Historical Sew Fortnightly: Flora and Fauna

While I like my feminine dresses as much as the next lady, never before have I sewn a frock that deserves so much to be called a confection. Between the chiffon overlay, the beading, the embroidery, and the lacy pink satin slip, this is definitely more frou-frou than anything I've ever sewn before!

I tried to follow American Duchess' 1920s makeup tutorial, but I don't think it worked so well...mostly because the idea of wearing that much eyeliner freaked me out. I don't usually wear any makeup, so when I came out of the bathroom, I think Mr. Cation was kind of shocked. 

Extremely anachronistic Nine West silver stilettos, because I don't own any other light-colored shoes. These are actually from my wedding, and this is the first time I've worn them since then! The feather clip on my head sash is also from my wedding, originally purchased at Claire's, and then my necklace is from Forever 21. Hello, "flapper" look from the mall!

I love the way the bottom hem turned out, even if I accidentally broke three needles on beads while doing it. I was not wearing eye protection because it didn't occur to me, since, you know, I wasn't actually working with steel boning, and one needle tip actually flew up and hit my cheek. Yikes!

I used to think that 1920s fashions were the most unflattering styles ever, what with the straight bodices with little to no shaping and the dropped waists. But just like 19-teens era fashion, Downton Abbey has won me over and I just had to make an evening dress that would be appropriate for a party in West Egg. Besides, the Great Gatsby movie's coming out this week!

To get the shapeless gamine look, I wore a sports bra underneath the slip. 

I actually used to hate The Great Gatsby as a novel, too, but a second reading, a decade after high school English class, really helps me to appreciate it a lot better. Something about not having to finish it, along with homework for other AP classes, and write an essay at the end...

It was so bright outside that the embroidery and beading got kind of lost. Here's a better picture of what it looks like in person. Much pinker than the outdoor photos!

I originally wanted to make an 1840s-ish gown for this HSF challenge, but decided that between Elaine's wedding preparations and the AP Exams, I should probably hold off on such a complicated project. I turned instead to this embroidered and beaded crinkle chiffon, which was originally purchased with the intention of making a Titanic evening dress when I was still in the middle of Season 1 of Downton Abbey. That never happened, but thanks to the progression of time in the Downton world, this is still appropriate for an evening dinner party there!

I decided that the sash tied at the side was totally a thing. For example, these extant gowns. 

To start with, and to ease myself into slippery fraytastic fabric sewing, I made a pink satin slip to go under the very sheer chiffon. Thanks to Lauren, the American Duchess, for the very easy tutorial!

1920s slips are not flattering, but I did my best to pretty it up. I was inspired by these two extant slips, which are much more elaborate, of course. I figured that it was okay since the slip would be mostly hidden.

To make the overdress, I started by looking at the 1923-25 evening dress in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion. It's got no shaping (side seams go straight down, no darts) and is essentially a giant tank-top. I went with that general shape (but graded down for my size) for the bodice, but I was afraid that a straight-down side seam for the entire dress would be more unflattering than necessary. Fortunately, there are plenty of examples (from both sewing patterns and extant gowns) of straight bodices with fuller skirts, either through the use of godets or gathered rectangles. I didn't want to deal with either of those options because of the fussiness of my fabric, so I opted for a fraction of a circle-ish skirt, like these sewing patterns or this dress. I put together the front and back bodice and skirt pieces, then sewed them together at the shoulder and sides by machine, and finally hand-overcast the seam allowances to make them as unobtrusive as possible. The worst part by far, though, was trying to finish the armscyes and neckline with self-fabric bias binding; crinkle chiffon is the worst fabric ever, and yet I persist in using it for some reason. Even with all of Andrea's tips, I couldn't get it to behave! Between the crinkles, the general chiffon shiftiness, and the beads on the fabric, I ended up with the wiggliest bindings ever. To camouflage some of the worst of it on the neckline, I added a couple rows of extremely ugly beading. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking.

You can see how crinkly the chiffon is here. Also my hand finished seam allowance, which almost turned into a rolled hem due to the lightness of the chiffon.

It's like I was drunk when I sewed on the beads, except I totally wasn't. 

Summary:
HSF Challenge #9: Flora and Fauna...I've got the flora thing going on in the embroidery, and I guess the feather clip can be the fauna? I didn't make the clip, though.

Fabric: For the slip and sash, 2 yards of dusty-rose polyester satin; for the overdress, 3.5 yards of 45" wide polyester crinkle chiffon in cream, embroidered and beaded with a floral pattern. I didn't include these in my stashbusting pledge pile, but both have been in the stash since Oonaballoona and I ripped off the FIDM scholarship store, so I'm pretty pleased to have used it.
Notions: Cream-colored 1/2" polyester ribbon for the slip straps, cream-colored lace from last year's Vintage Fashion Expo,  almost 300 silver bugle beads for the overdress neckline (which I've saved for six years...thereby rewarding my penchant for never throwing away any craft supply ever)
Techniques used: French seams on the slip, hand-overcast stitch on the overdress
Hours: About thirty? I don't even know anymore, I've been working on it so long. I managed to watch a good chunk of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, all of North and South, and listen to a whole bunch of Radiolab podcasts.
Will you make it again? Extremely unlikely. I'm pleased with the overall experience and dress, but I'm not in need of more 1920s evening dresses!
Total cost: Thanks to the FIDM's mistake and the LA Fabric District's prices, less than $15!
First worn: Just for pictures, but hopefully to see the movie when it comes out
Final thoughts: When I was walking out of the apartment to take pictures, I felt super glamorous, and as a bonus the whole thing is remarkably comfortable. I am incredibly pleased with this dress and how successfully I was able to get the general look of the era, despite the anachronistic materials and accessories! As for those who might turn up their noses at the polyester and less-than-stellar beading, well, all I can say is, "Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone...just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." In this case, that would be the advantage of beading lessons and a large enough pocketbook for authentic materials?

And because B&W automatically equals old-timey...I did my best to channel my inner Anna May Wong, despite the failings of my make-up application:

Do I Need to Design a Flag, Then?

If I had a flag, I would plant it on this blog to claim it. "For Walnut and geekery!"
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In other news, congratulations to The Liveaboard, winner of the little shaving thingamajiggy! Send me an email at cationdesignsblog [at] gmail.com with your address so that I can send it your way.

Lastly, if you haven't voted on your favorite vibrantly-colored stashbusting project, you've still got a day to do so! Everyone gets one vote, and you need to click on the "vote" button above the project of your choice. Incidentally, don't vote for me! I only put my link in as an example.

And just so this post isn't totally pictureless, here's what my rough draft and transfer for Elaine's ketubah look like:

Apologies for the terrible lighting...it was a dark and stormy night. 

May the Fourth

It's Star Wars Day! Considering that that was the first geeky trilogy I fell in love with, I figured it was appropriate to dress Walnut up to celebrate the occasion (Walnut, on the other hand, may have disagreed). Since he's all brown and hairy and thinks with his stomach, well, it was pretty obvious who he had to cosplay as...

"Will somebody get this big walking carpet out of my way?"

Walnut loves punching and attacking straws. They're like his mortal enemy or something. If he sees one in a glass or soda cup, he will go out of his way to seize it and chew it to death. 

It's almost as if they had enslaved his ancestors or something, just like the Empire with the Wookiee home planet of Kashyyyk. I mean, look at that face of intense hatred!

What did I tell you?

A Wookiee in a berserker rage is a fearsome sight. 

So into it, he doesn't care that his bandolier strap has fallen off. 

So yeah, it's not wise to upset a Wookiee.


I made the strap out of some leftover 1" brown cotton webbing and fleece straps.

Step 1: Zigzag stitch two strips of webbing together to make a wider strap.

Step 2: Butt the ends of the strap together at a right angle and zigzag stitch it together. Cut out a bunch of white fleece rectangles and glue them on.  

Step 3: Stitch a piece of brown ribbon down the center. 

After all his exertions against the evil Straw Empire, Walnut is exhausted.

Cats and Wookiees -- both fiercely loyal and cuddly-looking, but let them win unless you want your arms torn off.

Bonus: Walnut does his best bantha pose. 

Happy May the Fourth, everyone!

Polyester Pillage Getting You Down?

Thank you for all of your sweet comments about yesterday's dinosaur dress! I don't know that they necessarily change Mr. Cation's mind about squiring me about town while I'm wearing it, but it's kind of comforting to know that Gingermakes' Man Friend feels the same. It's not just my guy that's put off by Jurassic Park on a dress that "needs" to be belted!

One thing you should know, though -- of all the sheets I've worked with (and I've worked with a lot!), these sheets were probably the worst when it came to polyester content. Usually, modern sheets are 100% cotton or 100% polyester, which makes it easy to tell content from the feel. Sheets from the 80s and before are usually 50/50 poly-cotton, which is not great but not bad either. This 1992 Jurassic Park sheet, though, was 70/30 poly-cotton, which meant that after years of wear by some little kid, it was pilling pretty badly.

I had to play around with the lighting so that you could see the pills, hence the shadowy-ness of the picture. 

Seriously, sewasauruses, is there anything worse than low-quality polyester pillage? And by pillage I don't mean raiding a village and burning it to the ground after making off with the sheep and cattle.

To clean it up for actual wearing in public, Mr. Cation's opinions notwithstanding, I used this handy little machine. 

See the blades and all the pills collected in the chamber?

I got this gadget from the Japanese dollar store (although everything there is actually more than a dollar, since it's imported from Japan), along with a bunch of other sewing goodies (I love that Japanese stores actually have a sewing and crafts section!). My mom had one of these when I was growing up for shaving sweaters with, and I used to love getting to use it. It's just satisfying to see all those little bits come off your clothing and gather up in the inner chamber, you know? Anyway, I figured that there must be other people out there who have pilly sheets from the 90s clothing, so I bought an extra to give away to one of you! Here's how you can enter:

1. Leave a comment saying that you're entering the shaving machine giveaway! 
2. Answer the question: what's the worst fabric you've had to rehab in order to make it wearable? I'm imagining red wine vomit, the smell of thrift stores and moth balls, a black fabric after a white cat's slept on it...
3. You should probably be a follower of my blog to enter. I'm not going to check your credentials, but hey, how else will you know if you've won unless you actually read my blog? 

I'll close the giveaway on Sunday night at 11:59 pm PST, and post a winner on Monday! Gaack, that's AP exam day!

So much better! All those colors look so much better when they're not covered with pills. Speaking of color, though, don't forget to enter the April Stashbusting link party!

Incidentally, if you didn't get to those vibrant colors this past month, that's okay, because May is here! May is all about using up the knits in your stash...go check out the details of the challenge over on EmSewCrazy's blog. She also posted some of the standouts from the Flickr Stashbusting group, so take a look and see if you're featured!

The Antisocial Behavior Dress

If you could do anything humanly possible with complete assurance that you would not be detected or held responsible, what would you do? We were talking about social influence and deindividuation last week in my AP Psych class, and when presented with the above question, 36% of college students responded with some kind of antisocial activity (e.g. criminal or spying behaviors, with most people actually saying "rob a bank"), 19% cited some other non-normative behavior, 36% neutral, and only 9% of the respondents named a prosocial behavior (Dodd, 1985). I'm pretty sure that of all the responses, 0% of them said "enter a sewing contest without using the official contest pattern."

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've probably heard that Colette Patterns recently released a new sewing pattern, the Laurel shift dress, and not only that, but they sponsored a huge contest with absolutely fabulous prizes. Who wouldn't love all that free money to buy fabric and notions with?! Unfortunately, I'm a cheapskate when it comes to buying sewing patterns. I love the sales at Joann's, but even those are a bit pricey when you can buy vintage patterns for $0.25 each at thrift stores. Which means that when it comes to having to pay over $10 for a pattern...well, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Especially for such a simple shift that I could probably make up on my own. I bid a sad goodbye to thoughts of free Spoonflower fabric of my own ($18/yd, even for my own design, is something I can't justify right now. I'll have to settle for drawing or printing my own), but somehow the idea of a simple shift wouldn't leave me alone! Even though I was pretty underwhelmed when I first saw the Laurel pattern announcement, Debi was right -- contests really do inspire me to rethink my initial assessments of a pattern (or in this case, a look) that I'd previously dismissed as unsuitable for my body type/personal style.

So...what did I finally make for my if-I-could-I-would contest entry? Well, let's just say that velociraptors, especially as depicted in Jurassic Park, are the ultimate in antisocial behavior:

Okay, I know, this isn't a velociraptor*, but it's still pretty awesome to find metal dinosaurs outside a random car wash in TCOCC. 

A wash and wax for $9.95! They actually do a pretty good job, as Mr. Cation car can attest. 

There was a Sewasaurus Tyrannosaurus Rex too!

I could also wear this on days that I'm feeling particularly introverted, because there's nothing more antisocial than a dress printed all over with ominous words/phrases like "Keep Out! Danger! Caution! Warning!"Also, Mr. Cation swears he will not walk next to me when I wear this in public, so that's even less social interaction...

You mean you don't want to be associated with me? At least Amanda will join me in making dinosaur poses!

When I first received this Jurassic Park sheet in the mail, I was so excited, but I couldn't figure out what to do with such an awesome (and large-scale, and multi-colored) print! Thanks to Brooke, who suggested that I make it into a shift dress with as few interrupting style lines as possible, I decided to make this not-a-Laurel. While I can't exactly enter it into the contest, I still think it would've been a pretty fabulous entry for the showing-off-a-print category.

I started with Simplicity 8722, which I've used in the past, but only with knits. In order to get the more fitted look that I wanted, I ended up making a whole bunch of modifications, taking in the side seams and back (at both the CB seam and by making larger back darts), almost totally redrafting the sleeve, and of course, axing the facings and replacing them with bias strips. Now that I've finally done the work of modifying the pattern, I'm surprised by how much I like the shift dress look! It's simple and classy (as long as you're not using dinosaur sheets from the 90s) and not nearly as awful on my body as I was expecting.

Summary:
Fabric: Just half of a 70/30 poly-cotton twin sheet. I love that shift dresses use so little fabric! This means I still have enough fabric left over to do something else, although I don't know what yet.
Notions: Bias tape for the neckline, seam binding on all the inside bits (there are no raw edges anywhere, because this fabric frayed like fraying was its only goal in life), a 20" zipper, and a hook and eye
Hours: Eight, for all the fiddly fitting and seam binding everything within an inch of its life.
Will you make it again? Now that I've figured out how to wear a shift dress well, you bet I'll be making more! Colette, I'm sorry for ever doubting the brilliance of the Laurel. However, I'm still not paying you $14 for it.
Total cost: Thanks to the generous NYC sewing bloggers, this was a free project! All the notions were in my stash already, but I guess if you had to count how much they originally cost me, I'll say it was $1.
Final thoughts: This might be one of the more ridiculous things I've made. And that's saying a lot, since I've made quite a few ridiculous things in the last couple of years! Unlike the other geeky dresses I've made, which were all a sort of uniform blue with a slightly more subtle print (you wouldn't think they'd be subtle, but I've hung out with people and had them not notice until several hours in that I've got Jedis or superheroes all over my dress), this dress boasts all the primary colors in a huge, blocky print. Dinosaurs just don't do subtle. Still, I think the colors and pattern actually add to the mod 60s look. Hah! Obviously I don't actually know anything about the mod 60s look. At any rate, the nicest thing Mr. Cation could think to say about it (actually, I'm not sure he was trying to be nice...he might have just been confused) was that it looked like a pediatric nurse's scrubs. You know, the kind with teddy bears all over to keep children calm. Well, watch out, children, these terrible lizards aren't even pretending that the shot won't hurt! They're all like caution danger warning this shot is going to hurt like a dinosaur bite. Still, despite all that, this dress makes me really happy because it's just SO WEIRD.

Even better, though? I'm not alone in my weirdness! Gingermakes, of Mood Sewing Network fame, and one of the NYC bloggers who was in on sending me this sheet, kept a JP sheet for herself...and she also made it into a shift dress (but she used the real Laurel...I guess I'm just the Chinese knock-off)! I'm pretty sure that when Andrea announced the S.O.S. challenge, she never thought it would be applied to such fabric. But there you have it, sister fabrics...go check out her make!

At this point, Mr. Cation was like, are we done yet? 

*A true-to-life statue of a velociraptor wouldn't be very fun to take pictures with, though, since they're not nearly as scary as the Jurassic Park movie portrayal. As expressed so delightfully in one of my favorite nerdy songs, Hollywood Raptor, velociraptors should be feathered and more or less turkey-sized. Incidentally, The Doubleclicks are an absolutely brilliant pair of sisters who write awesome stuff -- if you're into D&D at all, you'll love This Fantasy World.

DIY Anthropologie: Edisto Wide-Leg Trousers

When I first started sewing, one of my big motivators was wanting to make my own versions of Anthropologie clothes for much, much cheaper. In fact, that was a big theme of many of my earlier makes, but it's been over a year since I was inspired by anything in their catalogs. I don't know why they got so Bohemian for a while, but I was thrilled to pieces when their latest catalog was suddenly full of things I wanted to make. I love being inspired by their colors and prints, so even though my sewing queue has just doubled in length, I'm (not so) secretly pleased.

In the past, I've only tried to copy their dresses and skirts, so I decided that I should take on the challenge of pants. I mean, now that I've more or less successfully sewn pants and shorts, a whole new world is open to me and I should take advantage of it. Enter the Edisto Linen Wide-Legs in red, gloriously vibrant and with big contrasting buttons on the side. I've been cautiously entertaining the idea of brightly colored pants ever since seeing Erica B's gorgeous coral pair and Sunni's season opener, but wasn't sure if I could pull it off. There's nothing like a hey-look-at-me color on bottom to bring doubt into the mind of a pear-shaped lady, but I had the perfect fabric in my stash, and, well, it's the year of magical doings. If pulling off orange pants isn't magical, then I don't know what is. Also, it's only fabric -- if I don't like the final result, it's not like I was making pants out of baby penguins. So...how did they turn out?

ZOMG red-orange is a ridiculously difficult color to photograph.

I'm in love with these buttons. 

My best attempt to mimic the Anthro picture. Not nearly as fun as the Japanese sewing books. 

Boom! Butt! 

If you look closely at the enlarged picture of the Edisto pants, you can see that besides the side-button feature, they also don't have a waistband or darts at the front -- there's only a line of stitching that gives the suggestion of a waistband, but is more likely just to tack down the facing on the inside. With that in mind, I used OOP Simplicity 4099 as my base pattern, which I won in Leah of Struggle Sews a Straight Seam's giveaway last summer. It has very similar features (no front dart or waistband, wide leg), minus the side buttons, but I figured it would be easy enough to make that part up. 

To make the side-button placket, I cut two placketish-looking pieces, finished the edges, and sewed one to each side of the left side opening. On the front pants piece, I pressed the placket under and topstitched it down, then put in five buttonholes. On the back pants piece, I left the placket piece flopping out towards the front, understitched it, tacked on a piece of twill tape to act as a button stand (I recently read this blog post about button stands in historical tailoring, and it made so much sense that I elected to jury-rig one for these pants. It works marvelously and I don't have to worry about my fabric distorting or ripping, and the closure feels deliciously secure), then added my five lovely nautical buttons. I am seriously in love with how this closure looks, plus it puzzled Mr. Cation because he couldn't figure out how the pants came off.

Yaaaay I look eleven feet tall!

Summary: 

Fabric: 2 yards of 60" wide, suiting-weight orange wool-blend twill, part of my stashbusting pledge pile. The lady who was cutting it for me at F&S said it had some polyester in it, and it certainly presses that way, and I suspect it's got a bit of Lycra in it as well, since it's slightly stretchy. While the original Anthro pants are a linen-tencel blend, I opted not to use a similar fabric because 1) reviews said that it got really wrinkly, and 2) who am I kidding, I didn't want to go out and buy new fabric. Hopefully the polyester means that these won't get too wrinkly!

Notions: 5 brass anchor buttons from Fabrix in SF, lots of seam binding, thrifted twill tape and 2" hem facing 

Techniques used: My first time trying hem weights, thanks to the tip on Erica B's blog post! Seriously, best twenty cents I've ever spent...my pants looked ridiculous and horrible and I was ready to cry about all my wasted time, but then I tried adding in those four nickels and seriously guys, it was like magic. Suddenly everything was hanging a lot better, and these pants were saved from the UFO pile. If your wide leg swingy pants aren't hanging right, TRY IT. 

Hours: Eight or so over this past weekend...because right after making and sending off a corset, I felt the need to start (and miraculously, finish) an untried pattern. 

Will you make it again? Probably not. I don't think I need any more wide-leg trousers, although these are awfully comfy and swooshily fun in a way that I thought only skirts and dresses could be. I credit the hem weights for adding a certain gravitas when I stalk about purposefully.

Total cost: You're not going to believe this -- less than $4!!! I got the fabric for $1/yard when F&S was cleaning out old inventory, and the buttons were $0.10 each. Add in some seam binding and of course, my four nickels, and I've saved myself $94 off the original price of the Anthro pants. Sewing FTW!!

Final thoughts: When I first walked out of the sewing room to show my husband, he was speechless. I was already afraid that I looked like some negligent prison escapee who'd forgotten to change pants, but then he pronounced them interesting, and that the cut/style was fine, but the color was a little shocking. Finally we decided that I looked like a very stylish member of the Rogue Squadron. I do like them, though, resemblance to various jumpsuits aside, and even though the fit isn't perfect, I'm glad I gave it a try! I still need to work up the courage to wear them out for more than just pictures, though.

See, if I just stand normally, the back is all wrinkly. Not any worse than my RTW work pants, but still...it feels more egregious when it's orange. Also, I opted not to include welt pockets because let's face it, I'm still not mentally ready yet.

That's okay, though, because I'll just stand like this all the time. 

I think these actually look pretty similar to 1930s trousers, so these could *almost* be a HSF entry too...I mean, check out these pictures:

Wide legs: check! Side buttons: check! No front darts or waistband: check! Darts on the back with no pockets, check!  [source]

Oh hey, these are even orange! [source]

Pretty similar, right? I do find it interesting that the historical versions both end at about ankle-length, which I feel looks pretty weird. I hemmed these to just skim the ground, reasoning that my legs look longer that way. Since most of my height is from my long torso, I feel like the length of the pants + the high waist helps visually even out my proportions a bit. 

On that note, it's time to close out Vibrant Color month in the Stashbusting Sewalong! I vowed to use the brightest fabric in my stash this month, and I did...what about you? Let's see your brightly-colored makes from April -- just add your link to the party below. 

Also, in case you forgot, April was also a challenge month, which means that we'll be voting for our favorite project, and the lucky winner gets a small surprise in the mail! You've got until the end of the week to add your project, and then voting will start on Saturday, May 4, and end on Tuesday, May 7. 

Because I Needed A Break

After all the corset-making intensity of the last week, I needed a relatively quick, non-stressful project that wouldn't involve taxing my arms anymore. I still managed to prick myself a bit with the felting needle, but it's still much better than accidentally stabbing yourself with an awl.

Dawwww, look at that face!

He's rolling around on his back, hoping for a belly rub!

His big secret: that patch of white on his back is actually rabbit fur, from my friend Cindy's adorable bunny June!

There's not much to say about this addition to the felted cat hair family; it's still the same techniques, and of course, obligatory posing with the original!

Walnut cautiously inspects the new guy.

Poor neutered Walnut with the only progeny he will ever have. 

Some people will be pleased to know that there is no longer enough hair in the stash for another felted cat. Of course, Walnut is always shedding more...

Oh what, I have to interrupt my morning lounging in the sun to take more pictures with this guy?

Fine, let's get this over with. Is this pose similar enough for you?

I can destroy you with one paw, tiny doppelganger. Come on and fight me if you dare!