So Much Updating

So, I’ve been going through my pictures and now I realize just how slack I’ve been on the blog.  In good news, I haven’t been doing the blog much ’cause I’ve been making stuff.  On the flip side, because I’ve been making stuff, updating the blog is a pain.

Since my last updates I’ve made:

the 1903 gown, a Miss Frizzle costume, a Professor McGonagall costume, some cakes, several scrolls, and probably some other stuff.  I’ll try to get to most of this.

Also, I’ve done some more work (or some work) on the 1770’s gown from the previous post.  I think it is going to be pretty neat!!  You know I go weak in the knees for crazy hoop skirts!

DragonCon 2013

So I’m going to try to be better about posting (caveat here: I’m typing this while wiping a 4 year old’s nose and with a crying one year old in the back, so who knows how well this will go). Anyway, I’ve been doing a ton of sewing lately. I’m now the costumer for my high school’s drama department, which has definitely had a negative impact on my SCA participation, but I LOVE doing the drama costuming. We did Annie Get Your Gun this past spring and I had such fun making all of the western costumes. We bought every piece of plaid clothing in a tri-state area. We were nominated for a major costume award for the musical.
Anyhow, so now DragonCon fast approached for this year. I never did get the yellow and blue striped dress made that was my plan for DragonCon last year, so I’m now using that fabric to make a 1770’s gown.  This gown will be a multi-tasker.  I am planning to enter it in the Costume Contest at DCon and then re-use it for the fall musical.

Anyway, here is what I’m trying to create with the fabric (This image is from Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion – I think #2, but I don’t have it in front of me):

Today, I’m working on undergarments.  I’m going to use Hunnisett’s Patterns for Theatrical Costume for the Pocket Hoops (why are hooped petticoats so awesome??) and Costume Close-Up for the Chemise.  We’ll see how far I get.

Since I’m on summer break, I really want to have as much done by the weekend as possible.

Forever since I’ve posted

So, having two kids makes life a bit more challenging. The last time I posted was about two weeks before Bishop was born. He’s now 8 months old. Time flies when life is crazy! Needless to say, I have not posted much. I’m going to try to get some updates done during my Winter Break. I am also going to try to get several projects accomplished.
I got La Moda Firenza; Cosimo d’Medici for Christmas which has inspired me to pull my cut-out-but-never-sewed men’s 1550 outfit out of mothballs. I also want to make a partlet for my Red Tudor Gown. I think that would make the dress much more practical and keep it from sliding down my shoulders.
I also would like to make some real life clothes, but those are always on the back-burner ’cause it is way more fun to dress like a princess.
Anyway, here’s hoping I’ll actually do some updating over the break.

Jude’s Parking Lot

So Jude mentioned the other day that it would be nice if he had a parking lot on his train table.  We boxed the trains away a month or two ago and are now using the train table for matchbox cars.

I decided that I could definitely make a parking lot, but I didn’t want it to be permanent, because with a new little guy on the way, we’ll probably need the table to be a train table again in a few years.  The solution was lots of contact paper and some white out rollers.  I couldn’t find where anyone else had done this, so here’s what I did:

Here is the train table.  It needs to be a parking lot…. (more…)

Dragon Con costumes 2012

So, I think I’ve decided upon which dresses to make for DragonCon.  I may not have time to do two, but we’ll see.

The first I want to do it this one:

Dress

It is an Day Dress from the House of Drecoll, which I’ve never heard of until this dress, but may need to become more familiar with.  The dress is from 1912.  I think it is perfect for me to make because it is from the 1910s, which is one of the costumes I’ve been hugely interested in making, but has elements from the 1770s.  It is a holding of the Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/80001728

The other dress that I’m going to attempt is From the House of Worth!!!

Dress, Afternoon

It is another day dress from 1888 and is also a holding of the Metropolitan Museum http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/80097075

I am planning on changing out the colors on this one.  I love the brown, but my other Victorian is brown and I don’t think I need to Victorian gowns that are the same color.  I don’t know what color I want, I figure I’ll keep an open mind and go poke about some fabric stores to see what they have.

I’ll post more about both on my “In the Queue” page

Next Costume Ideas

So this is supposedly a costuming blog, but there has been a definite dearth of costumes lately.  I apologize, being pregnant doesn’t really inspire beautiful gowns and makes you into a crazy baby-sewing machine.

But the new little one should be arriving any day (hopefully!!) and it is time to plan out my DragonCon costume for 2012.

Shockingly, I’m thinking of doing something historical (that was sarcasm folks!).  I have three time periods that I’m trying to narrow down:

  1. A Robe Fracaise from the 1770s: 
  2. A House of Worth gown from the late 19th century
  3. A 1910s Gown, possible from Worth  

None of these are the exact gown I would make, but they are the correct shapes and roughly the idea.  The benefits/negatives of each are:

Robe Francais: Who doesn’t want a Marie Antoinette/Madam Pompadour gown?? Plus you get huge hoops.  Plus more trim that you can shake a stick at.  Plus a giant wig/hairdo!  The downside is that I’m still pregnant and it will likely be a while before my body sorts itself back out, so a super-fitted dress may not be the way to go.

Victorian Gown: I’m definitely flirting with stripes on this one.  I’ve been wanting a Worth gown for ages and I can do one if I want.  Plus bustles are super fun and I already own all of the undergarments that I would need.  The downside is the same as the above in that I’m not sure about trying to fit this dress on myself any time soon.

1910s Gown: The upside is that I don’t own anything like this at all.  I can still make a Worth gown and it is less fitted than the above two gowns, so I could start on it sooner rather than later.  The other great thing about these gowns is the HUGE hats that they wore with them.  I really can’t think of a major negative and if I have time, I can always make one of the other ones also.  Right now this is what I’m leaning towards.

Still being a slacker at posting…

Even though I have plenty of time to actually post everything I need to, I’ve been really slack about it because there is so much stuff that I want to post and I just can’t seem to get around to it all.

My due date for little guy #2 is in two weeks and I’m already on maternity leave because I’ve been feeling so bad lately.  I had a whole bunch of stuff planned for today, but haven’t done any of it.

I have finished up the nursery and the baby’s quilt and am already started on my next quilting project.  I’ve decided that quilting is pretty good times and I should add it to the list of things that I enjoy doing.

Here are some pictures of the nursery:

I got a great decal from Amazon, I believe the seller was popdecals.  It made me want to decal my whole house. (more…)

More posting!

So I updated the fancy cakes I’ve made in the last two years.  I’m going to also try to update my illuminations, but I’m bad about forgetting to take pictures of them, so I’ll have to see what I have.

I was also officially apprenticed to Lorenzo last weekend at Golden Lily.  I had a really good time, it was just nice to be at an SCA thing again.

We took a lot of pictures of the apprenticing, but they all turned out grainy and fuzzy.  Here is the only one I have that is any good at all:

Long time, no blog…

So I haven’t published anything on the blog in five months!!  I keep putting it off, and now I have so much stuff to talk about it is overwhelming.

I’m going to make a new page for mundane stuff for my boys, Jude and the baby (who should be making his appearance at the end of April).

I haven’t done much SCA-type sewing lately, I’ve been mostly doing sewing preparing for the baby.

I’m going to post updates to the illumination page, the cakes page and begin a kid’s page.

More Sewing for Halloween (Sort of…)

So next week is Homecoming at my new school.  I usually don’t go crazy for Homecoming dress up week…BUT Thursday is Harry Potter Day!  Seniors are Gryffindor, Juniors are Slytherin, Sophmores are Ravenclaw, and the Freshmen are Hufflepuff.  So clearly I have to go as a Hogwart’s Professor.  Of course, I’m going to do McGonagall, but this costume has to be done by Thursday, therefore, it really has to be done by tomorrow.  I ran to Joann’s and bought 6 yards of green crushed velvet (ewww…I know, but I needed it to be cheap).  I haven’t quite figured out the pattern, but I have about a million patterns.  I’m thinking right now that I’m going to use the overgown from the LaMode Bagatelle Artistic Reform Teagown and use some sleeves from a 1920’s-ish pattern that I have.

is Artistic Reform Teagowns

The “Robe” I’d like to try to make is the Overgown on the left.  The sleeves showing are part of the underdress, the actual gown is sleeveless.  I thought the sleeves from the butterick pattern might be a good option.  The goal is to look vaguely like this: