Of Sam's Sari Maxi Dress 2... finished!!

For those of you who read this blog post a while ago, i'm proud to announce that this dress was recently completed! :-) Sam seems happy with the result, so here are some brief finished shots:

It needed ironing, but it fitted! Hoping that there will be some shots of her wearing it for her birthday party coming soon! :-)

Of Sam's Sari Maxi Dress...

It's been one of those bits 'n' bobs days again.
Today was a pattern fitting with my friend Sam for her sari maxi dress, which i'm making for her birthday. In essence it's quite a simple concept, but being a perfectionist i wanted it to fit her well...

This is my typical first or second sketch, filled with crammed measurements - i'll add a neater sketch, worthy of a portfolio, later. 

Below, the fabric for the main body of her dress (the same as my 1950's dress). All the fabric for her dress is from the same sari, just different segments of it. The half of her body pattern shows off her lovely hourglass-style curves to full effect (ignore the fluorescent man making cunning plots)!

The bust has proven slightly trickier - rather than just a primitive triangular shape, Sam wanted a halter neck style. So i've sat and shaped it to avoid any funny gapes. Fortunately she's almost the exact same size as me, so i could use my own dresses to help shape it.

Above, the fabric for the bust and the pattern for the bust. The creases at the bottom are the result of experimentation of where i should make tucks. I'm not showing the reverse of this pattern, which Sam pointed out to me features the crotches of hunky rugby players... I don't observe these kind of things when i'm trying to make someone else's figure look good lol! It's been promised as a souvenir for her wall... ;-D

Above is the fabric for a triangular insert into the back of her dress. She wants the dress to fit everywhere else, so this piece is vital for allowing her to walk in it. It will start at the base of her hip level and flair out to the bottom.

The whole dress will be lined with pale pink cotton lawn because the stitching on the back of the sari is so fragile. The danger is that the threads will catch and the back of the fabric is rather see-through and scratchy, so it will be soft and protective, yet light.

Next is to get the lining and use it to get the basic shape, do another fitting on her, then cut the sari. This sari frays too easily, so i'm leaving cutting it until the last minute! :-)

Of odds, ends and the first Sari dress...

Dissertation has been finally handed in. Final term of my BA degree underway. For the first time in weeks, the Squiggle has been able to sit down and do odds and ends of costume and other people's bits. Whoopee!

Bits included my armourer's new green doublet to match my wool gown for Tewkesbury, starting to cut out a friend's doll clothes pattern, sewing the hem of my armourer's gown and making a start on my summer dress...

The Summer Sari Dress

In the last couple of years i've spent hours trying on baggy dresses in high street shops - i have a few favourites for ones that actually fit, but they cost anywhere between £30-50, and even then they're not always top quality. This year, i've had enough. I can buy a pretty sari with anything up to five or six metres of fabric for as little as £15-£30, so the theory is that if i can make up to three items per sari, it's only costing me £5-10 roughly each (excluding lining, threads, buttons, zips, etc). Even with lining, it's still possible to make cheaper, yet much better fitted clothing for myself. Expecting to make my own Wedding dress to cut costs in a year or two, it will be an excellent exercise in practising making dress patterns through trial and error. 

The main inspiration has been the returning fashion of the 1950's - i love those dresses; the way they fit in the bodice and cut across the chest, then flair out from the waist down, often with netted petticoats. On the other hand, i have a strange love for the vibrant colours and textures of Asia. Coming from a family with history of living in India (with the suitcase of photos to show for it) and having a handful of Pakistani friends at school, i guess it's always been intriguing. Indian saris are becoming one of my favourite things to collect - they can be reused as something else or worn as they were intended. They're graceful and elegant. Wondering how i was going to use some of the saris i have to create a modern dress, i found this:
1950's black and gold printed cotton dress

It's beautiful! The neckline cut is straight across the back too, however i've chosen to have a slight 'V' instead, so the back panels have changed a lot. The front neckline however was the main inspiration, and the way it is clear that a sari was used to create this. 

I have a pink and blue sari with lovely bits of sequin embroidered round some of the edges. When cut, the fabric frays quite alarmingly, so I have had to work very quickly with it to halt disintegration:

The bodice of the dress - to be lined and have straps added, so the armholes won't actually be this small! :-)

It's a very rushed photograph and the fabric needs ironing, but hopefully it should give you the gist. The seams up to the bust are closer together on purpose since i'm quite a petite frame. It looks odd flat, but once it's against me it looks ok. I've hand sewn this first dress, simply for the control factor and the uncertainty of how such fraying fabric would be affected by a machine.

A closeup of the fabric:

The embroidery on the pink edge has had to be knotted wherever it was accidentally cut so as not to lose any embellishments. Hence only using the pink for the front of the dress. Still love it though!

Next is the lining, which is a must for this dress to protect the embroidery threads on the back and to dispel some of the fabric's transparency. (As advised by my lovely friend Licy) I have had enough soft pink cotton left over from my armourer's dress lining  to use for this project's bodice, which will suffice.  

I've not even thought about the lining of the skirt yet.... though i've a feeling it'll have to be pretty radical for those rogue gusts of wind... ;-)

Of the late 15th century Armourer's wife... 4

It's been a long long long time since i last posted... at least, it feels like it! Dissertation has had to take priority, but sewing a little in the evenings has kept my sanity. FINALLY i've got the green sleeves sewn and altered to fit on my green overdress, so i've got some piccies here:

I've tried to make them not so tight that i can't fit my lined underdress sleeves through. On the subject of underdress, already, the weight of the skirt has taken its toll on the close jump rings fastening the sides... I fear I may have to remove them and add braid/more material to strengthen the sides. before reattaching the rings, so that they don't rip the fabric! I may add some strips of red linen behind the openings, to avoid a draught... brrrr....

Next on the overdress is the hem; although i'm running a vague stitch through the seams of the lining and outer wool so that this is a lot easier! The dress as a whole requires ironing, something i've still failed thus far to do, so it must be done soon... mwahahahah!

Of the late 15th century Armourer's wife... 2

Part 2

So to recap, the dress on the right is the dress that first inspired me:

I loved the colours of green and pale pink, and i have enough gold brocade for the under sleeves... the fiancé is hoping to make it an appropriate belt. I have a ready-made pale pink head linen wrap from a traders fayre to match, so looking forward to the comfiness of that this summer...

So this is my upper body nearing completion. (Please excuse its state of crumpledness, it does need an iron). The pink lining is somewhat more transparent than anticipated as it is almost like a lawn, but it feels so soft! The green wool was bought from Bernie the Bolt, and is an absolute dream to work with, such gorgeous weight! Pins are still in place down the sides until i sew them, but for the most part it is finished. Still deciding if i should further decorate the dress....

Front:

Back:

The skirt is more than a full circle of fabric - the lining is all cut out and sewn together,though the outside green is just cut out and needs putting together. Hopefully this'll be done in the next few days. The short outer sleeves will be attached when the skirt is complete....

Of the tortoise and the hare...

Yup, as per Squiggle usual, I'm up writing at an ever-so-student and insane hour. The time is 01:41am, the place is my cluttered room, littered with the haunts and shadows of an incomplete and uninspired degree dissertation. To those of my current course, this will be familiar and almost comforting to read! ;-)


Q. So what does a Squiggle do, when all energy has run its course and the once tearing stride of a hare grinds to a halt? When the well of academic ingenuity dries up? A. The Squiggle realises that perhaps the mistake was to be a hare in the first place. Secondly the Squiggle tries and fails to imitate a tortoise and simply ends up staring blankly at a screen for half an hour. In a third attempt, the Squiggle tries to return to something different that usually produces satisfying and confidence boosting results....


.... and so within minutes the Squiggle can be seen heaving her fifty year old sewing machine onto her desk and the room rapidly evolves into a swirling soup of red linen and pins! Yes, this was the moment for the meditative creation of a 15th century dress. I learnt the hard way over six years that to hare through a dress is not ideal if you still want to love the result two years later. So the two tortoise p's; patience and precision! With a lack of suitable costume fitting that of a medieval armourer's wife (to be able to do re-enactments with the fiancé), I relished the opportunity to breach the gap between the simple Medieval patterns I have known for ages and the more tailored, Tudor styles that we are accustomed to today. Tailoring clothes to fit the female form was a growing feature in the fifteenth century, particularly in the later half - in fact just starting with a pre-tudor underdress has been a revelation experience in itself! It does not conform to casually quartering the measurements of garments; there are front panels, straps and side panels, not to mention the back panels! In fact it is more a test of mathematics and mental judgement than anything else which makes a vast contrast. We have more physical and artistic evidence for the construction of such garments, so thus i have less room to make guesses or self-inventions. Which leads me onto the subject that many women ponder:


Corsets. When did they start? How were they made, and why? In so far as we can tell, there was no use for them until clothes begin to fit in the fourteenth century onwards, though this is assumed, for we have no remaining evidence. And why should we? If they were purely functional, there should be no reason why they would last until today.
Be it a means of correcting posture, hiding a gluttonous diet or disguising the bodily dis-figuration from bearing so many children, there is little doubt that there must have been an origin to the advantageous Tudor 'bodiced look'. Some have suggested that strips of cloth may have bound stomachs, others have considered the use of whale bone, reeds and willow among other forms of support. In discussion with other costume enthusiasts, we have debated the use of feather or fish glue as a stiffener. This is not as ridiculous as it may appear; some Ancient Greek re-enactors have tried and tested fish glue to set layers of linen in order to form their body armour - and it works! However in attempting to re-create my own Medieval to Tudor transition garments, it has become apparent that it must have something to do with the placing of seams. A greater number of component segments results in many vertical seams, of which there are many seam edges with a chance of fraying. In providing enough material for future alteration and being able to 'double over' the edges at the back, they automatically produce a combined strength and stiff quality to the fabric, as well as ensuring that the garment lasts whole. Inside such seam folds, one might be able to insert an extra rod of some description. This is just a personal theory, and the general consensus seems to be that it most likely started as a whole dress with some minimal stiffening around the upper body, which went from there. I'm always trying to test the boundaries on this topic, so watch this space for many more crazy theories!


Thanks to Caroline for the following image of Maria Portinari, see how her dress has odd angles at the hips and the bodice of the girl behind her has a shape that only something stiff would achieve:

Because I have no wench-like bosom, any further support in my bodices risks only flattening myself further, so i shall settle this time for thick, flat seams. My current underdress has used about five-six metres of linen, for though it has a fitted top, the skirt is extremely full (photos to follow!) It already bears great weight, so it's becoming increasingly tricky to imagine the weight once i have a similar pink-linen-lined, green wool overdress on, with equal quantities of fabric! The neckline is Tudor square to suit the turn of the century, but it will have no hooped skirt, being based on some paintings from the time.


I considered hand sewing the entire thing, which i did for the bodice, but now the weighty Singer sewing machine is a true blessing.... Squiggle would have gone truly nuts without it! :-D