Attempting a Gibson or Edwardian Blouse

Hello all,

It's been a long time since I took the time to sit down and chat.  Grant you, it's been a long time since I've been able to do some good old sewing.  So long, in fact, that I'm going to discuss the Edwardian blouse I worked on last summer.

My wardrobe sadly lacked a good old basic blouse, and I had a hankering for a nice Edwardian style.  My good friend lent me her Folkwear pattern, since we're close to the same size, and I had the added advantage of borrowing her completed blouse as well, which allowed me to figure out where I could cut my pattern back a bit.

I used the Folkwear Gibson Girl pattern, #205.    Here's an image of the package and the diagrams for the pattern. 

Their design could be quite fancy, as shown below.  However, unlike what you see below, their collar is considerably shorter than what they show in this photo - it's more what you see in the pattern design sketch above right. 

I opted for the non-fancy, non-pleated yoke, as it's less work.  I also decided not to have a belt at the waist, since I was planning to always have it tucked into a skirt waistband.  I decided upon a nice white and green cotton striped material (which tends toward a seersucker finish when it's been washed, if one doesn't iron it out).  I thought the stripes would look nice going vertically along the bodice and sleeves, and running  horizontally along the yoke, collar, and cuffs.  (Though I still managed to accidentally cut out the yoke with the stripes going vertically ... why I always buy extra fabric!)

Here's the blouse in progress, yoke and bodice attached front and back, but with no sleeves or collar yet.  I opted for a small edging of lace inserted between yoke and bodice.

Before attaching the collar, I had to figure out how I wanted to trim it.  I had a variety of lace pieces around as options.

I even contemplated a little lace jabot.

 

However, after polling my sewing pals on Facebook, I decided I'd go for edging with the really narrow lace, since my neck isn't terribly long.  I also remembered I had a bone or ivory piece which I found in an old jar of buttons I'd bought at an antiques market, and so I added that to the centre front of the collar.  (Surprisingly, I forgot it was there when I washed the blouse the first time, and it survived the process entirely unscathed!)

Here is how the front looked, with the ivory piece and all the different laces combined.

And here is the finished blouse in all it's glory, front and back.  The back attaches with hooks and eyes along the opening which goes from collar to the bottom of the yoke. 

All in all, a great little blouse, and easy to make - it took me a week of frittering away in the evenings to make this.  I kept with the pintucked sections in the back, where one would normally have the belt running, as it ensured that, when tucked into a skirt, it would automatically lay nicely.

Alas, I realize I have no decent photo of me wearing this blouse, just one very tiny, very blurry photo, from a local picnic.

Making A Steampunk Vendor's Apron

Hello good folks.  I shall have my automaton fetch you some lemonade (or would you prefer a gin and tonic?), so please, sit back, and relax.

This post hearkens back to the chillier month of November, when I found myself frantically preparing to actually be a vendor, for the first time ever, for a fantasy-themed Christmas Fair, the Imaginarius Fantasticus, which I'd participated in the previous year to promote our local steampunk community (you can find posts about preparing for the brochures, display, promotion, and tablecloth earlier in this blog).

In among the panic of trying to make enough steampunk jewelry to sell (turns out I'm an overachiever, I made tons in that insane 6 week marathon), I realized that, as a vendor, I needed a handy place to put money, keep my change, my receipt book, my cell, and pens, etcetera etcetera.  So I turned to that handy online Encylopaedia of Everything, Google, and started looking for ideas.  Do an image google, and you'll find lots of ideas.  And here is the pattern & instructions I followed, bless Colleen at TheMagicBean.

So, following her instructions, I figured out how big I wanted my apron and its pockets, based on my size (front of waist), how long I wanted it, and what I wanted to put in it.  Then I went rummaging around my scrap fabric, and discovered I had sufficient remnants of the decoration from our community display board (the blue & brown patterned fabric), in addition to a nice striped scrap and a light brown sample of upholstery / drapery fabric scored at a local Fabric sale.  I knew I wanted pockets for bills (one easily accessible and a more hidden/secure one for incoming cash / float), coins (loonies & twonies), my cell phone, pens, and the receipt book.  So, putting that all together, I cut out the pieces below.  (And, not shown, a lining for the back of the apron, the same size as the large striped piece.)

All pieces were double thickness (yes, this became interesting eventually - I ignored her instructions to get a jeans needle into my machine. Jeans needle?  Don't have one).  The striped piece was the back / base (with a plain back lining).  The middle-level pocket would be for stored money (float & incoming larger bills), the front pocket for accessible cash.  The longer rectangular patterned piece with ribbons is sewn up the middle to split it into two, and is for the loonies & twonies.  One wee pocket was for my cell phone, and the other was for business cards or my pocket watch.  Below is my first layout.  Before I realized oh yeah, seam allowances. 

So the front pocket was just going to have two wee pockets on it - the double for twonies & loonies, and the other for my calculator or cell.  I gathered the middle & sides of the double pocket a bit, so it would pouch for lots of coins, and sewed a little snap at the top of each pocket so it would close.

The front pocket itself is also divided into separate sections with seam lines vertically down it, with room for bills for my float, and a section wide enough for my receipt book.  The middle pocket (brown in the photo above) was also divided into a couple of sections, again, for bills, another wide section for miscellaneous, and a narrow section that accommodates two pens.

Here is the apron getting closer to being finished, with the nice long waistband attached (handy for easy tying and for bundling it all up when not in use), and with a key clip for my fancy steampunk keys (or house keys if necessary).  

 And closer up:

Behind the beige portion, where incoming larger bills and the bulk of my float goes (and which also has a snap closure) I sewed in another single-layer pocket which just fits bills, as a secure hiding-place for large bills, to make sure they couldn't accidentally be pulled out when refreshing my active float (which I put in the lower-level, lined pocket.

And here is the final product on the model, with calculator, receipt book, keys, pocket watch and pens.  

I guess my takehome message here is, if, as a steampunk merchant, you want a different and nifty vendor apron for fairs, look around online for inspirations, and make it yourself if you can.  It's not that hard.  And you get to customize for your tastes, and have a bit of fun.

And here are a few photos of the Apron worn at events where I was doing some steampunk vending.

 Thank you KJW Photography for the photo to the left, taken at Trethewey House's Steampunk: A Journey in Time event, in May 2013.

Scorching Summertime Steampunk

Well ... more neo-Edwardian costuming than steampunk, but then, summertime heat & humidity is less conducive to lots of brass and sweaty goggles.

Last summer, with two summer steampunk picnics looming, I realized none of my usual clothes were remotely suitable to an outdoor picnic in July & August in Vancouver.  My stuff was more appropriate to air-conditioned hotel conventions, not for lounging on grass in the heat and sunshine.  You try to lounge in a corset - I challenge you!

I decided this was a great opportunity to make some neo-Edwardian picnic gear.  Sans pattern.  Despite my very basic sewing knowledge.

And today's post is to show you what I came up with.  It wasn't optimal (I'm neither young nor lissome, which this outfit would have suited better), but it was cheap, moderately easy, comfortable (although the day I wore it was scorching) and looked okay.  (More on where I went astray later!)

I didn't have a lot of money to spend on the endeavor, so I did some mad cost-effective thrifting.  Below are the finds I came up with.  Today I will deal with the skirt, and I will post about the hat separately.

Above is some eyelet lace found thrifting.  It and the other items in the wee baggie were $2.  Below is a net curtain (with an Ikea label!) and some cheap curtains I found in a thrift store.

When I bought the curtains above, I thought ... hey ... it's a ready made skirt - already with ruffle at the hem!  I just need to get rid of the ugly lace back panels, sew them up the side seams, and gather them!

Now, in reality, what happened was I had to unpick all the seams (ALL THE SEAMS) so I could make maximum use of the limited fabric width.  I also unpicked the top folding hem that would have gone on the rod, so I had room for the gathering, and to make the waistband.  Waste not, want not.  

The ruffle was on the plain side. 

So I added the pre-ruffled eyelet trim I'd bought at a thrift store - turned out there was just enough to do the job!

And, since that was looking a little plain, I added another shorter layer of lace on top.

Ruffles added, I then trimmed the skirt so it would be just above the floor (when waistband was added) and sewed the panels together all the way it up one side seam, then partway up the other side (leaving an opening to get in and out of).  Then I pinned it to my dress model, along with a 1970's neo-Edwardian blouse I'd scored in a vintage shop for $25, to see where I stood.  I only had enough width for a relatively loose, light gather.

 

Since Edwardian skirts tended to have gauzy layers for interest, I decided to add netting as an overlayer, so I cut it to size, short enough that it would show the ruffles at skirt hem.  I added yet more lace to the net hem, and then gathered it at the waist.

I wasn't 100% happy with the look, but I was committed to it at this point.  I started playing with ideas for the top / hip area, and the waistline.
I very much liked the look of the first option, to the left, with the sleek lace panel at the hips.  However, a bit of playing told me that arranging that flat panel of lace sleekly on a curve, so it would drape nicely over my hips when standing, and accommodate me when I sat, was easier said than done.  It looked great on the dummy, I couldn't figure out how to do it properly on me, with my limited sewing skills.  So irksome.  

So I opted for the right-hand version, though opting for a waistband rather than a sash.  It was easy to sew on top of all the gathered layers, and easy to close with sturdy hooks and eyes.  

And here is the final product, worn with another cotton blouse (courtesy Value Village), and the hat that will follow in a later post, at the First Annual Brass in the Grass picnic, in July 2012.  In future, I will not likely use this belt, but may design a sash for it.  I also may tear it down and remove the netting (which got a bit sapped in the tree-climbing).  

Picnic photo courtesy of Sam Quo Vadis: http://www.studiostar.ca 

(my cropping on the second photo)

Simple Steampunk Leather Stitchery

Greetings, good folks.  I realize it has been a long time since I've posted.  Manfred, do fetch our good readers some lemonade.  

This is a brief little summertime show-and-tell sort of post, to show you my solution upon finding myself finally in possession of some lovely little brass doodads (at long last!), with no way of attaching them to my belt.

And one evening, sitting at home, I found myself staring at these little items, a brass magnifying glass, a pocket sundial and compass, and a boxwood & brass folding rule, and decided to fix it.  Right then.

After all, I had a bit of lightweight scrap leather matching what I used to made a key fob a couple of years ago.  And I had a sewing machine.  Righty then!

So ... here's what I made:

For the magnifying glass, I took a narrow strip of leather, doubled it over lengthwise, stitched it closed, and made a loop, doubled and stitched a second much narrower band to make a restraining strap.  Details are shown below:  left is taken partway through the process through, and right is it completed.

There is a loop to attach it to the belt (shown above left as the reinforced top joined portion, which was folded back and attached to the suspension loop when the narrow restraining band was stitched on.

Next was to create a pouch for the little sundial / compass dooflicky.  (That's the technical term, don't bandy it about too much!)  I simply took a long piece of leather, folded it into two equal pieces, which I stitched together to form the pouch, and one shorter piece I cut in a curve as a top.  Turned it rightside out after stitching, handsewed on a button and a loop of cord to close it, and voila. 

Before stitching the sides together, I machine stitched a loop on the back so I could run a belt through it.

The pouch for the folding ruler was made of two pieces of leather, folded over to make a belt loop at the top, and with a pocket added onto the front (since it was long, and narrow, I wanted the double layer of leather to give it some body and support.

So, short, sweet, and simple.  And no need for professional leather-working skills, or awls, or punches, of any of that sort of thing.  Just scissors, a small piece of leather, some imagination, and my trusty 50+ year-old Singer sewing machine.

Bustle Pad Creation

Hello all.  So, further to the bustle post previously, this is the promised post on making a small bustle pad.  My goal was a small, lightweight bustle pad, producing a small pouf.

My materials were some scrap black lining fabric, interfacing, some poly stuffing sheeting, and some black crinoline-weight netting I had lying around.

I started by measuring the distance across the top of my tuckus, where I wanted the pad to sit.  Based on this, I drew out the following pattern on paper, and cut it out of two pieces of the black lining, with seam allowance added.

Out of the same patter, without seam allowance, I cut a piece of the lining and a piece of the poly padding (which I'd bought for my tea cozy).  I pinned the interfacing on the lining, to provide a stiffened back, and placed the batting on top of that, to give a bit of body to the pad's structure.

Left - cut out pieces of fabric, interfacing & batting    Right - interfacing pinned to lining.

Left - batting pinned on top of interfacing.       Right - both now sewn onto fabric base.

The next step was to sew the other piece of fabric on and then flip it inside out and hand stitch closed, to produce the pad base.  I also sewed a line across the top, to leave a convenient point for the pad to bend forward.

Once that was done, I cut out three widths of netting, double the width I wanted the net pouf, and at least 3 times the length of the pad's maximum width.  I used the full width I had, since it was more than 3 times as long as the base.  Here they are, faintly showing up on my floor, cut out.  

Next step was to double over the pieces lengthwise, and run a gathering stitch along the side with both edges, to create a tube.

Once gathering stitching was done, I gathered all three tubes of netting.

Left - before I gathered the tubes of netting.   R - after gathering the netting to fit the base.

I attached the gathered tubes one at a time, starting with the widest one, at the bottom, and then adding the middle width, and then the narrowest at the top.

The end result still wasn't quite poufy enough, and I had lots of netting kicking around, so I used more netting to stuff into the large and medium tubes, to create more pouf.  (There wasn't room to tuck more into the narrowest tube, which was already pretty puffy on it's own.)

I decided to use a hook-and-eye system to attach the bustle to any particular skirt - so I have large hooks on the back of the bustlepad, and will attach matching large flat eyes to any skirt I want to use the bustlepad with.

This was a very simple, very easy bustlepad, which produces a prodigious amount of pouf for its light weight.  Contrary to what I've heard, the crinoline as done here (tubes and stuffed with more crinoline net) seems pretty resilient.