Shop Open!!

So FINALLY i have opened my etsy shop, there's currently only 5 items up on there but there are a few more in the works that should be completed relatively soon. Here is the link to my Etsy Shop So my first items for sale are;

Cream damask 18th century stays, with decoative false button front and gatthered chiffon stomacher, here

Floral Tapestry 18th centuy stays with front and back lacing here

With entirely hand stitched binding...

Blue Silk 18th century stays with diamond front opening and chiffon stomacher, here

Dusty Pink Tudor/renaissance Bodice, here

And Finally a purple cotton velvet Caraco/jacket. Similar to the green hooded Caraco but with a lace up front and no stomacher. Here So i am quite excited to be finally selling some of my stuff (well hopefully anyway :-/) and looking forward to making some more garments to put on there Rachael xxx

Sneak Peak

So i have just about finished some of the things i am planning on selling on Etsy (hopefully at the start of July kind of time) I have a few things in the works for selling, about 5 pairs of 18th century stays are nea completion, that Tudor Bodice and a couple of hooded caracos. I just wanted to show you a couple of picture of the 2 most completed items, 2 pairs of 18th century stays.

18th century stays made from a tapestry fabric with openfont lacing.

Cream 18th century stays, the same pattern that i made for the blue stays previously. In cream it looks quite bridal to me, especially with the cream skirt on the mannequin, i would get married in it anyway! haha Rachael xxx

Tudor(ish) Bodice

Today i finally took the photographs of the tudor bodice that I have been working on. They arent exactly how i wanted them (I have such a problem giving other people control of my camera :-/) but i think they turned out okay :) I absolutley love this bodice, the fabric is beautiful, although i am not sure how wel you can see that in these photographs. I really like how the sleeves turned out aswell :) So heres a taster of the pictures, i will be uploading the rest of them onto my flickr so head on over and check them out here

So this bodice will be up for sale along with the five 18th century stays i have been working on and are close to completion, and two hooded caracos ( the green one from earlier this summer and a new purple velvet one that i am making)
Hope you like it :)

Rachael
xxx

The Magic Of Colour B4

So a non-costume related post here, just wanted to tell everyone how impressed i was by Colou B4 hair colour correction, and highly reccomend it. As you may know i have had pretty bight red hair for over a year now and i recently decided i wanted to try going back to blonde. So i saw this advertised on TV and thought i would gie it a try so i bought it from my local Superdrug for around £10, but i think you can get it in boots and most other pharmacy shops. So me and my mum finall got round to applying it this morning, following the instructions exactly (i had read online that it only worked if you really followed the instructions) My mum applied it to my hair relativley easily, although i will point out it REALLY smells, we wrapped my hai in clingfilm as it says to in the instructions and then covered it with a towel. It said that for extra stong results to leave it in for 60 minutes so thats what i did, then proceeded to rinse it out, using the buffering gel stuff after ten minutes. Already while rinsing i could see a result... So i started off like this... As you can see it was A pretty dark red After the application of colour before it became this, a very obvious change from before. However, the colour was still slightly gingery and had a copper tone to it so i decided to add a colour over it to try and bring it closer to my natural colou. I use Loreal Casting creme gloss Sweet Honey, as that looked the same as how my hair used to be. After my hair had been dyed with the sweet honey it was a more natural blonde colour, not quite the colour it was naturally but getting there. I am going to leave it like this for a while and then maybe experiment a bit more once my hair has had a rest haha. Hope this is useful to anyone thinking of changing their hair colour or using Colour B4. Rachael xxx EDIT: Also, Tudor bodice is finished, i think i will be doing the photographs on wednesday hopefully so they should be up by thursday :)

project Update

Heey everyone, just a quick update on my current projects. So the tudorish dress is pretty much assembled just need to finish the sleeves and add eyelets and then it will be ready to be worn :) I am also very much working on creating a few 18th century stays to put on sale hopefully sometime in June/July. I have cut out the fabric for about 5 pairs so far and i am hoping to make approximately ten to be put initially on sale. I am making a range of sizes between a size 10-14/16 (UK sizes, thats american sizes 8-12/14) They wont be made fitted to an exact person, but i find that these average sizes work well as a basis, just lace tighter or looser ;-) Anyhoo thats my quick update just to show i am working on stuff, its just my summer holidays have just started and are mainly being taken up by lounging around doing nothing and getting used to relaxing again haha wont last long though. I am excited to stat this new endeavor and i hope its not a complete failure, there must be people out there looking for handmade 18th century stays right? ;) Rachael xxx

Tudor Bodice Toile

Just a quick peek at a toile i have been working on for a new costume. I went to see Anne Boleyen at the Festival Theatre the other night and i liked the style of the costumes, some of them wee slightly ill fitting but i guess thats what happens when its a touring play and different people might play the same peron over time. Anyway, I liked the overall aesthetic of the costumes and it inspired me to make a Tudor-esque dress. I have this fabric that i have been saving for a while for something to make with it and i think this might finally be the project for it :)

The fabric is a embossed moleskin type fabric, but quite lightweight. Its really pretty :)

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.