Friday, November 28, 2014

White Witch chainmail skirt progress

I haven't posted on this in a long while! I honestly didn't expect it to take me more than a year to do, and when it did it turned into a long-term project I only picked up in the winter and work breaks. This is my version of Jadis, the White Witch from the Chronicles of Narnia.


The skirt is comprised of the fabric and chain base belt, 5 rectangular panels, and 5 rectangular gores, and I just finished gore 3 out of 5... 2 more to go! It now weighs 6lbs even.




Thursday, November 13, 2014

Regency corset, Draft #1

I had not had the best track record with corsets thus far since most books don't tell you HOW to fit for different figures, and modern-day dress forms aren't made for the task of patterning them. My first attempt at a Regency corset was an obvious failure. I made this one back in college when I first started drafting my own patterns.

                                                                    OLD VERSION
The busk just sat over everything making a big 'board' shape, and the bust gores weren't right at all.







Now that I know more about what I'm doing and researched more, I decided to go with some short stays instead of the full sized ones. I used some advice from The Oregon Regency Society which is fantastic, but I'm STILL not sure if this is fitting right or how to fix it.

This is what I have:

  

I made this out of cotton drill, which did not come in white so it is flatlined with white cotton, and also a white cotton lining layer. It has two bust gores now (that perhaps need to move closer to center?) I put steel boning on either side of the eyelets and cording under and to the side of the bust. I tried adding padding, but that just pushes the cups further away from me, and I can't figure out what needs to be adjusted to fix this issue. This is the original chemise I made in college, and I might need to make it a drawstring chemise instead. Does anyone have any advice for me on the fit of this? Sorry about the poor lighting and pics!

On the plus side, I dyed my Highbury Regency slippers from American Duchess today and made some cute bows to go with them!