Robe à la Française - the hat + final result

Previous:Robe a la francaise - dress

So, last post was all about the dress but while I made the dress, I also made myself an tricorn hat. I found really nice hat off the internet:

http://www.victorianhatter.com/page-2-tricorn-hats/
 & etsy store

 But I was not very eager of spending again so much money on the costume that already had required so much money. So I thought.. I will try myself to make hat similar like that. It is not going to be easy and I have no idea how to do it but let's try.

I ordered myself really cheap (I think it was 5-10$) pirate hat thing from ebay and then started to work on it. I used the same green cordon as I used on the dress on the sides of the hat. To stitch it into the place was many hours of work and my poor fingers.. they hurt so much as it required so much strength to push the needle trough the hat (the hat was made of stronger material than expected). Anyway, I had the ribbon at place after a lot of work. 

Then I went to fabric shop and got some smaller feathers. I found nice green ones that fit well with the dress and stitched them into the place. Then the next trouble was the veil at the back. I wanted green one but the shop only had few horrible tones. I got one that I thought was most similar to the dress but it looked so weird when it was done:

Veil added to the hat.

Then my trouble where the rivets on the hat. I tried to find fancier one but couldn't. In the end, like two days before leaving to the larp, I was hopeless but I came to the idea.. I used silver things used for jewelry making and clued them over the usual rivets.

Looks much better, doesn't it?

So, I also got myself black veil for the back and one really nice black veil for the front. I also got two big black feathers that I actually sewed to the hat after I had flown to Sweden (not that going to the larp with this hat has my hand luggage was also quite fun.. I just had that mysterious plastic bag that I hold so lightly as it was fragile and I was afraid of hurting the weathers).

Anyway.. I proved myself that with some time consuming work, I can make random ugly hat into really nice hat.

So, as I said.. I wore the dress on larp but sadly I have none of the pictures taken of me. This year, I wore the dress second time in a masquerade and from that time I do have photos.

 So, the dress, the hat.. :)

Robe à la Française - the dress

Previous:Robe a la francaise - petticoat&panier

Making this dress was a new kind of challenge for me. First of all - the amount of fabric I cut out. So, as I had that great simplicity pattern, I was quite confident that I will follow the instructions and it cannot go wrong. I was wrong - sadly I found the instructions to be hard to understand and they seemed to skip steps that were important. 

I started with making the bodice part. For the lining inside I used again that really strong linen I have. The trick for me was to deal with the rivets and applying them. I had never done that before (or.. more precisely, I have never succeeded on applying them) but I did managed it after getting myself a different kind of applier (the one where you put the rivet and fabric between some kind of plastic thing and hit it with the hammer). The only problem was that in order to get the rivets applied, I had to apply a lot of force and it hurt the plastic applier and rivets started to move inside it. Therefore, i had to get a new one before this project was done.

Anyway, the bodice. It also contained the most interesting part of the dress: draping. The pattern had it's own guide but it felt not draped enough. Also, I put much more fabric into the draping part than the pattern suggested. I sewed together two widths of the fabric (so, in the end, the width of drapes should be 3 meters) and used much nicer guide I found online. That method gave me really nice result. (even thought I spent hours on the floor, trying to pin it..)

But having so many layers of the fabric over itself was hard for the sewing machine. I broke one needle I think and then poor machine needed to go to repair shop (and I borrowed my mom's machine meanwhile to finish) as it started to make horrible sounds :S

Also, I got some weird mismatch with the pattern at this point. The part of the dress coming over the shoulder and connecting front and back did not fit and I was totally confused. I did some hocus-bocus and made it fit but it hurt me later.

I actually think that draping part was the hardest on technical side. Rest was just sewing really long lines.

bodice on the mannequin

So, next part was the skirt part of the dress. The hardest part of this was making the jags at the top to fit. I do not think it came out perfect and I had to take into account that I made the dress narrower than the pattern. Anyway, I managed to attach the skirt part and make the front stitch (even thought something weird was still going on there with extra fabric that I did not understand why it was there)

Dress is starting to look like dress :D (and the hat makes a first appearance, more of it later)

And the back..

So, next step were the sleeves and when after finishing the bodice, process was fast, the sleeves hurt me. First, I tried to follow the pattern and make sleeves have two sides and gather it all together but it felt so stiff and really robust and the gathering did not looked nice (also, it was hell trying to sew it)

adding sleaves (and my necklace arrived.. it was little wrong color but it looks gorgeous)

Anyway, I realized this is not going to work and as I was running out of fabric, I had to unstitch the sleeves. A lot of work hours. I decided to take a break from the sleeves and work on the stomacher. I was running quite on the time, so I had no time to take huge embroidering project as I started to like the idea of using the same green fabric for stomacher and have silver embroilment (floral deco) on it. I tried to find stitching machine but apparently there was none among my acquaintances. I thought going to the shop where they offered embroilment service but it was so so expensive that I decided to drop the idea and make stomacher simply from the silver fabric I also used for the petticoat. It was more simple than I first thought but it was fine and I always have the idea that I will make the green embroiled one later (one year later, it hadn't happened).

Stomacher took many long hours, adding silver atlas ribbon at the sides, having strong linen at the back with glue fabric. And then I added huge black snaps (small ones, i was afraid, are not going to hold it) to hold the stomacher at place. That process took many tries as the mannequin (even if carefully calibrated) was not suitable for fitting those in place. So, it was adding one snap at the time, making one side fit and then making the other side. I think it was two nights, watching tv and sewing snaps.

Stomacher is added

So, I was still trying to avoid the sleeves and I went to make the under-dress from really nice and thin linen fabric. I googeled about under-dressed of that time and decided to go with really simple method. It was supposed to be rectangle and then triangles at the side but I was lazy again and combined them together so I would have less stitching.

(oh no... horrible drawings again)

Under-dress being made

Also, I started to work more on the details on the dress. I found really nice ribbon from the shop that was almost has wide as the stitch at the front of the dress. I combined it with cordon ribbon I had planned to use before.

And I got some really nice lace for the underdress side of the sleeves.

So, making that ribbon and sewing the underdress - it all took me less than a day (it was one very successful Saturday)

So, results so far:

Underdress and corset alone

Panier and petticoat are added

Dress with ribbon and stomacher has got some frill-ribbon to make it little more sophisticated

So, then, it was back to the sleeves as everything else was mostly done.I did some googeling and found amazing blog about really fancy robe a la francaise and she had made brilliant looking sleeves:

http://starlightmasquerade.com/taupe-robe-a-la-francaise-sleeves-done/

So, I decided to go with something similar. I sadly did not had any better way to work the hard egdes of the fabric rather than introduce fabric to some heat (candle) - I tried using small zic-zac from sewing machine but it looked horrible. It made the fabric (yup, reminding me that most of the fabrics we wear are plastic) melt nicely and made sure there is not going to be spliting. 

 This time it worked much better. I did the gathering manually (instead of using machine like on my first try) and made it worked. And that actually was it. I sadly have no pictures of the finished dress before the larp (nor actually from the larp - except big group photo where the dress can hardly be seen).

And I am actually glad I had so much time to make the dress. I was able to work on it with normal schedule and I finished just before leaving to the larp. It took me 2.5 months but I still think it was all worth it.

(there is going to be another post.. about the hat)

Robe à la Française - Petticoat & panier

Previous:Robe a la francaise - corset

So, now when I was done with the corset, I started with the actual dress. The dress itself will contain many pieces and I went with the most easiest one at first - petticoat. I had nice silver fabric for that. The main question for me was how will I decorate the petticoat.  As the fabric itself had quite a lot of pattern, I decided to go with just a frill at the bottom. As most of the petticoat is going to be hidden under the dress, I only made the frill at the front part of the petticoat.

Making the petticoat was quite easy. The petticoat contained two rectangular pieces. Both sides had been gathered and lined. For wearing the petticoat,it has ribbons that could be used to knot the petticoat around the waist. In order to have the side pockets (that became out to be brilliant to put hide things under the dress with a little bag) hold together, I used hooks on both sides to force it to be closer.

(sorry for not my so great drawings)

Petticoat is ready (without pannier)

 Then, the next step for myself was making the panier. I did not had pattern for it but just followed instructions from this great site: http://www.marquise.de/en/1700/howto/frauen/paniers.shtml The difference was that I decided to make not a long panier but quite short and modified the suggested pattern in a way that i could cut it out from two pieces of fabric. I used really strong linen and strong metallic corset supports (they were quite expensive but I knew that in order to hold that weight that the dress is going to be, I need something strong.

So, first I sewed two pieces of panier together and then I used satin ribbon to make tunnels where I pushed in the metallic corset supports. My mistake was that I did not thought that the metal is going to push itself out of the satin ribbon and I tried to fix it by adding extra pieces at the end of the tunnels from even stronger fabric and it helped a little but it is not perfect solution.

Using ribbons at the bottom to make the panier be in the right shape

To hold the panier in the right shape, I added four ribbons (atlas ribbon again) at the bottom of the pannier that could be used to knot together and therefore force the panier into the required shape. Also, there are ribbons at the top that are used to knot the panier around the waist.

In the end, I must say, panier was much more trouble than I expected and metal was hard to work and tunnels took long to make. I am not happy with my result as it contains some sloppy sewing but my excuse was - it is going to be under the dress: noone is going to see it.

Panier under the petticoat.

When I had finished with panier and tried petticoat under it, I realized that the petticoat was wider than my panier (and even thought I felt myself so wide when I tried panier on myself and had to go trough doors sideways). So, I took the pleads at the sides together more, almost 1/3 I would say as the original pattern seems to be for so much wider skirt.

Fixed petticoat with panier

Robe à la Française - corset

Previous:Robe a la francaise - planning

So, the first step was working with the corset. I have never made anything like corset before. So, I was little daunted by the prospect. Anyway, after some research I found Isis' Wardrobe blog where she had linked a pattern for 18th century corset

http://isiswardrobe.blogspot.com/2011/05/red-stays.html

It looked like something I was looking for.. It also did not scared hell out of me.. so I used the trick I learned from art class - using squares to magnify the image. First I was doing the squares by hand but then I remembered I could use excel to print myself right size squares (I had to figure out how much I actually need to magnify those patterns). 

Making squares, by hand, at first - printing was so much easier

The square method works the following way:

• I make small squares on the original image, so that it would be easier to copy details
• I make sheets with larger squares (depending how much I want to magnify the original image)
• I copy, by hand, those squares, one by one into the larger sheets.. and voila :D

Anyway, this is how I got myself the pattern for the corset. I did it twice - first time I did magnify little too much. Second time, I got it right. I tried my newly made pattern on the mannequin and I was actually surprised it fit that well.

Even thought it fit quite all right, I decided to make a quick mock-up to really see where I need to adjust the pattern. I used some really cheap fabric and it is horribly lousy but the mock up:

After the mock up, I saw that there were some adjustments to be made (mostly at the front where I am smaller than the pattern) and I modified my cut-out patterns. Then, I went for my really nice lining fabric to cut put the pieces. It looks silver, soft and nice. The only problem - my usual marking tools did not worked on the light fabric and pencil did not made any marks either.. so, I used gel pen that was way too strong and left marks that were visible on the other side - I had to pay a lot of attention to sew it together without mistakes. For the lining, of the corset, I used quite strong linen.

First step was to sew everything together so that the corset would be one piece:

Corset lining sewed together and

For the boning, I bought 17 meters (:S) of really light plastic boning. It has fine zones and it is not as width as my pattern assumed.. so that became tricky later. Anyway, it was cheap and in the end, it did the work perfectly. 

corset main fabric and those really ugly black gel pen lines :S

Anyway, when I had both sides made, I sewed the corset together, sewed the lines that have to fit and started to insert the boning (I left the top part open). I started with those small things at the bottom and it was actually great to see when the corset started to take a shape. Then, I submitted boning to the edges and submitted rivets. I had never done that before and that was tricky. I managed to get some kind of set from the fabric shop where you have to use plastic thing where you put the rivet and then hit it with the hammer. I was first scared about the strength I had to put behind the hammer but otherwise the rivets just well out. Then, after like 10 rivets, the plastic thing started to wear out that made later rivets more out of shape as I had to hit them more and harder. In the end, it did not looked too bad.

So, the boning. As it was plastic, it was not a problem for me to sew over it. I must say, I am not even sure what method I used. I first thought I made a tunnel for the boning and then pushed it into but on the other hand - I know I am horrible at sewing straight lines, so I think I probably put the boning there and tried to sew the tunnel while the bone was set.. I know in some places I sew over the boning.. Anyway. It took a lot of work and patience but the result was worth it.

Almost done. I ran out of boning and needed to get some meters more

When I had done with the boning, I worked at the top side. It was a lot of work by hand. Also, I used silver tape on all sides to make sure that the boning would not "eat" trough the fabric. it seemed sufficient enough. 

The mistake I did with the top side was that when I made the tunnels for the bones, I sew it almost to the top side.. Now, when I wanted to turn the two fabrics together to make it look nice, I had to undo  5 cm or so everywhere at the top, finish the top side and then sew, again, those boning tunnels so that it would be finished. Part of not thinking ahead.

Then, I wanted to put a bias tape at the side of the corset for effect- I had nice silver bias tape and then i got few meters of silver atlas tape for the back. Hours small handwork to take the bias tape and then some tricky sewing with the machine and done:

front

back

So, it took me around 3 weeks to make the corset, from the patterns to final piece. And I did put huge hours to it. It was hard and tricky but unexpectedly pleasant. I would have never thought myself that I would make a corset myself and that it was not that hard. lot of patience and work but nothing I could not do. And it feels brilliant when I wear it :D

Older project: Robe à la Française - planning

So, last year I did a project what was the most complex and the lengthiest thing I have ever done. I signed up for international larp in sweden and because Nordic larp has much higher costume standards than the ones I am used to, I wanted to make really nice and in some level historically accurate dress. The time period was 18th century (they had specific year that I cannot remember it anymore). So, after doing some searching of what kind of dresses were worn on that time, I found some fascinating pictures of Robe à la Française. I like that "cape" like thing at the back so I was sold even thought it looked so complicated. Why not. On that moment I had around 3 months till the event.

First thing that I decided was that I will need pattern for the dress. I would have improvised but I wasn't sure about the bodice nor the sleeves (I always think that I could improvise everything else, expect sleeves).

After googeling around, I found that Simplicity had amazing pattern (3637) that had right kind of dress.

So, I knew what kind of pattern I wanted but getting it was hard as it was out of print and not too many copies were around. In the end, I managed to find one from french ebay and I paid for it much more than I planned but I was fixed on the idea of getting this pattern - I had tried few simplicity patterns before and they were not that simple but it felt good to follow instructions.. And this whole project scared hell out of me anyway. Making that kind of dress.. :S What was I thinking (I actually even considered buying one dress from etsy at first but then.. I started to feel sorry for my money.. to spoilt it: I think I spent almost the same amount of money in the end for all the parts and pieces of this project + huge number of hours but it was worth it).

It was also sure for me at the beginning that it is not only going to be dress. There is going to be underdress, corset, panier etc..

First I planned to buy the panier as it sounded quite complicated to make myself and I wasn't sure I could get anything that would be suitable to make it. In the end, as the cost quite a lot, I decided to deal with it in the end. If nothing else works, the plan was to get myself the "usual" panier that wedding dresses have and use ribbons to force it to be in the (almost) right shape.

So, I knew I will be making four different pieces for the project but I had no idea what design the dress will have. What colors, what materials etc.. I ended up making a sketch for myself to get the concept of the char..

So.. that was the original idea. Black and red combination was crossed out by my mother who told that on those time no proper lady wore red so.. in the end.. I decided I will go to the fabric shop and see what I can get.

I ended up with a velvet like green fabric that looked to be more light but I needed to buy a lot of it. I think the pattern's envelope said I needed around 20 meters of 115 cm fabric. That sounded way too much for me. The fabric I got was 145 cm wide and I only got 10 meters of it. I actually planned to have more draps at the back than the pattern had (the drapping of the dress was the most magical part for me that made me wish to make it.. and when I looked the pattern and some projects other people had made, I thought no.. I want more.. and i found online tutorial that had more draps and used it.. in the end, I think, I decided I will have as many draps as much fabric I will have left). Anyway.. 10 meters was enough and I had two full lengths for drapping and for one set of unsuccessful sleeve cuffs. (and even if the fabric felt more light than real velvet, 10 meters of it is really heavy).

I also got really nice light white linen for the underdress. For the peticoat I got fancy silver/grey curtain fabric with nice little flower ornaments. That was actually great find. So the dress was changed from red/black to silver/green. Interesting choice as I would have never thought about it before but that was the best I could come up.

• corset 
• petticoat&panier 
• dress
• hat + final result
  

First post

So, let's make few things sure first. No, I am not huge anime fan. To be honest, I had really bad assumption about animes but that has changed a little. I like sewing. I like making nice costumes and wearing them. I am seasoned larper and that used to be my reason and excuse why spend sometimes hours behind sewing machine. To be honest, when I started larping, I was horrible at sewing. It was the need for make my own costumes that made me try and like with everything else, you learn while you do. So, I learned and I think now I feel myself quite at home in the sewing world (except button holes.. they trouble me).

Anyway, my boyfriend is huge anime fan and is actually in organizing theme for local largest anime festival and I think there came the idea that mm.. if I am going to that convention, maybe I could do a cosplay (and hide that I do not belong in that world). That gave me the push to go on and try something new.. trying to copy something from animation and transform myself into anime char. I have no idea what comes out of it.. Let's see.

Anyway.. I decided to go with Irisviel from Fate/Zero (mm.. maybe because there are only very few animes I have seen and somehow I liked her, quite a lot to be honest.) Then there were few options for different outfits but I liked the casual one with red blouse the most. Also, when googeling around, it did not looked that too many people had tried it. The one with white coat seemed to be the most popular one.

So, the first thing I did was ordering myself few things I cannot do myself: that includes wig and boots.

As I have no idea how things are done in cosplay world (and I actually did not told at first to my boyfriend that I am going to do it), I just went with my own gut - searched for the wig in ebay and got myself cheap wig from China. To be honest, it looks awful currently but then I googled for few tips and I think I might be able to salvage it.

The other thing I ordered were the boots. I found quite many online shops offering those fancy looking boots but one actually looked great on the picture and they took into account all your measurements (I was worried that might be the problem.. I never find boots easily).

So, I was actually really excited when the boots arrived. They look gorgeous and fit super well... but.. I have no idea how but they had very weird black spot on them. I contacted the seller, tried to remove them but nothing helped. So, they promised to make a new pair of boots for me. Okei.. that should work.. Another month of waiting and new pair of boots arrive - one boot is brilliant - no marks. The other one - even more uglier black spots.. Like what? Anyway.. I gave up. The quality and the fit was brilliant but I think it was the packaging that hurt and even if I mentioned it specifically that I suspected the marks came from that, they packaged the boots the same way second time.. So.. I have two sets of boots and only one boot that is okey.. I will see what I can do with it, later..

Next thing I need is the brooch. That was actually I think the hardest thing. I googled around (again) and there was somebody selling those brooches made out of clay. I thought that might be little too heavy and I most say I did not liked the images they showed me of the same broach made previously.. So, I thought about some other options. One of my friends studies leather work and I asked her if she is willing to do that commission for me. So far, so good.

So, my next step was to come up with a design so that she could work on it. Some screenshotting from the anime and some time working with photoshop (maybe not the best tool for it but I'm very handy with that program) and I had design, measurments and did some mock printups to see if the size is correct.

Mock printups.. First one had too small sides. Second one looks perfect

Final design

So, I sent the final design to my friend and I will see what she says - I hope it will be possible for her to make that kind of brooch.