Selene... my nemesis... completed!

Halloween came a little early to our house this year and yes, I got the Mermaid costume finished, I was (finally) Selene for an evening.  

Reading back to my first thoughts on this year's project, all buzzing with inspiration and optimism, I honestly don't know whether to laugh or cry; I had such great plans and hopes and have found it, instead, to be deeply frustrating.  Giving up and starting again was exactly the right thing to have done, the wonderful Mrs B is a wise woman indeed!  It was a therapeutic and very satisfying experience and one that I found that I didn't want to blog about.  The majority of the dress is handstitched, curled up on the sofa with the boyf and the dogs, remembering, as I went along, little details about how I made the first dress and reminiscing about those first early days of falling in love with the Jedi.  It became a private process that I felt no desire to document.

That said, now that it's all done, I'm more happy to share the results and finish off Selene, once and for all! Starting off with my favourite picture of the evening, taken by Mrs S.  Blurry I know, but I love it.  It's us.

So, to start, my lovely little Starfish and Seashell tiara.  This was the second attempt as the mutts ate the first and I mean ate... demolished, destroyed.  It was touch and go as to whether I took them to the vets; happily, starfish, it seems, are not poisonous to dogs, nor bits of shell and silver plated wire... Even more happily, I had spares of everything and time in which to quickly wire them all back onto the headband.  It was a huge improvement on the bouncing silver stars I sported in 2006!

And then the dress itself.  A boned, empire line bodice attached to a gathered skirt, in the dark grey/blue sateen.  The bodice was of my own design (I may post the pattern later) and the skirt was based on the fantail skirt from the Victoria costume.  I shortened it to the point at the back of the knees where it is gathered and cut the front into a slightly deeper "V" that dropped from knee 3-4 inches.  Each panel of sateen was matched with a 1/2 as big again panel of a very soft net tulle which was gathered, stitched on and then treated as one piece.  In this way I was able to create the deep drapes and ruches without losing too much structure.  The bodice was attached to the skirt and the netting handstitched to it, first along the neckline and then gathered, vertically, along each seam of the bodice and stitched in place.  A zip was then handstitched in at the back.  The bodice is a far improved version of the original and inspired by a 50's prom dress that I have.  The front panel naturally fell into an attractive drape and so I left it as was.  The bottom, fishtail, of the skirt was a double layer of a pale blue chiffon under a iridescent, stiffer, dress net.  This was just over twice the width of the skirt hem, gathered and stitched in place.  The back half of the skirt was gathered at the back as per the fantail skirt pattern.

Green ceramic beads and silver and orange seed beads were stitched across the top of the bodice and at various points on the dress, with individual shells added in places and a rosette at the knee of sari fabric ribbon and a shell "corsage".  Again, a huge improvement on silver stars!

So that's it, before and after.  An although I have replaced my Jedi for a Vampire...

...it all worked out in the end ;o)

Fabric for the Space Mermaid costume

I found Aladdin's Cave yesterday; a shop in a little village about 30 minutes away from me that stocks the best selection of sewing and crafting goods that I have seen in years... it will be dangerous, it's already dangerous, I don't have enough hours in the day for the ideas that it's given me!

As it was, I found a great selection of fabrics for the skirt of my mermaid costume, plus embroidery flosses, beads, pre-drilled decorative shells and the most amazing recycled, ribboned sari, that I just couldn't resist.  I've matched the skirt to the wig colour (far left).

The replacement foot for my sewing still has not arrived but I am working on the patterns for the pannier hips and skirt.  I feel like I'm finally over the hump on this project and actually have an idea of where it is going!

Sunday Sardines...

I've had insomnia for a couple of weeks now, it doesn't go well with close stitching corset insides.  It's frustrating but I'd only be unpicking so I decided to change tack.

Mollie Makes arrived this month with a Sardine key fob kit and it got me thinking.  Our bathroom light pull was pretty dull, dull, drab.  The cord had lost its end twice (I'm sure there's a little innuendo in there somewhere) and the knot to stop it fraying didn't do much for me either.  It had "needs improvement" written all over it.

See?

Nothing a small grey, spotted, Sardine couldn't fix!  It was all pretty self-explanatory and, with only one Sardine to make, a very quick little project.  I used my favourite string (finger knit though I could have plaited it too) to make a new pull and, in a moment of very lazy pedanticness, finger painted the cord holder to disguise the rather nasty plastic "bronze" finish. The final touch was to add a lovely wooden pull that I bought for the old cord and never used.  It reminds me of a fishing basket.

I could add a couple more, a line of Sardines... but we'll see how One-Eyed Fred gets on first.

Four days in stitches...

It started Friday...

God only knows where I'm going with this... that and the ever growing library of "oh I like that" pictures.  I have that many now, I could start a Pinterest board ;o)

Saturday:

Bottom edge binding and spiral bone sewn in.

Toying with more ideas...

Sunday:

It was definitely the right choice to get new eyelets.

and Monday:

It's been a very busy few days.  The 12yo was swimming in her Club Champs at various times from Friday night through to Sunday, there was a huge pile of logs to get stored away (more of that here), the usual housework to be caught up on and... and, we had to make the most of the sunshine and get a BBQ and some volunteer dog-walking (otherwise known as "auditioning for no.3!") in between :o)  There was time for sewing of an evening, but no photos and blogging.  The original, in hindsight rather ambitious, plan was to have the whole corset done; as it was, I was lucky to have got just the one side finished.  The hip shape is now exactly what I had hoped for and the inside looks far better than I thought it might! Now for the other side and then I can actually try this thing on... and I'm counting on that giving me a few more clues as to where to go next.

"Lining" the Corset, Pannier Hips and long Blue Wigs

My bits arrived from Vena Cava so I can push on with the corset again.  I'm really in the mood for a little handsewing of an evening so I've been looking forward to lining the corset seams with bias binding.  I'm trimming each seam to 3-4mm and then slip stitching the binding in place.  

Before, during and after.

It's a lovely clean finish, so clean in fact that when I proudly showed my two the results of my work, they didn't know what they should be looking at!  I also have my new eyelets and the spiral bones for the hips; it's all a little exciting.

I've also been a-googling and became very interested in pannier hips, particularly their reappearance in the 1920s which, until then, I had known nothing about.  I had started off on the Mermaid tail trail but the more I looked the less I liked.  Well, with the exception of this Steampunk costume which is kinda cool!

But, going back to my original costume, there wasn't a hint of Mermaid tail and the more I thought about making one, the more I felt like I don't want to turn this one into something so different.

I prefer hint 'o Mermaid and I like the idea of recreating my rather pitiful attempt all those years ago with my new and improved skills!  So, a little googling more, and I found this, this and this:

Lots of gorgeous pannier hips, Mermaid hips and everything.  To add to the general madness, I then found these.  Yep, can't go wrong with a little Miss Gomez!  It's the fringed skirt I love, it makes me think of seaweed.

I'm not sure how it all goes together yet but I'm already far more comfortable with it than I was the tail idea.  It sticks with my vintage vibe, includes trying something new and is far more "me" than any Mermaid tail would have been.

I've never been so confused by a costume before... there's a lot to be said for following a pattern!  It feels a whole lot messy most of the time, but I am also enjoying the randomness of it all; it's been giving me idea after idea, after idea.  It also prompted a rare moment of pre-planning and I ordered a wig.

Usually I'm so tied up in the costume that it comes to Halloween itself and I look blankly at my head and wonder what to do with it!  Last year's hairpiece was a very lucky last minute find.  Mermaid's, however, need Mermaid hair and I want no repeats of the shocking green nonsense I was so proud of on my first attempt.  I found a blue-grey wig quite by accident on Ebay and bought it before I could talk myself out of it.

Excusing the bags under my eyes and the rather goofy grin, I think I look good with a blue rinse ;o)  Now I need a big plastic crab or shell or something... every Mermaid needs a hairpiece!

Embroidering the 1873 Corset

In between other bits and pieces, and whilst I wait on my delivery of bones, bias and eyelets (the ones I had were too dark and so I have ordered silver ones to match the spoon buck), I decided to try some embroidery on the corset.  I chose the fan and cross designs, varying them to include a leaf stitch.  I have a number of embroidery threads in shades of grey, green and blue and and splitting them to make mixed colourways that match the various shades of the fabric.  

I've concentrated on the gussets and smaller bones in the front panels to start with.  The photos are taken with a flash to better show off the stitching.

In the meantime, I am doing some serious research on the bottom half of this outfit; it has become the thing I think about last thing at night and first thing in the morning.  I need to have a plan.

The 1873 Corset - inserting the spoon busk and finishing the second half

Saturday morning I mused about the possibility of new garden furniture and the lovely boyf booked a round of golf in for the afternoon (instead of Sunday).  Consequently, just as I was dropping him off, the heavens opened and I retreated home to sew: the second half of the corset was calling...

 

I rather love it when you done something once, the second half just flows.  The only possibly tricky bit was the other side of the spoon busk (easing the buttons though the fabric) but, thanks to the flexibility of the linen I'm using, that went without a hitch.  In fact, thanks to the timestamps on my photos, I know it took 9 minutes from the first photo to the last!  In contrast, on my first corset, made with cotton, the same process took nearly forty minutes.

 

The first step is to stitch and press the new fabric panel and then line it up with the first side of the busk.  Make sure that the seam edges fit neatly and snugly together and then mark the placement of each button.

 

One busk + one matching fabric panel, stitched and pressed

To make the button holes you need an awl and a sharp pencil.  The trick it to carefully separate the threads of the fabric and then create a hole that is big enough to ease the button through, but will not tear the fabric.  If the fabric remains intact it will remain strong and secure; tears will need to be repaired otherwise they gradually will weaken further as the corset is worn.  To make the hole first ease the awl in and gently wiggle it, to part the fabrics, until you have a hole the size of the base of the awl.

One small awl hole...

and one larger pencil hole.

One hole made and the trick is to then gently ease the button through.  The linen made it easy as it is so flexible but it is still so important to take your time and care with this stage as the hole will not be quite big enough and any forcing will cause the fabric to tear.  Once the button is through, gently push the threads back together, around its base, with the awl.
 

Et voila!  Five perfect button insertions, and a gratuitous glimpse of my gorgeous new slippers ;o)

 

And we have a corset...

 

 

  



We're getting there, slowly. There's still plenty to do: eyelets (I was too punch drunk to risk them on Saturday, they need a steadier mind and hand!), finishing the seams, hems (including the boning on the bottom ones), the emboidery and any decoration, but for now I shall just enjoy it being in one piece... and have a proper think about how the rest of this mermaid is now going to take shape.