Shieldmaiden-ing It Up

There's not much else to say about my Eowyn outfit, since I've already talked at length about both my inspiration and my process here. I don't have an exact final count for hours used, though I'll guess that it was about forty hours total, including the belt-making and all. I'm so excited about how the whole thing looks and moves! I made Mr. Cation do a mini photo shoot with me up on the roof of the parking structure...it's the closest we're going to get to a wide open, uncluttered space here in TCOCC. Seriously, there are not enough halls like Meduseld in this city. This is a sore lack that needs to be remedied immediately. Despite the lack of Rohirric architecture, I still managed to end up with waaay too many photos I liked; choosing just a few for this blog post was so difficult!

Mr. Cation tried really hard not to let any modern vehicles make it into these photos. I really liked this one, though, because the wind caught my sleeve at just the right time. 

I seriously can't get over how much I like these sleeves.

There's a slight train at the back of the very full skirt. 

I am so pleased with this outfit!

Tomorrow's Oscar party will hopefully be epic! I'm just bummed that The Hobbit isn't up for more awards. In the meantime, though, I'll entertain a fool's hope that somebody with Hollywood costume connections will see my costume and hire me to work on a something!

A closer look at the lacing strips at the back and the cording. 

I really like the pointy sleeve detail. The pattern actually called for the lower sleeve to be lined, but that would've made for six layers of fabric at the seam where the bell sleeve and lower sleeve join the upper sleeve, so I decided to do away with the lining. I ended up totally reshaping the sleeve to fit my arm, since the original pattern was super loose and long. 

My lingerie strap holder and hand-overcast sleeve seam allowance. Thanks to all of you who suggested solutions for getting the wide neckline to stay in place!

I added a pair of cable ties to the lacing strips to keep them from bunching up. You can also see the necklace clasp I used to join the belt at the back. 

My simbelmyne-ish Forever 21 necklace! I forgot to put in the matching earrings for this shoot, though. 

I'm pretty sure this dress wins for the most satisfying thing I've ever made. It's rare that something turns out exactly as one hopes, but somehow this hit all the marks, both budget-wise and matching-up-with-my-imagination-wise. And because a full skirt like this just begs for twirling...

I'm sorry that this is such a picture heavy post, but I just like this dress so much!

It flaps around so satisfyingly as I march into the sunset. 

Off to kill the Witch King of Angmar...see you all post-Oscar party! 

February Stashbusting Challenge Link Party!

Stashbusters, it's time to show off how generous you are how much you've used your stash to show love to others. And don't forget, since this month was a CHALLENGE, one project will win some fun prizes and bragging rights!

If you have any questions about how the voting or linking work, let me know. And if you didn't make anything for others, hey, that's fine too! It won't be eligible for our little contest, but you can still add it to the Flickr pool.

You can also start thinking about what you want to do for March's theme: the impending seasonal change! This way, those of you in the Northern Hemisphere can make something light and springy, and those of you in the Southern Hemisphere can make something cozy and autumnal.  Those of you living at the equator where it's the same all year round, well, I guess you can't play then...just kidding!

Lastly, this isn't stashbusting, but it's still sewing for someone else, so I'm including it in this February post: I put one of Mr. Cation's ties on a diet! See, he's had this normal-width whale tie for ages, and even though he only wears skinny ties, he's never donated it because well, tiny green whales. Need I say more? So for Valentine's Day this year, I took a quick one hour break from my shieldmaiden dress and skinnified the tie for him. It was very easy to do; I followed this tutorial and was really pleased with how professional it looks...at least, as professional as tiny whales can ever be.

Why am I wearing this tie, Mom? 

No, seriously, why? It's ridiculously long on me. 

A closer look at the whales: look, they're even smiling!

Walnut's not smiling, though...he's just confused. 

I didn't think to take a before picture until after I'd already cut it open and started slicing off the extra width, but I'm sure you know what a wide tie looks like! Anyway, now I'm excited that I can bring home wide ties from the thrift store in outrageous prints, and then just redo them to be a more trendy size. I feel like the whole world is open to me now!!

Walnut is not thrilled with the prospect of having to model more ties. 

Where My Sewasauruses At?

Readers, if you haven't heard about Vicki the Sewing Scientist's Map the Sewintists project, go check it out! This is for all the times you've wondered if there were any other people in your area who are as obsessed with sewing as you are, or even if you're traveling to a new place and want to know who to ask about where all the best fabric shopping is. So far I'm the only one in TCOCC, but regardless of where you're located, go add yourself in! Read the directions carefully, though, because the first time I did this I accidentally moved somebody else's pin.

And for those of you who have been busting the heck out of your stashes for those you love, I'll be putting up a linky party tomorrow so that you can add your February challenge projects! You'll also have a chance to vote for your favorites, although Emily and I will reserve the right to make the final decision. I'm excited to choose -- the projects on Flickr have been especially awesome!

February Stashbusting: The Happy Recipient

I really wanted to have finished sewing another stash piece into a garment for someone else, but alas, life got in the way of my plans. Instead, have some quick iPhone pictures of the skeleton corset on its intended owner!

These were taken at night in pretty bad lighting, so they really aren't great. I swear, my sister's skin is not actually orange. 

I started freaking out when I noticed that the back lacing gap wasn't even, until I realized that she was wearing it a bit high. Once it was adjusted to the proper location, it laced up the way it should. 

Emily tries not to laugh (and I try not to shake the phone) when she realizes how hard it is to pose naturally for blog pictures. 

I'm so glad that it fit my sister and she's happy with it! This marks the first time I've really ever sewn successfully for someone based only on measurements, without any fitting during the process. I'm glad that this was successful, because I've got some pretty major sewing projects coming up for long-distance friends.

First off, something like this purple lace dress for my dear friend Shayna, for a professional photoshoot:

I've got the perfect purple lace in my stash, courtesy of Meg the Grand!

As if that wasn't scary enough, my best friend Elaine, who possibly has more faith in my skills than is warranted, asked me to make her wedding dress for her. I'm beyond flattered, honored, and scared out of my mind, as this is what she chose as her inspiration:

[source]

Ack! Dear readers, wish me luck -- it's going to be a challenging next couple of months!

Historical Sew Fortnightly: Embellishment

Can I still count it as an historical embellishment project if it's not entirely period-accurate? I took my plain dark green shieldmaiden gown and added braided trim and a medallion belt.

I cannot for the life of me set in sleeves properly. 

The gown is loosely based on Eowyn's dark green gown from The Two Towers, which in turn is loosely based off of the medieval cotehardie or bliaut.

"A fresco depicting the story of 'the foolish virgins' from Castel d'Appiano in Trentino Alto Adige, Italy:
See the long flowing sleeves and the tight waists." [source]

Medieval women hunting. Not sure how they managed with trains and long flowy sleeves...[source]

A snowball fight in a dark green dress with gold trim, from an Italian fresco, dated to 1400-1407. [source]

As a historical project, this dress fails on a lot of counts -- like oh, the fact that it's constructed from cotton bedsheets -- but to the extent that I could, I tried to find examples to back up my choices. I took artistic license with princess seams and the slit up the middle of the bell sleeves, but kept the tight bodice, wide neckline, wide skirt with a train, and impractically huge sleeves over a tighter undersleeve.

The neck is so wide it doesn't stay on my shoulders very well. The necklace I found to go with it is just a cheap gold-colored one from Forever 21, but I thought the flowers looked vaguely like simbelmyne. 

For the trims, I kept the green and gold combination of my inspiration outfit, but did my research backwards. See, one of the first things you learn about how to study the Bible is not to go in with a preconceived idea, and then look for verses to back you up. Rather, you approach with an open mind and see what the Bible actually has to say. Well, I've got my costume hermeneutics all wrong, as I went ahead and picked out a trim, then went back to paintings that were vaguely contemporary and tried to find ones that would support my choice.

This painting of some dude from 1460 shows a black and gold braided trim that looks similar to mine. [source]

This painting of the Infanta Catalina Micaela de Austria from 1585 (I know, totally the wrong time period) shows a medallion belt of sorts. Actually, it might not even be a belt; it might just be trims at the waistline of her dress. [source]

And here's a closer look at my medallion belt:

It was really hard to photograph the medallions of the belt (okay, I wasn't really trying very hard and just snapped these pictures quickly), but they're a slightly different shade of gold than the trims, and both are slightly different from the gold in the necklace. The perfectionist in me is bothered by the three clashing shades of gold, but then I have to remind myself that nobody's going to be looking that closely, and the party won't be happening in broad daylight so the lighting will be more forgiving. 

The medallions I ordered were originally individual "antiqued brass" filigree pieces. I ended up coloring each of them with a gold metallic calligraphy pen to get them to be gold-colored, instead of a dirty gray-brown. I then used a whole lot of jump rings to put them all together into a belt. I know it hardly counts as jewelry-making, but I am so pleased with how this belt turned out. Even Mr. Cation was impressed and really liked the final product, and he's got some pretty high standards!  

Just the facts, ma'am:
The Challenge: #4 -- Embellishment
Fabric: Dark green 100% cotton king-sized flat sheet...squeezing in all my huge pattern pieces was the most mentally taxing part of the whole project! The bell-shaped oversleeves are lined with part of a light gold-green cotton sheet.
Pattern: Butterick 4571, a costume pattern if ever there was one, considering that one of the fabric recommendations is panne velvet...at least there isn't a zipper at the back.
Year: Modern
Notions: 4 yards of gold and black braided trim, 24 metal filigree medallions, lots of 1/4" brass jump rings, 26 metal eyelets for the back lacing
How historically accurate is it? Hah. Hahaha...yeeeaaahhh. I'm just going to laugh awkwardly and move on to the next question. I'm only including this as a HSF project because it's in the spirit of the challenge. Kind of.
Hours to complete: I'm still not done with the dress, as I need to hem it and sew on the lacing strips in the back. The embellishment, though, took a good five+ hours to hand-stitch the arm trim since it wouldn't fit around my machine's free arm, and I brilliantly decided that I wanted two rows of braid. The belt took another two hours, but with lots of breaks so as to avoid poisoning myself with fumes from the ink.
First worn: I'll be wearing it for the TORN party on Oscar night!
Total cost: $4 for the sheets, $3 for the eyelets, $10 for the belt materials, and the braided trim was free from Wholeport.com, as part of a prize from a contest two years ago. $17 total for a vaguely historical-flavored gown.

I know, I know, I'd make a terrible fashion historian. Hey, I'm just going to pull evidence from the wrong gender and the wrong time period, and do it all after I've already made my choices. Good thing this is just a costume!

There's A Reason Why I Call Them Faketorials

As a self-/Internet-taught sewist, I'm occasionally seized with doubt as to the correctness of my methods. Usually that doesn't bother me for long, as I figure that if something works for me and my purposes, it's good enough. But then you start doing things like making your own patterns available to other people, and coming up with little hacks to make things like faux wrap dresses, and you just want to put out a disclaimer to make sure people know that you don't really know what you're doing. Hence the term faketorial, because I've got a healthy dose of imposter syndrome.

Debi very kindly asked if I would post a tutorial on how I extended my bias-cut top pattern to turn it into my leopard-print dress, and I'm almost embarrassed to show this diagram. It's so haphazard and unscientific! But here's what I did:

So yeah...that's  all there is to it! Just grab a meterstick and line it up with the side seam angles, then extend out. FYI, to get the tea-length dress I extended out by about 25" at the side seams, and 29" at the back. The more you angle out that back line (or even the sides, if you have the fabric for it), the more flare the skirt will have. Hopefully that helps if you're thinking about turning a top into a dress. And thank you, dear readers, for all the kind things you had to say about that dress! I wasn't sure about it, but you've all convinced me that it doesn't deserve to go to the back of the closet.

On a totally different note, I've been finishing up the trimming on my shieldmaiden gown, and I'm beginning to think about accessories. One dilemma I have is what to do about my hair -- it's obviously too short for the standard lady of Rohan -- but is it worth it to try and get a wig? And if I do get a wig, should I go with one that matches my natural hair color, or blonde like Eowyn's? Or just rock the short hair?

It's Awards Season Alright

This post accepting a couple of blog awards is long overdue...*ducks head and blushes* Are actors and actresses allowed to pick up their Oscars a month late and then give a speech?

Anyway, I was very flattered to be awarded the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award by PendleStitches and the Very Inspiring Blogger Award by none other than my stashbusting co-conspirator, EmSewCrazy.

Thank you, lovely ladies! And now for my speech: allow me to indulge in sharing seven more facts about myself (if you want to read edition #1 of seven facts, they're here).

1. Most of my geeking out posts are about Tolkien's work, but I actually came to love his work fairly late in my life. While I had read The Hobbit in elementary school, I didn't read the LOTR trilogy until college, and only because I believe firmly in reading books before seeing movies. I really wanted to see PJ's movies, ergo I had to read the books. I fell in love and fell hard. 
2. My first true geek fandom was Star Wars. My dad introduced my brother and I to the trilogy fairly early, and for a couple of years we would pick one of the movies to watch each weekend. We had the novels and books about the Star Wars universe, but I never knew any other girls who were into it, so I kept quiet about my SW love until a few years ago. 
3. When I was very young, at various times I said that I wanted to be a teacher, a scientist, and artist, and a writer. Now that I teach science during the day and blog about creating at night, I guess I'm living out my childhood dreams!
4. Other childhood dreams that have come true, thanks to Mr. Cation's indulgence: having a huge bookcase full of books, so as to feel like I'm living in a library, having a cat that acts like a dog, and having a king-sized canopy bed. Oh, and it's because of his encouragement that I even started sewing/creating again a few years ago...and he's very patient about the messes all over the house!
5. I love meat. I'm sorry, but I could never be a vegetarian, not so long as steak, sausages, ribs, and bacon exist in the world. I tried giving up meat one year for Lent, and it was the longest five weeks of my life. I made up for it on Easter Sunday by going out for AYCE Korean BBQ. 
6. While younger-me loved roaming all over parks, the more secluded and densely forested, the better, present-me is not a huge fan of the wild outdoors. I sometimes feel a little bad that I don't have any interest in hiking or camping; museums and libraries are more my speed. This is why sewing is such a great hobby for me -- it pretty much requires you to be in a building! 
7. In some ways, I'm scared to death of having a SHB...but deep down inside I'm secretly excited for the day that I have a good excuse for buying and playing with Legos, making a bazillion cute plushies, watching quality children's programming like MLP and ATLA, and building pillow forts. 

And because awards for me and me alone would be selfish, here are the winners of my Sew Grateful giveaway!

Winner #1 (Sophia Trench Coat): Sox of Finished Threads
Winner #2 (McCall's 7385 knit dress): Helen of Grosgrain Green
Winner #3 (McCall's 9071 sixties' sheath dress): Nikki of Nikki's Stitches
Winner #4 (Butterick 4790 walkaway dress): Lisa of Still a Chispita
Winner #5 (Simplicity sewing book): Kristin of Sew Technicolor

Congratulations, you lucky sewasauruses! Email me as soon as you can at cationdesignsblog [at] gmail.com with your address so that I can mail you your prize!

And speaking of awards season and the upcoming Oscars, here's where I am with my TORN party shieldmaiden dress:

Desperately in need of some trim. Please excuse the cat toys and fabric scraps in the background.