Goin’ out Edwardian style

I had my first event in Edwardian Fashions.  I finished the Trumpet Skirt I was working on and paired it with my shirtwaist made from a table cloth and wore it to the Urban Gallery display at the Museum of Man and Nature.  Lottie was also in Edwardian fashions and Shirley came in modern clothes and played “photographer”.  Here are some of the highlights…

You can almost see the authentic Edwardian belt buckle in this photo.  You can’t see the pin stripes in the skirt at all!

In a lot of my photos, my shirtwaist was riding up under my left arm and my hat had slipped WAAAAY back.  Sigh.  And I looked in the mirror before we started!

The dummy behind the counter had a similar shirtwaist on as the dummy in front of the counter!

Lookin’ for the laudanum and found the laxatives instead.

Lottie’s hat is the best! She took apart 3 hats to make this baby!

Time to play the harlot!

Then it was time to go home and play with the photographs.

My sewing “cat”*

Mommy needs to finish that TODAY!

*In case you don’t “get” the reference:  most costume bloggers that I read have a cat who seems to be attracted to sewing activity.

Progress Report: Race against time

I have a costume event next Sunday and I hope to have a functional Edwardian outfit for it.  I just need a skirt to make it wearable.  I am doing Truly Victorian’s Trumpet Skirt in a black pin stripe.

For those of you haven’t made this skirt, you should know there is a lining under the fashion fabric.  This lining is 2 inches shorter than the skirt itself and it has a ruffle attached to it.

The job of this ruffle is to hold the bottom of the skirt out in the trumpet shape.  It is the lining and ruffle that seems to be the most labor intensive and time consuming part of the whole skirt.  This lining and ruffle gives you two more HUGE hems to do and I find gathering and attaching ruffles fiddly.

There are two hems because you don’t just attach the ruffle to the bottom of the lining.  you attach it so the bottom edge of the ruffle is even with the bottom edge of the lining.

My theory on why it is assembled this way is that the ruffle supports the skirt and the lining supports the ruffle.

As you can see, in the interest of saving time, I machine sewed the hems.  My thinking is that you wont be able to see it when I wear the skirt so it wont matter.  I will hand sew the actual fashion fabric hem.  If ever I get more keen on authenticity and “how it was really done” or if I decide to enter a contest, I can go back and re do those hems.  But for my “fun larking about” the machine hems will do.

I have the placket, waist band, hooks and hem left to do so that it is wearable.  There is a final step of adding some stiffening to the skirt hem to help hold it out that likely wont happen on time for the event.

I am running out of time!  I need to retire!  Work is getting in the way of my sewing!

Edwardian progress

I love long seams.  They take so little time and effort to do and yet you get big results! 

Of course, now comes the fiddly bits that take SO long!  There is a crap load of hemming to do and ruffles to attach to the lining (the ruffles hold the skirt hem out in a flare)…. Will I get it done on time?  I may cheat and machine sew the hem on the lining and the ruffles. No one will see those.

Another sweater for babies I don’t have

I had some wool left over from my last project and so I made another sweater.  I guess it will go into a hope chest for grand babies I may one day have.

There is a bit of wool left over.  I guess I will knit it up into a square and add it to a pile of other squares I have made that may one day become a crazy quilt afghan.

In sewing news, I finally cut out my tulip skirt that will go with my Edwardian shirtwaist. I hate cutting out.

I procrastinated so much, I may not have the skirt done on time to wear at the end of the month.  I was hoping to use this past long weekend to cut and at least sew all the long seams and all I managed to do was cut out and start another knitting project that I don’t need.

I’m a bit frustrated with myself.  I didn’t do as much on my skirt as I wanted and I started another knitting project when I have dozens of unfinished projects behind my couch and in my basement!  If only I didn’t have to work.  There would be so much more time to do projects.  Wouldn’t that be sweet to be able to make a list of all the projects I haven’t finished and all the projects I want to start and do nothing but work through that list!

Bought wool, used wool, now what?

In spite of my “don’t buy more wool unless you need it for a specific project” I bought wool merely because it felt fuzzy and was on sale.  That rule is intended to stop me from making such impulsive purchases and adding to my hoard but it only works if I actually follow it.

In my defense though, I did actually use it and didn’t just stuff it in the bin with the rest of my impulsive sale purchases.  I made a little baby sweater.

It is cute but now I have a new problem.  What do I do with it?  I have no babies in my life right now.  My kids are adults.  No grandchildren yet.  No friends with babies.  No little nieces or nephews.  No babies.

Some times I try and sell my stuff at my friends craft sale table. But two problems with that…she decided not to have one this year and none of my stuff actually gets sold.

I think I will do one of two things: store it in a hope chest against the day that I do actually have a grand baby or donate it to charity.  It likely will go to charity.  It served its purpose for me which was keep my hands and mind busy while I watched TV and vented a little creative juice.  There is a bit more of that wool left over so I will get another smaller sweater out of that and then hopefully I will get to work on my sewing projects and work on reducing my wool hoard.

Pageant winning bathing beauty

Okay, that title is a bit exaggerated! We had a costume contest for Halloween at work and I won “best individual costume for staff”.  Unfortunately everyone thought I was either a baker or Little Bo Peep.  But I’m not complaining.  It got me a gift card for free food at the cafeteria and another costume got out of the closet.