"Muslin always turns to some account or other"

I wasn't planning to go to the Jane Austen Festival this year. I had something else on that weekend and I figured that Jafa's on every year so I'd give it a miss and come back with some new dresses next year.

And then they announced that it would be the last one. I couldn't miss that.

So two months out, Lady B and I (and Lady B's family) bought tickets for Sunday. After getting some Life out of the way we started sewing with two and a half weeks to go.

Lady B was making herself a ballgown and open robe. I needed a new daydress because I've worn all the ones I have at least twice now. That, and I had the perfect fabric set aside and this would be my last chance to use it. (Without Jafa, I never have to do regency again! 🙂🙃🙂)

My fabric came from Patchwork on Parker in Cootamundra. My mum found it one time when she was there without me and, after a quick SMS consultation, bought 4m – enough for a regency gown. The fabric instantly reminded me of one of my favourite dresses from the BBC Pride and Prejudice.

I had to re-jig my standard regency pattern (adapted, probably now unrecognisably, from figure 37 in The Cut of Women's Clothes) to go with my new 1815 stays. Which meant raising the waistline and lengthening the skirt and widening the bodice to allow for the gathering. I first thought of making it drawstring but decided that actually I would rather get the gathers arranged how I like them, then make them stay there by sewing them to a tape.

The skirt I knife pleated to the bodice – largely by guesswork (ie redoing it over and over while the night got later and later).

I couldn't tell how the dress from the show did up the back. I suspect it may have been buttons, but I don't so much care for buttons (they are uncomfortable to lean against and require the making of buttonholes) so I went with self fabric ties. So, after 10 years and 6 dresses, I finally have the archetypal regency plain, pale muslin dress.

It's really boring.


I also assisted Lady B with fitting her (much fancier) ballgown. Once more, those patternmaking classes paid off and I'm getting a hang the 'art' of it. After imitating my teacher by staring at a pattern going 'hmmm' to myself, and having some wild moments of 'I think it needs this adjustment – no that's ridiculous – but I think it will work", all the issues were successfully solved as they arose. We finished our gowns on Friday night in the hotel room in Sydney (where we were for the other event of the weekend).

Lady B is on the right in her new gown. Photo by Steven Shaw. 

We had both booked in to a 9am session on the Sunday morning and after getting home from Sydney the night before – well, frankly, we were probably better rested than if we'd been at the Saturday ball. The talk was about Jane Austen's faith and representation of the church, and how her value of a sincere personal faith came through in her letters and novels.

Then came the picnic where we were joined by Lady B's family.

Happily my spencer suits my dress very nicely. The fit worked surprisingly well given that it was made for different stays.

Then back for a class on making fly fringe:

And time to get ready for the ball where I re-wore my 1830s silk ballgown.

Photo by Steven Shaw

I was especially happy with how my hairstyles turned out for the day.

Time to trim the threads

The Canberra Show has come and gone. I entered two items: the Amygdala onesie and my 1830s ballgown. Because the Show no longer has the Costume or Historical categories, the only options for my garments were Winter/Summer Garment and Miscellaneous Sewing. I won second prize in both categories.

Now is probably a good time to mention that this blog is likely to be going on hiatus for a while. I mentioned in my review of last year that I had been spending more time on music and I've kept doing that to the extent that I'm pretty much not sewing at the moment. I never like it when blogs I follow just stop, leaving no clue about what happened to the person behind them, so I want to say what's going on at the moment. I do not know if this new interest is likely to last a few months, like the brief obsession I had with nuclear power plants the year before last, or 15 years, like costuming.

Here is the last thing I sewed: a quick cover for my pillbox hat so I could be a
'lady going to a funeral' at a dress up party with the theme 'Somewhere else to be'.

If I sew anything in the coming weeks or months I will come back and post about it. I miss the blogging. For now I don’t feel a need to be sewing; even though I have unfinished plans, I am (unusually for me) content with that. Maybe a silk Victorian ballgown was the final boss and I won the game. I can do this and I am good at this; it's time for a new challenge. But I also enjoy writing and without sewing to blog about, I don't have the same opportunity for that. Writing lyrics isn't quite the same thing (especially at beginner level – so don't expect to see an original song on here any time soon).

Anyway, this is my farewell, for the time being, from this particular venture. I wasn't expecting this, although I began to have some suspicions towards the end of last year that sewing wouldn't be my primary focus much longer. However I wasn’t certain enough to say anything then. But now it's well into the year and I have no sewing to post about so it seems time to put down a milestone.

2018 Review

My main goal with sewing this year was to work through my fabric stash and backlog of plans rather than add new projects. To that end, I made several items for which I've had designs or fabric lurking around for years.

Real clothes
I did have one final 'proper shop' in Cabramatta's fabric district at the start of the year but it didn't do too much damage to the stash as I turned out two maxi dresses the next weekend. Turns out not buying fabric is a great way to save money that I can then spend on... fabric. I have always loved paisley but even though it is 'in' now, it never seems to be in my colours. I decided to search etsy on a whim one day and came away with busy purple paisley for a maxidress. I’ve got eight of these dresses now, which is probably enough.

In a moment of ‘I need to sew something’ I turned, as I have done before, to the 1940s. A modified Simplicity 1587 resulted in two dresses, one of fabric bought (last year) for the purpose and another from the stash. And then I made a hat to match, because I could.

Turning to my other favourite 20th century decade, the 70s (I hadn’t realised that was a category for ‘favourites’ until someone asked me what mine were, and turns out it is), I made a halter gown with attached cape from Style 1353.

I added a peacock tag to my blog because five garments make a Thing. This year in peacock fashions, I used the bleaching technique I developed for the Assassin's Creed Revelations costume to add a peacock design to a bought tank top.

I finally found fabrics (including a peacock feather print) that would work for a shirt design I drew ages ago. I like how it turned out but haven’t worn it yet as I don’t know what wear it with.

Speaking of styles of clothes I don’t wear, I gave myself a shock at the start of the year by buying, and regularly wearing, ripped black skinny jeans (that actually fit me). I also wanted what would be, I guess, the skirt equivalent but there the shops were less helpful so I made my own heavily-eyeletted black skirt.

Costumes
Also in the interest of Finishing Things, I had leatherworking classes at Birdsall Leather in preparation for finally completing my Assassin's Creed costumes. When I got back from the trip I promptly didn’t do any work on them as the Jane Austen festival was looming.

Mum bought and set up a lovely little leather workstation for me for my birthday. I made a start but had to let the Gamma.Con deadline slip as my health required that I slow down a bit.

My blogging and sewing reduced a bit in the second half of the year, partly for health reasons and partly because I've been putting more of my 'hobby' time into music. I started with a new singing teacher at the beginning of last year and the process of switching from classical to contemporary style has been a (fun and exciting) challenge requiring more practice than I used to do. And then I decided to learn bass guitar because, you know, not enough stuff to do.

For Jafa I made a pink ballgown based on an 1815 fashion plate and a silk 1830s ballgown. Turns out:
a) silk is great,
b) free silk is better (I won a voucher), and
c) not enough silk can, in fact, be a good thing. This design was very much an exercise in limitations causing creativity and the dress is better for it.

Besides the ballgowns, I also made a chemisette, two chemises and a pair of gloves. (The gloves were finished after Jafa and are incredibly dodgy.)

Other people
I was commissioned to make a onesie based on the Amygdala character from the book Hey Warrior. This isn’t the first commission I’ve done but it kind of felt like it was, as I am a bit more socially distant from the commissionee and I had to write an invoice like a Professional Adult.

A lot of the clothes I make I wear to work and one of my colleagues asked if I could give her lessons to make Butterick 6018. I was keen to do this as, while I have done some sewing with people before, since then I have had lessons myself and can show people proper techniques instead of ‘this is what I made up’.

Events
My most significant event this year was Jafa, where I had a great time. I gave Gamma.Con a miss but did make it to Ironfest wearing Eowyn’s riding outfit. As events go, I have done Ironfest now and don’t need to go again.

I finally got to History Alive this year after many years of missing it due to uni exams, starting work and being overseas. I had great fun riding a 'ye olde' bike and doing more regency dancing. My cousin made an 18th century dress in the week leading up to the event, which is super impressive. I wore my 1830s gown and my dad dressed to match in his regency suit.

The saddest event was the closing down of Cardif Collective's haberdashery storefront. It will be missed (although, thanks to the closing down sale, I now have a bolt of ludicrously cheap silk taffeta I can cry into).

I entered the Canberra Show again this year and my 1830s day dress, entered in the miscellaneous category, won champion of the sewing section. Please bring back the historical and costume categories! I got a first with a 1940s dress and second with my 1830s bonnet – my first time competing in millinery.

Speaking of miscellaneous
I made swimming togs last year and actually wore them this year, so I can report that this was a successful venture.

Despite all appearances to the contrary I have not forgotten my Bayeux tapestry dress. I spend 20-30 minutes on it a week (a sermon’s-worth) and have got another two scenes finished.

Plans
I was pretty happy with knocking planned and prepared projects off my to-do list so I think I’ll keep trying to do that next year. I have two significant projects in that category: finishing the Assassins and a ground-up 18th century outfit to be ready for Jafa 2020. I have already started the stays.

I want to make a distinctively 1920s gown as well but I don't have a design as yet. If anyone has advice about how to do a historically accurate flapper look when you have hips please send it my way – I'm struggling.


Now... bring me that horizon!

Grandchild of the 70s

I try not to build up too much of a sewing stash (so say we all) but there are some things you can't leave in the shop. For instance, a number of years ago I picked up this gorgeous 1976 pattern, Style 1353, for 20c at a church fete.

When I was on holidays a while ago (I think it was the New Zealand trip where I bought also this) I bought lots of metres of a lovely turquoise rayon. I think it must be a rayon blend as it does not crumple the way some rayons do.

Looking through the stash I thought this fabric and this pattern would go together perfectly, so I... put them in a project bag and proceeded to ignore it for a year or so. But in September I thought the time had come to actually make this.

Before sewing the dress up, I had to, as usual, deal with the pattern. I have the pattern in its smallest size, which is pretty close to my measurements, but it was still too big. On my mockup I found that one side seam sat in the right place (pretty much the middle of my side) but the other was pulling around to the back. To fix this, I made a separate bodice pattern for each side and did a small bust adjustment on the side where the seam was in the wrong place. There was a lot of room in the back too, so I increased the centre back seam allowance from the top, tapering it to the original width at the base of the waistband. I had to take it in even more on the final dress.

When I made up the bodice I found the front was baggy. To remove the front bagginess, I left the centre front and gathering attached to the waistband and gradually lowered the rest of the front (to about the point where the pin is in the picture) then gradually went back the normal seam allowance just past the side seam.

You might also notice that in the picture there is an awful ridge in the waistband. This was because I was having delusions of neatness and thought I could hide the bodice seam in the lined waistband. I didn’t do that the second time and the ridge disappeared. The bodice is self-lined, so it has the proper drape, and the waistband is lined with a sturdy twill to hold its shape.

So far I have overlooked the most significant change I made, which was redesigning the neckline. Lovely as the pattern looks, a neckline that is open to the waistband is beyond the pale for me, so on my initial muslin I changed the pattern so the bodice pieces met three inches above the waistband. I wasn’t sure how the change of shape would work out given that I was changing a diagonal edge to one that had a right angle and then curved, but it ended up sitting very nicely.

This was my final pattern – you can see several iterations of changes.

However, every time I tried it on I kept thinking “is it too low?” It looked nice but, in the end, I came to the conclusion that I would probably never be comfortable wearing it, so I unpicked the bodice and started a new one. This is where the ‘lots of metres’ of fabric came in handy. I raised the neckline of the pattern by another 1.5 inches. Sadly, the shaping is not quite as smooth as the first version but, on the other hand, I am comfortable wearing the dress so it was the right decision.

On the whole I like this dress a lot. If I were to make it again I would change one more thing, which is to add a centre seam to the cape. The pattern has the cape cut in one piece which sounds like a good idea; however the bias drape means that one side of the cape hangs longer than the other. As much as having a seam would be a shame, I think I’d rather it be symmetrical.

For 70s makeup I didn’t have to ask youtube for advice; instead I asked my mum. The period-correct eyeshadow technique turned out to be “make it all blue” which was slightly concerning when it first went on but looked good with the dress.

The day I went out to photograph this dress was rather windy, meaning the skirt and cape could be 'shown off' to their full extent.