April Finished Projects

1. Roma inspired steampunk crazy quilt skirt.
2. Petticoat of Doom to be worn under the Roma inspired steampunk crazy quilt skirt.
3. Decorated a clip on pouch to wear with the Roma inspired steampunk costume.
4. Mask for the SES masquerade (that I never wore)
5. Muppets fleece blanket for Nick Wheeler of the All American Rejects (he loved it, btw)

Costume Porn! aka Crazy Quilt Skirt pictures

The waistband. I couldn't find black quilt binding, so I used purple. And then I found the black. Oh well, the purple was already there.


I'm using flat white lace as hem tape to hem the skirt.


The skirt, all put together.


Another shot of the skirt. It's rather large, and very heavy.

Progress Update - March 19 2012

Cut out the rest of the bodice: I did what I could. I cut the cuffs and collar out of the Paris print, and cut what I could out of black broadcloth for the lining. Beau is borrowing another piece of black broadcloth I have next weekend, so once I have that back and wash it, I can cut out the rest of the lining.

Finish gathering tier 3 of the petticoat and sew it onto tier 2: Done! I checked the length by pinning the petticoat to my dress form and then pinning two gores (basted together) over it to see how everything looked. Which is so far, so good. Right now, the petticoat is a couple inches longer than the skirt. My current thinking is that I sew lace to the bottom of the petticoat, and then add the black ruffle (attaching it to the seam where tier 3 is attached) so that it comes to the top of my boots. Another idea: I add a narrow ruffle of eyelet and attach it as well as the black ruffle to to tier 3...


Petticoat on my dress form.


Skirt pinned over the petticoat, I'm thinking I'll need to wear a net petticoat underneath for more fullness...


Length of skirt versus petticoat.

Of course, I don't have 10 yards of white lace in my stash but I did have a massive amount of a cream lace. So it's currently in a water and bleach bath in an attempt to lighten it. We'll see how that turns out.

Check the lilac linen: DONE! Not only did I have enough linen, but I washed (light), dried (low and only for 40 minutes) and ironed (linen setting, sprayed with water as I went along) it! Then I cut out the pattern.


Laying out the playsuit pattern...

I didn't start putting the bodice together, mainly because I really didn't feel like it.

Gypsy Steampunk: Crazy Quilt Skirt Progress -- Almost there!

I finished my last gore last night! And my mother finished her second! That means that the skirt embroidery is 5/6th of the way finished!


My third skirt gore.



Mother's second gore.

Only one more to go! I'm planning to baste my gores together to see how they're going to look.

What Miss Wilde Did This Weekend...And this week's to do list

Some sewing for Beau: Replaced a zipper in Beau's vest. Sewed Velcro onto some patches. And helped him put grommets in a banner.

Worked on my projects:

• Worked on my crazy quilt skirt. I now have a mere 5 seams standing between me and my last gore being finished.
  
• Started the petticoat. I used a petticoat pattern from Simplicity for the yoke and cut it from some white broadcloth. I laundered the muslin and cut it into strips: two 45" pieces for the first layer, two 90" pieces for the second, and one 90" plus six 45" pieces for the third. The first layer is a little narrower than the other two. I also pulled, washed and deconstructed my eyelet skirt, but I haven't cut it up yet.
  
• Worked on my basque. I laundered the interlining fabric, re-did the pattern pieces in a larger size, and cut out the satin and the interlining. I also pinned the interlining to the appropriate satin pieces because it's going to have to be hand basted.
• I looked for fabric for the playsuit / skirt combo, but failed. I might try to squeeze the playsuit out of a piece of lilac linen I have, I'm only 1/4 yard short...
  

Week of March 12, 2012 To Do List:

• Finish my embroidery. EDIT -- I finished my third gore and my mother finished her second. Pictures tomorrow!
• Work on the petticoat. EDIT -- This is probably on hold til the weekend. The 'gathering' thread I used doesn't want to pull through and gather. I'm going to have to re-do it.
  
• Baste the interlining to the satin for my basque bodice. EDIT -- Started the hand basting tonight. I have two pieces finished.
  
• Finish cutting out the basque bodice (I still need to do the contrast cuffs and collar as well as the lining)
• See if I can use the lilac linen for my playsuit.
  

Gypsy Steampunk: Crazy Quilt Skirt Progress -- Halfway DONE!

Picture time!!!

First up, my mom sewed a crocheted flower onto the gore she's working on right now. She thinks its from a doily one of her grandmothers made.



Next, I just finished my second gore! That means the skirt is halfway done!



And last but not least some detail shots:


I stitched down a little flower applique to cover up the knot at the end of cording I couched down along another seam. From left to right, the blue / green is a double herringbone, the green is a Russian chain stitch (I think), the pale blue (looks white) is a braided chain stitch, the orange is a cretan stitch, the gold is a blanket stitch. And in the lower corner, is some green feather stitching.


This is a new stitch for me and I really liked it. The pale green (once again it looks white) is a fly stitch. Above that is the basque stitch and in the lower corner you can see some blue feather stitching.

I'm feeling really good about this project right now. We have three of the six gores embroidered. I've been working on calculating fabric requirements and dimensions for the petticoat.

Speaking of the petticoat, my original idea was to make each tier twice as long as the one above it. Yes, I want a FULL petti for this costume. But...when I went through all the calculations, I came out with needing 12 yards of fabric for the bottom ruffle.

Um...12 yards for ONE ruffle? I don't think so.

So I went back and re-calculated at around one and a half times the size of the ruffle above. Not as full as I like, but Miss Wilde is frugal. I'm still going to need about 5 or 6 yards of 45" fabric for the bottom ruffle. But I'm a little more comfortable with that than with 12 yards.

Progress Update - March 8 2012

Gyspy steampunk by April 27th for Steampunk Empire Symposium

• Skirt gore #1 is already embroidered, thanks to my mother
• I just finished skirt gore #2 so...we're 1/3 of the way done!!!! EDIT gore #3 is about 1/2 way finished.
  
• And I bought some more muslin for the petticoat yesterday (it was a remnant, too good to pass up)
• Plans: Work on the embroidery and probably start the petticoat this weekend. I can wash the fabric and at least start cutting the tiers, if not gathering. I can't do the length, but I can work on the upper sections.

Skirt gore #2, completed!

Paris steampunk by April 27th for Steampunk Empire Symposium

• We fit my bodice yesterday and it's too small: The front doesn't close at all and then Edwina noticed it was pulling pretty much everywhere. We're thinking I should go up a size to account for the lining, interlining and boning. So I get to re-trace the pattern.
• Plans: Retrace a larger size of my basque pattern and start working on it, hopefully this weekend.

Playsuit / skirt combo by May 3rd for Florida trip

• Bought Simplicity 2401 yesterday but didn't find any fabric I loved.
  
• Plans: Start by checking my stash and seeing if I have anything I can use. Maybe that lilac linen would work for the playsuit or the skirt and then all I need is a coordinating fabric for the other.
  

I also need to put a new zipper on a vest for Beau this weekend, but that shouldn't take long.

Gypsy Steampunk: Crazy Quilt Skirt Progress

Gore #1 is finished with the embroidery, courtesy of my mother! And I'm almost done with the gore I've been embroidering, so hopefully by the end of this evening, I'll have it finished and we'll be one third of the way there! Each of us are doing three of the six gores, and have plenty of supplies. We're mainly embroidering the seams, with some trim and applique application. I told Mother that I'm taking whatever she has done when I'm home for Easter. If I have to finish some of her work, that's fine, but that's the last chance I'll have to get it from her before the Symposium.

I'm getting most of my embroidery from this website. Good directions and step by step diagrams. A lot of other how to websites I found just gave you word directions with no diagrams, and were basically useless.

Picture time!


The gore my mother embroidered. Yes, she totally sent me a photo, without prompting!


Part of the gore I've been working on. You can see some feather stitching in the orange thread, and there's a herringbone done in two shades near the bottom.


Another part of my gore. The white in the upper corner is a buttonhole stitch, the blue / purple is called a basque stitch and then there's a double line of herringbone in a blue pearle cotton.

What I need to do to finish my gyspy steampunk costume:

• Embroider my three gores
• Assemble the gores into a skirt, attach a waistband and closure (current thinking: hook and eye closure on a side seam), hem with polyester horsehair braid and maybe attach lace to the bottom
• Make a petticoat: I'm seriously leaning towards a gathered tiered style because I feel like the skirt is heavy and is going to need some support. I'm going to make it out of white broadcloth and muslin and may cannibalize a white eyelet skirt I have for more fabric (I rarely wear the skirt). For maximum fullness, I'll probably cut the tiers a little on the narrow side. I'm also going to try a new gathering technique: zig zag stitch over cording. The bottom one or two ruffles will be black broadcloth. I'm also planning on a yoke instead of an elastic waistband to reduce bulk.
• Finish decorating the head scarf.
  
• Gather lots of jewelry to wear.
  

In other Symposium news, I'm stopping by Edwina's quarters this evening for a fitting of my Paris bodice. I really feel like the gypsy costume is doable for the Symposium, and hopefully the Paris outfit as well. *fingers crossed*

EDIT On my lunch, I stitched down a piece of lace trim along one of the few seams I had left to cover. I now only have two long seams and one short one, the latter I plan to use a little applique on.

What Miss Wilde Did This Weekend...

First of all, I had a rather lovely outing Friday evening with some Archonites. I wore all store bought items though -- black gypsy skirt and my purple and black steel boned corset.

Secondly, I sewed. A lot. Okay, a lot of it was more prep work for sewing...

On Saturday, Beau and I went to a friend's house so said friend could help Beau with a few projects. I of course packed up my sewing basket: pattern making material, my basque bodice pattern, my measurements (Edwina was nice enough to take them last week), markers to trace with, a waist cincher I wanted to copy, muslin to cut out for the basque mock up, and material to use for the new cincher.

I traced the cincher I wanted to copy (my black and silver one that I wear with Lady of the Ottoman Empire) onto pattern paper and cut it out of the key flannel. This is going to be the cincher to wear with my Keeper of the Keys skirt. I'm trying to decide construction details, such as laced or non laced, front closure, etc. I'm planning to bone it with cable ties though.

Next up, I used my measurements and Heather's lovely directions to figure out what size to cut for my basque bodice. For the back pattern pieces, I traced size E based on my back width. For the front, I went with size A. Which technically was too big according to the sizing directions, but it was the smallest available. I also used size A for the sleeves. After tracing the pattern, I cut out my muslin for the mock up.

On Sunday, I ironed all the muslin mock up pieces and put together the pattern. I kind of wish she had simplified instructions for just making a mock up, because it was hard to decide what directions to follow and what to ignore.

Once the mock up was together, I looked around for other things to do. I took my new overskirt, tried it on my dressmaker's dummy with the bustle pillow to decide how it looked and where to put a closure, then I sewed a hook and eye closure on. I think the drape is going to be a bit odd, but not in a bad way. I hope.

Next up, I pulled out my gypsy steampunk corset and finally put on the D ring decoration I made forever ago. I sewed it to the front right hand side along the trim line, then I sewed another plain D ring to the back, inside the corset. My plan is to be able to drape chains or hang things from my D rings.

Then I turned to the crazy quilt skirt. When the subject first came up, I thought my mother was going to do most if not all of the embroidery, so I took her all of my embroidery supplies and most of the gores. However, I was mistaken, so I was left with gore #6 and no supplies. Then I remembered I had some silk thread, so I pulled that out and started some embroidery. Then I decided to run to the store and pick up some more supplies. I got blue, purple and a variegated orange / pink pearle cotton, green and white regular embroidery floss, and orange / pink and silver beads. I used coupons and only spent around $5(!) so I felt no guilt. I spent the rest of my evening embroidering in the few stitches I know or could easily look up via the internet on my phone (which isn't the easiest thing to do).

I'm having dinner with my parents today and mother is bringing me two more gores and some supplies. And an embroidery book. There was a moment of panic yesterday when my mother told me she only had two gores, instead of the five I thought (knew) she had. Thankfully, she found the missing gores.

I just might get the gypsy costume done for the Steampunk Empire Symposium after all...As long as Mother actually does the promised embroidery. I have the feeling I may have to...encourage her over the next month.

Gypsy Steampunk: The Corset - Photos

A few progress photos of the corset:


How the corset started out. This is the interior of the corset, to show how the back will look.


And the exterior to show how the front will look.


The corset after the trim, zipper and boning were applied. This is how the front will look, an underbust.


The back view, same stage of corset making.


The corset with the front fastened, same stage of corset-making.


A close up of one of the buckles


Front view of finished corset. Trust me, its a lot more flattering on an actual body.


Close up of the corset, to show the trim, binding and buckles.

Corset details:

Patterns used - This was definitely franken-patterned. The front, underbust portion was from my own underbust waist cincher pattern, which I think began life as a McCalls corset pattern. The high back portion was the back of a bodice pattern with a side back seam added. The sides were from another corset top pattern.

Fabrics and notions used: Remnant of teal silk dupioni, denim, lightweight cotton and black broadcloth. A black separating zipper which I shortened. Layered black pleather trim with eyelets over brown quilt binding from my stash. Bound in faux brown silk that was used in the crazy quilt skirt that will be worn with this corset. The buckles were purchased at Joanns. I used plastic cable ties for the boning. Eyelets were from the stash and purchased (I ran out) and the laces are a pair of 54" boot laces, black.

Bonus photos!


The last panel of the crazy quilt skirt.


Random piece of old jewelry found in my grandmother's jewelry. My mother and I are operating under the assumption that its a watch fob. Expect it to become a standard piece of my steampunk wardrobe.