The 90's are back?

So I read on another blog today that the 90's are back. Sweet Mother of all things hideous, say it isn't so. Well all I have to say is it better be this:

1690's

or this:

1790's

or even this:

1890's

no

Creative Procrastination

I have noticed, as I'm sure some of you also have, that I post a lot of ideas and half finished pieces. I know I'm not alone in this. There is a syndrome known as Costumers ADD, which is the problem of the next project always being more exciting than the one you are actually working on. Of course, I have actual ADHD which adds to the problem. The good news is that THESE ARE MY PEOPLE! A whole community of people who have my same issue with follow through. Staying up to finish things the night before and quite often still sewing in the car on the way to the event. Sigh, I'm finally home.

from Toothpaste for Dinner

On that note, my favorite thing to do is creative procrastination. I'm achieving something. I'm constructing or deconstructing something, just not necessarily the thing I should be doing. If I'm really lucky, my creative procrastination will actually help my current project move along.

Hopefully, this will be one of those things. I need shoes for my Costume College Gala dress. My dress is going to be an early bustle, late 1860's, early 1870's gown. I need shoes. I honestly really had no idea what victorian shoes looked like. All I ever seemed to see were boots, but I know they didn't wear boots to a ball, amIright? So hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the efficiently helpful dark pit of slack, Pinterest.

Essentially, I'm looking at something like this:

1855-1865 silk shoes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The sort of look like ballet slippers with heels. I found a pair of shoes at the thrift store.

$7.00, comfortable but about 1/2 size too small.

These are the wrong color and a little too..solid..for dance shoes, but I like the heel. My plan is to cover them with fabric or repaint them.

or

I have to decide what color to make them, since I'll be wearing them with the orange and blue plaid. I think black will be the easiest. They will also only peak out of the dress, so they don't have to be perfect. So off I go to rese...oh screw it, play on Pinterest some more.

Never have I ever

Never have I ever......matched plaids
Never have I ever......worked with silk taffeta
Never have I ever......made a Victorian Bustle Gown

So this makes perfect sense, since I have a whole month (not including work days, vacation in July, and sleeping) to make it.

Here's a sneak peak of my Costume College Gala dress.

Not the WORST for someone who has never matched plaids

The inside of the bodice needs to be boned. The directions say to make bone casings and sewing them to the interlining, but I'm all like, "I'm doing a lining anyway, why don't I just hand sew some channels and put the boning between the interlining and lining?

Because I shouldn't smoke crack before I hand sew

No one would really be looking at the lining, so I don't really mind the uneven sewing (the dark lines are disappearing ink, so they wouldn't show after I ironed it).

 

The problem is sewing the lining in. If I do the boning channels, then instead of sewing the two pieces right side together and then turning it, I would have to stitch it together afterwards. This would be fine if it didn't have these pleats in it. I  don't know if I am making sense, but I think it would be wonky.

So I'm going to unpick the channels and sew the boning in with casings. You know, like they said to do in the first place before I decided to be such a smarty pants.

In other news; my corset doesn't fit. I was bigger when I made it, so the lacing in the back completely meets and doesn't reduce my waist at all. I'm telling you right now that my pretty plaid bodice is NOT going to fit without some semi-tight lacing.

This photo is of the corset 20 pounds ago.

It's also a little bulky because it has three layers and the binding is too thick. Since I used expensive spring coil bones and it's essentially a good shape, I'm going to unbind it and figure out how to take in a seam without undoing the whole thing. I just don't have time. I'll then rebind it with something a little less bulky.

Never have I ever....done any of the above things. So...bottoms up!

Asilomar Pictures at last

So, you may remember a month or so ago, I was complaining about the Edwardian Blouse that I just couldn't make work. Well, I made it work, and it was actually very cute.

Impish

Ken dressed out of his own closet and looked so great, they put him in the fashion show

I think we need to dress like this all the time.

I forgot my corset, so my..um..backside looks a little less smooth than it should.

Oh Sir, you do know how to make a girl blush

There were cute things in the 70's

So remember that picture I posted yesterday of my Mom's groovy 70's clothes. Of course you do, you read my blog cover to cover. Well, I found two cute reproduction patterns that will work perfectly. For the top:

Mutton dressed as lamb? Who cares!?!

And this perfect 70's skirt:

Because my style icon is Rhoda Morgenstern

For my inspiration see yesterday's post

Throwback Thursday Stylishness

I wish this photo weren't quite so blurry. I'm posting it for several reasons. Mostly because I loved these bias cut skirts and halter tops my Mom used to wear and I would love to make some for myself to wear now. My babysitter (blonde on the left) is wearing one of my Mom's outfits, My Mom in the maroon halter jumpsuit and me thinking I look really hot in my Mom's halter and skirt,  and kind of succeeding except that A) I am 12 and B) my boobs were not going to arrive for another year. But I am trying. Man I am so dark. I spent that summer doing "we must, we must, we must improve our bust" I seem to be wearing some kind of upper arm wrap bracelet. Man my Mom was stylie.

"Be careful what you wish for" say my current Double D's

I also love my brother's fab denim leisure suit and my sisters little sundress. I give this a family win.

Costume College is coming up fast

It's starting to hit me that Costume College is the first week in August and I am so behind in my sewing. This post is about figuring out my priorities and sticking to them instead of going off in every shiny direction.

First off is my Gala dress. The Gala is the night that everyone shows off their most schmancy pants dress. There isn't really a particular time period, so the sky is the limit. I am a poor little church mouse (lapsed), so I am going to use the very understated orange and blue silk fabric I won in the Greater Bay Area Costume Guild raffle.

Now would be a good time to put on your sunglasses

Is going to be a 19th century transitional dress. From the mid-1860s to the early 1870s, fashion was starting to change from the huge crinolines or hoops of the Civil War period to the 'Baby got Back' bustles of the mid1880's.  Crazy wild colors and plaid were around at that time, analine dyes (the first chemical dyes) had been invented and the Victorians went buck wild for them.So we are going from this:

"Someday, I hope to become a toilet tissue disguise"

To this:

Which is pretty fabulous actually

The dress I'm making will fall somewhere in between. I'll be using Truly Victorian Patterns.

Truly Victorian 202 Grand Parlor Skirt

Truly Victorian 303 Side Drape Overskirt

Truly Victorian 416 1875 Ballgown Basque

Hopefully we'll end up with something like this:

Only, you know, orange and blue plaid.

Guess which one is me?

Sorry, I've been so lax in my updating. I just got back from a trip to the exotic far East of Plaistow, NH, Haverhill, MA and Newburyport, MA. There's a wonderful antique flea market in Newburyport, called Oldies Marketplace.

Oldies Marketplace

You can get all kinds of amazing old stuff there. New England being the mecca of all things Olde. I didn't pick up much because I had to fly back, but I saw these young ladies in a box and I couldn't bear to leave them there.

I'm totally the one on the left

On the back it says, "W.Fondreau, Peabody, Massachusetts. That would be the photographer, but no clue who these young ladies are. Also, what is that on the floor? Whatever it is, it's even more unhappy than they are.