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

Recycle your old books, maps etc

So, i am now on my Christmas holidays after the first semester of my second year at ECA, and i had a heap of textilesy projects in mind for my week break. Unfortunately, my sewing machine is in Edinburgh and my mums has juts broken, so those projects are going to have to be put on the back burner. Instead, to keep myself busy, i have turned to paper-y crafts. I have started using the website 'Stumble', which has me stumbling upon so many fun and crafty projects.

I have got a bit carried away! These paper flowers are so fun and easy to make! Good bit of recycling and pretty decoration that will never die!

Victorian corset

So in patern cutting we have been drafting and making corsets, finished mine and took photographs today.

Quick update

Hey, Just to let you know i have a deviant art account now [here]
I have just finished my frst project of my seccond year at Edinburgh college of Art, we were designing for the play the Bacchai. It was just a quick 5 week project and there were alot of characters to design for so it was pretty hectic, but i think thats how its going to be from now on... heres a quick picture of my desk in the studio

Our next project is going to be about giant puppets apparently, i will try and keep here updated :)

xxx

Medieval Dress

So last dress before i go back to uni. I watched lord of the rings last week, for something like the 4th time, and i had the urge to make a dress in that floaty medieval style. I dont really have time to do proper photographs because i am only home for another week and my mum is working so she wont be able to take any for me. These are just taken in my bedroom with the self timer on my little camera. but it sort of shows the basics. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out, except that something went wrong with the seams on the front part of the bust. Other than that it fits pretty well.

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.

Start of Summer...

So I finally finished my first year at Edinburgh College of Art, a couple of weeks ago and have started work on my first project for the summer. I am also redecorating my bedroom at the minute as well though so i dont know how quickly these costumes will get finished. Anyway, Last summer i mainly just made cotumes that would fit me, so i wanted to try making some for other people of different size, and My three friends, Esther, Laura and Ellie kindly volunteered.
I have begun to create the under garments for theses costumes, starting with the stays. I dont think i will make proper shifts to be worn underneath the stays, but i am not sure yet. So heres a quick preview of the three finished stays together;

For more photos of each individual pair of stays, pop over to my flickr account; http://www.flickr.com/photos/rachaelscostumes/

:)