White

The current Historical Sew Fortnightly challenge is the first colour challenge: white.

Although I’ve been busy with other challenges (and even the odd bit of, whisper it, non-HSF sewing) recently, I haven’t totally neglected my 1920s beaded dress. This challenge gave me an opportunity to try out a few ideas, and make an accessory to go with the dress.

Having outlined all the painted flower motifs for the skirt, the next job was to decide on the outline beading for the gold-painted sections.

I took the first of my attempts at the front neckline motif (the one with the paint marks in the ‘white’ sections) and outlined it with beading; half in light gold, and half in mid gold.

Half and half

Then I fiddled a bit on the computer to create a complete motif in each colour.

Two 'complete' motifs

The mid gold beading is definitely too dark; it overwhelms the painted motif. So light gold it is.

The gold panels will be outlined with beading, and then applied onto the dress. As a trial run for this, I decided to make a bandeau to match the dress.

1920s hats were worn very low on the head, like this.

Headdresses or scarves, paired with evening or dance dresses, were worn in a similar fashion.

So a narrow scarf, with a painted and beaded motif in the centre would a) be period-appropriate, b) allow me to use the discarded scary monster motif (the other way up is not-at-all-scary), and c) be good practise for applying the motifs to dress.

Unfortunately I have long-ish hair, which isn’t very 1920s, and the Princess Leia look is not really what I had in mind.

Erm, no

Fortunately for me, American Duchess has collected lots of fabulous pictures of 1920s bandeau-wearers with curled hair piled up.

Much better

All of these images are on her fabulous 1920s inspiration Pinterest board; you can find it here. In fact, all of her inspiration Pinterest boards are well worth a look; click here for the full set.

The bandeau itself is very simple, just a length of leftover satin from the dress, with a narrow hem. The motif was cut out with approx 6mm/¼” seam allowance around each side and clipped around the curves, the bottom was left longer. I then tacked the motif onto the centre of the scarf. On the first side, I turned the raw edge under and slip-stitched the motif into place with one action. The second side I did in two stages. First I turned the raw edge under, and secured it in place with tiny stitches hidden under the inner (gold) side of the beading. Then I slip-stitched the motif onto the scarf with more tiny stitches hidden under the outer (ivory) side of the beading. Obviously this was more work, but I felt that it gave a better result, and it’s the method I shall use on the dress.

I didn't turn the edge under all the way around the motif. At the bottom I just extended the appliqué, and folded the straight edge of the fabric over the hem of the scarf.

The appliqué extended to the bottom edge

Coaxing/cajoling/forcing my hair into curls was a lot more hard work than the sewing, as it’s something I don’t do very often. As the bandeau on its own isn’t a lot to look at, I wore my assuit shawl (which started the whole Egyptian-inspired, 1920s, beaded dress idea off) with it for the photographs.

The Small Print:

The Challenge: White

Fabric: Ivory satin crepe left over from my 1920s dance dress

Pattern: None, it’s just a rectangle

Year: 1920s

Notions: size 11 light gold seed beads, also from my 1920s dance dress supplies

How historically accurate is it? Very, it’s all hand sewn and beaded, and the style was common in the 1920s

Hours to complete: Probably about 5, the satin was very resistant to being folded into a narrow hem!

First worn: This afternoon, to take photos

Total cost: A big fat £0.00 as I had all the bits already, even a pre-painted motif

More decisions

Now that I've finished outlining the flowers on the skirt panels, I've got to make a decision about the rest of the beading. The panels themselves are to be outlined with a row of beads. This is partly to finish them off visually, partly to add a bit more weight so that they hang well, and partly to provide cover for the hem around each panel.

Originally I was going to outline the panels with the same seed beads as I used for the flower 'stalks'. These are a darker gold colour and slightly larger than the beads I used to outline the flowers; size ten rather than size eleven. However now I'm a bit worried that they might overwhelm the beading on the flowers.

So, I laid a string of each set of beads around the motifs, following the line marked for the beading, and took some photographs. Do I prefer this, or this?

This, or this?

And this, or this?

It doesn't show too well in the photographs, but I'm wondering if the mid gold makes the whole thing look a bit too brassy. There again, possibly the light gold looks a bit too feeble.

To add a further level of decision-making/angsty-confusion, there are also the hip and neckline panels to be outlined. Laying a string of beads neatly onto these for effect was impossible, so I just arranged them loosely around the outline.

The hip panels

The mid gold seems to overwhelm the painted design a bit.

The neckline panel

In an attempt to add some context to the decision, I tried to lay the hip and neckline pieces over the actual dress.

Rough layout of the dress

I'm not sure that this helped much, as the heavy horizontal lines just called to mind this 1925 Paquin dress in the Victorian and Albert museum.

© Victorian and Albert Museum, London

So many permutations to consider! Still, there is no need to make a decision just yet. I've got a busy few weeks coming up, and I'll be away from home for some of that time. I won't be able to do much sewing, certainly not beading at my big embroidery frame. However I do have a couple of failed attempts at the original, smaller neckline motif going spare, and these fit into a small (and very portable) embroidery hoop. So I may do what I often do in this situation, and work a sample.

How to bead a lotus flower

This fortnight’s Historical Sew Fortnightly challenge is Flora and Fauna, and as I have almost finished outlining the lotus flowers on the skirt panels with couched beading, it seems a good time to post about how I did it.

The beading is done with size 11 seed beads. For the fringing I strung the beads onto proper beading thread, but these beads are going to be couched down, and the thread is not required to take much weight or movement, so I used ordinary sewing thread in a gold colour similar to the beads. The couching thread is ivory, the same as the fabric.

The two panels I am currently working on are on a single piece of fabric. This was put into a roller frame and stretched taut. I didn't lace the sides because the fabric has a crossways stretch, and I didn't want to distort it.

The most fiddly part of the beading is starting and ending, so it is best to do as little of this as possible. I worked out that with a little doubling back it was possible to outline a motif with a single pre-strung length of beads. The diagram below shows the order of working the couching; apologies for the wobbly lines!

The length of the beaded thread needs to be at least as long as the total lengths of 1-15 in the diagram, plus a long tail at each end. The ivory thread is the same length as the gold thread.

Begin by taking one end of the gold thread through to the wrong side of the fabric, at the start of length one. Start a little way away from the green area, to leave room for the row of beads which will outline it. Knot the gold and ivory threads together with a long tail, and pull this back through to the right side of the fabric, away from the sewing line. As I’m working on satin, I pulled it though somewhere which would be covered by later beading, so that there were no marks on the fabric.

This photograph shows the wrong side of the motif, with the tails of gold and ivory thread pulled through to the right side at the top of the green, and the ivory thread ready to come through to the right side.

Pull the gold thread taut, and slide enough beads down it to fill the space up to the ivory thread. Make a tiny stitch across the gold thread and back down to the wrong side.

Continue to do this up the side of the first petal. I found that it was best not to pull the ivory thread tight, as this caused gaps in the beading. Because the beading is in a straight line, the couching stitches can be quite widely spaced, every four or five beads.

To bead round the point of the petal, stitch the beads down just before the point.

Then couch down a short length of thread only, without beads, to the point of the petal.

Then continue to couch beads down the other side of the petal. Push the beads up to the start of this line of beading, to form the point.

The aim is to have the beading running in as smooth lines as possible. Therefore the red petal should have an uninterrupted row of beads along each side. To do this, couch down thread only from the end of the turquoise petal to the base of the red one. This is line three on the beading diagram, and is marked with a dashed line. Because this is a straight line, it only needs a couple of stitches to couch down the thread. Again, do not couch right down to the green leaves, leave a little room for beading line fourteen.

It is best to check the wrong side of the work occasionally, to make sure that the ivory thread has not got knotted up. This is also a good time to sew in the long tail at the start of the beading. Do this with a couple of tiny stitches in the direction of the beading; they will be covered on the right side by the beads.

Make the point as before, and continue down the red petal to the base.

This time, the thread-only couching is done from the base of the red petal up to the start of the turquoise one. Slant the needle in to sew the thread as far under the beads as possible.

Couch around the turquoise petal, and then start around the green leaves.

Depending on the quality of the beads (and how careful you were when you strung them) you may find the occasional misshapen bead in the string.

I preferred to remove them, as I found it impossible to hide the extra bump. There are two ways of doing this. Ideally, unstring the remaining beads, remove the offender and restring the others. The alternative method is to slide the other beads away from the misshapen one, and crush it with something.I used a small pair of pliers.

WARNING! Be very, very careful if you do this. Ideally, wear a pair of safety goggles. At the very least, wrap a towel or cloth around the bead to contain the fragments. When the bead breaks, bits of it will go everywhere, and you don't want a shard of glass in your eye.

Continue beading around the outline of the flower, to the end of line ten. Then couch the thread around the base (line eleven). Because this line is curved, the distance between the couching stitches is much smaller than for the straight lines. Then couch the beads over the thread line. Because of the tightness of the curve, the couching stitches are every two beads. On the even tighter curve of the base of the small motif below, the beads are couched singly.

Once the couching around the blue base is complete, take a small stitch to secure the gold thread right at the end of line ten. The idea is for the beading to look continuous around the outline. Then continue around the green leaves, with the last ivory couching stitch being just before the end of line fifteen.

Pull enough beds close to the end of the couching to fill the gap (in this case, two). Then cut the gold thread, leaving a long tail. Thread this through a beading needle, and then pass the needle through the first couple of beads of line nine.

When pulled taut, this should not show any join.

Pull the gold thread through to the back of the fabric, and secure it and the ivory thread with a couple of tiny stitches.

You now have a completed lotus flower.

Tools of the trade - a bead spinner

I first came across bead spinners in a belly dance costuming forum. Although few modern costumes have the extensive fringing that many people associate with the archetypal dance costume, there’s still a lot of beading involved, and it’s much easier to do using pre-strung beads than applying them one by one.

Belly dance hip belt with beading and fringing

I wasn’t entirely convinced by the description on the forum, but when I found one greatly reduced in my local craft shop’s sale I bought it anyway. It was certainly money well spent. I wouldn’t have been able to even contemplate the beaded dress project without it.

Bead spinner

You half-fill the dish on the top of the spinner with beads, turn the spindle to rotate the dish, and pick the beads up on a special needle with a curved end. I’m aware that’s a fairly feeble explanation, so here’s a much clearer video demonstration instead.

Different type of needle are available.

Needles for a bead spinner

The bottom one has a small eye at the end, like a normal needle, whereas the smaller one is a ‘big-eye’; most of the straight part it two narrow wires, joined together at each end. It’s just a case of experimenting and finding what works best for you.

Scary monsters, and yet more painting

A couple of weeks ago, I blithely mentioned in a post that I had finished all the fabric painting for the beaded dress. However I spoke too soon.

In “Patterns of Fashion”, Janet Arnold mentions that the original dress has a small label inside to distinguish the front from the back. Having made my orange dance dress from the same pattern, I can confirm that it is very hard to tell the difference. So I decided to simply things by adding an extra motif on the front of the dress at the neckline

I based this on part of the centre motif on the hip band, but turned round by a quarter.

Hip band, centre

While I was painting it, I knew that it reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite think what. Then it struck me; this ...

looks very like this ...

... but with horns!

I asked Mr Tulip for a second opinion; and he confirmed that once you’ve seen it, it’s very hard to un-see it. So, I needed a new design.

I didn’t want to introduce yet another motif, so used the design from the side of hip band instead. This shows what the side seam should look like when completed.

Hip band, side (mocked-up from photograph)

I tilted the side pieces up to make the motif slightly narrower, and to form a triangular shape.

The new neckline motif, not a monster in sight

There was a bit more painting to do. When I painted the hip band I had heavily outlined the design, and when washing the outliner out, this also removed some of the gold paint and the colour underneath. So, these areas needed a repaint. This was tricky as there was no longer any outliner to protect the design, so I had to use a fine brush with tiny amounts of paint. For the new motif I simplified things by painting the colour, then washing out outliner, and only then adding the gold.

In between all this painting, I have completed the beading on another two motifs, and I'm happy to report that they are wiggle-free. Progress!

A wiggle

The good news is that I have started work on the third and final set of the skirt panels. The bad news is that all is Not Well in beading-land.

This is what I got when I took the panel out of the frame. The line of darker gold beads on the right is fine, but the line on the left has a distinct wiggle in it.

One side smooth, one side wiggly

This hasn't happened with the other panel designs; they have turned out much like the line drawings.

The other motifs

My embroidery frame is large enough for me to bead two motifs at the same time. The other panel is smooth on the left but has a wiggle on the right, albeit not nearly so pronounced.

Same (smaller) problem, but other side

I think that I may have stretched the fabric too tightly when I was sewing or I bunched the beads too closely together. However it seems odd that it has only occurred on one side of each motif. The alternative is that the fabric was not stretched evenly in the frame.

I am going to work on the next pair very, very carefully, and see how they turn out. But whatever happens, a certain amount of unpicking and reworking will be needed on the first pair.

Sigh.

Improved Productivity Levels

Now that all the fabric painting has been done, the next stage is couching the beads round the various motifs. That’s a lot of hand sewing, and I could really do with something to listen to while I sew. It doesn’t have to be radio or CDs; I frequently treat television as ‘radio with pictures’, and just glance up from time to time. If I could find something which Mr Tulip could watch as well, that would be even better.

Happily for me, something which fits the bill exactly has just started.

When I first got together with Mr Tulip, I knew nothing about cricket (apart from the fact that England weren’t very good at it at that time). However it quickly became apparent that Test Match Special was going to play a big part in my life, so it made sense to at least understand what was going on. Almost 20 years later, I remain hazy about the precise details of leg before wicket, but have done an awful lot of sewing while listening to cricket commentary.

It’s some time before the first Test Match of the season, but the 2013 IPL (Indian Premier League) started on Wednesday. I certainly won’t watch/listen to all of the games, but 76 matches over 54 days equals a lot of potential sewing time.

And just to show what I’ll be doing, here’s a picture of the section I'm currently working on.

Before and after the beading

Beaded dress - progress report

What a difference a year makes! As well as 50 Fabulous Frocks, the Fashion Museum is still showing Glamour, the display of evening dresses which opened last year. Visiting it again, I was convinced that some of the exhibits had been changed, as I had absolutely no recollection of them. However going back to the photographs I took then confirmed that the dresses had always been there. Clearly different things just caught my eye a year ago.

The 'new' exhibits

Interestingly, both of the dresses in question were worn as wedding dresses, although neither of them is white. I’m not sure why this lemon yellow silk satin one didn’t register in my brain, as it is a similar style to the 1950s red cocktail dress which opened the exhibition, and which became one of the inspirations for my Vegas Night dress. I love the shape, the waist detail, and the way that the darts almost meet at the bust. There’s obviously all sorts of interesting detailing going on at the back, but sadly this was the closest I could get to seeing it.

1961 Nettie Vogue dress

Clearly 12 months ago 1920s beaded dresses just weren’t making an impression on me. That has certainly changed.

1926 wedding dress

The gold brocade fabric is beautiful; such a delicate design.

Brocade close-up

And the beading! I especially love the way the size of the pearls tapers down the fringe.

Beading and fringe

More was in store, as there was another 1920s beaded dress to drool over elsewhere in the museum. Sadly there wasn’t much information about this one.

Pink chiffon and silver beads, mid 1920s

It was good to see the detailing around the hips on the 1926 dress, as I want to do something similar on my 1920s beaded dress, but hadn’t found much evidence of such a design feature before. Then I found this sunny example in All The Pretty Dresses (and then spent far too much time drooling over the other pretties which Isabella has posted there).

Hip detail and handkerchief hem

But enough ‘research’, time to actually get on with some dressmaking! I had already decided that I wanted a band of gold-coloured pattern round the hips, and had come up with a design, again based on Egyptian tentmaker motifs.

Several versions of the hip band, the final one is at the bottom

Unlike the panels, this was to be the same colour throughout. The design is far too intricate to cut out from a different coloured fabric and attach as appliqué, so I needed to paint it instead. Not onto the dress directly, but onto a further piece of satin, which I would then attach along the outer edges. I then decided to also do a small motif to put on the dress front, at the neckline.

To paint the designs I needed to block out the areas of the satin which I wanted to remain ivory, and flood the remainder with thin paint. I also wanted to paint a large piece of the satin in the same colour, and use this for binding the neckline and armholes.

Outliner applied to hip bands top left, and extra motif bottom right. Plus plain fabric to paint

This didn’t go entirely smoothly. In some ways I found it far more difficult than painting the motifs on the panels, as I was trying to keep the colour as even as possible. It was important not to go over any areas twice, which would make the colour darker, or let any areas dry out and leave an obvious join to the next area painted. Even though I thought I had applied the outliner with a fairly generous hand, clearly it wasn’t enough, and the paint ran in some places.

Paint run - too big to be covered by beading

I hadn’t made enough of a barrier between the hip bands and the piece of fabric which I was painting for the binding, either. When I came to paint the latter, the colour ran into the former and left a tide mark. Fortunately this should be lost in the seam allowance when I join the two bands together.The solid colour for the binding isn't a uniform as it could be, either.

Two coats of paint at the ends of the hip bands

Worst of all was the extra motif I had designed for the neckline. I painted this first, and had a totally blank moment about how the outliner works. For some reason I thought it was like batik wax, and acted as a barrier on the fabric. In fact it only prevents the paint from spreading out, and if you paint straight over it, it doesn’t stop the paint from soaking into the fabric.The completed motif in the photograph below clearly shows that I worked from left to right, and realised my mistake too late.

Before and after paining

I spent a while pondering how this could be rescued, before deciding that the only thing for it was to start afresh. Fortunately a) I had some spare paint and b) I made my mistake on the small design, not the big one.

On the plus side, the first, botched motif did then give me a trial piece to play with. When I bought the Dylon paints for the dress panels, I also bought their gold paint, thinking that I might use it on my orange dress. However it turned out to be a very pale gold, which gave an almost pearlescent effect, so I instead I used some Deka gold paint which I had already. While the Dylon gold may be a bit feeble when used on its own (there is a sample at the top of the embroidery hoop in the photograph below), when painted over the yellow it gave a lovely, subtle, gilded effect.

All the painting complete

Unfortunately despite my best efforts this doesn't really capture the lustre, so you'll just have to take my word for it! But that, finally, is all the painting done.