Remember The Odyssey? No? well, I don’t blame you. At the bottom of this post is the sketch and this posttalks about the components. It took me about 3 months of sewing to get it all done, and I got plenty of other things done as well. This is why I am being so lazy about my new costume, which I have purchased the fabric for but that is all. A bit backwards, buying fabric first but that’s how I roll. Anyway, back to The Odyssey.

So I ended up using these patterns…
Laughing Moon #100 Ladies Victorian Underwear
Laughing Moon 112 Hoops and bustles
Truly Victorian 362 Wash overskirt
Butterick 5232Victorian jacket
Simplicity 2556 misses vests

All except the Simplicity are “costume” or recreation patterns. The laughing moon patterns were an absolute dream to work with, Very well drafted, they went together like a dream. I never followed the instructions for the corset. but I did for the small bustle I ended up making. I made the Silverado bust gore corset and I love this corset so much. It fit me like a dream come true. It was awesome and comfortable to wear. Of course I don’t have any good pictures of it, but I’ll review this on the web somewhere and when I do I’ll cross post it here. The truly Victorian pattern did not suit my body type at all, and it had this weird bit on the front of the corset that stuck out. Hmm, very strange, Instead f adapting that one to work, I tried the Laughing Moon and was very pleasantly surprised. The Laughing Moon bustle I ended up making was the View E short bustle. See, I was very concerned about having a “shelf” because I wasn’t wearing a full underskirt under my overskirt, so I thought I needed a tiny lobster claw bustle. Well, I never dis like the look of it, but by then it was too late to do anything about it.Knowing what I know now, I would have made the View D, perhaps shortening it a bit. This was my first go at bustles, and it turned out not so bad. I ended up not wearing a chemise under my corset, I made a tube of of cotton ribbing and that worked quite well. I also made these sort of tap pants to wear under it all, they ere quite comfortable and made restroom trips very easy! Most important when wearing a bustle, 2 skirts and a corset!

The Simplicity vest had to be seriously altered to fit smoothly over my corset. It had modern sizing and a corset is not modern sizing! I had to redraft the entire pattern, and I actually ended up over fitting it somehow. I made two of these vests, and one was significantly smaller than the other. I’m still not sure how that happened. I had to go back and insert a panel under the buttons so my corset wasn’t showing through.

I don’t recall too much pain from the Butterick jacket. I did make toiles of EVERYTHING! So I did have to make some sizing adjustments to the jackets. I do remember getting the cuffs on was a bit of a headache, and I had to hand sew quite a bit of the trim on. Other than that, it wasn’t too bad. I really like the recent Butterick costume patterns, they are decently drafted, just the sizing needs to be checked. Most of the directions seem to be quite well. Non-period of course but since this was an original design, I wasn’t going for historical accuracy. I just wanted it to look good.

The Truly Victorian pattern was also well drafted. Although this was the last part of the costume I made, well second to last. I must have been pretty fatigued by then as I made several large errors with it. Things like having the pattern pieces backwards, sewing the darts in the front instead of the back. It was crazy! Luckily though, this skirt has a LOT of draping, so the darts were not critical, but this was really the worst made item of the entire costume. I screwed up the hems, and tried to sew the trim on to hide it, and it looks terrible. Only from the wrong side, someone looking at the costume would never know, but that is the kid of thing that drives me crazy.

When I had the costume all sewed up, I had Jason tie me into the corset and I tried everything on. I didn’t like the way the over skirt was falling and the combination of the bustle and the overskirt just felt weird on my bare skin, so I whipped up a mini-under skirt to go with it. I was so proud of the wee skirt and NO ONE EVER SAW IT! Well! I made this gorgeous pleated trim that went around the bottom, it was SOOOOOO Victorian!

Anyway, here are some lovely photos of the ensemble completed and me wearing it…

This is the “official” photo…

This is a rear photo…

Rather nice, eh? Jut looking at these I realize that I forgot to mention much of the other trials and tribulations that went along with this costume. I’ll have to remember to blog more on the next ones.

At any rate, this was my very first masquerade entry, so I did enter as Novice for the first and last time. I won a wormadship award for Best Tailoring and a……Best In Class!!! W00T!

If I look tired in this picture, it would be because I WAS! This was taken at about 1am, not so terribly late, but I was so nervous for much of the day….I was exhausted.

Okay, enough of that for now. I’ll write another post to get caught up on the costume sewing (maybe) then I’ll start with my more mundane posts. Ta!

Post from: Pavlina: Life is Not For the Living

Costume madness!

Ah, the promise that is a new costume! There is the figment, then the idea, the sketch, the colors, the fabric, the trim, then the very long but oh-so-worth it constructions process! We are now officially 233 days away from Costume Con 29, where this beauty will be competing in the Fantasy and SciFi Masquerade. How very exciting!

So, I have had the figment (some sort of snake charmer), to the idea (Yes, a snake charmer!), the sketch (see there!) with the colors. The Fabric has been purchased, now……

I know it’s not the best sketch ever, but you hopefully get a lovely idea of what I am trying to accomplish!

I went to G-Street fabric the other night and they were having the MOST AWESOME sales and I was able to get all the fabric I’ll need!

I am so looking forward to this costume! For those of you not going to Costume Con, but who will be at Balticon, don’t worry! You’ll get to see it there, thought I hopefully won’t be able to compete it there as I hope to win an award at Costume Con!

Well, watch this space for updates! I still need to come up with my patterns1 Yes, I know. I purchased fabrics without a pattern, bu I think I’ve been doing this long enough to estimate fabric allowances (says I now, will those words haunt me?)

Post from: Pavlina: Life is Not For the Living

Dreaming and thinking of Costume Con 29

From the side

detail

and the lovely back

Isn’t that the cutest thing? It’s the only thing I spent any money on at Balticon this year, and so worth it. I wish I had the woman’s name who made these, she had several of them, all very cute. Wearable art, don’t you think? These colors really spoke to me and I knew this hat would be mine. So the idea is a neo-victorian-steamy-retro look.

A corset is a must…

I really like this one and it gets very high reviews. I think my sewing skills can handle a corset, and I happen to have a bit of white satin left over from a Halloween costume that I’ll make a first corset off. Nice.

Then, I didn’t want a plain stodgy (beautiful) Victorian gown. They are just too much. Too much fabric, too long, to cumbersome. I don’t really think a gal who is about to embark on all sorts of adventure can really go about in multiple layers of floor length gowns.

I think I do want to wear a chemise under the corset…

This pattern also has a corset, but the other one is much easier to make, if you track the comments about each. I really like the chemise in this pattern set though. Since my corset will have spiral steel boning, I won’t be able to wash it much and a chemise underneath is a must. Besides which, this is not a “modern” corset, which means that if I make it as drafted, it would be quite indecent to wear out in public, if you get my meaning. If I make it out of a nicer fabric, it will look less like underwear and more like a blouse.

Then, what to wear over the corset? I could wear nothing, but I saw this cute corset cover. It’s a bit over-frilly in this photo…

I could really make a nice fitted blouse from this, and if I work the neckline I could show a bit of the corset. Or maybe I could make a jacket…or a vest. Still not decided there yet. A vest is too casual, methinks.

Finally a skirt. I don’t want a long skirt. I like the draping on this one…

but I want the back much longer so I’ll need to extend it, and also the front a bit as well. This is a sort of apron meant to be worn over a much longer skirt. It is hard to tell form the design sketch, but it really is quite short.

But then I saw this overskirt and liked it much more, and I don’t think I will need to lengthen it at all.

You can really see the length quite well in this photo which I pulled from the Truly Victorian website.

You can see that this would be quite decent, and since I’m so short it would come to my knee probably.

The only issue with these skirts is that they both have quite a bit of pouf on the rear, and I will need to make some sort of bustle for it. I could go all out and make a proper “bustle petticoat”, but I may also be able to get away with some sort of “cushion”. I had considered making a crinoline, but that may not be sturdy enough to hold up that much fabric. Then I posted the question over on the Truly Victorian bulletin board and got a response that said I would make a shortened bustle/petticoat, and if I made it from a fashion fabric it could aslo serve as an underskirt…brilliant!

of course all this will need the perfect fabrics, so now I’ll have to turn my thoughts to finding some lovely burnt orange, brown and cream fabbrics and trim.

Post from: Pavlina: Life is Not For the Living

New costume design