GAMMA.CON

Last month I attended GAMMA.CON which is a small pop-culture convention in Canberra.

Originally I had planned to go with a group of friends but when the time came most of them couldn't make it. I had never been to a con before so I was a bit apprehensive about attending alone – but then I was asked to be part of an exhibition of student costumes as part of the Cardif Collective stall.

I contributed five outfits: Viking, Esther, Ice Goth, Tia Dalma and 1901 Reception Dress. The TARDIS dress was made by another student.

I wore Misery (from Ruby Gloom) on the Saturday. Despite making it four years ago I had never worn it before except to take pictures. I had a hair tie safety-pinned to the end of the train so I could attach it to my wrist and draped the veil over my arm. This protected them from being stepped on but I will think twice before hanging three metres of fabric from my head again (actually I won't – but I ought to think twice). Even though I was carrying most of the veil on my arm, my neck was feeling it by the end of the day.

Because I was wearing and taking costumes I already had, the only thing I needed to make in preparation was a bag. I'm glad I wasn't working on anything more significant because even though I started work a week out, I was still up past midnight the night before to finish it.

On the Sunday I wore my Eowyn costume to compete in the costume competition. I had a good time with the competition which is kind of odd given that it was mostly waiting around, either to be judged or to go onstage, but it's definitely something I want to do again. I didn't get a prize but had a very positive reaction from the audience.

Other than that I didn't find the experience of being 'in costume' particularly noticeable. This might be partly because I was mostly by myself which allowed ample opportunity to forget about what I was wearing. But I also think it is because my focus is so much more on making rather than wearing. I had a friend come to watch the competition and going around the floor with them afterwards was a lot more fun for me than the day before had been. I definitely want to go again – but next time I will drag a few more people along.

Canberra Show Report

The Canberra Show happened last weekend and I entered as many sewing categories as I could.

On the Wednesday before, I got a rather exciting phone call to say I had won Overall Champion of the sewing section.

The costume that won was Eowyn, (construction posts here) entered in the 'Performance Costume' section. I was particularly pleased that this outfit was chosen as, while making it, I had begun to think my skills would never be good enough to do what I wanted. It was so nice to have other people judge that it was good enough.

I was invited to attend the opening of the Craft Exhibition to receive my prize which turned out to be a sewing machine and an over-locker, both Toyotas. Disturbingly, our two sewing machines have recently turned into five. I don't quite know what to think about that. I am excited to try an over-locker now. I also received a couple of Needlewitch vouchers which I will put to good use.

The special theme category this year was 'Retro'. This was very convenient given my sudden need to make 40s dresses at the end of last year. I won this category with my teal and peacock dress.

I also picked up a few other ribbons. In 'Any other article of machine or hand sewing' I won second place with my Viking costume.

I got second place in the 'Bustier' category with my black waist.

I entered my Regency Spencer in 'Winter/Summer Garments' and got second place.

My mum entered the sewing section for the first time this year and received second place in children's wear.

As you can see in the first photo, I wore another of my 40s dresses to the opening on Friday. I think my favourite thing about the day was the response it got. Several older ladies came up to me and told me it was just like a dress they used to have or had made. I was so pleased to hear that I had managed to make a historical dress that was recognisable to people who were there at the time. (This is not to say that winning Champion wasn't also great – I got the phone call on Wednesday, so it had been my favourite thing on that day. And also on Thursday.)

2015 Review

2015 began with a spur-of-the-moment Eowyn costume that turned into a crisis of collar-design and a drawn-out quest for The Right Trim. I said in an earlier post that I had been to every sewing shop in the ACT, but I have since discovered this was a gross slander of Needlewitch which I hadn't heard of then and which did have something that would have worked.

For the Jane Austen Festival I wanted to make a couple of evening gowns but I found myself in need of a new pair of stays which dashed my plans to be ready early this year. I managed to get my Joker-inspired regency dress wearable for the ball and finished it afterwards. At JAFA I did an 1806 bonnet class where I made a Polish Casquette (using a Lynn McMasters Pattern). Later in the year I made a spencer which is now ready early for next year.

 I made a pair of pyjama pants (Kwik Sew 3882) as part of sewing lessons.

I played through the Bioshock series of video games this year which I loved. This inadvertently solved my “I can’t find any clothes I like in the shop” problem as I suddenly wanted to wear 1940s style dresses - and these proved surprisingly simple to make. I created a pattern with a number of variations and kept making new dresses. I was glad to have simple, quick projects as I spent the last half of the semester alternating between being sick and madly trying to catch up on uni and I needed something to relax with. Most of these dresses happened between 9pm and 3am at the point where if I didn't sew something I would go mad. Here are the individual blog posts: maroon, light blue, navy blue and teal.

Finally, here is the progress on my Bayeux tapestry dress. This year I finished the Church and these horses. Filling in the horses takes so much thread (and time).

In non-sewing news: I am finally finished with Uni! This year I completed a double degree in History and IT. (All together now: "That's an interesting combination!")

This is my tenth year of making costumes. And having come as far as I think I can under my own tutelage I started having lessons and they've been great. I now press and finish seams better; I use notches; I use a whole variety of new and different tools; I know how to treat my sewing machine better...

Speaking of sewing machines: I got a new one this year. My 1976 Husqvarna 2000, inherited from my Great Aunt, finally gave out after a long and full life. I now have a Brother NV610 which, so far, I am pleased with.

There were other changes to my sewing arrangements this year. We rearranged the house a bit so I now have a sewing-only sewing room far enough away from everyone else that I can sew late into the night whenever the insomnia takes me. We reorganised the pattern stash to be more accessible. My mum and I swapped sewing cabinets too. So basically my sewing setup now is all of the new. And I got a garment steamer. I love my garment steamer.

This was a year of plans that did not eventuate, starting with Eowyn taking two months longer than it was meant to. I was not planning to be sick all the time either. It wasn't anything serious but the time-out being sick followed by catching up on study really threw the last five months for me. There were several months this year which I pretty much slept through. When I finally had a chance to look seriously at the hardware for my Assassin's Creed costume I found that the method I was expecting to use wouldn't work. I had been planning to use draw slides for the hidden blades but the only ones I could find were nearly as big as my wrist and really heavy.  And finally, I posted a list of my future plans of which I have worked on exactly none. (Usually I don't publish 'goal lists' because I know how many dresses I think about and don't make.) Of course, I immediately went off and made four other dresses not on the list. All or none of my plans may be realised next year.

"Through Rohan over fen and field where the long grass grows"

I've finished my Eowyn costume. It only took a month and a half longer than I wanted it to. (I actually finished it back in March, but wasn’t able to take photos until now.)

This is the original:

 Source

I had a couple of significant difficulties when making this that took some time to solve. They are why my quick 'holiday project' ended up taking so long.

The Trim
The trim and the collar caused the main delays. I never did find the right trim. So instead, I painted my own. (“Paint it instead” seems to be a recurring theme around here.) I got mum to draw out the design on a transparency (‘cos she’s much neater than me) then I lit it from below through a glass table to trace it onto the fabric. I actually had to use a clear plastic container on top of the table, because the glass was so textured that it was hard to distinguish the pattern from the shadowy background.

This is the template I used:

This is my painting setup:

I am very happy with the result. It wasn’t too painful to do, nor did it get much messier as I went along as I had been afraid it would. While doing handwork on my costumes I like to watch or listen to something. For this costume my 'topically appropriate' listening was The Tolkien Professor podcasts. 

The trim in place.

The Collar

After trying many ways of draping the collar, and having none of them work, I gave up. I searched for a pattern to adjust but I couldn't find one. I nearly despaired of finding a way to make this collar work and I had to stop working on the costume because I didn't know what to do. Then, weeks later, a new method occurred to me and it worked! I started with a long rectangle and cut the back neckline shape cut into it at the centre. Then I folded it around to the front. To get the shoulder shape there is a shoulder seam that forms two pleats that curve the collar over the top of the arm. 

It looks like this on the inside and outside:

I fiddled with the fronts until they had the three-pleat look of the original.

The Belt
The belt wasn't so much a delay-making problem but is something I want to fix - when I work out what to do with it. At present it doesn't really have a doing-up mechanism.

My belt is made from burgundy fabric, brocade trim, wool, painted beads and earring parts. I couldn’t find anything the right shape for the belt loops but the earring parts I found had flowers very like the design associated with Eowyn, as seen on her necklace, so I thought they’d do.

Necklace Source - Belt Source

What I didn’t realise was that I would actually need three as there are two loops on the belt and also a third loop on the woollen cord hanging from the belt. I couldn’t find a third loop of the same kind, so I’m making do.

The Buttons

The buttons I got at the closing down sale of our local patchwork shop which made this feature more economical than it would have been otherwise. They are purely decorative as the outfit actually closes with snaps - but it probably won’t for much longer since they keep popping apart while I’m trying to do them all up and they aren’t technologically appropriate for Rohan. I’m just not sure what I can replace them with.

Pictures
Yesterday Mum and I went to a nearby hill to do a photoshoot. My Dad had given me a replica of Eowyn’s sword for my birthday to go with this costume, so I had fun with that.

The Lord of the Rings images belong to New Line Cinema.

You had plans, and look where that got you

I had a plan for sewing this year. It would ensure everything was done in time for deadlines, avoid ‘busy’ times of Real Life and give me a feeling of accomplishment for use whenever I was stressed.

• The assassins would be finished sewing by the end of 2014 (tick – finished at 3am on the 31st).
• Eowyn, a ‘quick’ and ‘easy’ costume, would be done by the end of January.
• Before Uni went back at the end of February I would have fitted the patterns for my Regency dresses for JAFA and got a fair bit of the sewing out of the way.
• March would have been spent finishing the JAFA outfits well ahead of the April event.

What actually happened was I finished Eowyn at the start of March.

Then, starting on my regency outfits, I discovered that my bodiced petticoat gave me terrible backache. I tried it on for 10 minutes and was still sore 3 hours later. I don’t know how I survived at JAFAs past. My short stays are just as bad – which I suspect is why I still thought the petticoat was an improvement; and it was definitely better in terms of bulk under the dress.

So step one was not fitting dress mock-ups but rather new underpinnings. I tried to adjust the bodiced petticoat but I couldn’t work out a way to fix the problem. I believe the pain came from the straps being too short, but if they were made longer the bodice no longer stayed in the right spot. So I’ve spent the last few weeks patterning and making long stays.  I will need a new chemise to go with the new stays but I don’t have time to make one now. I will have to make do with a bulky old one or perhaps my slimline 1913 petticoat.

Another complication was the expiry of my sewing machine. In 2008 I inherited my great aunt’s 1976 Husqvarna 2000. Aunty Gladys had been a keen sewer and wanted her machine to go to whomever of her relatives showed an interest in sewing. That machine served me very well but at its last service I was told it was broken beyond repair. So not only was I behind on my plan, I had to research and buy a new machine. I was able to use my mother’s machine for the majority of the sewing on Eowyn and the stays but needing to get my own new sewing machine was another thing niggling at the back of my mind. Last week I bought a Brother NV610 so sewing life is getting back to normal.

Now that I have a sewing machine and my stays are nearly finished, I have finally got to the ‘fit and make two regency dresses’ part of my plan. Except now I have two weeks instead of two months. My original plans were for a ball gown from a fashion plate and an evening ensemble of my own design. I am preparing myself for the likelihood that these may not happen. But the Uni holidays are coming up and I have made regency clothes before so I have hope… We’ll see what happens.

"I can ride and wield blade"

The bodice of Eowyn’s riding outfit is made of a green fabric and quilted with gold thread. The bodice has gold buttons down the centre front and smaller gold buttons from wrist to elbow on the sleeves.  The bodice quilting is invisible on the DVD version of the film, but a glimpse of it can be seen at the bottom edge of the following photo:

  A rare in-focus glimpse of this costume.

The cowl and lower edge of the bodice are trimmed with a floral tape. The cowl and sleeves appear to be brown velvet, and the sleeves have a gold floral pattern.  

I made my bodice out of green twill, thin wadding and lined with the leftovers from my 1879 gown. This fabric was ideal for the lining because it has a diamond pattern that I used as a guide for the quilting.

I based my pattern on Vogue 8323 (which is a knit pattern, but it worked). I adapted it to open at the centre front with an overlapped opening. The bodice closes with clips – I had no interest in sewing a dozen buttonholes through all those layers of fabric and wadding.

I sewed each layer of the bodice together separately before layering and quilting. To avoid having bulky seams on the wadding layer I cut the pieces out without seam allowances and zigzagged them together with the edges meeting.

 There was a lot of quilting and it took several days to do it all.

I need to thank my mother for letting me use her sewing machine for this project. My sewing machine was exhausted by the end of last year and is currently having a well deserved holiday at the sewing machine servicing place. This outfit has been entirely sewn on my mother’s Janome, which was the machine I learned to sew on.

My sleeves and cowl will be made from a stretch panne velvet; the sort of fabric I would usually cringe to use. However it looked just right for this costume, was available and affordable, and this particular one has been much easier to use than panne velvets I have used in the past. I added the gold decoration to the sleeves with fabric paint – the leaves are stamped and the flowers were painted freehand.

I want to report that I managed to put both sleeves in properly first time :-). 

I have been unable to find the floral trim for this outfit. I have searched every fabric shop I know of in Canberra, a few interstate, and etsy. I even went to The Other Side of Town (for non-Canberrans: that’ a half-hour drive away and is considered a day-trip, made once a year at most).

Have you seen this trim?

Here is the bodice in its current state:

The Lord of the Rings images belong to New Line Cinema.