Monthly Archives: October 2023

October 29, 2023 · 7:00 am

Black October

Tis the season, after all.

Around this time last year I started puttering gently, barely consciously, toward a mental image—-a romantic, layered, quasi-Victorian-undress look executed in all black. I made my black corset, and then a black petticoat. In between, I also started a black shift, from the same Simplicity 2890 as the corset. Alas, the very first seam I went to sew on the shift, I sewed the yoke piece on upside down. I folded everything up, tucked it in a plastic zip-lock bag, and didn’t look at it again for, well, another year.

But at our Victorian Sewing Circle in September, I finally pulled it out and unpicked the seam, and the damn thing finally started to come together. It’s got a very lovely, shapely yoke, once you finally get the right edges sewed together.

I leaned into the hand-finishing techniques for this piece, if only because the slightly loose-woven fabric has a lovely textured feel to it. I hand-stitched down the underarm facings, and the inner face of the yoke as well. I hand rolled the sleeve hems, and hand-felled the side seams, and hand-stitched a wide bottom hem. I wanted to add lace to the yoke, but had trouble finding one that would follow the elegant curves. Maybe I should just try embroidery.

I find it pretty odd how differently I feel about different hand-stitching processes. Rolling the little hems on the sleeves made me want to kill myself. Hand-felling the (much longer) side seams and bottom hem felt more like an exercise in meditation. And it’s practically the same stitch? Similarly, I can hand-sew the binding of a quilt without a blink, but sewing the binding on a corset fees like torture.

This chemise pattern is geared towards 1860s, and it’s a very off-the-shoulder style. Which I knew, having read several reviews, but still didn’t adjust for. Silly past Tanit. So it’s, um, WAY off the shoulders. I think I may go in and take 4” or so out of the back so it will sit a little better.

Just a LITTLE off the shoulders.

I added a button a little higher up than maybe designed for, in the hopes of keeping it SLIGHTLY in place. (I may go back and change the button, though, this one is glass but it just looks white which wasn’t what I wanted. Now I just need to find my black corset, which has been mysteriously AWOL for several months, so I can model it properly. Though I suppose this too-small costume one will work in a pinch

But no whimsical Hallowe’en ensemble would be complete without…

A cloak.

And not just any cloak. This is Simplicity 5794, the pattern Rachel Maksy used in her cloak video, ages ago. It also had pretty good reviews on Patternreview.com.

I’m honestly not sure when or where I acquired this pattern. I am quite sure I didn’t purchase it. But it looks like good solid fun.

It is, um, a little quirky.

The first glitch came with the cutting layout, where the pattern instructions show it being cut out on the lengthwise fold. These gigantic pattern pieces are not being cut on the fold for any normal-width (by which I mean 60”) fabric. Incidentally, the best idea wound up being to fold my (non-directional, thankfully) fabric in half crosswise, and arrange the two main cloak pieces going in opposite directions, then cut the hood from the remnants. I wound up with around a metre extra for the outer fabric, and the merest scraps of my purple lining.

There are three views, each with its own hood. One has a square back forming a small point, one an exaggerated point with a tassel, and the third is… unlike any hood pattern I have ever seen. It’s shaped more like the petal of a flower. I can only imagine it is meant to create a wide, fluttering kind of hood. I might even try it out sometime. Just not for this one.

Ok the hood is still pretty extra.

I wasn’t super into the square back hood of View A, but I figured I would just round off the little point into a smooth curve and all would be fine. Which it is, but really I should just have pulled out the hood for McCall’s M6800, because that is my favourite hood of all time, and this one ended up being just a little bit short of it. They’re very similar, with a pleat to tuck the extra fullness into the neckline, but the Simplicity hood is just a little less voluminous. It’s fine, just not quite as extra. Which is odd considering this is a costume pattern and McCall’s 6800 is an everyday kind of coat pattern. I do love the body the combination of coating and Kasha lining has.

Oh and I noticed as I was putting away the pattern pieces that the hood I used (view A, again) was actually supposed to be cut on the bias. Weird, but again I can’t help wondering exactly what difference that would’ve made. Something to try in the future, perhaps.

There isn’t much to say about the rest of the cloak construction—it’s a lot of long, straight seams. The shoulders are a wee bit wide but then I was cutting the XL size since it was already cut out and I always hate to lose the larger sizes but also there’s no way I was tracing out those giant pattern pieces. I figured I would narrow them if I felt it was a problem (which wouldn’t be hard) but honestly if I wasn’t looking for the problem I don’t think I would have noticed.

The length is GENEROUS. The envelope pictures show a cloak trailing artistically on the ground and they are not wrong. I’m more likely to be adding at least 2” in length to stuff, and it still trails on the ground on me; I’m wearing 2” heels in these photos and took a roughly 3” hem and it still brushes the ground.

I decided to use some purple bias binding from stash to cover the edge of the hem, since what else am I going to use it for? It’s a lot brighter than the lining, though. I tugged on the binding and eased the wool underneath as I sewed it on by machine, so it gathers my curved hem in nicely (maybe a little too much? My tension wasn’t terribly even, either). Then I took a deep breath and hand-stitched a good 4m of hem. Ouch! I machine stitched the lining about 1/2” shorter than the outer hem, and if I am a good girl I will make some little thread chains to connect the two at the seams, but I haven’t done it yet. I didn’t even look at the pattern instructions for hemming; I opted for separate lining hems as this is what I use in coats with wide, flowing hems and I think it lets the fabrics move the best.

After much waffling, I decided to close it with a button and buttonhole; I didn’t want to do the ties the pattern calls for. I would’ve loved a metal sew-on clasp but didn’t have one on hand, and some kind of tab and button seemed a bit overworked.

You have no idea how much time I spent trying to shoo cats out of this picture.

I’m more used to sewing coats than cloaks (I say as I haven’t sewn a fullblown coat in at least five or six years) so some parts of the construction felt weird, like the lack of interfacing and facings. I’m glad this pattern didn’t have facings, as it’s a huge fabric hog already, but it still felt weird to be understitching the lining right at the edge of the cloak. Yes, it will peek out. Yes, that’s ok.

It’s not a very full cloak, actually, despite being a massive fabric hog It’s a half-circle, actually. I don’t even want to think about how much fabric a full circle this size would take). You can’t put your hands on your hips without it gaping open. However, it does hang nicely closed with arms at sides. And looks best thrown back over the shoulders anyway, I discovered.

And now that it’s done it might be making me the happiest I’ve been in a very long time.

The black corset showed up at the last possible second, after I had turned most of the house upside down looking for it, in a place I had checked several times before. So here’s a quick peek at the final look, or something like it:

Still need to decide if I want to add witchy hat or vampire fangs.

And also figure out how to be so extra I can wear this cape in everyday life.

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October 12, 2023 · 6:00 pm

Birthday Princesses

Once upon a time, long, long ago, back around the beginning of summer, the twins stumbled on McCall’s M6141 in my collection. Why did I show it to them? I’m not at all sure. I think I had just watched Angela Clayton’s video about a “historically accurate Rapunzel” outfit and thought they might enjoy it, as that is one of their favourite princesses, after Elsa and Anna of course.

At any rate, the demands were instant. Tris wanted the pink version and River wanted the blue. They haven’t really figured out that pattern envelopes are just a jumping-off point. Anyway.

By some miracle, we found fabric more-or-less appropriate for each look, from a variety of remnants and ends in stash. Note: despite the small size and contrast elements, this is not a remnant-friendly pattern. The skirt is large and sweeping and so are those sleeves. River’s fabric was a couple of different cottons with embroidery (why I picked up those pieces when I never wear those colours, I couldn’t tell you). For Tris, I pulled the last of the fabric from this costume of Ebi’s for the contrast, and then cried a little as I cut into an assortment of pink satin remnants for the main fabric, because man I hate sewing with satin. (Please note:: most of these remnants were actually pieces given to me, which I had hemmed and kept in the twins’ dress up box, where they served any number of impromptu functions. I do not stash pink satin if I can avoid it.) I used white broadcloth for the lining, because I have a ton of it purchased for just such uses.

I set to work tracing out the pattern, since I needed the smallest size. Except. Have I mentioned how much I hate Big 4 costume patterns? I generally hate all their costume patterns. Not for the designs, obviously, but for the shortcuts they almost always take in their drafting. Halfway through my dutiful tracing out I realized that the shortcut the company had made with this pattern was to completely bypass grading the skirt and the larger pattern pieces of the sleeves, relying instead on the gathering to have the same size pieces fit from a kids size 3 to 8. Not even “cut here” lines for separate lengths—just instructions to use the lengthen/shorten lines to get the right length.

Not impressed, McCall’s.

Anyway, once my irritation had passed, I moved on to cutting out. I wanted to make the dress considerably more adjustable than intended, so I modified the front quite a bit. Instead of cutting the princess seams, I made the side front piece into an over-layer with grommets for lacing at the front, and then Frankensteined a single-piece under layer from the contrast fabric.

I ran into some hard limitations on fabric for River’s and had to omit one of the back panels of the skirt. Thanks to the fact that the skirt was drafted in a size 8, though, this worked just fine, though she doesn’t have much gathering in the back. I did take up a little bit of fullness by adding a pleat where the contrast fabric joins the regular fabric, to hopefully add to that over layer/underlayer illusion.

The rest of the construction didn’t irk me too much. The pattern calls for lacing up the back. I was not going to do that. So they are pull on at the moment but may get back zippers added at some point. The puff sleeve was constructed pretty much as expected, though I did modify the length of the “ribbons” to make them a little shorter than the layer they are on top of.

The puff also made setting in the sleeve easy. I also skipped lining the lower sleeve. Due to fabric limitations I had to cut the sleeves from the “contrast” fabric, but I think the look works fine this way.

Tris’s dress was all the same except on hard mode: slippery satin (some of which is terrible quality) that frays at the slightest touch.

I had a remnant of pink jacquard with this black and gold pattern in stash—only enough for the bodice, however. The skirt is cut from two different satin pieces, one of which was a pretty decent crepe back satin but the other one (the back of the skirt) is that crappy and terrible Hallowe’en satin that makes me want to cry. Maybe I’ll replace it someday. (Not likely)

I had hopes of finishing these in time for their birthday at the end of summer, and I came close, but then the day of their birthday we took them to Costco and they saw the princess dresses there and were super excited and their dad is a pushover and bought them four. And despite all being made of nasty polyester they are actually really intricate and well made, and I’m pretty angry on behalf of whatever skilled seamstresses (because it’s almost certainly women) who were paid a pittance so that Costco could sell the dresses for $40. But anyway, that’s a different rant. I was a bit annoyed that the purchase basically undercut my hard work on their dresses, but also I’m not sure what the theoretical maximum number of princess dresses the twins would wear if they could is… it’s definitely higher than six. I did, however, give myself permission to not push to get the dresses finished. So it took until, um, not quite Hallowe’em. Except not really because River’s dress is still lacking trim, but I think she’s forgotten that’s a problem so I’m not going to bring it up.

Anyway, they are pretty happy with the dresses, though I doubt they’ll fully displace the beloved Elsa and Anna dresses. I, of course, prefer River’s since it isn’t polyester, but they each seem to like theirs best which is always the hope now that they don’t like wearing the same thing.

I was not about to do back lacing as the pattern called for, but I probably should have added a back zipper. Because they were pretty oversized (even cutting the size 3 for my four year olds), I just made them pull on and then tighten with the lacing, but it takes some wiggling. Tris’s is “zipper ready” in that it has a back seam I finished and just zig-zagged up. River’s, though, due to my fabric shortage is cut on the fold. But that’s problem for future Tanit.

I also didn’t hem River’s dress quite as ridiculously deep. I cut the full length as drafted in the pattern, which as I mentioned didn’t grade the skirt length, figuring it would be better to be able to lengthen the hem as they grow. Which is true, in the theoretical case where I actually do it. We’ll see how that plays out. Anyway.

I am definitely glad I added the front lacing, as it makes the fit so much nicer and more adjustable, though it doesn’t really play well with the necklines of the under-layer. You can see some of the size difference between Tris and River, even in bone structure, in the fact that Tris has a nice wide gap in her lacing, while River’s still laces closed.

So, were they worth it? I’m glad to have used some scraps from stash, especially the pink brocade. They were a LOT of work, to still end up less fancy than the ones from the store. But I’m also glad we purchased the other dresses. Because I really don’t want to create a whole wardrobe of princess dresses.

Well, not for the twins. Maybe for me…

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