Green Hooded Caraco

I made this green hooded caraco over the summer but didnt quite finish it off or take photos of it, so this weekend i took my dog to the wood and had a photo session,

here he is peeking out from behind my skirts haha Unfortunately i didn't notice until after we had packed up and gone home that in all of the photographs the back of my skirt is all crumpled, darn! But yeah, i really like the shape of the skirt and the hood, except i think i maybe made it a slighty wrong size as it fit on my head a bit funny. I actually needed the hood in the end as it started raining while we were taking photographs. In case you hadn't noticed, i dyed my hair red this year haha, i don't think i have actually taken any costume photos since my hair was red, as last summer i think i just made the three dresses for my friends.

In the Company of Wolves; Costume Study.

Last Night i watched the film 'In the Company of Wolves' which is based on an Angela Carter Book and is basically a re-telling of the story of little red riding hood. I really liked the costumes in this film, she only really had two full costumes but throughout the film they were worn in different combinations to create a variety of outfits. While i was watching i did some quick costume sketches which i later coloured on my computer.
I really like her second costume, with the red floral skirt, black velvet bodice and traditional red cloak, i think if i get chance over the summer i might try and make at least one of these costumes for myself.


I will also take this opportunity to tell you all about the online shop i am planning on opening. I am thinking over the summer trying to sell some costumes of mine, specifically 18th century stays. I will make a variety of styles of stays to a variety of standard sizes (eg size 10, 12, 14 etc).

an example of some 18th century stays that i made in the past.

18th century stays

Just a pair of stays i have been making since the beginning of my holidays, I was planning on making more but the sewing machine broke, so this will be all i make over christmas.
It is inspired by this real 18th century bodice http://defunctfashion.tumblr.com/post/1374855216/corset-c-late-18th-century
and this dress from sweeny todd
http://costumersguide.com/sweeney/j-cap14.jpg
and yes, i know sweeny todd is not set in the 18th century, but its pretty so shhhh


The colours dont look so good on the photos as real life, the stays are a light, ice blue and the tulle skirt (H&M by the way) is a light dusty pink. Is it just me or does it have a kind of Alice in Wonderlandy feel about it? If only i still had my long blonde hair, that would be a perfect costume. Neevvver Mind.
Might not post anything else until after christmas at least, so
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
xxx

The Finished dresses

Yay! All three dresses are finished and photos have been taken. For these photos we went to Hulne Park Abbey, which is an abandoned tower in the Northumberlands park lands. Pretty happy with the final dresses, i love the blue dress that Esther is wearing, but ellies front fastening went a bit wrong, hers was the dress i had the most trouble with. Still i think i got some nice photos done :) Had a fun afternoon with the girlies anyway :)

Esther Peeking through an archway

Esther, Ellie and Laura together in their dresses...

Running off towards the abbey

I took many more photographs, which are all on my flickr account here

Ellies first fitting

Had the first fitting For ellies dress, which wasnt finished when the others tried on their dresses for the first time. I think i have some work to do with the front but other than that it fitted okay :)

Showing the en fourreau back and the neckline decoration.

First Fitting of the dresses :)

So i had my first fitting of Ellie, Esther and Lauras 18th century outfits. Unfortunatley i havent started ellies dress yet so there wasnt so much to try on for her, but it was great to see them all in the finished stays and take some photographs...

Ellie in her blue toile de jour stays.


Laura in her front opening pick stays..


Esther in her yellow silk stays...


Pinning lauras dress onto her for the first time. It Fitted really well :)


Esther, holding her dress on. I havent done the hooks and eyes down the front opening but it does fit at the front pretty perfectly.

Cant wait to see them on when they are all finished :)
And then finally, even though the dresses arent finished we played around doing a couple more photographs, heres a small preview, but please head over to my flickr account to see them all :)

Lauras dress progress

Just a quick photocentric post, showing Lauras dress with sleeves and bow decoration.


All i have to do now is decide what kind of sleeve flounce i want to do, but after that its finished :) Yay.

Lauras dress

Just a quick update to show the progress on the 2nd of the three dresses, the one for my friend laura. Esthers dress is just about finished just needs a final fitting then hemmed, but photos ofthe finished dress wont be up untill i have finisshed all three.
Lauras dress has a chiffon underskirt and a flowered caraco type jacket. I havent added the sleeves yet and the stomacher is going to have a bit more decoration, but its just about finished.

The back, with en fourreau pleats and a short peplum skirt.

The from decoration so far, i think i am going to add a bow or something to the front. At the minute its not looking quite enough. To me anyway...

My stays

So i made these a year or so ago but i realised that i never actually posted any photos of them because at the time i didnt have aproper shift type thing to wear underneath it. Anyway, just took these quickly this afternoon so they really arent that great, but i thought i would still post them :)
Sorry they arent great quality...

Progress on esthers dress.

Okay, so i am making some progress with the first dress of 3 for my friend esther.
I already posted a link to the photos of the stays that i made, esthers were the yellow ones, but heres another picture of them now shown on top of the simple shift that i made. The stays seem to be crinkling slightly at he front but that is just because of the dummy its on, which obviously is much more rigid and doesnt lace into the stays the way a normal human body wuld. Plus, this mannequin is the same size as me and esther is a fair bit smaller than me so her dress isnt going to fit as well as mine usually do, obviously.
Okay, so ater he underwear i started making the actual bodice, starting with the en fourreau back.




Heres a few photographsof the current progress;


Pinning down the pleats to make up the en Fourreau back.


The back pleats after being sewn down, not sure how clear they are but i think you get the idea...


This shows the ribbon being sewn down around te gathered sleeves to look like...

This... I think it looks okay, the ribbon looks a bit puckered though, but i thnk when theres actually an arm in te sleeve it might straighten out...


Around the necckline there is also a double gathered trim with a thin ribbon of the same colour sewn down along the edges.

Just a closer shot showng the gathered trim and the ribbon.

And finally a photo of the dress with the underskirt on my mannequin, as i said before esther is smaller than me and my mannequin so it doesnt fit properly at the front, but heres a side view aanyway...

Okay, well thats the progress so far, i am pretty happy with it so far i think :)

Ikea Dress

Okay, so yes in my last post i said that my project for the summer was to make dresses for my friends and not me, but they arent getting back from university for another couple of weeks so i cant do much more on theirs untill i measure them uup again in their stays and fit the toiles to them etc.
So when i was moving out of my university accomadation i came across two spare pillowcases that i got in a bedding pack from ikea. It came with four pillowcases but i have only ever used two of them at once. I liked the fabric so much that i thought i might aswell try and sqeese a dress out of them. Along with an old underskirt and sash this is what i have managed to pull together so far.

Photographs

So i have taken the photographs of both the sleepy hollow dress and the pink floral dress and uploaded all the good ones to my flickr account;

I might take some more of the riding dress at a later date because out of the many photos taken there were only about 4 that i actually liked and none of them really showed the back of the dress.

Back from Holidays

So i am back from a suprisingly rainy Italy, although it was torrential rain which was pretty exciting. Also, it means i know longer have to think about how the sleepy hollow photographs will work if i have a tan, because i dont really have one. Alls well that ends well :)

Anyway, heres a sneak peak at something i have been working on since i got back;


A bt more pink and flowery than anything i have done before, but like how its turned out. I cant decide if i prefer the dress with the necklace or just the ribbon around the neck. Opinions at all?

Ooh also, while i was in italy i went into a vintage shop and found this straw hat which i think will look great with 18th century garb. You cant see it fully in the picture but you will be able to see it properly in my next lot of photos.

Photographs of this dress and the sleepyhollow riding dress will be taking place this saturday, so i will update with them after that.

Untill then, farewell

Chemise Photos

Finished the Chemise de la reines and took the photographs.
They are all posted on my flickr acount here;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rachaelscostumes/

Riding dress continued...

The riding dress is just about finished. Sewn on all the red lace, sewn on three of the front buttons and two of the back buttons so the skirt is all gathered. Now all i have to do is sew the lace on the stomacher. However, i have yet to find any lace that looks very good. I have found some white lace for down the front of the stomacher, but its way to white and squeeky clean so i think some tea staining is in order. I have ordered some lace of ebay which should hopefully work for the thicker lace at the neckline.
Heres some updated photographs;





Because of fabric shortage the back of the skirt is really shorter than i wanted it to be, but i didnt have much choice. I havent decided what i think of it yet. Plus, the ribbons and the lace etc are all a bit too red. But again, theres not much i can do about that so i will be happy.
Hopefully teastaining will make the lace look a bit less bright white and a bit more antiquey, but i have no idea how i can make the fabric for the skirt and stomacher look a bit more old and a bit less bright and modern. Maybe i will just walk through the woods with it on and muddy it up a bit. lol. Any tips on how to make it look more old fashioned would be much appreciated.

Riding dress Progress

Been doing some more sewing today, dont you just love summer holdiays :), and made some serious progress on the Sleepy Hollow Riding dress. Unfortunatley, when i got round to cutting out the fabric, i had a bit of trouble. It turns out that i didnt get as much of the grey fabric as i should of done (disastor) so i have had to compromise a bit and simplify a few things. For example i have had to simplify the sleeves a tad. Also, i have shortened the skirt a bit, which i am hoping shouldnt matter too much once i have it all gathered up like it will be *crosses fingers*
Other than that, the fabric looks nice and the collar worked well. So, it's mlooking hopeful. :) I attempted to do the grain variations that wereon the different sections of the bodice, but in the end it doesnt show too much that there is a difference. Looks okay though.