Marmotte Carnivale Jacket

Bal di Carnival happened and it was fabulous. Mia and Catherine did an amazing job with the rooms and decor. The acrobats and dancing were wonderful. 

I spent most of the time before the event frantically sewing the marmotta jacket. It was inspired by several contemporary European jackets. These jackets have an open front filled by a stomacher, fairly long skirts, and most have some sort of ruched trim.

Caraco made of mustard yellow printed cotton, blue checked linen lining, c. 1750-1775, combined with a silk satin ruby red matelassé skirt, c. 1740. Collection Centraal Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Inv. no. 8922 and 6466. - See more at: http://europeanafashion.tumblr.com/post/68966752430/once-a-big-hit-in-the-low-countries-several#sthash.g5OwUcSr.dpuf

French 1750s http://trouvaillesdujour.blogspot.co.nz/2011/07/18th-century-back-in-

Janet Arnold Patterns of Fashion

CF Griffith did a nice version of the Janet Arnold Jacket

http://www.cfgriffith.com/costumes/the-yellow-rose-jacket/

J.P. Ryan has a jacket pattern that is similar to what I ended up making. Mine is closest to jacket B with a stomacher front and longer skirts. Mines has full length sleeves.

J.P. Ryan Pattern:View A is cut with a long skirt, center front closure, and sleeves with winged cuffs, suitable for the 1750’s.View B has a long full skirt, open front, stomacher and cuffed sleeves, as was worn in the 1760’s.

The final jacket was in brown silk with scalloped salmon silk trim that I pleated instead of ruching. Next time I'll sew the trim on while the garment is flat rather than after I've set in the sleeves!

And the inspiration image again:

Bal di Carnivale

Inspiration for the Bal di Carnivale

The Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild is having an 18th century themed Bal di Carnivale on February

18th c. Mask Fan

8th in San Jose, CA.  Gambling ,dancing, cocktails, full dinner, acrobats and of course fabulous costumes.  There are still tickets available if anyone else wants to come.

Lace Buttons

Fantastic GBACG workshop yesterday with Nancy Nehring, author of 50 Heirloom Buttons to Make. We made 5 buttons from her book. Four of mine came out great, the fifth was a hot mess. I would definitely make the morning star and the Victorian flag again.

Wood mold for braid and soutache buttons.

Finished soutache button

Completed morning star in hemp cord, couldn't get the evening star to work. The Morning star looked great in thinner gimp.

Singleton button starts with a running stitch 1/4 inch in from the outside.

Pulled in and back stitched around a brass ring.

Victorian flag in silk buttonhole twist

Completed Victorian Flag in black silk.

Rockford Peach Halloween

Photo by Nina

I dressed up for Halloween at work this year and won the Costume Contest!  We aren't really a "fun" workplace so I've never dressed up before but  I can't resist a chance to show up in costume.

There was a good showing.  A crew of zombie Federal Regulators.  The Colonel as a Roman centurion complete with jokes, "They told me it would take a legion to transform Civil Works".  There was a surprising lack of punny costumes.  Maybe we're a very literal-minded bunch of engineers and scientists.

Anyway, this was a reprise of my Rockford Peaches costume, which I wore at Costume College this summer.  This is the team from the movie, A League of Their Own and was also a real team in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

I altered a modern commercial pattern using images of the original baseball uniforms as a reference.  The hat and belt are purchased.  My friend Catherine embroidered the patches for me using a pattern that I believe she bought from etsy.  Modern athletic socks and modern black leather sneakers.

Zombie Regulators and everyone in costume. Photos taken by Ryan Mcclymont

Marathon Wonder Woman

Nike Women's Marathon 2013

I decided to run the full marathon again and since everything is better with a costume I made a Wonder Woman running outfit.  This was inspired by a fun group of gals at the inaugural Geek Girls Fun Run at DragonCon in August and many of them had superhero outfits.  Wonder Woman is well-known and variations in the outfit are easily recognizable. 

Marathon course through SF, lots of hills

I decided on a 3 piece outfit: shirt, skirt and regular running tights/capris under the skirt.  This gave me the option of neurotically over-thinking my race-day pants choices and provided the chance to buy some seriously overpriced compression tights that I do not think improved my performance. I did refer to them as magic pants for the week before the race to try and encourage a bit of the placebo effect.

I started with a men's athletic shirt so I could be sure to use a wickable base material and recut the shirt using my basic tshirt block.  I wasn't sure about the content of the gold material so I wanted to limit the amount I was using.  It ended up being rather cold and foggy for the marathon so it didn't really make a difference.

I appliqued the wonder woman symbol on my shirt front using a regular zigzag stitch, tracing over a paper printout to get the outline and then filling it in with more stitching.  All the seams were sewn using a three thread flatlock with wooly nylon.  The one thing I'd change is to use a solid red thread rather then the multicolor thread.  The multicolor was too much. 

The great thing about making your own clothes is that you can change things to fix common fitting problems.  One major problem I have with most women's running shirts is that the sleeves are not long enough.  I find that on long runs I get chafing on my upper arms, particularly when it is hot out (which in SF is anything above 65).  I made the shirt sleeves longer and had no problems at all.

The skirt is two rectangles, sewn onto the elasticized waistband and not joined at the sides.  This turned out to be a good choice as it didn't restrict movement in any way.  I did have to pull the skirt down a couple times so in the future I might make it as one garment with capris/shorts/tights or make the skirt longer.

skirt with ridiculously overpriced compression tights

Mile 23

 The shirt turned out to be very comfortable and the skirt was mostly in the right place.  The most difficulty I had was with the waistband of the compression pants so I cut that off and replaced it with a non-elasticized band.  After wearing it for 5 hours I think I'm going to cut that off and replace it with an even wider band to make it more comfortable. 

The race was ok, I rocked the first 18 miles and then came down with some blisters and leg cramping.  Mile 21 was a particular low point where my toes hurt so much I tried to run in my socks, turns out to not be a good idea. I managed to run/walk to the finish with the support of one of my friends/co-workers who came to drag me through the last few miles (he told me to smile in the picture above, otherwise there was no smiling).  Still, I ended up with a better time than the last marathon, even if I didn't make my time goal.

The support for spectators was great.  Tons of people recognized my character and cheered me on, which really helped towards the end. I would definitely wear this for another long road race.  Sewing with spandex and knits was not at all difficult and I am looking forward to altering some of my running clothes and making some more fun race outfits.

Accessorizing Challenge - Regency Bonnet

 

First Accessory Challenge Complete!  

TOS Men's Pants - Roddenberry Pattern

These are the original series pants with the bell cuff at the calf. Like the other patterns I used the company clearly expects these to be bought by people with little sewing experience and recommends getting help for the construction. You will definitely need it!

Pros: these have the correct cuff, multiple opportunities to fit the garment

Cons: everything else

I ended up with extra pieces. In my 15 years of costuming I have rarely ended up with extra pieces, let alone 2 of them. This is because no where on the pattern or in the instructions does it tell you how many pieces of each pattern piece to cut.

The second issue is the fly front. Or at least I assume the pants are supposed to have a fly front, although you would never get there from the instructions. After meticulously following the instructions, which appear to have been photocopied in someone's basement, circa 1992, I turned to the trusty Readers Digest Sewing to complete the fly front. The directions for the pants are very detailed for all the other steps except this critical area.

Otherwise these pants went together quickly. They are constructed using more theatrical techniques than fashion industry construction techniques, which allows for more opportunities to fit the garment. Particularly the waistband, which is seen so it can be easily resized.

Final Verdict: Not Recommended. I honestly think most people, both beginning sewers and experienced would be better served just using a plain men's pant pattern from any of the big three pattern companies. It is much easier to cut the pants shorter and make the bell cuff than to mess around with this pattern. As a bonus, all those patterns will at least have decent fly front instructions.