Books 'n' Threads

Accessorizing

Last weekend was the GBACG Petit Trianon event at the fabulous Bellevue Club in Oakland. It was the perfect venue for the perfect event. Due to some recent health issues, I decided to opt for my gown that is easiest to wear–the chemise a la reine. However, it needed something to spiffy it up and make it more appropriate for such a formal event.

Thus, I finally got around to making a showy petticoat to wear under it. When I originally made the gown, I decided to leave the front open like the one that the pattern is taken from in The Cut of Women’s Clothes, which was my inspiration. Previously, I’d simply worn the gown with white petticoats underneath, but really wanted something better. I also figured that this was the perfect opportunity to use some red/yellow shot silk taffeta from my stash. Red is not a color I wear well, so I bought the fabric with the intention of using it for accessories only…nothing near my face…so a petticoat was perfect.

Not only did I manage to get the petticoat finished in time for the event, but I also made a sash with a bow and tails. I made sure to cut the sash tails so that I could fray them and have a red fringe at the ends.

Unfortunately, my darling husband hasn’t quite gotten the hang of taking costume photos. I had him snap a few of my before leaving for the event and didn’t check his work. Turns out he only took three-quarter length shots, so none that completely show the petticoat or the fringed tails. I also haven’t seen many of me from the event that are worth snagging. (I must have spent too much time sitting down or something.) So, for now, these will have to suffice.

My Cousin’s Wedding Dress

Sometime towards the end of last year, my cousin got engaged and asked my mother and I to make her wedding dress. With comparatively little drama, we ended up with this:

June 5, 2011,
Author: Ithilwyn,
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Categories: Modern

Reminders

Just a friendly reminder that if you’d like to see updates on my craft projects as they are in progress, check out my craft blog, Loose Threads.

If you are looking for my book reviews, please visit In Search of a Text.

If you are looking for all of my old dress diaries, I have started to add posts here that link to specific blogs so that you will be able to find them by category/era. Until that is finished, however, you may want to follow this link to the old static costume page.

Taking the Time to Do the Hem Right

For most of my sewing career, I’ve been a speeder. I always wanted to get through projects quickly, and would forgo certain steps that I considered unnecessary. As I’ve become more experienced, I’ve realized that some of those steps aren’t quite as unnecessary as I first thought.

About a year ago, I helped a friend of mine–a sewing novice–make a dress. I guided her through most of the construction and then talked her through what she would need to do on her own to finish the garment. Later, she told me that she absolutely loved the dress and how it fit, but she never did understand the instructions for the hem, which had turned out terribly.

Now, my solution to curved hems was always to do a hem as narrow as possible and then just take a tuck or two here and there as I sewed it down (usually by machine–are you cringing yet?). I generally ended up with a few wonky spots, but nothing that bothered me too much and/or that couldn’t be smoothed down with a good hot (and heavy) iron.

My friend’s problem was that she followed the directions to do a nice wide hem, but she didn’t understand the instructions for easing the top edge. After helping her correct the problem, we now both do hems the right way. (Unless I can get away with using my rolled hem foot!)

Gathering stitch at upper fold. This would then be folded up to create the desired depth of hem.

For the uninitiated, in order to ease your hem, you need to run a gathering stitch right at the point where the fabric will fold at the top edge of your hem (the fold that is inside that gets stitched down, not the one on the bottom of the skirt). I usually do this in sections, beginning where there is a seam and ending at the next one; this makes it simpler to manage the easing of the fabric to fit the curve of the skirt.

Once my gathering stitches are in, I press right where the stitching is, keeping the stitches slightly to the inside of the fold. Before pressing the next fold, I pull up the gathering stitches a bit; then, as I press, I make slight adjustments, making sure that everything is matching up properly each time I come to a side seam. I pin as I go along so that things don’t shift once I start sewing the hem, which I always sew by hand now.

The eased, pressed, and pinned hemline from the inside.

Ultimately, the goal is to end up without any tucks (as I used to do) in the upper edge of your hem…just some very light easing…and no twisting in the visible hemline.

I greatly apologize for the blurry picture. I know I should never do this, but it is the only one I took of the inside of the hem before I sewed it. You can see the pins in place and the thread ends from the basting stitches. It also shows how the hem should seem to lie perfectly flat.

My Favorite Feet, Part I

Hems generally give me fits, especially on curved edges. Most of the time, I just sort of place some tucks in the hem strategically as I sew the hem by hand, but inevitably, I end up with a wonky hem. Most of the time, it doesn’t bother me too terribly much.

Then a few months ago, a colleague asked me to shorten a dress for her. It was a pleated jersey with a shaped skirt. Ack! While inspecting the hem it came with, I saw that it was simply a rolled hem.

I immediately started digging through all the feet that came with my sewing machine. (Sadly, I must admit that I mostly only use the general purpose foot and the zipper foot, although, not often for sewing in zippers.) My high end machine came with nearly a dozen feet, many of which I don’t even know what they do.

Among them, however, I discovered the rolled hem foot.

I practiced for a bit with a scrap of the skirt fabric that I’d been able to cut off. I then worked up the courage to start in on the dress. Aside from a few scary moments while going over the seams, it was a breeze! I was done with the entire hem in a matter of minutes.

Now it seems I am on a mission to use the foot as much as possible. I recently made up an Edwardian princess slip. Not only did the curved hem need to be sewn, but I also needed to hem miles and miles of flounce fabric. Piece of cake! The foot quickly ate through this mass of flounce:

I’ve discovered that the trick is to loosely fold over about a quarter of an inch of fabric as it feeds into the foot. Oh, and slow down at the seams, which work best if they are very simple, unfinished seams that have been pressed open.

Anne of Green Gables Tea

I had a wonderful time at the GBACG Anne of Green Gables Tea. Thanks to some last minute sewing and a borrowed shirtwaist, I actually had something to wear.

That said, I’ve added a page for the outfit. I apologize that there aren’t a whole lot of details about construction and such, but between how little time I had to work on it, crazy stress on both the home and work fronts, and camera issues, I just wasn’t able to put as much time into the details as I usually do. But as I often tell my students, something is better than nothing, so please enjoy what little I have to offer.

Anne of Green Gables

GBACG Open House

The Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild held their annual open house today in Albany. It was lovely, as always.

I was asked to wear my Paris Promenade dress for the fashion show, which I was kind of disappointed about. I feel like I have many other dresses that have with so much more wow-factor. But the dress turned out to be a huge hit, plus it is so easy to wear that it took almost no time at all to get ready this morning.

I suppose the best thing about being in the fashion show was getting to see everyone else’s gowns up close. I’m still in awe over how amazing everyone looked. I still feel a little like a newbie around some of these people and get a bit star struck around them.

The thing that I never get tired of at these events, though, is meeting new people. It amazes me how often I meet people who have done costuming for years but have never heard of our organization. One of the first new people I met today was a self-described costumer who had never heard of our group and had just happened to be walking her dog and wondered what was going on at the hall. At lunch, my mother and I sat next to a woman who teaches fashion at an Alameda high school; she also had never heard of our group until recently.

To me, it was so natural to fall in with this group, and since the majority of my research was done online initially, the GBACG website was one of the first I came across. It makes me wonder how many more potential members there are out there that have simply never heard of us because they aren’t looking.

Then I start wondering what the guild could do to publicize themselves to people who do not travel in the same costuming circles that we do. Our events get announced at our own gathers and at the those of our sister organizations, just as ours are announced at their events, but what about all the people who also have never heard of PEERS, BAERS, or ADSCA and who have never attended a con?

Then I realize that I’m thinking like a board member, and as much as I love the GBACG, I don’t really have time to be on the board right now. So, I think I’ll just stick with what I’m doing and be welcoming to our newcomers and tell the random passing strangers about the fun we are having.

Site Redesign

With all of the issues I’ve been having with my ftp client and design software, I decided that it was finally time to make things easier on myself and simply use wordpress as my front page.

It may take me a while to reorganize and get all the previous content linked, but I think it will be worth it in the end, as I will (hopefully) be better able to update more frequently.

As always, if you want up-to-date progress on my craft projects or reading, please follow the links to those blogs.