Underneath It All

Well, I managed to complete the third challenge of the Historical Sew Fortnightly but not to the level I had wanted to. I wanted to make a corset and chemise, but I was only able to complete the chemise. I've got a good excuse though! As those of you living in North America might have heard, the northeast just got hit by one of the most ridiculously huge blizzards in nearly thirty years, and I live smack dab in the worst of it.

The blizzard was due to start early Friday morning with flurries growing steadily worse until the afternoon when they predicted snow could fall as fast as two to three inches per hour. Of course my boss decided this was not enough of an excuse to cancel work. Luckily my boyfriend lives just a couple blocks away from my place of employment so I decided to weather the storm at his house. The storm was supposed to peter out Saturday morning, so I foolishly thought I could get home Saturday evening and have all of Sunday to sew.

The storm was so bad that the governor actually banned all non-maintenance and emergency traffic from the roads. The wind was shaking the house I was staying at and driving the snow into huge drifts against houses and cars. I believe we got over thirty inches by the time it was all over. Needless to say Saturday came and went with me still snowed in far from my sewing machine. It wasn't until late Sunday afternoon that we were able to dig my car out of the five foot snowbank the plows had left behind it. I wasn't even able to go home on Sunday as there was still a parking ban and I only have street parking at my apartment. This is actually the first night I've been home since last Wednesday!

Thankfully I worked on my chemise last weekend so I at least have something done for the challenge. The pieces for my corset are all cut out and marked just waiting to be sewn, so I'll continue working on in it in my spare moments between other challenges. But enough of my blathering on, let's get to the challenge details!

The new chemise with an old corset

The Challenge: Underneath It All

Fabric: 3 yards of white cotton broadcloth

Pattern: Simplicity 2890

Year: Around 1860

Notions: Lace hem tape and a button

How historically accurate is it? Fairly accurate. I trust that the pattern is for the most part accurate and I even used a button from a line of vintage styled buttons that dates to 1860-1900, but I did sew with a machine instead of by hand and I don't know about the accuracy of the lace trim I used.

Hours to complete: I think this one took about 5 hours

First worn: Hasn't been worn except to take a couple photos

Total cost: About $12

I'm really happy with how this came out. I've never had a proper chemise to wear under my dresses before so it will be very nice to have one at last. And it came out so pretty! I absolutely adore the neckline, and I've had the button I used sitting around in my stash forever. One thing I find a little odd about the pattern is that the sides flare out a bit and make it hang weird around the hips, but of course it'll never really be noticed underneath the rest of the layers. I also placed my button hole wrong the first time since the pattern called for just sewing the button to both layers as decoration and gave no placement markings, so there's an extra bit of stitching that kind of bothers me.

The pretty lace and button, and the bothersome extra buttonhole

I'm looking forward to completing my corset soon since it's an experiment I've had in mind for a while now. I've got another project in the works right now that needs to be done before Thursday and of course some work for Frightful Acts that I've been ignoring so the corset and my next challenge will have to wait for a few days. I've got a busy week of sewing ahead of me, so wish me luck!

Past Projects: Maleficent

I haven't made much progress sewing this past week. The under-robe for Emperor Palpatine is almost finished and I have my pattern pieces cut out for a chemise, but that's about it. So in lieu of any new material to write about, I bring you a project completed in the past - The Maleficent Dress.

The idea for this costume began when an old professor of mine found out I was working with Frightful Acts as a costumer. She owned a gallery a couple towns over and requested that I think about submitting a costume to her upcoming Halloween show "Things That Go Bump in the Night." The deadline for submission was only a couple weeks away so I needed to not only come up with an idea fast but make it one that would be quick to put together. Eventually the idea to make a more historically accurate version of the villainess Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty came to mind. I had already made a medieval houppelande that would be appropriate for the time period the movie takes place in so I wouldn't need to do much research or draft any new patterns. So with just one short weekend to sew the dress I set to work.

Detail of the fabric used

I found a great faux-alligator skin fabric in the upholstery section that I thought would work well for Maleficent since she becomes a dragon at the end of the movie. It makes the dress fairly heavy and hot to wear but it looks stunning. I also managed to find two perfect shades of purple to match Maleficent's original color pallet. I decided to use the lighter shade of purple for the kirtle to go under the houppelande. 

The fairly basic Kirtle

A darker shade of purple became the lining of the sleeves. I decided that the sleeves should be dagged since Maleficent's original design definitely shows the influence of dagged sleeves. I also wanted to cut the neck with the deep V seen in later houppelande examples so that the kirtle color would show when the dress was on a mannequin. As I looked at more examples of houppelande's I began to realize that dagged sleeves seemed to have dropped out of fashion before the V-neck became popular though. In the end I decided to just go ahead with my plans since this was more of a character costume than a strict historical recreation. 

Detail of the dagged sleeves

A bit of fur trim and a jeweled belt completed the dress, and then it was on to the hat. I was actually able to find an old fashion plate with a hat that had two curled horns just like Maleficent's, but of course I've lost the link. I was going to put a veil on the hat since almost all historical examples had one, but after some advice to keep it more like the character I left it out. The day it was due at the gallery I managed to whip up a stuffed head to support the hat, and the dress looked great!

A view of the train with fur trim

I dropped it off at the gallery feeling pretty good about it. Most of the work submitted was your traditional types of fine art, but there were a few other sculpture submissions, and the owner of the gallery had specifically asked for a costume from me. A couple days later I got an e-mail telling me that the artist curating the show had "decided against having costumes in the exhibit." I was crushed. I had spent hundreds of dollars on cloth and given up a whole weekend at the request of my professor all for nothing. 

As luck would have it though I had used the same color pallet for a costume made for one of Frightful Acts masks. I brought the dress by the studio and the rest of the guys loved it. The dress now has a new home as one of our monsters, and it looks like it was made just for the mask.

All in all I am very pleased with how the dress came out. It's a bit too big for me though and it's hard to wear as a costume at conventions because of the train getting stepped on by the crowd. It looks good in our repertoire for now but ultimately I'd like to find a buyer for the dress who really loves it and would actually get some use out of it.