farthingale, I thought I had enough. Nowhere near. So I went out to buy another 15 metres or so.

Well, I couldn't find it at the local Fabricland, nor the nearest three, nor the huge one on Ottawa street. It turns out they've discontinued it! And, moreover, the company that makes it has been acquired by another, and they don't really exist anymore!

I happened to get the one employee from the old company on the phone, and she knew what I was talking about, and found me some old stock buried in the warehouse somewhere. I had to buy a lot of it, though.

It's just my luck that the trim I base a whole article of clothing on goes discontinued just in time for all stock to run out at the time I've discovered I need more.

An Underbust Corset

I was quite inspired by the new corset pattern by King and Company. I decided that I wanted to make up a quick underbust to add to a basic deep green satin dress to make an old-fashioned Snow White costume for halloween. Guess what didn't happen?

Fathingcoat! Pettigale?

So a long time ago I decided to create one of the undergarments for the Tudor Gown. It would need a farthingale to make the skirt stand out straight. It would then need a petticoat to hide the steels. I had a brainstorm. A combination farthingale-petticoat: a farthingale with rows of ruffles sewn right onto it. And I began. I spoke about the scads and scads of ruffles previously.

I had an idea that I would need to get proper steel for it, but I did not like the thought. I figured, maybe if I get the cheap plastic boning, but put a few rows right beside each other, they'll reinforce each other and be fine. Take note: this does not work. It makes more work for you, in fact, because then you have to painstakingly pick out the stitches for all those superfluous horizontal rows.

Anyway, I finally got them unpicked and I have some proper steels, and I have sewn the casings on (measured meticulously) and started to sew the flounces on.

It takes longer than I anticipated. Also, I have decided I need to make an actual skirt with three flounces at the bottom -- I kind of like the look of this.

Ren Fair and Pirate Fair 2011

Well, the two festivals I've mentioned previously have come and gone. I did, in fact, complete one outfit to wear (and a slight variation so that it wasn't identical for both). The basic outfit was the skirt, the blouse, and the bodice. The Pirate Festival got a hitched-up overskirt and the Renaissance Faire got a white apron.

What have I been doing?

Well, the blog isn't abandoned, as much as it seems like it. I've had a change of career and it took a lot of my attention for quite some time. On top of that, in the last several months I've lost a lot of weight, which makes it rather heartbreaking to spend a lot of time on a costume if the end result is that it won't fit you in a month. Case in point below: my Arwen Evenstar dress.

Making a Spontaneous Flower Hair Wreath

Okay, today I ran across the holy grail of picturesque costuming skills: the ability to wander into a field and create a hair wreath from just the flowers you can pick there.

As Sempstress.org puts it:

So there’s always that scene in medieval movies where the heroine is seen romping around a field with a wreath of real live flowers on her head, and maybe there’s someone shown doing some totally random bit of jiggery-pokery that effortlessly causes flowers to form into a neat little chain...

It's brilliant. I'm going to go divest a field of some daisies now.