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.
