Month: February 2020

New toys (literally!)

stitchesoftime2 Comments

I am making good progress with the second celebration dress, I can’t show you what I am working on yet but the toile fitted well (work in progress picture with cutting out old bed sheet below).

Sarah's dress toile

I spent most of yesterday cutting out and zigzagging the edges of the fabric with these lovely colour threads. Fingers crossed the dress fits tomorrow after I have tacked all the pieces together 🙂

Sarah's dress 7

I have got some new toys, some to help with fittings for these types of garments and others for smaller ones so I am very pleased to introduce you to Millie the Mannequin!

Milly mannequin

I have wanted one for a long time and now that my lovely son Jake is not around to help me with fitting Steampunk attire it has become a necessity so she arrived on Friday and is settling into the sewing room nicely.

I will have to pad her out a bit in the chest area, I ordered a size 16/18 version from Amazon but she has a much smaller bust than me so I will sort that with an old bra and some wadding. I am very excited to use her for my Steampunk creations later in the year.

My other toys are for my ever growing collection of Barbie couture. I wanted to buy some new dolls and I needed some for work as well for a session we are doing on diversity. Barbie have now got a far more diverse range of dolls in different body sizes, skin colours and hair colours so I now have a few additions to my family, to avoid confusion I have given them all different names as we can’t have everyone being called Barbie!

I have also got some new photo backgrounds, I can’t find any of the ones that people use for their Gene Marshall dolls to buy, so I have just got some nice photos from the internet and printed them.I think they look a lot prettier than the black background.

First of all there is Alexa, she is one of the curvy body size dolls and she has fab hair. This dress I made for her out of an old skirt, I added beads to the bodice but all of the embroidery was already on the skirt and it is lined. I think the colour of the dress really suits her hair.

Barbie - Alexa 1

Barbie - Alexa 2

Barbie - Alexa 3

Next is Aisha, she is a petite doll so apologies that the dress she is wearing is not a very good fit. She is a lot shorter and has a much smaller bust than the standard Barbie dolls so I will need to adjust my patterns for her and make her something that fits better.

Barbie - Aisha 1

The dress is one that I have made for a birthday present and is just a simple wrap dress with a Velcro fastening.

Barbie - Aisha 2

Zuri is my last new purchase ( I chose the name as it means beautiful according to my search for African names on Google), she is standard size Barbie with gorgeous brown eyes and is wearing another one of the wrap dresses.

Barbie - Zuri 1

I have also finished the outfit for the friend who also uses Barbie in her teaching. This is Lily and her outfit comes from the latest set of patterns that I bought, this 1960s set. I have used the black suit pattern on the top right here. I did add a waistband rather than elastic as there was not much room to fold over the waist once it was gathered.

Barbie Patterns 2

Barbie - Lily 1

Barbie - Lily 2

I had a lot of trouble with the blouse, I had to re-make it in thinner fabric and am still not completely happy with the neckline but am very pleased with the jacket and the skirt.

Again all this is scrap fabric and the skirt has organza layered over the silk. The flower motif on the blouse is again from an old bra, I have lots of this lace left so am going to feature it in many more outfits.

Barbie - Lily 4

Barbie - Lily 3

I shall be spending the rest of the weekend tacking the celebration dress for a fitting tomorrow but hope to get a couple more Barbie outfits cut out this week as well as I need to get two more dresses made for presents in the next few weeks.

Barbie Patterns 1

I think I may go for the green dress in the picture above for one of them. The neckline does look super fiddly but I am up for the challenge!

I hope you are having a lovely creative weekend as well, take care, have a nice week ahead and thanks for visiting.

Historic costume and historic eateries

stitchesoftime6 Comments

I am writing this in the aftermath of another storm, luckily the only damage to me is some blown over bins but we have had a lot of flooding in the area both last weekend and this, which may have contributed to a very strange dream I have last night where I was asked to run a session on the link between climate change and sewing! To my knowledge I don’t think seamstresses and embroiders have any negative effect on the climate, rather we are a force for good 🙂

We had some more wonderful costumes to look at in Liverpool last week, again in the Walker Art Gallery with a small collection of Regency garments.

It is always particularly fascinating to see these as of course they would have been completely hand stitched, unlike some of the Victorian and Edwardian and are all the more impressive for that. The embroidery on the men’s jackets and waistcoats is just mind blowing, so perfectly done and so detailed.

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I also have finally realised what a polonaise is which is very useful for my Steampunk costumes. Here is an example of one, the fashion of which was revived in Victorian times.It is an overskirt which can be hitched up at the back to create the ruffled look.

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One of the styles that I love is the ‘sack back gown’, with the train at the back and I love the ruffles on this one. It is made of silk which would have been so bright as the time.

There was a small collection of underwear including stays and a shift and also some wonderful padded stockings, for men who did not have the required fashionable shapely calf to go with their breeches.

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There was also the added excitement at the art gallery of coming across some unexpected Pre-Raphelite paintings. I love these, not least for their medieval costumes and amazing attention to detail in the work, especially the backgrounds of the paintings.

Liverpool Art 1

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We also had some lovely meals out in historic eateries, we chose our lunch venue on Saturday from Google Maps based on the fact that it was located in an old church and it did not disappoint.

Liverpool Food 3

The Alma de Cuba took over the de-consecrated church in 2005 and have very tastefully combined the original architecture with its new function as a restaurant and nightclub. I loved the fact that it was candlelit and had strings of lights in the ceiling. Many of the bars were lit in this way with fairy lights and it looks so lovely in the gloomy weather.

Liverpool Food 1

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We chose a little vintage style cafe Rhubarb for our very lovely brunch on Sunday , near our accommodation in Lark Lane, which has lots of really beautiful historic buildings and a wide selection of places to eat.

Liverpool Food 5

We sadly did not mange the Victorian pumping house converted into a pub for lunch due to coming home early but will save that for next time.

I have finished one of the celebration projects, 19 hours sewing of lace has been completed this week, in 3 days actually which impressed even me! I had a very nice time doing that and will be able to show you the photos in a few weeks.

I am now just about to start on another dress after a very successful shopping trip to the wonderful Bombay Stores yesterday. I was very good and only spent £4 on needles, invisible thread and a metre of lovely braid but there were many yards of glorious fabric purchased by my friends for the event which is in April. There will be all sorts of lovely costume at that one as it is Middle Earth themed so I will make sure that I take lots of photos for you.

I am off to a writing retreat with work tomorrow to work on the revisions on my doctorate. Not as much fun as sewing but it will be lovely to spend time with colleagues and it is a very beautiful place. I have been twice before and am really looking forward to a few nice walks as well, weather permitting.

I will be back next weekend, hope that you all have a very good week ahead and hopefully there will be no more weird weather. Take care and thanks for visiting.

The leaving of Liverpool

stitchesoftime1 Comment

We had a very lovely time this weekend, although we did leave in a bit of a hurry due to the awful stormy weather. We were looking round the Maritime Museum, ironically we had just visited the section on emigration, when the museum closed due to the bad weather so we cut short our visit.

Luckily made it back to the car in one piece as it was very blowy and made it safely home through a few bits of flooded road. I now do not have to leave the house for three days as I am working on my doctoral rewrites and some marking which I am very grateful for! It is now sleeting and very cold out so I shall hide indoors and sew 🙂

We were there primarily to visit An English Lady’s wardrobe exhibition at The Walker Art Gallery which was very good. It was an unusual exhibition in that it was the collection of one person, Emily Tinne, who was born in 1886 and died in 1966. It was also accompanied by letters that she and her family wrote and photos of them, sometimes wearing the garments.The portrait photo below shows her around the time of her wedding.

Liverpool Clothes 1

The garments date from around the time of her marriage like this silk evening gown and a beautiful tiny waisted lawn dress with its whitework detail, to the clothes she wore as an older women after seven pregnancies. Emily did comment on how she could not believe that she had ever been so slim.

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The blouse above has the most beautiful embroidered detail on the sleeves and I love the ruffled cuffs. It is the sort of thing that I would love to try and make to go with my Steampunk outfits.The silk dress below has gorgeous embroidery and is one of a collection of her day dresses.

There was also information about the shops in Liverpool that she bought from, copies of adverts from magazines and  information about her dressmaker so a real social history of the time and fantastic detail for costume historians and sewing enthusiasts.

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There was a little display of some of the sorts of patterns that she used, the illustrations here are gorgeous so I bought a notebook and bookmark from the gift shop with some of these on.

What was lovely was that there were many things that she bought, such as some of the evening gowns, and never wore or that were not even her size or style but the family said that she probably just wanted to keep supporting shops and the salesgirls who worked on commission during the difficult years of the Depression. I think that is a fabulous reason for buying things and one that I can use as well for supporting fabric retailers.

There were also 150 hats in the collection, we were talking to one of the collection stewards and he was telling us that a group had recently visited in 1930s and 40s costume and he loved the hats and why didn’t we all wear hats more often and we both agreed. One of the lovely things about re-enactment and Steampunk is the wearing of hats and head dresses that instantly make you feel more glamorous.

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The evening dresses were, as you would expect from a 20s and 30s collection, full of the most wonderful beading and embroidery.

Emily was also a very good needlewoman and made many of her children’s clothes herself. I love the two versions of this dress with ruffles.

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The smocking on this ivory silk dress below is so skillful and tennis dresses so elegant. The little embroidered dress in white and blue at the bottom of the display is one of the ones there was a photo for, showing her daughter wearing it at the age of about three.

I have been watching some more videos on You Tube about historical costuming while I have been sewing which I will post about another time. It was fascinating to see all of the underwear as one of the vloggers has just made some combinations like the ones here. The detail of the pin tucks and lace is so gorgeous, especially as this was not going to be seen.The last photo is of a chemise that was never worn and still has the price tag on it.

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One of my favourite pieces was this velvet evening jacket on the left of the picture below. I love wearing velvet, though not sewing it, and I have a gorgeous black jacket that I have added lace to for Steampunk. I also loved this amazing georgette evening cape. I would love to have the skills be able to make something like that.

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We also saw some more Regency gowns which I will post about later and had some lovely meals out in historic properties. There is still so much to see in Liverpool so we will definitely go back and visit more of the museums next year.

I am working on a couple of secret projects for a friend’s wedding and another friend’s partnership celebrations and those are going to take priority for the next few weeks so will only be able to do a little bit of my own crafting in the evenings. I am going to focus on getting some more of the Barbie things finished for the first set of birthdays in April and early May as those and the wedding things have to be done before we go to Japan in only seven weeks!

I hope you are all having a good time and are not too storm damaged. Take care and thanks for visiting.