When talking to Lauren last night, she mentioned a long term project she wanted to work on, and today I thought of a way of encouraging her that also gained me something.
For a while Isolde has lacked clothing from her time period. I have also been desiring a new late period outfit. My persona being Roman means pretty much anything is late period for me, and the last thing I made that I would qualify as a "nice" late period dress was my Housebook and that was a year ago. Right now I'm working on new sleeves for a dress I made three years ago, but I still have very few really nice dresses, and as the kingdom I'm in right now seems to either have camping events or high court events, I've been wearing my three year old dress more frequently than I ever planned.
So, the new challenge is to have Isolde do research into her period, and we'll both make dresses based off her research. I know, it looks like I'm making her do most of the work, but she'll get both an outfit and documentation out of this challenge. I get to be sounding board and motivation, and I can do hair research on a specific period, which works for me, as I don't quite have the vested interest in the period, but do like having a focused period for hairstyle work. I might explore the cosmetics of the time, though I'm still just starting out with cosmetics, we'll see how that works out for me.
The goal is to have inspiration and research mostly decided by the end of January, and start shopping for fabrics in February and March when we get tax moneys back. The hope is to have the garments done around July for An Tir/West war if I'm still on the west coast, or for Pennsic if I've moved to the east coast. My husband's job is up in the air right now, so life's a bit uncertain.
We'll get a name for this challenge figured out in the next month or so....
P
Showing posts with label all talk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label all talk. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Friday, December 2, 2011
Score is Lorien 1, Lauren 0
Because I'm a responsible student, I've spent most of the last couple of weeks working on studying and projects and preparing for finals. This is good, except it also means that my time for working on the Red Dress Project has been limited. Had my pattern cooperated from day 1, I might have been okay, but alas, it has been giving me fits, and at this point, to finish the dress in time for Yule, I would literally have to work all day and night, Lori and I both, and probably rush some things I'd rather not rush. So, instead of doing that, I'm merely getting Lori to help me with the pattern, and wearing my red hat with a different dress on saturday. Eventually, I will finish the dress (soonish I hope, actually) and hopefully our hats can be reunited at an An Tir event, but for now? My sanity and qualiy time with my BFF are waaay more important. Also, not spending today slaving away on a dress means I actually have time to cook my A&S entry--w00t!
In other news, even though it's been giving me fits, I still love and adore the Herjolfsnes method of making a gown. The basic idea is that the center front and center back panels of a dress are more or less straight cut, with little to no flare or shaping, and that all of the shaping is achieved by a series of gores. Some of these are the normal (to me) triangles that are inserted at the waist, but the Herjolsnes gowns also include a number (4-8, depending on the specific garment) of elongated gores that extend all the way into the armpit, forming the sides of the dress and the bottom of the armsceye. My major issue came with the fact that I am much, much squishier than most women (hooray plus-sized!), and keeping 4 very narrow panels all on grain while trying to fit myself was seeming kind of impossible. Insert the clue-by-four, and I went back and examined the research (http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/cloth/herjback.html) and found that, contrary to what I'd been told, the rule that women's gowns always had four side gores and men's always had two is just totally fallacious. Specifically, check out #39 (woman's gown, 2 side gores) and #41 (man's garment, 4 side gores).
So, secure in that knowledge I cut a new starting-place mockup and adjusted the seams to match the straight-cut fronts and backs, then combined my four side gores into two. Already, I like the shape much, much better, and Lorien's tweaks were going much smoother last night.
I'll hopefully update with progress photos soon, but I've got a sleepy BFF to go have adventures with and documentation to write.
In other news, even though it's been giving me fits, I still love and adore the Herjolfsnes method of making a gown. The basic idea is that the center front and center back panels of a dress are more or less straight cut, with little to no flare or shaping, and that all of the shaping is achieved by a series of gores. Some of these are the normal (to me) triangles that are inserted at the waist, but the Herjolsnes gowns also include a number (4-8, depending on the specific garment) of elongated gores that extend all the way into the armpit, forming the sides of the dress and the bottom of the armsceye. My major issue came with the fact that I am much, much squishier than most women (hooray plus-sized!), and keeping 4 very narrow panels all on grain while trying to fit myself was seeming kind of impossible. Insert the clue-by-four, and I went back and examined the research (http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/cloth/herjback.html) and found that, contrary to what I'd been told, the rule that women's gowns always had four side gores and men's always had two is just totally fallacious. Specifically, check out #39 (woman's gown, 2 side gores) and #41 (man's garment, 4 side gores).
So, secure in that knowledge I cut a new starting-place mockup and adjusted the seams to match the straight-cut fronts and backs, then combined my four side gores into two. Already, I like the shape much, much better, and Lorien's tweaks were going much smoother last night.
I'll hopefully update with progress photos soon, but I've got a sleepy BFF to go have adventures with and documentation to write.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Collar didn't go too well...
I evidently cut the collar that I beaded on the wrong curve, and when I attached it to the bodice, it dug into my shoulders and neck uncomfortably, and curled in on itself. So, since I have very little time left, the collar has been cut from the plan.
The bodice is now assembled, aside from hooks and eyes down the front. Sunday is for Skirts! I have less fabric for the skirt than I had hoped, but I hear Tim Gunn in the background telling me to "Make it Work" and that is what I'll do!
Left to do on the dress:
Figure out the skirt cutting layout
Attach the skirt
Hem the skirt
Sew on hooks and eyes
Make lacing eyelets for the sleeves
Possibly make lacing cord, depending on what I get from my friend
Sew on the neckline lacing findings.
I have until Wednesday to finish, but I also have to pack clothes for the trip somewhere in there too... And I have work on Tuesday... EEEK!
The bodice is now assembled, aside from hooks and eyes down the front. Sunday is for Skirts! I have less fabric for the skirt than I had hoped, but I hear Tim Gunn in the background telling me to "Make it Work" and that is what I'll do!
Left to do on the dress:
Figure out the skirt cutting layout
Attach the skirt
Hem the skirt
Sew on hooks and eyes
Make lacing eyelets for the sleeves
Possibly make lacing cord, depending on what I get from my friend
Sew on the neckline lacing findings.
I have until Wednesday to finish, but I also have to pack clothes for the trip somewhere in there too... And I have work on Tuesday... EEEK!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Comfy costuming
Having attended DragonCon for the past 3 years, I have learned the following if nothing else;
1)Time spent not in costume feels like time wasted
2)Time spent suffering from a costume feels like hell
The first, I think, is relatively self-explanatory. I pay a lot of money to attend those 4 days of D*C, which more often than not is the only 4 days a year I get to spend with most of my costumer and/or fandom friends. I want to get in every second of geeky goodness I can!
The second will likely make sense to most anyone, but only someone who's ever been there will really feel my pain. Cons, renaissance festivals and SCA events put us in different physical and emotional situations than our normal 9-5, the practical upshot being that discomfort tends to get magnifed exponentially. Tall heels, heavy costumes, tightly laced corsets and tons of layers can be worn fairly easily for a short photo session in air-conditoned comfort, but those little twinges of discomfort can and will turn into surprisingly severe pain and soreness. Don't get me wrong, you'll pry my 4" heels out of my cold dead hands, but I can only take them for so long before they start to get painful, so wearing them all day and night while doing a lot of standing, walking, posing, dancing and socializing just isn't going to happen.
I mentioned rennaisance festivals and SCA events in with cons, but there's an important distinction to be made on the subject of comfort, I think. While I do have minimum standards of comfort for a con costume, and do limit the amount of time I spend in anythng I'm going to pay for later, my SCA philosophy is much different, largely because the activities and settings are so different. I spend my cons in hotel rooms, restaurants, bars and ballrooms. I spend my SCA events in camps (that I help set up), kitchens (that I'm often running), parties and gatherings (I usually had a hand in planning, or at least have offered assistance with) and spaces that I, as an attendee, am expected to help set up, maintain and clean. In short, I have things to do at SCA events that just can't be done in white satin, no matter how much I love it.
Anyway, practical upshot of all the above is that I've decided to spend some time focusing on con costumes that, while not frumpy or unflattering, are comfortable enough to be worn all day. I'll do a seperate post for each for ease of keeping my thoughts straight (especially when I go back and do a write-up for each), but the above is pretty much my philosophy for all of them.
1)Time spent not in costume feels like time wasted
2)Time spent suffering from a costume feels like hell
The first, I think, is relatively self-explanatory. I pay a lot of money to attend those 4 days of D*C, which more often than not is the only 4 days a year I get to spend with most of my costumer and/or fandom friends. I want to get in every second of geeky goodness I can!
The second will likely make sense to most anyone, but only someone who's ever been there will really feel my pain. Cons, renaissance festivals and SCA events put us in different physical and emotional situations than our normal 9-5, the practical upshot being that discomfort tends to get magnifed exponentially. Tall heels, heavy costumes, tightly laced corsets and tons of layers can be worn fairly easily for a short photo session in air-conditoned comfort, but those little twinges of discomfort can and will turn into surprisingly severe pain and soreness. Don't get me wrong, you'll pry my 4" heels out of my cold dead hands, but I can only take them for so long before they start to get painful, so wearing them all day and night while doing a lot of standing, walking, posing, dancing and socializing just isn't going to happen.
I mentioned rennaisance festivals and SCA events in with cons, but there's an important distinction to be made on the subject of comfort, I think. While I do have minimum standards of comfort for a con costume, and do limit the amount of time I spend in anythng I'm going to pay for later, my SCA philosophy is much different, largely because the activities and settings are so different. I spend my cons in hotel rooms, restaurants, bars and ballrooms. I spend my SCA events in camps (that I help set up), kitchens (that I'm often running), parties and gatherings (I usually had a hand in planning, or at least have offered assistance with) and spaces that I, as an attendee, am expected to help set up, maintain and clean. In short, I have things to do at SCA events that just can't be done in white satin, no matter how much I love it.
Anyway, practical upshot of all the above is that I've decided to spend some time focusing on con costumes that, while not frumpy or unflattering, are comfortable enough to be worn all day. I'll do a seperate post for each for ease of keeping my thoughts straight (especially when I go back and do a write-up for each), but the above is pretty much my philosophy for all of them.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
The day has come!
We've been talking about doing something like this since our very first sewing night back in my college dorm, but never really had a compelling reason to, before circumstances made our costume shenanigans rather more difficult than they used to be. However, friendship always finds a way, and in this case, the internet is the way. So, while I've always enjoyed blogging about my various projects for vanity and information-sharing purposes, I'm especially excited about using it to share my SCA and creative life with my BFF (known also as my hubby, there's a story there ; D) while she's far away. Without her prodding, encouragement, emotional support and well-timed application of chocolate (or strawberries, or booze, or...you get the idea) most of my projects would never come to fruition anyway ; )
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