LACMA Extant Garms

A few months back my awesome mom took me to the LA County Museum of Art to see this whole collection of period garments. It was really cool getting to see them all, it felt like going to Disneyland for the first time. LOL Anyway here is the link to my photobuckt account with the pictures. And a slide show to view them here Enjoy ;)
http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d147/Kate17_05/LACMA/

Misc. Projects Continued

Here is an update on some of the projects that I haven't had the opportunity to work on or to post finished images of yet. We'll look at the Butterick 18th century stays. I did a sort of first draft of this pattern that came out alright but was just slightly too large for me. So I pulled together the strength to go after this pattern again. I happen to think that sewing binding on tabs is infinity more frustrating than sewing gussets. But hey that's just me. Anyhoo here is the semi final product.

The outermost layer is satin and the middle and inner layer are cotton duck. With zip ties for boning of course. To bind the edges I used satin blanket edging so it won't rub and scratch my skin. The lacing is currently 550 cord from my husbands military gear. It certainly isn't perfect but it will suffice seeing as how it's not really meant to be seen. :) I do however have to adjust the shoulder size. It's far too wide and sticks out past the collar of my newest dress. I also have to finish my new chemise to go under this and need to make sure to adjust the width of the shoulders appropriately.

Next we have my muslin petticoat with bright green ribbon ties. And my "working" bum pad.

The petticoat was pretty simple to make just had lots of fabric to gather and so on. The bum pad I threw together in about twenty minutes and didn't use any patterns or instructions. So I really need to rework that p.o.s. As you can see it's pretty wonky.

And last but not least my new favorite gown. Le Polonaise! This gown comes from the Rocking Horse Farm Pattern. And in all honesty I've had the worst time with this pattern. I read a lot of reviews and really should have listened. I wasn't able to find a review for this specific pattern but on other the reviews were not so great. So I'll gripe about my problems here. Although as a caveat I am a novice sewer, so maybe I just needed to use a simpler pattern? First and foremost as a novice I like to have exact parameters for seam allowances. It doesn't provide those for the bodice. The way the bodice is supposed to be finished off just didn't work for me....at all. Your supposed to sew all alone the edges with finished right sides together leaving a hole at the top to turn it. So I did that....and it became a size too small for me. Not to mention tailoring it to fit properly was just impossible. Here are the two different sized bodices I tried.

After the first one I did didn't fit I went up a size and that was too big. So I left the pattern for about a two months and just recently come back to it. With a different fabric and a different approach to sewing it. And I personally think I've made magic happen ;)

Front and back views....obviously.

 The sleeves have two tiers of ruffles but I believe i might reduces that to one. Because the sort of stick straight out. Lil funny to see actually.

 An up close view of the pattern. Unfortunately I don't have the access or the money to spend on fabric with a period correct pattern. So I simply had to make do with this. But I rather like it.

Here is the lace that I'll cut down and trim the bodice with and I have also been playing around with the idea of removing the fabric ruffles and using this lace instead. Whew! Well there is an update on the last four months. Currently I'm not sure how much costuming I'll be able to do seeing as how I will hopefully soon be employed. Which will be both a blessing and a hardship because I'll be working night shifts mostly. *Sigh* Well happy sewing everyone! ;)