vintage sewing feet

Went rooting around under the seat of my sewing stool looking for a foot suitable for making some piping for a pillow I've been making instead of getting ready for Allen's family to arrive tomorrow. Instead finding another foot for my Janome I discovered that the vintage Singer feet I had (which I found in a box under the seat after purchasing the stool from a Salvation Army thrift store)actually fit on my Janome machine. So now if I ever need to use unfolded bias binding I have the foot to do it :) More to the point, my piping came out well. Unfortunately I don't think it's going to get finished before folks come over.

satisfactory resolution

Yesterday I had the curtains of doom, and today I had the phone call of despair. Fortunately both situations resolved themselves, but I had a good little time of it until they did. First, the curtains of doom. A while back I bought some lovely cream colored gauzy material to make sheers for the bedroom. Since we live on the ground floor with people walking by during the day it's can feel a bit exposed with the blinds open. It's also dark if you leave the blinds closed. Hence the sheers. Well I finally decided I was going to go ahead and get my bedroom curtains up. So first I sat down and very carefully trimmed the fuzzy edges off the selvage. Then I ran a line of fray check down the side just to make sure. Then I thought about how on earth I was going to get that gauzy stuff to lay flat and square for me to measure it out. Then I thought about trying to roll any sort of hem before the edges unraveled under my fingers. Fortunately I wanted my curtains to pool on the floor just a bit. You serious seamstresses may cringe here, but I plopped my fabric on the ironing board and eyeballed a strip of fusing right across it, trimmed the excess, turned the edge under, and ironed. I measured my length from the hem, ran another strip across to fasten the bottom of the sleeve, then measured again and ran another length across the top to turn the raw edge under. I trimmed and turned the top raw edge, ironed it down, then brought the turned edge down the fusing to make a sleeve. I ran off four panels this way before adjourning to my sewing machine to run a straight stitch down each of my "seams" to hold them in place. Normally I think the fusing would hold the fabric, but the weave on this stuff was so loose it wouldn't hold the fusing very well. Fairly straightforward to tell, but it took me at good 30min per curtain just to get all the ironing and trimming done. However, now I have nice, soft, full, draping sheers in my bedroom. They filter the light beautifully and are a soft, almost delicate counterbalance to all the sturdy wood furniture in there. I'm glad I went to the trouble, but I'm not so sure I would do it again in a hurry.

To my next bit of perplexity - I wrote a while back that Allen and I had made reservations up in redwood country for Thanksgiving weekend. Well today I got a phone call saying that California had decided to close that park for the season or something like that. I can't say I understand myself why they don't just raise their prices and/or run their parks more efficiently. I really don't believe that California's budget problems are due to someone leaving the faucet on at their local campground. Anyway, I got that call this morning. Hours of searching for a suitable campground for naught -and the week before Thanksgiving too when all the parks are either closed for the winter or bang full up with reservations. I was perturbed. To put it mildly. With a tent I'm a little less ambivalent about trying to get a site on busy weekends than I would be with an RV. At least with an RV you can always have pretty good odds of boondocking for the night if you can't get a site. It's harder to do that with a tent. Thank the Lord though when I was searching I came across a private campground in that same area that wasn't full, took reservations, and was close to all the areas we wanted to see. I had a bad hour or two of it wondering if we'd be scrapping our Thanksgiving plans, but it looks like we won't have to now. Thank the Lord.

Peer Pressure

Allen was teasing me about giving into peer pressure because not too long after coming back from our church's women's retreat I pulled out my knitting needles and started working up some of my stash yarn into a wrap. It's fun though, and using stash yarn means I get a thrifty wrap in the bargain. Speaking of thrifty, I found this oh so cute wrap pattern on Ravelry. It's $7.99 for one pattern, but I really love it's simplicity. It's this one pictured. I'll probably end up buying the pattern (even though I rarely spend that much on a single pattern of any kind) just so I won't have to try and jury rig it. The yarn though in another matter. 120 dollars the kit costs. As Allen remarked "and that's for something you have to assemble." I used to think of knitting as thrifty. Apparently that's not always the case. Apparently. At any rate it's nice to pick up my needles again.

More unique finds

My last sojourn to the thrift store snagged a neat little vintage sewing stool -full of vintage thread and various other notions! It's so neat. It's just like a piano bench except not as wide. And I love the storage niche inside it. Love love. Inside it I also found a box of the queerest looking Singer feet. I really am going to have to post pictures of them just in the hopes some kind soul will tell me what they are. Unfortunately my machine has a different shank and can't take them no matter how exciting and useful they may turn out to be. The stool itself is in very good shape though badly in need of recovering (with a touch of padding this time -oof!) Fortunately the wood isn't very beat up and really just needs a good oiling to look quite respectable. Squee!

Scriptwriting??????

Darn you Elisa, if I hadn't read your blog I wouldn't have heard about Script Frenzy, and if I hadn't heard about Script Frenzy I wouldn't be contemplating its sheer insanity. I live a sheltered, safe little life (ok so I've been to the Grand Canyon twice -you know what I mean) and like it. I've never gone out with the girls for unnaturally colored rum laced drinks or lived in a tent on a hill or even lived in a college dorm. Although I love stories my natural bent is contemplative not plot driven. Which, darn you again Elisa may yours days be long as the Nile, gives me an idea for a story, but even that idea is all emotion and no plot. However that is exactly why I need to try something like this. Even many of of my contemplations never make it out of my head 'cause I'd rather keep them there than see them spoilt by the clumsy application of words. The painful perfectionist in me is due for one heck of a kicking. Speaking of due -I have an appointment with some new habits.

P.S. Elisa I really do love you. Right now you're just the stick that's poking me in the back urging me to stop living such a stuffy existence. I love you for it, but inertia is a hard habit to overcome sometimes.

P.P.S. I am such a scatterbrain. I'm working on one project. An idea for another one comes along, and I want to jump ship. Hence the never getting things done part of my life. My life as an impulsive, wanna be artistic, scatterbrain.

wedding projects

I'm working on a wedding project at present. It's coming along, but since I'm having to learn my image editing as I go it's taking me a bit longer than it strictly has to. I'm doing something (almost) completely new for me, and it's really quite interesting seeing it all come together. I'll try to take a few pictures (so I can feel bad about not uploading them :D ) before I hand it off. Speaking of which my hand-off date is fast approaching, so I better get back to it. Erk, and today's one of my long days. I really better get to it.

sacks of scraps

Anna no longer has the corner on vintage fabrics. I now have a sack of fabrics from Mamaw and Nanny each. There's all sorts of interesting patterns. Not all of them are vintage, but some of them are quite pretty and usual. I can't wait to play with them. Unfortunately I have quite a few projects and chores taking first priority, but I'm looking forward to digging into them one day.

Doodle, doodle

My very generous father-in-law loaned me his laptop for a time, so I can once again blog at nooning with impunity. One reason I'm grateful is that over on the Puzzle Pirate's forums it's time for December Daily Doodles. They're a series of creative challenges that are posted fresh everyday. So far we've created a Doodle trophy, drawn a picture, written a poem, and compiled a list. What's fun for me is that I'm doing some things I haven't done in a while. Drawing and poetry are not my forte, but I really had fun coming up with my entries. The drawing entry used a program called artpad which actually makes a little movie of your brush strokes. It's really quite a lot of fun to play with. Considering my inexperience with drawing in general and drawing programs in particular I was rather pleased with what I did. I'll have to hop on Allen's computer and crop my screen shot to post here since this computer doesn't appear to have gimp installed.

still house painting...

Maybe I'm not very fast; maybe these just take a really long time. Either way I'm still not completely done. Also, when I went to the craft store I found a little church to go with it. Right. Like I really need another thing to paint. Fortunately that's not nearly as complicated, and I've been able to get a lot done on it already.All I have left now on the house is the snow. Some of you northerners will no doubt get a hearty laugh out of the way snow is clumped artistically over these two buildings. Or maybe not. I'm from Alabama. What do I know about snow?!?

House painting...

While I was out one day I found the most adorable little house. Since the price was already reduced, and I knew Allen wouldn't mind; I bought it. It's really cozy looking with darling little front porch and little third story gables. Now of course I have to paint the darn thing, and it's taking forever. However, it'll look lovely up on my mantle with my other Christmas decorations.......Did I get you? Can we at least pretend I did? It really is turning out to be so adorable that I'm not sure how much I'm going to get done until I finish painting it. There are so many little nooks and crannies to reach that even the smallest task (like painting the window sills) is taking forever. And of course I've practically run out of white paint. Looks like I'm off to the store. Hope I can get out of there without bringing too much home with me....

Let the pictures commence! Huzzah!

Herein shalt be discovered that which hath so long occupied the maid Natalie. And verily thee may discover for thyself what merit her work doth mayhap contain.



The feasting hall




Here's a not so awesome picture taken at the feast.




Back home -at 2:00am after a very long car ride.




I almost forgot to mention that at the beginning of the feast some people went around recruiting for a "surprise" fashion show (no one who wasn't in it was supposed to know), and yours truly was one of the participants!

A few notes on my ensemble

The guards on the sleeves and skirt hem were typical of Florentine dress in the 1500's and (in my case) handily covered some machine stitched hems. I'm not sure if the placement of the guards on the upper portion of my sleeve would be correct or not, but when I found out that I'd cut the sleeves too short I figured I had to have something to cover up the new seam. The sleeves tie onto the dress at the top shoulder with the ribbons. They simply pass through small loops made with lacing cord that I tacked onto the inside of the sleeves and shoulders.

The skirt is simply gathered with the back of the skirt being slightly fuller than the front. The skirt itself is simply a rectangular piece of linen 120" long, cut along the selvage, gathered, and sewn up the front. The bodice is interlined with a hemp corded lining. You can see what that looks like below.



The bodice is spiral laced, and for the rings I just used the loop part from a package of ring and bar type fasteners that I got at Michael's. I still feel like I need to resew the front part since the sides don't remain parallel when laced tightly enough for support. The bodice pattern itself is a modification of a commercial pattern (McCall's I think). I took out all the extra shaping seams (over the bust and in the back) and just used the center back, side, and front to provide the shaping. I also readjusted the shoulder's outwards slightly and fiddled with the neckline front and back.

The chemise is made according to Jennifer Thompson's pattern, and would be very nice actually if I hadn't inadvertently cut the back piece too short thereby messing up the neckline. As is, it's actually rather small, and I'll likely make a new one at some point if I'm going to be wearing it very much.

I'm wearing a snood I found a while back at a vintage clothing store. I actually came up with a good way to keep it on my head. First I put on a skinny elastic heandband. Then I clipped some barrettes over the hair band on either side of the center of my head ie ( -b--|--b-). On top of all that I slipped a modern,invisible hair net -making sure that I looped the front over the edges of the clips. Then I just put my snood on over that, again catching the front edge under the barrettes. It stayed put very well. Apparently the Florentine women wore a band around the forehead to keep their's in place, but I didn't have time to contrive one before we went. This worked very well though.

Other than that I'm wearing a necklace I got from my grandmother and some black chinese mary janes with grey knee socks.

Huzzah! Huzzah!

Well despite having to rip out all my lacing rings so I could take about 1/2 inch of either side of my bodice and having to figure out a way to piece out my sleeves to make them longer and staying up till four o'clock Saturday morning only to get up six hours later to finish my dress just in time to iron it, get dressed (mostly), and dash out the door I did in fact finish my dress! Ok, so there's probably tweaking to come. It's wearable. Next week I'm devoting to posting all those picture that I keep promising to post and never do. So look forward to more pictures and less verbiage in the immediate future.

Here's a short list to pique your curiosity:

Captain Gregory
The ladder that would not fall
A Pawn King's Castle
Pirates in the Sky
Village-on-the-Man
.....there will also be clouds.

getting close....

I nearly done. All I have to do is hem the skirt and sleeves, add the lacing rings, thread my lacing cord/ribbon for the bodice and sleeves, and tack down the bodice lining. I think that's all. I also want to try and make a small little pouch purse to carry things in when I go to the feast, but that's optional at this point. I'm going to try a little trick to avoid having to hem the whole thing by hand and attach some guards to the skirt and sleeves edges. They'll add a very correct decorative element and hopefully hide my machine stitches. Otherwise everything that would show has been hand stitched. I did get a little unperiod yesterday and use some double sided fusible tape to finish the front seam edges. It wouldn't been necessary if I'd sewn it up the right way first, but I'm new to french seams and front laced bodices, so we'll call it good. You'd also laugh if you saw the hem to my camicia, but since no one can see it I'm not worried. I'll put a decent hem in it later if it really bothers me. For now I'm off to my lacing rings.

stitching away...

Well, I've got everything cut out except the sleeves which I'll wait to do until last so I can accurately fit them to the bodice. The skirt is sewn up except for hemming it and attaching it to the bodice. I'm a little disappointed with the skirt because despite making it a full 120" wide it really doesn't look as full as I expected. Hopefully it will look better with the chemise underneath it. Right now though I'm working on making the corded interlining. It will add a lot of time to the project (when I don't have a whole lot of time anyway), but I'd rather take more time to do something that will look nice than wish I'd done it when it's too late. According to Jennifer Thompson's website (which has been an absolute Godsend to me)there's no documented proof that this is a period technique, but it does give the correct silhouette. Since I'm not sure about my abilities to make simple linen lay the way the portraits show, I'm going with the cording. Just pray that the bodice actually lines up right when it comes time to lace it all up.

dress update

Well, I've gotten my chemise cut out an mostly sewn up. Somehow I didn't cut it out quite right (a fact I didn't realize until I'd sewn it all together with french seams), but it only really affected the back neckline. It should be fine. I still have to finish the neck line and hem it, but I intend to leave that until I get my bodice made just to make sure everything lines up. Speaking of which I made two mock-ups of my bodice today, and I think I've just about got it right. I started with a side lacing costume pattern which I ended up switching to a front lacing pattern simply because it's hard enough to fit a self supporting bodice on yourself anyway without trying to fit the sides while you're still in the bodice. It took a lot of finangling and a lot of "Here, Allen can you pin this here. No, here. Ok, now can you repin it this way." before I got something approaching satisfactory. Even though I had to do a fair bit of retracing I'm glad I went ahead and bought a cheap pattern to work from since it gave me the shape for the back and gave me my basic forms to work with. Eventually maybe I'll be able to draft my own patterns but for now I'll stick to modifying what I have. Tomorrow I'll make one last mock-up to check my latest adjustments and start cutting the dress out of my linen.

My fabric came in!

I just got my fabric for my Ren dress in, and the colors are exactly what I wanted/hoped. Since time was so important I'd opted to not get a swatch first and just go ahead and order. Also, there weren't many colors in my price range. However, I was fortunate enough to find two colors from the same collection on sale. I figured that even if i wasn't keen on the colors they'd at least blend well. But they really are nice colors. The plum I bought for a my little sack/bag goes beautifully with it too. The blue not so much. I'll probably make my friend a little bag with it. Anyway, I'm pretty excited about it. So now I just need to get to work. I'll probably start on the camica first since that well require the least amount of fitting and fiddling. All that will have to wait until I get this apartment in order for tonight though :( I shouldn't take but a trice (ok, maybe an hour or two tops) if I'll just settle down and do it instead of frittering!

Dress materials

I think I've found/ordered just about everything I need to start working on my ensemble, so now I just need to break out the scissors and get to it! Countdown to the Feast begins NOW!

Have credit card will craft

Ok, so maybe it's a debit card. It's plastic. Remember when I said I wasn't going to be using period authentic fabric to make my dress? Some 60" linen remnants grabbed my attention, and nothing would do but that I buy them for my dress. All in all it worked out to under $6.00 a yard including shipping. Considering that I would have had to buy considerably more 45in fabric I was pretty happy with that price. I did cheat on the camica and buy a linen/cotton blend because it was just so much cheaper than the other stuffs. I also bought thick $0.99 cotton muslin for the interlining. I really couldn't see paying 4-7 dollars a yard for material that nobody (including myself) will ever see. I'm going to try doing the corded interlining that Jennifer Thompson demonstrates on her excellent website. Although she said there's no proof that they actually used this method it does create the proper silhouette and pretty much takes care of any buckling or creasing in the bodice. I also (praise God) found a McCall's pattern for $0.99 that will at least give me a basic bodice shape to work with. I really wasn't sure about creating my own pattern, but I didn't want to spend 10-20 dollars for one on top of what I'm already spending for the materials.

On a cheaper note: Michael's had the craziest yarn on sale for $1.00 a skein that's perfect for knitting fuzzy scarfs. Two dollars a piece plus time for Christmas presents is my kind of deal!

16th C Florentine Gown

This should actually be posted under uncommon tricks since I don't personally know many people trying to create a Florentine gown -especially not in ONE MONTH! I really think I'm a little bit crazy here, but a group of us have been planning for the past year on going to a feast sponsored by a local Ren fair. So why do I only have one month to put this thing together? Well, I thought I might need to plan for nursing access, and that would be mean waiting until I could create something that would actually fit. Now though it's anything goes. I've been madly scouring pictures and dress diaries to find something that I could create within the alloted time and that wouldn't tax my still developing sewing skills too badly. I finally found a picture that I think I could approximately recreate here. Depending on the fabric I find I might dress it up a little more to make it more lower-middle class, but I think I'm going to try for a pretty close approximation of that style. Tomorrow if I can I'll probably go out and try to at least get fabric for the camica since I can make that up without worrying too much about what my actual measurements will be by the time of the feast. And yes, I'm going to machine sew it and probably use horribly inaccurate fibers since I don't have either the time or the money to hunt down authentic silks, linens, and wools and then hand stitch them into a painstakingly researched and documented garment. However, I think I can still manage to avoid looking like a Disney princess. One real plus to recreating this dress though -mary janes! Look at the picture again. She's wearing brown mary janes. I've just been waiting for a chance to get some, and now I have an excuse!