Affichage des articles dont le libellé est 18th century. Afficher tous les articles
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est 18th century. Afficher tous les articles

samedi 9 octobre 2010

Tailoring !

Tonight I'm working on a commission for my brother - when the Home Geek and I got married, we made a deal with him : he'd make our wedding cake, I'd make him a "pirate" wardrobe. Shirts, vests, and a coat - or a justeaucorps, as you'd call it in mid-eighteenth century France.
The shirts are done already, as is one vest (Oh dear, it's embarassing, I don't have any picture of the finished product...). The coat, however, is a BIG project for me. It is my first venture into fitted, not sleeveless menswear, and the first one where I actually have to do some tailoring. Luckily, it doesn't need to be either perfectly historically accurate or a Saville-Row. I'm fairly new to tailoring, and I'd like to show you around while I'm learning. It involves padding (placed over the chest in 18th century manner), interfacing, patience and handsewing.
(Don't worry, I'll de-cat-hair it before he gets it !)

Lines and lines of hand-sewn basting stitches... this is what awaits me on my sewing table now (errr... that would actually be the living-room table), and this is what will hold the fashion fabric to the more stable interfacing.

jeudi 27 août 2009

Three pictures...

Trois images pour résumer ma longue absence...
2009-08-25 2009-08-26 2009-08-27
Une coiffe à froufrous de dentelle, une chaussure à moitié recouverte de brocard... J'étais plongée dans le dix-huitième siècle ! Mais les arts graphiques reviennent sur le devant de la scène, maintenant que ma casaque 1740 est finie.
Je fais des essais à l'acrylique, beaucoup de travail pour trouver la bonne forme d'expression en ce moment, je ne suis pas sûre que la majorité ne finisse pas dans un carton mais j'aurai au moins appris quelque chose.

1740s casaque, front 1740s casaque, side 1740s casaque, back

Three pictures to sum up where I disappeared... A frilly lace cap, a shoe in the process of being recovered with brocade,... The eighteenth century got me ! But I'm transitionning back to graphic arts now that my 1740s casaque is done.
I'm doing trial runs in acrylics right now, working a lot on finding what media works best for me. I'm not sure most of it won't end up in a storage box, but at least I'll have learned something in the process.

jeudi 9 juillet 2009

Steel and music fail


I've made the ugliest pair of pocket hoops this side of the Milky Way. Don't know where the fabric came from (several degrees of hand-me down) but it's nasty. Pocket hoops involve boning, which in its turn means cutting steel. I dug out the Mighty Things That Cut from the garage, wrangled with the steel and the duct tape, marked the right length, wrangled some more, made a dent, a little bigger dent, managed to cut it, yay !... and... the remaining coil of steel fell from the balcony. Good thing we don't live in an apartment anymore, I'd have been very embarassed to ring at the neighbor's door to retrieve my steel.

Second fail of the day : I have weird cartoon songs stuck in my head (Heidi folks, Heidi !), trying to get them out I open XMMS on random... and out comes Megumi Hayashibara... So now it's no longer just in my head, I have the Slayers soundtrack on repeat. :D

Just for the record : I have a sad and long history of twisted love for awful prints on period underwear. See my multicolored checked bustle for a proof.
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