Steampunk Wedding Dress - Bustle Bling!

After I finished the brown apron skirt, I started on the decorations for it! As it was, it looked very dull and like it was sorely missing something, so I played around with different ideas and ended up with a two layered solution. The first layer was simply half circle, brown silk lined with green, which I folded on either side. The other layer was a little more complex. This too was two sided, green on one and brown on the other, and involved both buttons, a thin golden rope (it was originally too thin, and I hand spun it to twice the thickness) and handmade golden tassels.

I made a pattern with the rope, pinning it in place while I hand stitched it on, as well as the buttons. Then, I attached the tassels to the rope. Realizing that the piece I had made wasn't wide enough for me to attach it to the buttons on the skirt with button holes, I stitched on a loop of gold rope on either side and made a button hole on the middle of the top ridge.

It's all a little difficult to explain, so here's some photos of the result that may help you visualize it:

Steampunk Wedding Dress - The Brown Apron Skirt

Gosh, I am so waaaaay behind on my blogging! It's been a little busy lately as the wedding was last Friday and the entire week was spent in England with limited access to internet and a lot of preperations to do!

When the wedding photos arrive, I'll be posting up some proper pics of the dress in it's full splendour here, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. ;)

First up! The making of the brown apron skirt, which went on to of the green skirt.

Yet again, I made a cotton mock-up first to have a pattern to go by. I based it off the mock-up for the green skirt, but with some quite considerable changes. The back of the skirt had no gathering and consisted of three smooth panels with a hint of a mermaid cut. the front part was made out of three panels as well with some extra width as it was to be gathered vertically where it met the back part of the skirt, and at the two seams of the middle panel, I made upward folds where I later stitched on buttons to hold them up.



I made the closing relatively similar to the green skirt, only without any buttons. Instead, I made it so that it attaches to the buttons of the green skirt, which also makes sure that it doesn't slide out of place. On the bottom of the back panel, which forms a bit of a train, I added more ruffles and a brown velvet ribbon for some texture contrast.

On the  sides, where the front panel meets the back panels, I added handmade flowers (made from the same green silk as the green skirt) with facet cut beads to hide the seam and add some colour contrast and bling!

Elf Cuffs & Fantasy Stuff - An Etsy Shop Re-Launched

I've recently just re-launched my Esty Shop, "Chameleon Candour - Elf Cuffs & Fantasy Stuff"! There's not that much there yet, but there is much more to come! Here's a little look at the stuff I've made available for purchase so far:

First up, a pair of what I call "Elf Cuffs", in a rusty orange coloured wool, with wool yarn felted into the base to make a pattern:

Second, another pair of Elf Cuffs in the same type of wool, but these are decorated with crochet flowers:

Thrirdly, and lastly for now (but not for long!), is a my signature leather belt (seriously, I wear this pretty much all the time)! It's not in stock, as this is made to order, and I tailor it to fit spesific measurements:

My sewing and crafting has mainly been a hobby, but it is as costly as it is time consuming, so I've decided to start selling certain products that I've received positive feedback on, in hopes that this hobby might actually start earning me a little money as well. I won't lie, it would be a dream come true if it turned out I could partially live off running an Etsy shop!

I would therefore be beyond thankful if you, my kind readers, would pop by it, have a look around, and, if you like what you see, favorite my shop and share it with your friends! And, of course, buy things from it, if you see something you want! ^_^

http://www.chameleoncandour.etsy.com

Steampunk Wedding Dress - The Green Skirt

With the essential undergarments sorted (I already have a pair of bloomers and a chemise I can use), I turned my focus to the skirt and apron skirt. I’d already bought tons of cheap cotton and made a mock-up  to see approximately how much material I would need. Then I set off to get the fabrics.

I found raw silk in the perfect colours; a mossy green and a nougat brown, and bought 4 meters of each in total (later I had to run back to the store to buy another meter of the green, however, as I was running short). Raw silk is amazing to work with, light and pliable, and yet textured and crisp.

Using the deconstructed mock-up as a pattern, I cut out the pieces and started putting it all together.

I hit a wall, however, when I was trying to decideon the best type of closure for the skirt. Should I make a side opening, like I did with the petticoat? That would mean it would be potentially visible should I choose to wear the skirt without the apron skirt over it, and it didn't really allow much room for adjustment should lose more weight. Instead I went for a different solution, (which also turned out to be very useful later) basically making a "flap" out of all the gathering in the back which can be attached to the waist band through buttoning. It's a bit difficult to explain, but on the picture below, you can see pins where I later placed the buttons (one on either end of the "flap" and one in the dead center):

Here's another picture showing the hand stiched split and the gathering before the band was sewn on:

The gathering had given me a lot of material in the back to work with and make a bit of a train, but instead of meeting the floor in a soft curve towards the floor, the excess material just rumpled up in a creased pile. I remembered how American Duchess solved this issue with the Green Acres gown, and followed suit, inserting a godet at the center as illustrated by the photos below:

Here's a shot of the the back of the skirt after I had finished off the waist (minus the buttons) and hemmed the bottom:

Having finished the base of the skirt, it was time to move on to the ruffles! Raw silk is dreamy to work with when it comes to folding and pleating, but for all it's crispness, I still needed to stiffen the ruffles with starch to make them stay, just ironing them didn't do the job. 

Before I startched them:

After I starched them:

The difference was tremendous! With the starch the ruffles kept their sharp neatness and stayed in place. If you don't have any starch nearby, do not fret! You can do like I did and make it yourself! Just use water and corn starch, mix them together and put it all in a clean spray dispenser. :)

I'm considering a second row of ruffles (as indicated by the second chalk line, but I haven't quite decided yet.

Steampunk Wedding Dress - Undergarments

I first planned on making everything but the blouse (I had already spotted one I liked and blouses are a bore to make), but as I found the perfect corset in the same store as the blouse (and I knew I might risk getting pressed for time), I bought that as well, allowing me to spend my time on making the undergarments and the skirt.

The silhouette I wanted to go for was inspired by the late 1870’s and early 1880’s, meaning a less generous bustle, leaning a little towards the natural form style. But I would still need a bustle, so I made a so-called “Lobster Tail Bustle”. Again, the amazing American Duchess provided excellent guidance with her tutorial (which you can find here), even though I deviated a little from it, it was very helpful!

Here's the result:

To go over the bustle, I made a petticoat and attached a “bum bustle” to it on the inside for some extra bustle padding.

This is the "bum bustle" after I'd attached two out of four rows of frills:

Here's the petticoat before the bottom frills were attached:

 And here's the several meters of frills pinned to the bottom of the petticoat:

Borre Viking Market

In Norway, summer is the big season for medieval and viking markets and festivals, one of them being Borre Viking Market, and obviously, that means having attire that fits the period.

Some markets or festivals are stricter than others if you chose to be a participant and part of the camps inside the actual market (as guest you can get away with pretty much anything, but expect some looks of resentment if you show up in your best neon spandex suit), and as I plan on being able to participate as part of a camp during at least one market next year, I'm slowly building the skills and knowledge to make myself an historical wardrobe pre-dating the 18th century. 

My first venture into Viking clothing is the signature «apron dress». This is a dress with straps, usually made out of wool and worn over a shift (usually made out of linen). Last year, I bought two meters of gorgeous rusty red wool, for this specific purpose. However, being me, I didn’t really get started on it before, well, pretty much the night before the market, so I cheated a little and used the machine for the long seams on either side and in the back. But everything else was sewn by hand! 

Unfortunately, I only had synthetic thread, so I chose one in a colour very close to the rusty red so that it would not be a chronological eye-sore. Last year I acquired a set of turtle brooches to attach the straps with, and I also made the decorative pearl and bone string that hangs between them. I used my medieval inspired green linen dress as a shift underneath it. For the occasion I also dug out my old bronze Snorre necklace that was given to me in my early teens, which is based on historical finds, the “Mjølnir” pendant I bought at Tønsberg Medieval Festival last year and some bronze bling from various festivals for my fingers and ears. So here's the outfit I wore for this year's Borre Viking Market (and, yes, the belts are very historically inaccurate, but as a guest and not a participant, I didn't really care that much; I'll go for complete accuracy when I'm a participant):

Whilst at the market, I didn't really take that many pictures, but I managed to get this of one of the ships harbored at the pier:

Here's the loot I got from the market! A really cute, green ceramic mug, rusty red linen thread, a little bundle of natural coloured linen thread, beeswax and a gorgeous woven trim:

After the market, I used my newly acquired linen thread to re-sew all the visible seams, getting rid of that awful synthetic thread. I also added the lovely woven trim I got to the bottom of the apron dress: 

Kíli Project - Belt and Hair

Kili's belt. This is one part of this project that I've been dreading and putting off for, like, forever. Not only does it involve having to do a shit ton of hand stitching, it's hand stitching thick leather, and I also have to make all the studs that are to be stitched on. I already had the old belt I'd be converting into this magnificently vicious little number, and removed the original belt buckle a while back, so I started where I had to; making the studs. I'd already made one as a prototype, if you will, but now, I would have to mass produce them as I needed somewhere in the vicinity of 25 of them. Nothin' to it but to do it. Equipped with my favourite biscuits, my faithful Aperture Science mug filled to the brim with coffee and milk and other useful tools, I dived in and got it done!

From there, the path of hellfire lay before me, also known as hand sewing leather. It hurts you wrists, it hurts you neck (because you inevitably end up sitting with you neck craned over whatever you're working on) and it hurts your fingers, sometimes quite a lot, because there are moments when you can't use the thimble, and that's when it strikes, the unexpected needle puncture in you index finger tip, for the umpteenth time. Ok, I'm done ranting now.

The belt buckle was the easy bit. I could just sew that through the holes already there from where the old belt buckle had been attached. The nightmare was all those bloody studs that needed to be stuck onto this leash of doom. I did this by drilling little holes (using a mini drill my fella uses for wargaming miniatures) into each inner corner of each stud, so that I'd have some way of sewing them on. Then I put some glue and stuck it onto the leather. From there, I drilled through the leather as well, so as to spare my hands a little bit. Then the actual sewing began, stitching each corner so that the thread would lie firmly in the grooves on either side of the corner. Repeat 20 something times. You could say I was very relieved and quite pleased with myself once it was done.




Since I had the fimo clay out already from making the studs, I figured I might as well make Kili's hair clip, or at least my version of it. I'd seen one version someone had made of it, and I liked the pattern they'd used, and although I had no idea if it's screen accurate or not (still don't), I decided to use it. I was very happy with how it turned out, and the fact that it's actually functional. :)


Having received the hair extensions for my fella earlier (his hair was getting rather long but it wasn't long enough, thus extensions), I cut them to the right length and had the poor chap sit down to get have them put in. (He wasn't all too pleased, but as usual, the promise of a brew made him more co-operative.) I must say that the result was perfect, in my opinion, and you could hardly tell which bit was extensions and which bit was his own hair.

This  all happened after having attached the trim onto the leather jacket, but before I stitched the gambeson sleeves on, so here are some photos of how it looked on along with the hair:

Kíli Project - Boot covers and jacket

This is a long one and it's got a lot of pictures! But, first off, a tiny update on the boot covers: This is how they looked after I finished them:

  

Moving on, I started from scratch again with regards to Kili's jacket because the split leather was simply too thick and the suede finish just didn't work, so instead I found two pairs of leather trousers in a second hand shop and got them for a very decent price. They were so fabulously 80's - early 90's that I had to take a photo of at least one of them:

What's more, one of them had a little colourful surprise:

If this is not the worlds ugliest lining, then I don't know ...


















I took the trousers apart, splitting each into four pieces, which I then shuffled about and stitched back together again to make the basis of the jacket. Once that was done, I needed to finish the trim to be able to continue, so I picked up where I left it last time and started to add the blue material to the edges:
















 I realized quickly that it wouldn't look very good if I simply stitched it on, either by hand or machine, so, instead, I did a second layer of the golden zig-zag seam, only a tiny bit wider so as to fasten the blue material along with it.

Once that bit was done, I hand stitched the material to the backside so that it would look all nice and neat with no visible seams on the front.

When that was done, I started the work of fitting it onto the base of the jacket:












Having carefully pinned it to the leather, I proceeded to stitch it on by hand, and I tell you, this is a job where a thimble, a pair of hobby tongs and a lot of patience is needed!


As you can see on this photo, I decided to attach it so that the trim was sticking a bit outside the leather. This was simply because I hadn't had enough leather to get the exact width I needed, and this added the missing inch.














Because I know it's something Kili cosplayers have been discussing, I thought I'd address the matter of the trim vs. neckline issue by showing how I approached it. I went for the solution of folding the trim in on itself to make the corners, and I feel like it turned out quite nice.




Once the trim was done, there was only the matter of the gambeson sleeves left. From my research, I had found that these were only partially attached, with gaps under the arms for greater flexibility. I'd trimmed the armholes of the jacket basis with plain, black cotton trimming before I started attaching the sleeves.






 Again, thimble, tongs and patience were my friends, but I'd still say this costume is taking it's fair share of blood, sweat and tears. ;)

That's all for now! Next post, I'll be showing you how I made Kili's belt and pictures from the hair test with what was finished of the costume at that point! :)