I've sewed, too

I finished part of the blouse part of my sister's dancing costume (which, it turned out, she really wanted to be the tunic part of a salwar kameez, for increased universality, so that's what it became); but I don't have photographic evidence, which is waiting for when it's all finished. I still have to make the vest part to fulfill my birthday gift promise to her, but since she left the tunic in Brno and I cannot muslin over it now, it will happen later.

The "photographic evidence" part will be a bit impaired now, because Autumn means rain and clouds and dark comes early, and that means less photographing opportunities - it's nearly impossible to take good photographs in our house, even more so when it's cloudy and dark outside, and impossible to take photographs outside when it's raining, so the only place left is the flat in Brno.

Now, I'm remaking RTW - in the completely-rip-apart-and-sew-into-something-else sense: a 75% wool - 25% nylon skirt that I got for 10 CZK in a thrift shop and wore only once because it soon became too tight for me. Re-sewing it into a (modern-day) spencer, which does not exactly go with the spirit of the challenge; it's frosting in Marmotaland. (And of course it's grande-assietted.) But since Marmota's idea of frosting is a bit closer to someone else's idea of cake, I don't feel too ashamed about it; I'm using up stash, too. I'll probably have to piece like mad in some places to squeeze it out of the fabric I have (the main reason why it's frosting and not cake: a spencer and not a full-blown jacket). But it's still a very lucky project, which will hopefully hold until it's finished.

Lucky as in, I got wonderful mostly wool fabric for the very, very ridiculous price of 10 CZK, lining plus spare invisible zipper included, and already have the perfect buttons in my stash (and should already have violet buttonhole silk, too, though I cannot locate it right now).

Lucky as in, rather flu-dazed Marmota pieced without thinking and still managed to match the plaid.

Lucky as in, this fabric is an absolute delight to sew with, and makes me wonder what an even greater delight it would be to sew with a 100% wool fabric of a similar kind.

Grande ASSIETTE in modern designer wear

First, let me apologise for using the wrong word in the term until now. I'm going to correct it retroactively. Apparently, aissette means adze. That's not what we're talking about here. Sorry. I really don't speak any French and my linguistic common sense did not steer me in the right way here.

So this is grande ASSIETTE.

It's one of the main reasons why I'm talking about it now that all of you want to see more of Tallinn... right? If you don't like having the series interrupted, you can always just click on the "The Baltics 2011" label and see only them. Otherwise, I'm going to assume that if you visit a blog designated "dress diaries", you like seeing dresses. :-)


Second, I'm not featuring designer clothes prominently. Other people and their blogs are shaped out for doing exactly that; I'm not. Not too long ago, I didn't know many designers. Almost none. Now that I'm part of the online sewing community, I know of more designers than I ever thought possible, but I'm still not following fashion; I think it's a waste of time. I'm just stumbling upon it every now and then.

But when I see a designer's work very obviously and out-spokenly inspired by historical fashions, and not by their extremes (many designers do that, it seems), but rather by their subtle beauty, I cannot stay quiet.
That designer in question is Thierry Colson. I don't know much about him (just what I've discovered yesterday while browsing his site), and I do not desire to buy his clothes - if nothing else, a lot of them are too indecent for my liking (so if you don't like that, proceed to his site with caution). But the construction... ah, that's pure joy!

In particular, the Antoinette dress. That's just... wow. Everything I love about Regency turned into a modern dress.

Skirt gathered/pleated in the back? Check. Bodice shorter in the back, with a cute and statuesque curve? Check. Grande assiette? CHECK.

Grecian influences: Check.

Fun fabrics: Check.

All photos except the last one come from Thierry Colson's website. The last one is from Al Ostoura.com, an Arab site that sells designer clothing. Their zoom is priceless for a poking hobby seamstress.

This really must be the best reinterpretation of Regency I've seen so far. True to the original, yet making it work in today's setting. That's what I would love to do myself.

It's giveaway time at Sense & Sensibility

Jennie Chancey of Sense & Sensibility is giving away interesting books... this time it's a book about the dresses of Grace Kelly by V&A museum.

She asks that we write a blog post about our favourite pattern from her collection for a chance to win it. So this is the post, and also a post to make you aware of the giveaways if you are not. The prizes are great!

So: My favourite pattern - one I don't own - is the Elegant Lady's Closet pattern. Do I have to explain why? I guess I do: Regency! Different necklines! Grande aissettes assiettes (or at least an indication thereof)! Aww.

(For new readers who don't know my obsession with grande aissettes and have no idea what I'm talking about: look at the way the sleeves are set in in the back. The big armholes. I think the correct term for that is grande aissette.)


P.S. I won the book. I feel unreal. I promise I'll share (as far as that is possible with copyrights, you know).

I second-guessed myself, and now I've got Medieval Sleeve Nr. 5

It's simpler. It might eat up more fabric, which is not even sure. But it's simple. Therefore, I'm going to use it on the final silk version. I'm still not sure what I'm using on the blue workdress, where I'm limited by fabric width (100 cm).

This is the pattern layout, the way it's going to be cut out of a 24 x 40 cm rectangle of fabric.



In reality, the two smaller pieces will be on the other side of the big one. The weird polygon goes to the bottom, situated the same way it is on the layout. The triangular gusset goes into the space between the other two, flipped upside down.

The main purpose of Nr. 5 - outside of being simpler - is this:

I thought, hey, this thing is almost grande-aissetted, what if I use this as a base for my Regency dress as well, and save myself some of the mocking-up trouble for that dress?
So I united all the three pieces of Nr. 3b-Something, and got Nr. 4, which was very, very fine, but not entirely.
So I played around it a bit more, used the back gusset again, and thus arrived to Nr. 5. Where I end. Now for real. If I go on, it will be to Regency Sleeve Nr. 1.

Progress, and old new fabric (1)

Still working on the chemise. It still seems the French seaming will work.

I decided against lining the Regency dress. Instead, I'll wear a bodiced petticoat underneath if necessary. I feel that a lined dress would be a bother to wear in summer, and that would defy the point in using Indian cotton (= saree). Which I do not want to defy.

Also, I wanted to get rid of some fabric (particularly, a friend wanted to get rid of some fabric) and helped organise a collection of fabric for charity.
I should have known better. I ended up taking some of the fabric home, and of course there was much more of it than I got rid of.
The moral of the story: When you have the sewing bug, it's no use trying to get rid of fabric. Your stash always multiplies.
The good thing is, I got rid of fabric I wasn't likely to use, and brought home fabric I'm more likely to use, colour-wise and type-wise. Except for a Very Pink Poplin of a "What was I thinking?" kind. (I actually know what I was thinking. It's just that what I was thinking doesn't explain what I'm going to do with the whole length of it.)

It started with this lovely flowered seersucker (supposing it's still called seersucker when it's flowered):



Which begged me to become another incarnation of my Andrea Blouse pattern.

And I went downhill from there. You know how that goes, don't you?



Yellow plainweave cotton, destined to become something in our kitchen.



Thick orange cotton canvas, destined to become a shoulder bag, if I can figure that out.



A square piece of lovely vintage-y print which will, hopefully, with some careful planning become a summer skirt.



A pretty yellow sweatshirting which I wanted to turn into a clone of my favourite hoodie, except that it has less body to it and is more... um... it pulls more, if that makes sense.
I also have some blue-grey sweatshirting and some dark blue, but there's just that amount of solid colour sweatshirting you could bear to see, I think. Those blue ones are "firmer" than the yellow one, so perhaps I'll use one of those for the hoodie clone in the end.



Beige corduroy. A disclaimer: I do not answer for my behaviour around beige corduroy. It equals someone else's behaviour around, say, Prada shoes. I do not care for Prada shoes one bit. I do care for beige corduroy. A lot.



The Very Pink Poplin Of Doom. The thing I was thinking was that this would make lovely piping for the flowered seersucker Andrea. Except that after that is done I'll still be left with about 2 metres of Very Pink Poplin.
If I were a bold-statement-kind-of-person, I'd sew a Very Pink Duster out of it and call it ironic. But my irony is usually much more subtle (like, I have an idea of making a polka-dotted babydoll-y dress in Regency style, grande-aissettes and all - see my point?), so that would not work for me. Not to mention that a proper duster of OUATITW type would probably require more fabric.
So, until next post, I'm left with a Very Pink Poplin Of Doom. The next post will feature some real treasures, to defeat the Doom of the Very Pink Poplin.

Green Saree Regency - the plan 1

After having fallen in love with the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice (which was after having fallen in love with the book), my sister asked me to sew her a regency dress.
I decided to sew a regency dress for myself, too.
I browsed the internet for so long that I really don't remember anymore in which order I found out about the things I found out about. The result was - the best fabric to use, from what we could easily get, would be a cotton saree. Period.
Our source was this Czech shop:
http://www.sari.cz/
My sister bought the sarees. I made her warm knitted socks in exchange for it.
She also bought the Sense and Sensibility pattern. Her dress is going to be just like that.
Mine is not. I always have to complicate things for myself...

You see, I'm not happy about the back of that dress. And not particularly happy about the shape of the neckline either. I want a slight boatneck neckline. Don't ask me why.
And as for the back, I fell in love with this style in the Metropolitan Museum.


See the interesting way the sleeves are set in? It's something called "grande aissette" or "assiette". (I don't speak French, but from what I could gather, it'd probably rather be "aissette". I think.) (EDIT: It's assiette) It dates back to medieval times, and it's strongly connected to the times of custom-fitted clothing. No wonder. I'm quite sure this project will involve a lot of custom-fitting. That's going to be fun and take a lot of time. Guaranteed.
Of course, with me wanting a boatneck neckline, the back pieces can't be so narrow, can they? Still, I love this straight-sleeved, grande-aissetted style much more than the puffed sleeves normally associated with Regency.
I also love the neat hand-sewing on that dress in the Met, and the colour. I can try at the handsewing, the colour maybe next time... because this is what I've got to work with now:



This was my first idea of what it's going to look like when it's finished - notice I forgot all about the boatneck:



"Háčky + očka?" means I contemplate closing it with hooks & eyes. I'm not keen on buttons, especially not buttons on the back of my dress. On the other hand, I'm not sure if hooks and eyes are any better in terms of ease of closing. Any other ideas? (Still, they're surely better in terms of comfort when sitting and resting my back on the backrest of a chair.)
"Šňůrka" means cord.

Here's my second, more refined draft, including the boatneck this time:



I'm completely happy with the way the back looks on this concept. I'm still not so happy about the front. It might be just my concept-drafting skills, or it might be something inherent to the design. What do you think? Should I drop the boatneck idea in the end? (Please, say "no"...) Or is there something wrong with the way the front is gathered? I think it's the case, but, for one, I don't think I'd like a plainer look, with all that business in the back.

There's more to be said about the plans and ideas I have for this, but I'll leave that for next time.