Westworld Costume Part 2: Skirt and Bodice

Wie gesagt dachte ich mir, dass der Fantail-Skirt eine gute Basis für ein Westworld-Kostüm abgeben würde, also habe ich am zweiten Januarwochenende Stoff und Verzierungen gekauft. Ich war tatsächlich mehrere Stunden in dem (nicht sonderlich großen) Stoffgeschäft und habe verschiedene Stoffe und Verzierungen mit den Sceengrabs der Serie auf meinem Handy verglichen. Nichtsdestotrotz habe ich mich für einen etwas dunkleren Blauton als das Hellblau von Dolores entschieden, weil es an mir einfach besser aussieht.

As I said, I thought the Fantail-Skirt might make a good basis for a Westworld-Costume, so the second weekend in January I went ahead and bought some fabric and trims. I think I actually spent several hours at the (not very big) fabric store, cellphone in hand, comparing fabrics and trims to several screengrabs of the show I had on my phone. Even so, I ended up going for a darker, more turquoise shade of blue for my fabric instead of the light blue Dolores wears, because it better suits my complexion. 

Das war das erste Referenzbild, das ich irgendwann letzes Jahr auf mein Handy gespeichert hatte. Man sieht die Form des Oberteils und dass es mit Knöpfen schließt. Man sieht auch die Struktur des Gewebes, was allerdings mit meinem Budget nicht nachzumachen war, also habe ich einen einfachen Baumwollstoff genommen.

That was my first reference picture I saved to my phone sometime last year. You can see the length and shape of the bodice and that it is closed with functional buttons. You can also see the texture of the fabric, which I found impossible to recreate on my budget, so simple cotton it was.

Nachdem ich den Stoff gekauft hatte, habe ich als erstes den Rock genäht. Genau wie beim letzen mal war das Zusammennähen kein Problem, positiv überrascht hat mich, dass bei diesem Stoff (etwas weicher als der graue) der Rock auch ohne Unterrock schön fällt.

After buying the fabric I started with the skirt. Like the first time, construction posed no problem, and I was positively surprised that with this fabric (a bit softer than the grey one) the skirt drapes nicely even without a petticoat.

In diesem Bild sieht man, dass Dolores zumindest ein kleines Gesäßpolster trägt, also war das der nächste Schritt. Ich habe leider kein Foto, aber das Polster ist Halbkreisförmig und wird mit einem Gurt um die Taille geschnürt. Man braucht wirklich sehr viel weniger Füllung als erwartet, ich habe mehrmals Füllung wieder aus dem Kissen genommen bevor ich es zugenäht habe, und glaube trotzdem, dass es etwas zu extrem geworden ist.

This picture shows that Dolores wears at least a little bustle pad, so making one was the next step. I'm afraid I didn't take any pictures, but the pad is shaped like a semi-circle and is strapped around the waist. You really need a lot less batting than I expected, I took out batting several times before closing the pad, and still think it ended up a bit extreme.

Meine Schneiderpuppe mit Kissen und Unterrock. Das erstellen des Schnittmusters für das Oberteil erwies sich als komplizierter als gedacht, da ich es mit Draping auf der Puppe versucht habe, und der Unterschied zwischen ihrer und meiner Form (mein Oberkörper ist ein paar Zentimeter länger als ihrer) durch die betonte Taille noch verstärkt wurde. 

My dressform with the bustlepad and the petticoat. Making a pattern for the bodice proved more complicated than I had thought, since I tried draping it on the dressform and the difference between her and my form (my upper body is some centimeters longer than hers) was exaggerated by the emphasis on the waist.

Nach mehreren missglückten Versuchen habe ich schließlich beschlossen, mein Standard-Oberteil-Schnittmuster als Grundlage zu nehmen und zu versuchen, die Nahtlinien und Abnäher des Kostüms damit nachzubilden.

After several failed attempts I finally decided to use my standard bodice pattern as a basis and to try and recreate the seamlines and darts of the costume with it.

Hier sieht man die beiden Front-Abnäher und den tiefen Ausschnitt. Hinten befindet sich je links und rechts ein Abnäher, im nächsten Schritt habe ich noch die Schöße des Oberteils an das Schnittmuster angefügt.

Here you can see the two front-darts and the low neckline. In the back there's one dart on either side, for the next step I added the tails to the pattern.

Danach habe ich die Knopfleiste genäht und den unteren Saum versäubert.

Afterwards I sewed the button-closure and finished the lower hem.

Die Ärmel habe ich aus diesen beiden Youtube-Tutorials erstellt, sie bestehen aus zwei Teilen. Der Ausschnitt und die Ärmelenden wurden mit cremeweißer Zackenlitze, blauem Samtband und blauem, in Falten gelegtem Schrägband verziert.

I drafted the sleeves following these two Youtube-tutorials, they're in two parts. The neckline and the sleeve ends were trimmed with off-white rick rack, blue velvet ribbon and blue, folded bias tape.

Den Gürtel hatte ich zum Glück im Schrank, in der Serie trägt Dolores außerdem noch eine kleine Gürteltasche. Da ich mal wieder keine Taschen in den Rock genäht hatte (und damit es passender aussieht), habe ich mir auch eine bestellt. 

Luckily I already owned an appropriate belt, in the show Dolores is also wearing a little beltpouch. Since I neglected to include pockets in the skirt again (and to make it look more appropriate), I ordered one.

In den Bildern trage ich unter dem Kleid noch das Korsett, das Gesäßpolster (Tournüre?) und den Unterrock. Ich war den ganzen Tag unterwegs und auf den Beinen, und erst gegen Abend (nach über 10h im Kostüm) habe ich leichte Rückenschmerzen unter dem Korsett bekommen. Alles in allem ein sehr gelungenes Kostüm, ich habe viele Komplimente bekommen, auch wenn bei uns im Dorf natürlich niemand erkannt hat, was (bzw. wen) ich darstellen sollte. "Western" haben aber alle erkannt ;)

In these pictures I'm wearing the corset, the bustle pad and the petticoat underneath the dress. I wore it the entire day while walking around and dancing, and only in the evening (after more than 10h in costume) I got some minor backache underneath the corset. All in all a very successful costume, I got a lot of compliments, even though nobody in my village knew who I was dressed as (naturally). The "Western"-aspect everybody recognized, though ;)

  

Darf's mal wieder historisch sein?

Dieses Projekt liegt zwar schon etwas länger zurück, aber was soll's. Kurz vor meinem Geburtstag im April kündigte die Dreamstress für Scroop-Patterns einen Sale an. Da ich schon etwas länger um den Fantail-Skirt herumschlich, nahm ich das als ein Zeichen und bestellte die Vollversion (Jahrhundertwende + 1940er), es soll sich ja auch lohnen.

This project goes a bit further back, but whatever. Shortly before my birthday in April, the Dreamstress announced a sale for Scroop-Patterns. Since I'd had my eye on the Fantail-Skirt for a while even before that, I took it as a sign and ordered the full version (turn of the century + 1940's), to make it worth my while.

Ich habe tatsächlich ein sehr spezifisches Kostüm mit diesem Rock geplant, deshalb habe ich mir die graue Baumwolle gleich im reduzierten 6m Paket von buttinette.de bestellt. 

Ich bin etwas größer als die Durchschnittsfrau, und wollte auf alle Fälle einen bodenlangen Rock (kürzen kann man immer), deshalb habe ich die Schnittmusterstücke gleich um 10cm verlängert.

I'm actually planning a very specific costume to go with this skirt, which is why I ordered the grey cotton as a discounted 6m-bundle from buttinette.de.

I'm a bit taller than the average woman, but wanted very much for the skirt to be floor-length (you can always shorten it later), so I lengthened the pattern-pieces by 10cm right away.

Die Anleitung war gut geschrieben, und das Zusammennähen verlief fast problemlos. Aus irgendeinem Grund war am Ende die Taillenlinie des Rockes 3cm länger als der Bund, was ich durch zwei winzige Falten neben den beiden Front-Nähten behoben habe. Das fällt nicht negativ auf, hat mich aber auf die Idee gebracht, dass ich da Taschen gut hätte verstecken können - und Taschen sind immer praktisch. Naja, vielleicht später noch.

The instructions were very clear, and assembly went off almost without a hitch. For some reason, the waistline of the skirt ended up being 3cm longer than the waistband, but I fixed that with two tiny pleats right next to the two front seams. It doesn't negatively impact the look of the thing, but gave me the idea that those pleats would have been perfect to hide pockets - and pockets are always good to have. Ah well, maybe I'll add some later on.

Der fertige Rock war leider etwas schlaff und traurig, und überhaupt nicht so toll, wie ich ihn mir vorgestellt hatte. Zum Glück habe ich aber oft genug gelesen, dass die Basis bei historischen Kostümen 3/4 des looks ausmacht, und ließ mich davon nicht entmutigen. Am nächsten Tag bin ich zum Ikea gefahren, habe 4 oder 5m weißen Baumwollstoff geholt, und mit dem selben Schnittmuster einen Unterrock genäht. Der Unterrock ist hinten gerafft statt gefaltet, um mehr Volumen zu geben (und weil das einfacher war), und verfügt über eine 7m lange, 35cm breite geraffte Rüsche. Die Rüsche ist mit Maschine versäumt (weil das bei geraden Stoffbahnen am einfachsten ist), und mit Häkelspitze aus dem Ein-Euro-Shop verziert. Die runden Rocksäume sowohl des grauen- als auch des Unterrocks sind von Hand mit Hexenstich gesäumt.

Unfortunately, the finished skirt was a bit limp and sad and not at all as awesome as I had imagined it. Luckily, I've read often enough that in historical costumes, the foundations make or break the look, and wasn't discouraged. The next day I went to Ikea and got 4 or 5m of white cotton and made a petticoat from the same pattern. The petticoat is gathered instead of pleated in the back, to give more volume (and because it's easier to do), and has a 7m long, 35cm deep ruffle. The ruffle is hemmed by machine (because that's easiest to do with long, straight pieces of fabric) and trimmed with crochet-lace from the dollar-store. The rounded hems of both the grey skirt and the petticoat are hemmed by hand with herringbone-stitch. 

Das sieht doch schon viel besser aus, oder?

Das Unterhemd besteht übrigens aus einer gehäkelten Passe und einem Baumwoll-"Schlauch", der durch Biesen vorne und hinten ein wenig in Form gebracht wird, und ist komplett handgemacht. 

Doesn't this look a lot better?

The chemise, by the way, consists of a crochet yoke and a cotton "tube" that is shaped with pintucks in the front and back, and is completely handmade. 

Die Röcke sehen toll aus, und es macht Spaß, mit so viel Stoff um die Beine herum zu laufen. Für das geplante Kostüm fehlt jetzt noch ein Korsett und ein Oberteil, wenn ich das habe, werde ich auch verraten, was das ganze werden soll. Außerdem habe ich mir überlegt, dass der Rock in hellblau mit entsprechendem Oberteil (+ Hemd und Korsett) auch ein sehr tolles Westworld-Kostüm abgeben würde. Muss ich für die Fasnet auf alle Fälle im Kopf behalten.

The skirts (in combination) look fantastic, and it's a lot of fun to walk around with that much fabric swinging around my legs. For the planned costume I still need a corset and a bodice, once I've got that, I'll tell you what it's supposed to be. I also thought that the skirt, in a light blue and with the appropriate bodice (+ the chemise and corset) would make a good Westworld-costume. I have to keep that in mind for the upcoming carnival.

Natural form underskirt

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but I'm planning a natural form era costume. I'm not telling you what it's supposed to be yet, since that would be embarrassing if I never finish it. But it's definitely supposed to be a costume, so I'm absolutely okay with historical inaccuracies such as using the black polyester taffeta I once bought 10m of for 14€ ;)
 I used this guide, and basic math & imagination for the gored front panels.

Pictured: Basic math and imagination ;) You can see where I toyed with several options for the side panel. Construction is pretty basic, so I didn't take many pictures:

One fabric width (150cm) for the upper back panel, two for the lower. They were supposed to be 50cm high each, but at some point I lost 10cm in total from the back panels, which is why it's kind of asymmetrical in the picture. I ended up triming the 10cm from the front panels as well.

Trying out the pleating...

And setting in the waistband. I'm very proud of the overlapping closure, even though it took a lot of trial and error and still isn't perfect. Well, at 1,40€ per metre I'm okay with this being a test piece ;)
I did a simple double turned hem because the fabric was a little too stiff to work nicely with a rolled hem foot. I also cursed myself because I had to iron crouching on the floor, and at ~4,5m hem circumference my legs did not like me when I was finally finished. Something else I'm proud of: I actually finished all seams! Just simple zig-zag and one pinked, but I usually never finish seams (I might have mentioned I'm lazy).
And the finished product: (with an improvised bumpad, so it looks nicer:)

I will take pictures of me wearing it some time, but that might only be when I make some more pieces to this costume, we'll see. At least I'm finally motivated to sew again :)

Bits and pieces

To be honest, I haven't really been sewing much lately. It's not that I didn't have the time, I just wasn't motivated enough to use that time to sew. But I've been doing some prep work, and other little things, that I didn't deem interesting enough to justify a blog post. But since this break is getting kind of long, here's some bits and pieces:

-the circular gallifreyan shirt:

Finished embroidering the collar and halfway attached it to the base of the shirt. Now I'm too lazy to iron it so I can finish attaching it.

attached collar

finished embroidery

- patterns:
I bought a pattern for a vest/waistcoat/gilet (I have no clue what to call it in English), because up until now, I always stole my brother's when I wanted to wear one. I traced the pieces I needed instead of cutting them because I wasn't too sure about the size I needed and didn't want to destroy the paper pattern, so that's as far as I got.

No pictures yet, so you get the pattern envelope. I'll be doing view A first

Also in patterns: I'm still scaling up a 19th century corset pattern, I even have some fabric for it.

enlarging the gussets

 I will be doing full posts when (if) I finish any of these, but right now I'm kind of busy with other things. We'll see how it goes.

Corset remake / Steampunk!

Well, hello, folks! Remember my green corset of fail last fall? I had made a ~1870's corset drafted to my measurements using this guide, but failed to take into account the amount of squish moved from my waist (and lower) into my hips (despite reading several posts about this very problem from more experiened seamstresses, so it's my own fault, really), thus ending up with a corset that did the opposite of what it was supposed to do: it reduced at the hips and added at the waist, giving me a form more tubular than my natural body. 

Just a reminder. Also: Help, I've lost my
Corset Dropbox Folder?

I was ready to chalk it up as a complete failure and move on, but then the nice people over at the HSF Facebook page encouraged me to add in hip gussets. It took me some time to do it, since there was more things to fix then just the hip-width (plus the thought of taking off an reapplying the binding an the bottom swallowed up all of my motivation) but recently I got fed up with studying and took some time to fix what I could. First, I redid the front opening (still hook and eye tape, sorry) because it was a b*tch to close and easily getting in an out of the thing would be necessary to try it on for the changes. But after moving the eyes from between tell layers to on top of the binding, I must say I'm really happy with the closure.

Thusly encouraged, I went on to insert some hip gussets. I didn't want a bone right ontop of my hip and there was a side panel in any case, so instead of opening up a side seam I cut a slit in the middle of the panel from the bottom to my waist (this took several cuts as I was very careful not to cut too far and tried it on in between cuts to see if I had hit my waist yet. I think I could have gone still a bit higher, but I thought better safe than sorry).

Corset with the slit. You can already see the
difference it makes to the shape

Better look at the gap :)

Then I put a piece of scrap fabric on my hip were the slit would be, put on the corset on top and marked the outline of the gap on the fabric. I used this shape as a template for my gusset (after addin seam allowance, of course). I snipped a little y-shape into the top of the slit, folded all the edges inward, pinned the gusset in between the layers and back stitched into place (the execution of that last sentence took several hours, don't be fooled by its shortness!).

After again setting it aside for some time (still dreading the binding) I felt like sewing again I realized that I had just enough black ribbon left over to rebind the bottom edge, so that's what I did (in an easier and prettier way than before, so yay me). After that I figured I might as well go the whole way and crochet some lace for trimming, and after finding this very easy pattern, I went and did just that. I'm pretty sure the crochet was actually the least time consuming part of this entire remake... 

Anyway, now that it gives me more or less the shape I wanted it to and even looks pretty, I'm actually very happy with it! There's still some things I can't fix without taking the whole d*mn thing apart, but I think for a first try, that's tolerable.

I learned a couple of things while working in this (twice), so I feel ready for a "real" corset now. It's gonna have an actual busk, spiral bones, gussets and flossing, and I even have an original pattern if I can figure out how it works. I won't show any pictures until I can, though ;)

On a final note: out of curiosity, I measured the bottom width of the gussets, i. e. the width I would have needed to add to my hip measurements to make this corset work from the start. It's 15cm! I couldn't believe it! I'm starting to think that I miscalculated or measured wrong at some point, because there's just no way all that squish could have come from my waist... O.o 

Anyway, I'm very happy I stuck with it, I can't believe how good it turned out after my disappointment last fall!

Update:
 I've been sitting on the post above for a while now, waiting for an opportunity to get some better pictures of the reworked corset. Well guess what: I'm going to a steampunk party! I knew I'd have about a day to put something together, because I wrote another exam yesterday and will go snowboarding tomorrow, with the party tomorrow night. (Wait, this feels familiar...)
So I took out my finally wearable corset and paired it with several shirts, blouses and even my regency shift until I decided on my black Dirndl blouse (yes, I own a Dirndl. Please don't go around assuming every German owns one, the first time I actually wore a Dirndl was in Canada, but since I live in the south and literally on the border to Bavaria, I bought one last summer. Works great as a Little Red Riding Hood costume, too :) )
To add yet more steampunk flair, I decided to give this video a trial:

Hey, it's Threabanger again! Or at least Corinne from Threadbanger... :) 
I have 10m of black polyester taffeta in my stash, which I bought some time ago simply because it cost 14€ (the entire piece. So, like, 1,40€ per metre. Sometimes my impulse control is not the best :D)

I cut all the pieces, changing the measurements a little (when my fabric's width is 1,40m I'm not gonna be particular about 10cm more or less), making the panels a bit longer and narrower, but I don't think that changes the look very much. Also, I didn't have any lace to sew around the edges, so it's just pinked :)

Because I need a yardstick to cut in a
straight line when I can't rip fabric

Biggest Panel

The video really tells you all you need to know, so here's the only thing i did differently: To tie the outfit together, I wanted to have some of the green fabric of the corset repeated in the bustle. I decided to put a band of gathered trim on the smallest panel, So I ripped two strips of 6cm * 1,50m fabric and sewed them together. I didn't bother with finishing the edges because I liked the ragged, rough look for steampunk and sewed to gathering lines at 2cm in from the edge. (ran out of bobbin thread about 3/4 through on the second line. Didn't feel like taking it out and redoing it, so I restarted the line about a cm further and tied the top and bottom threads each in a knot. Yeah, that's how I roll.)
Pinned on, sewed (along the gathering lines) and again followed the video to make a waisband.

To top it off, I retrimmed a tiny hat my mother bought for carnival years ago, pretty sure it's from H&M. Of course, I forgot to take a "before" photo, but here's the ugly trim I took off:

Luckily for me, it was mostly sewn and hardly glued on, after I snipped all the threads I could just pull off the glued bits with no residues. Finished result:

And on me:

 That hat kept wanting to fall off my head. I need to fix this if I want to wear it for dancing tomorrow night...
Anyway, I'm off to bed now since I neither want to fall asleep snowboarding nor dancing in steampunk attire. See you all next time :)