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

Tea dying

So i have been doing some tests before tea staining the proper lace. I took four cuttings from the lace and then put it into the tea for different lengths of time to see which came out the best colour.
I dont know if its obvious in the photograph below, but the lace is a bit darker each time. To be honest i think that I will probably use the lightest one, because the darkest bit looks really brown whereas i really just wanted it too be slightly off white and a bit less bright. I do think the stained lace looks better than the pure white lace, so i think i will do it on the real lace. But it doesnt look exactly how i wanted it to.

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.

Bodice Toile

Okay, bodice toile Done.


The front,
ignore the turquoise vest etc that i am wearing underneath :)


And the back

I am really pleased with how this has turned out. I thought the front of the jacket was going to be too far apart, if that makes sense, but once i put it on on top of my corset i think it looks alright how it is. Also, obviously, when i cut out the real thing i will make it En fourreau, but i was concentrating on making the front of the jacket the right shape so i thought i would just keep the back simple, espcially as i wouldnt be making a skirt part for the toile. But yeh, mucho happy so far :)
Below is a photo of the buttons and lace that i arranged on the toile to see how it would look and i am very happy with the result.
Looks okay no?



So with the toile done and it looking as if everything is fitting corectly,time to start chopping away at the real fabric i think. Eeek.
Speaking of fabric, here is a quick snap of the fabric that i got for the underskirt/Stomacher. Like i said previously, i think the colour is brighter than on the real dress but the two tone fabric has the same grey/blue sheen as the actualy fabric so i think it should work okay.

Sleepy Hollow Riding dress update

Well, i have finally found some fabric that will do for the skirt of the sleepyhollow riding dress. As suspected, i couldnt find any fabric that had a pattern of any similarity to that of the actual dress, so instead i am using a plain two tone, teal and grey, taffetta-ish fabric. It is slightly lighter, i think, than the original fabric and not the exact right colour as i think its a bit less saturated and the colour is a bit brighter than i wanted, but its the best i could find and i really want to start it now. I cut out the toile of the bodice just now so i will make that up tomorrow hopefully, and post pictures obviously.

Also, i have finished the White Chemise de la Reine dresses and the plan currently is to take photographs on monday so i will post an update on that once they are done. I really LOVE my dress, more than i thought i would. Its exactly what i wanted :) I am not as keen on esthers dress though. I fitted it on her last week and while she looked lovely i have gone off the way i have constructed the dress. I wish, instead of a neckline that is gathered in the way it is, if i had made a sturdy bpdoce with a gathered front but maybe a similar collar trim than mine. Anyway, its made and i will know for another time that this technique, whilst not being awful, doesnt work as well as i hoped it would.

Off to bed now, photos of toile will follow in the morning.

The Fabric has arrived!

I now have almost all the fabric and stuff that i need to make the grey riding jacket, now all i need to find is some blue fabric that looks vaguely like the blue fabric to make the stomacher and underskirt out of. I think its going to be impossible to find anything too close to the original fabric or pattern, but i will try and find as close as possible.
Anyway, here are some photographs of the grey silk, wine velvet, wine lace and buttons that will be used on the jacket;




They all go together quite well i think?



The grey fabric has a slightly more slubby texture than i realised from the photograph on ebay, and its a bit too light, but its still really nice fabric and to be honest i quite like slubby textures so even if its not exactly the same i think it will still work out jsut fine ;)

The buttons are slightly thicker and heavier than i was expecting but i think they will work okay anyway. Maggie from the Costumers Guide (link at the side) thought that maybe the buttons were abolone buttons rather than mother of pearl, which might be right, especially seen as abolone is lighter and so wouldnt be as heavy. These will do though :) aesthetically they still work :)



So the lace is exactly the same colour as the velvet (yey) so that will all work out fine and it looks like if i use the thinner side of the lace (as shown in picture) it will work to edge the jacket with this lace :)

All in all a successful result :)

Sleepy hollow sketches

Just some quick sketches of the two sleepy hollw dresses.
(click on the pictures for bigger version)


The back of the bodice is slightly wrong on the stripey dress i think but i havent had a chance to have a closer look at the back stripes on the bodice yet.

Riding dress fabrics

I have been working for a few hours on my schoolwork so i decided to have a break and look for fabric and stuff on ebay for the sleepy hollow riding dress, and happened to be very lucky!

The first thing i decided to look for were the big mother of pearl buttons on the riding dress, as they are quite unusual and from other peoples costume sites i have been looking at they have said they are the hardest thing to find.

Fortunatley, the first item that appeared were these large circular mother of pearl buttons that look absolutley perfect!!








Along the edge of the front of the bodice and the cuffs on the sleeves is some dark red lace. I found this lace, which at first i thought wouldnt work at all beacause of the glittery waves. However, i thought if i used the lace so that only the side with smaller loops, and no glittery threads in, was showing then it might work. It was a bargain, so if it arrives and isnt what i was wanting at all then i can always find some other use for it

This lace is a wine red colour wheras the red on the original costume is more of a burgandy but hopefully it will still look okay, and as long as it matches the colour of the velvet part of the collar i dont think it matters that its a slightly different red from the original.


The velvet has to be the same colour as the lace, so i found some wine red velvet instead of burgandy. Its a fairly thin cotton velvet which i think will work perfectly as it wont be too thick and bulky and I actually likethe wine red colour.


The main fabric looks to be a silver/grey silk,
I found this which looks approximatley the right colourand as well as being about the right colour as the dress, it will also go well with the buttons.

I have been pretty lucky in finding fabric really, as it was alot easier than i was expecting and everything has been relativley cheap, especially the grey fabric as it is real tai silk that i got for less than 5 pounds a metre which i thought was pretty good considering.

Neckline lace

So i was looking at the screenshots of the riding costume on 'The costumers Guide to Movie costume website to see if i could find a good picture of the lace around the nenckline. Then i noticed that there are two layers of lace, there is one that is actually sewn on top of the bodice and another that looks like it is worn underneath.
Then, after browsing through the images of the other costumes worn by her in the film i noticed that underneath the pink embroidered dress she is wearing a 3/4 length sleeves see through lace 'chemise' underneath it


I think this looks like it could be worn underneath the riding dress aswell, as the lace pattern looks similar. Soooo, when making the dress i iwll hopefully try and make a similar see through chemise to wear underneath, if its possible.

Sleepy Hollow - Riding dress research

The Riding dress is made up of a dress and a jacket.

The jacket has a polonaise style skirt that looks like its made from grey silk and lined in a dark red/burgandy patterned fabric.

The jacket has a zone front that looks like its supposed to be fastened by those large buttons but as there are no obvious buttonholes i would guess its actually fastened with hook and eyes along the front and the buttons are just for decoration.
The buttons look like they are maybe mother of pearl?

The top part of the collar is made from burgandy velvet whereas the bottom part is made from the same grey silk as the rest of the dress.

The bottom part of the collar, front opening of the jacket and cuffs are all edged with a burgandy lace.

The cuffs are buttoned up with buttons that look similar to the bigger front buttons but they are alot smaller.


After looking closer at the front of the jacket you can see that the pieces have been cut out of the fabric unusually so that the grain line is going in different directions, shown by the white arrows on the photo, which i think looks interesting so i will try and do the same.



The skirt is pleated into the bottom of the bodice, with an en fourreau back pleat joining the skirt an the bak of the bodice.

The dress worn underneath is made up of a skirt and a bodice, both made from the same irridescent blue fabric with a leaf/vine pattern printed all over it. The bodice looks like it has a front hook and eye fastening, with lace decoration around the neckline and decorative buttons up the front. I have counted 11 small buttons up the front.

Sleepy Hollow dresses

Although I have my A level Exams in approximately nine weeks and will have no time to make anything because of revision, I still can’t help but think of my next costume project. I recently watched sleepy hollow again and remembered how much I love Katrina’s costumes from that film (Colleen Atwood is definitely one of my very favourite costume designers). Out of her costumes, I think my favourites are the Grey Riding dress;


and the black and white stripy dress that she wears for only a short time at the end of the film.


I would absolutely love to try my hand at making these dresses, so over the next few weeks I will be keeping my eye out for fabric bargains and gathering the different components

So excited! i will have to try really hard not to start these dresses early because otherwise theywill end up being rushed and i wont get all my revision done.

No harm looking at fabric though