Civil Era Dress - at "Hell on Wheels"

So, my flight was without problems and I managed not to forget to take the last hook with me. So, I ended up in Prague. I found the right spot where another 70+ people with cowboy hats and huge bags waited a bus and we took our ride in the middle of the Czech Republic to "Stonetown". It is actual Wild West village build by a man who actually lives in a house in the "Stonetown". He rents the place out for different types of events, like a LARP I was participating in.

So, I think, in the end, with the organizers and NPC there were around 100 people, all in amazing costumes. There were people all around Europe, maybe even from further.

Anyway, few very good shots about my costume were taken:

Photographer: Tomas Flankey Felcman as EXPit thru lens

Main shot of me in front of the company building. The costume looks stunning, I think :)

photographer: Erik Pihl

Another shot, showing the back of the dress. I do not have my hairstyle yet, so it is probably early in the morning.

This one was taken with my camera and you can see the hooks nicely here. You would not believe they were originally red.

Photographer: Tomas Flankey Felcman as EXPit thru lens

This is one of my favorite shots from the game. It was amazing action scene and very emotional scene for my character and this photo caught it all so well.

And some more great shots from the larp:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To sum up, I can say it was amazing LARP. I would play it again, in a heartbeat. I got many compliments for my costume and I was very happy with it. It was maybe little too warm during the midday when sun was out (on the first day) but it was all rainy and misty rest of the event so it was perfect - some point I had to even wear a cloak to keep myself warm.

So, another project very successfully done :)

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Civil war era dress - trouble with the jacket

So, a while ago I wrote the trouble I had with the jacket. I wanted to have that kind of bottom extra length but as I did not had the pattern, I tried to make it by myself. I managed it but I was never fully happy with it.

 

After finishing the skirt and trying it all with the pannier and petticoat, I realized that I had not considered the way skirt is expanding and the sides of the jacket (over the skirt) were looking very weird.

So, I decided to scrap the whole idea and just make similar ruffle at the bottom of the jacket as I had at the bottom of the skirt and use another line of black ribbon above it. This worked much better and looked neat:

 For closing the jacket, I used lot of snap fasteners. I think there were more than 20 of them but it made the jacket close really nice. In the end, I actually sew few fabric made hooks at the top so that it would look like the hooks are actually used for closing the jacket.

The hooks I got from fabric shop were redish but not the same tone as the ruffles and they did not matched. Therefore - I had to make them more purple. I got purple silk paint that was in right tone and then I just soaked the hooks on it. It was all in the very last minute and it took a day to try. The paint said that to make the paint stick, I had to iron it but the hooks also had plastic pearls on it, so I actually couldn't iron it very much as they started to melt.

Anyway.. I ruined one hook and had to color another one. So the night before leaving for the larp, I had four hooks on the jacket, the last one was drying and I hoped I will not forget it to take it with me early in the morning when the plain goes.

Anyway.. Time had ran out. "Hell on Wheels" started tomorrow and my dress was mostly done. Yay :D

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Civil War area dress 1

At the end of last year I signed up for western style larp taking place in Czech republic. I was reallye xcited when I got my casting as I got to play high society lady and that meant I could do one of those fancy dress projects. The story takes place 1866 so I decided I will go with the civil war area dress as it should be almost fine. 

The LARP was inspired by TV series "Hell on Wheels" so my first source of costume ideas was from the tv series. I really loved Lily Bell on the show and would have loved to play her but its fine. Playing char (who to my knowledge has not been in the show) gave me more freedom to choose my costume. 

The costumes from the TV series were all very practical and quite simple. I do understand that as they were living in that wild west. So, I did not get any specific good ideas from shows screencaps.

I started with gathering some general idea of the dresses and fashion of the area. I first thought that I do not like those dresses or.. I loved ball gowns but for that kind of out door event I needed something more casual. I did a lot of sketching and I think I finally fell for the era's fashion when I saw photos of Ada's dresses from movie "Cold Mountain". I particularly fell in love with the following:

So that was my starting point. I loved the ornaments at the sides and I really wanted to add them.

Then I started to look for a pattern. At that moment I did not know that simplicity has almost perfect pattern (4900) for that costume and the pattern I found was 4510:

So, I did some sketching to figure out what exactly do I want. I went to the fabric shop with following sketches:

So, I decided to use the pattern I got and add the bottom part of the jacket myself. I tried different options for skirt but decided to go with layers of ruffles. I also decided not to make it as a dress but more like separate parts: jacket and skirt. As I had no idea what kind of weather awaits me at the start of May, I might have needed to add layers below the costume or I was worried it may be too hot to wear and I might want to remove the jacket and wear simple blouse under it.

I actually spent a lot of time finding suitable fabric. I went to different fabric shops and returned empty handed. I wanted something that wouldn't be very thin and would be strong. I wasn't sure about the color either. I love bordeux red but I was worried that on that time it would be more suitable for "other kind of ladies". The shot on the pattern was done using purple fabric. My boyfriend tried to suggest me dark blue. I was still amazed by that amazing green fabric I found for my robe ala francais dress. I was torn until I walked to that amazing purple fabric with amazing pattern and texture on the clearance sale. 70% off. Wow. It was very expensive fabric still but I thought it is perfect.

Fabrics used in the project

 The pattern also stated that i needed contrast fabric (I went with the black lining fabric I have used before) and organza for the sleeves. I managed to find amazing piece of organza with gorgeous embroidery that I used for the sleeves and decorative layer on the collar.

So, after the research I figured out I need the following pieces:

• Jacket
• Skirt
• Blouse with organza sleeves (pattern had the sleeves as stand alone but I wanted them to be connected to a blouse I could wear without the jacket)
• Underskirt
• Bonnet
• Corset
• Pannier

With the corset and the pannier I took the easy way out: I had that kind of cheap "made in China" wedding pannier on my costume stack. Actually, it was good choice as I needed to travel on plane and other girls were having horrible time managing to make their pannier fit into their luggage. With my "wedding pannier" I was able to wrap it around itself three times and fit it without troubles. I ordered a cheap white corset and first I planned to change the overall fabric on it as on the image it looked to be really reflective horrible white material. In the end, it came out, it was really nice and matte so I used it the way it was.
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