Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Here we are in May, and I still have a long list of costumes to make. So far this year I’ve completed a Game of Thrones King’s Landing dress, an Oberyn Martell costume, my Chemise a la Reine and some accessories.  I have outfits planned for Costume College, and just for fun.

Onward!

1. I need to finish my silk stays which have been put aside a few times in favor of other projects.

2. My chemise dress needs a new white petticoat. The ones I wore with it recently were ivory, which work well with the whole ensemble, but if I want to wear the cotton chemise dress by itself I need a white petticoat.

3. For one of the days at Costume College I plan to wear a Downton Abbey Edwardian maid outfit. (It will be nice and comfortable to attend class in it!) I have the vintage laces needed for the apron and cap, but need to purchase the black dress fabric.

4.  Another outfit planned for CoCo is a Victorian bathing suit, which I will wear for the Thursday night pool party. I have the pattern and fabric (a striped wool blend), but I need lining and trim.

5. Just for fun, and to learn some new skills and work with new materials, I am planning to make Lady Tremaine’s outfit from the new Cinderella movie. Isn’t it so fun? I have been doing some research (for a future post!) and am in the process of accumulating fabrics for the dress. I don’t have a deadline for this outfit because I anticipate it will take a lot of work.

6. I recently acquired some lovely historical reproduction printed cotton fabric and plan to use it for an 1840s fan-front dress.

7. The 1850s silk plaid dress from last year still needs a belt and silk undersleeves.

It’s an ambitious list; let’s see how much of it gets done for 2015!

Happy New Year everyone!

This morning the Fedex truck rolled up to my house with a present from my husband: a new dress form! I had been telling him that I was looking for a proper dress form. What I’ve been using for a while, bought years ago when I didn’t know any better, was advertised as a “dress form,” but was really a plastic mannequin with a lightly padded cover. I had to slide pins in sideways, and it did not squish like a real body. The boobs were very hard, and in an odd place. The mannequin was useful for hemming, and as a starting point for mock-ups, but I had to do a lot of fitting on myself.

Since I’ve gotten more serious about historical costuming and having underpinnings, I wanted a dress form that I could pad up, then squish down with a corset, or even maybe put bean bag boobs on. To accomplish that I needed to find a very small mannequin – smaller than me. I had looked at child-sized ones because they were flat-chested, but they were too short. I told my husband that it can be hard to find a size 0 adult dress form, but I was considering one I found on Amazon. Isn’t it nice when husbands listen, even when they’re saying they don’t know what you’re talking about?

Here she is! She’s fully-pinnable, with magnetic removable shoulders and a very heavy wheeled base. My old one was on a wooden tripod and not too stable.

She’s got a butt, instead of a mysterious smooth cliff.

I like that there are visible seams in the linen cover, which will help me keep things straight.

She’s quite an improvement over what I had before and I’m glad I get to start the new year with a nice new dress form!