fashion madness
I just realized that 2/3 of this weekend was about clothes.
Saturday and Sunday mornings I went nuts over my Gaskell Ball dress, and managed to finish all but a few small details. The rest of the actual sewing should take at most an hour to do, which hopefully leaves a couple of hours for hunting down fun costume-finishers like blue body glitter and wearable seashells (for hair, maybe?). I had a little panic attack Friday night because the sewing maching was with a friend of Lily's and the friend wasn't answering her cell phone, but she brought it by Saturday morning while I was still pinning the skirt so all was well.
I'm basing the costume on a calf-length poufy blue satin dress I found in a vintage store. The general idea, inspired by the deep watery blue of that dress, is to be a Victorian ball approximation of a niad (water nymph). Before this weekend, I split and re-hemmed the skirt at the front and put together all but the hem of an underskirt to make it work over the hoops. I also hacked the long poufy sleeves apart and turned them into short poufy sleeves, which seemed more appropriate for a ball. I started the weekend with three basic goals: 1) make one of 2 semi-functional corsets work, 2) hem the underskirt, and 3) make the top look more Victorian.
1) turned out to be easy. I just had to add a couple of stays to my cheap-ish Victoria's Secret corset, and it held up perfectly. Previously, it got horribly scrunched at the back every time I made it tight enough to hold me up, which would have been really annoying for dancing. 2) was also easy, obviously.
3) was more complicated than expected. I though I just needed to fix the neckline. When I put the top over the underskirt and corset, though, it became apparent that the way the bodice connected to the sleeves would make me look clownlike no matter how slim the corset underneath. I ended up re-constructing the sleeves so that they started near the armpit rather than halfway down the body. I lost some poufiness as a result, but the sillouette is much improved. I'd been playing with making a sash out of the underskirt material, and that turned out to be too wide but easy to fix. I think I'm going to keep the neckline pretty close to how it was, just make it curve a bit into a v instead of meet right at the top. That should only take 30 minutes, maximum. I may end up deciding that I need to make the bodice less poufy, but a couple of quick darts would do all I can do for that.
I'm basically very happy with how it's all turned out. Looking forward to Saturday...
Saturday afternoon was Jette's baby shower. The drive to Sacramento was long, but the party was impressive. A kind of European dim sum, with chicken salad-filled-pastry puffs and stuffed shrimp and fruit and I don't remember what else. Lots of good tea, too (the theme was "High Tea"). And champagne, which I never got to because I was too busy with the tea. It was great to catch up with people there. Most of them I'd met at Jette's bridal shower, rehearsal dinner, and wedding, and some have also been around for more normal parties, so at this point they're in the comfortable-to-good-acquaintance range. There's one family friend I particularly enjoy chatting with. I remembered her before because she was enormously excited to finally have the Miata she'd been lusting after for years; the Miata is pretty much my dream car. Now, it turns out she is a statistician, so we got to babble about work and how fun statistics is. Not often I can do that at a random party!
After "Tea," we spent the rest of the afternoon in baby-fashion-land as Jette opened her presents. I swear, that baby will be the best-dressed little girl in Walnut Creek. At least 80% of the gifts were wearable. Not a single daiper, which I hear is unheard of at baby showers. No, it was all fashion attire. Hats, mittens, booties, blankets/swaddling, and an endless parade of the ultimate in baby clothes. Apparently rose patterns are in this year. Also bunnies. Several were hand-knitted. All were beautiful. The funniest was the dress "chosen" (pulled off the racks at the store) by one of Jette's friends' 2 year old: a black and red tie-dye pattern velvet spaghetti strap number that everyone joked would look good at her first rock concert. In any case, I returned to my own closet at the end of the day and was appalled by my lack of style :).
Saturday and Sunday mornings I went nuts over my Gaskell Ball dress, and managed to finish all but a few small details. The rest of the actual sewing should take at most an hour to do, which hopefully leaves a couple of hours for hunting down fun costume-finishers like blue body glitter and wearable seashells (for hair, maybe?). I had a little panic attack Friday night because the sewing maching was with a friend of Lily's and the friend wasn't answering her cell phone, but she brought it by Saturday morning while I was still pinning the skirt so all was well.
I'm basing the costume on a calf-length poufy blue satin dress I found in a vintage store. The general idea, inspired by the deep watery blue of that dress, is to be a Victorian ball approximation of a niad (water nymph). Before this weekend, I split and re-hemmed the skirt at the front and put together all but the hem of an underskirt to make it work over the hoops. I also hacked the long poufy sleeves apart and turned them into short poufy sleeves, which seemed more appropriate for a ball. I started the weekend with three basic goals: 1) make one of 2 semi-functional corsets work, 2) hem the underskirt, and 3) make the top look more Victorian.
1) turned out to be easy. I just had to add a couple of stays to my cheap-ish Victoria's Secret corset, and it held up perfectly. Previously, it got horribly scrunched at the back every time I made it tight enough to hold me up, which would have been really annoying for dancing. 2) was also easy, obviously.
3) was more complicated than expected. I though I just needed to fix the neckline. When I put the top over the underskirt and corset, though, it became apparent that the way the bodice connected to the sleeves would make me look clownlike no matter how slim the corset underneath. I ended up re-constructing the sleeves so that they started near the armpit rather than halfway down the body. I lost some poufiness as a result, but the sillouette is much improved. I'd been playing with making a sash out of the underskirt material, and that turned out to be too wide but easy to fix. I think I'm going to keep the neckline pretty close to how it was, just make it curve a bit into a v instead of meet right at the top. That should only take 30 minutes, maximum. I may end up deciding that I need to make the bodice less poufy, but a couple of quick darts would do all I can do for that.
I'm basically very happy with how it's all turned out. Looking forward to Saturday...
Saturday afternoon was Jette's baby shower. The drive to Sacramento was long, but the party was impressive. A kind of European dim sum, with chicken salad-filled-pastry puffs and stuffed shrimp and fruit and I don't remember what else. Lots of good tea, too (the theme was "High Tea"). And champagne, which I never got to because I was too busy with the tea. It was great to catch up with people there. Most of them I'd met at Jette's bridal shower, rehearsal dinner, and wedding, and some have also been around for more normal parties, so at this point they're in the comfortable-to-good-acquaintance range. There's one family friend I particularly enjoy chatting with. I remembered her before because she was enormously excited to finally have the Miata she'd been lusting after for years; the Miata is pretty much my dream car. Now, it turns out she is a statistician, so we got to babble about work and how fun statistics is. Not often I can do that at a random party!
After "Tea," we spent the rest of the afternoon in baby-fashion-land as Jette opened her presents. I swear, that baby will be the best-dressed little girl in Walnut Creek. At least 80% of the gifts were wearable. Not a single daiper, which I hear is unheard of at baby showers. No, it was all fashion attire. Hats, mittens, booties, blankets/swaddling, and an endless parade of the ultimate in baby clothes. Apparently rose patterns are in this year. Also bunnies. Several were hand-knitted. All were beautiful. The funniest was the dress "chosen" (pulled off the racks at the store) by one of Jette's friends' 2 year old: a black and red tie-dye pattern velvet spaghetti strap number that everyone joked would look good at her first rock concert. In any case, I returned to my own closet at the end of the day and was appalled by my lack of style :).