Inspired by the Golden Era. Part 2 - the skirt and the belt

I've just realized how long it is since I posted part one. How time flies when you're busy sewing!

The skirt was made from the same fabric as the bra covering. While the thinness of the fabric had been a problem when covering the bra, for the skirt it was an advantage, as it draped beautifully.

I wanted to make the skirt in the two colours. I have done this with a circle skirt in the past, splitting the skirt into segments, but this time I chose to make what is essentially a straight black skirt, with six 1/6 circle white godets set in. This is a style of skirt I really like, as it provides the fullness of a circle skirt at the bottom (perfect for those Samia-like arabesques!) without the bulk at the top. The hem and the sides of the godet were trimmed with the silver braid which I had used on the black halter strap, and a sequin motif at the top of each godet finished the whole thing off.

The completed skirt

The hip belt provided the opportunity for some more Golden Era styling. Whereas modern hip belts tend to have a straight top, many of the costumes in the film clips I had studied had belts with a shaped top line, with the back higher than the front. Heavy fringing was not much in evidence on these belts either; a few strands of fringe or a looped decoration was much more common.

Samia Gamal and Tahia Carioca in Golden Era costumes

I had already decided to have the fasten at one side of the belt, with the join covered by the drape from the bra. The fabric used was a black stretch lace with silver decoration, backed with some of the plain black jersey I had used to cover the bra cup. The edges were trimmed with more of the diamante trim which I'd used on the bra.  The final touch was a looped decoration of silver grey pearls and crystal beads.

Side view of the completed belt

On the inside I added a couple of practical details; a loop of elastic through which I could thread the veil to ensure that it didn't come loose, and a single red sequin marking the centre front, to ensure that I could easily put the belt on in the correct position.

Skirt and belt together

A 'Tarantella' dress

As part of our preparation for This is Deva 2012, Meroe choreographed a new dance which included some ideas inspired by the tarantella. This needed a new costume, and initially we were thinking of having new dresses. Time and budget shortages meant that this didn't quite work out but it did remind me that I have always liked princess line dresses with a full skirt. I need some new summer dresses anyway, and have just the pattern .

Yes, in line with my plan for stash reduction, I am using a pattern which I already have, one which I've never used. In fact, I dread to imagine just how long I've had it; the shop whose name is stamped on the front closed in 2002!

My decade-old (at least) pattern

I want to make a few changes; namely remove the tie at the back, change to a back, zip opening, and alter the back neckline. The length will probably end up somewhere between the two options shown.

As I'm not buying a pattern, the rules allow me to buy some fabric. When I saw this in my local fabric shop I felt that it was just the light, fresh look I was after. 

Striped cotton with a fresh, summery feel

However having looked a the pattern pieces in more detail, I now realize that getting the stripe placement right is going to be tricky, and will take careful planning of the cutting layout. The stripes need to match on each seam, otherwise the whole thing will just look messy. While I have done this before, on the ghawazee coat costume for Ya Raqs, that was with a simpler stripe pattern, and a stiffer fabric.

Ghawazee coats at the British Museum

Before I take scissors to fabric however, I need a pattern which actually fits. And that is a whole other post.

Headdresses and Hades

It's been a busy few weeks. The Chester Roman Festival took place last weekend, and Ya Raqs were heavily involved on both days. As well as our usual rehearsals, I had plenty to do on the costume front.

Last year we added a new Nubian headdress to our costumes. This consisted of a long veil worn over the head, and held in place with red and black scarves twisted together. It  looked very effective, but there was a problem. It was tricky to put on, especially in our usual changing facilities of very little space and no decent mirrors.

Just how tricky became obvious when I saw the photographs of some of the girls at Liverpool Museum in March. To make matters worse, the whole thing was prone to slipping off mid-dance. Clearly something had to be done.

Headdress disaster on the steps of Liverpool Museum

I had already cheated a bit, by sewing the red and black fabric together into a single long scarf. Now I decided to take the same approach as I'd used for our Ghawazee headdresses, and attached the complete headdress onto a rigid hairband. First I sewed the veil onto the band. Then I cut the red and black scarf in half, attached one half on each side, twisted them over the top, and then sewed the twists in place. There was enough of the scarf loose at each end to tie under our hair and this, along with the teeth on the hairband, kept the whole thing secure.

Nubian headdresses fixed, plus two of the Ghawazee headdresses

This year's festival included live performances by Manike, and three of the girls performed the 'Dance of Hades' with the group. As time was short by this stage, the costume was made from a purchased top and skirt. The skirt was left untouched, but for the tops I had to remove the sleeves, remake the neckline, and add ribbon trim. Finally I made yet more headdresses, this time in suitable flame-like colours.

Hades dance costumes

1911 corset - p.s.

I just couldn't leave well alone. When I was editing the photographs of my 1911 corset, I noticed that one of the bones had moved up its boning channel, and was now sticking out at an ungainly angle. I could have just pushed it back into place but no, having noticed it, it had to be fixed properly.

The offending bone

I'm not sure why the sew-along suggested only flossing at the bottom of each bone. Corsets are normally flossed at both the top and bottom, as shown in this example, photographed on the Foundations Revealed visit to the Symington Collection last year.

1900 corset for sports wear, with machine flossing top and bottom, (c) Leicestershire County Council Museums Service; Symington Collection

I felt that flossing the tops of the bones in the same mixture of dark pink threads that I had used at the bottom would look too heavy so close to the trim, so instead I worked with the palest of the pinks, combined with several strands of white floss.

The completed top flossing

I also reversed the direction of the stitches, as I felt that this gave a more balanced effect.

Different directions, top and bottom

Finally, writing a second post about this project allows me to include a couple more photographs of the (now completely) finished item.

Back view

Inside view, showing the boning channels and waist stay

Reunited, and a museum visit

All in all, March was not a good month for me. Illness meant that I had to pull out of one of the few Ya Raqs events I can actually attend this season. I lost three generations-worth of family jewellery. And I broke my sewing machine.

Unfortunately there's nothing I can do about the first two. And for a while it looked as though there was nothing I could do about the last one, either. Various firms I spoke to told me that my machine was too old to repair, or simply not worth repairing. Several tried to sell me a new machine instead. As I don't need lots of fancy stitches, and my 1986(!) machine actually has a number of features which I use regularly but are now only available on more expensive modern models, I politely declined these offers.

Fortunately someone recommended Bambers, in Eccles, Manchester. Sure enough, they took one look at it, and assured me that they would be able to repair it. I collected it today, repaired and ready to use again, and am quite unreasonably happy.

On the way home, we took a detour through Liverpool to visit Sudley House. Sudley is probably one of the lesser-known Liverpool museums, being tucked away in a leafy suburb in the south of the city. However it is a little gem. Bought by George Holt, owner of a Liverpool shipping line, in 1883, it still contains his art collection, and exudes the air of a happy family home.

Some of the paintings have been removed for restoration, and temporarily replaced by others from the National Museums Liverpool collection. Happily for me, one of the replacements was this painting by Marie Spartali Stillman, which is one of my favourite Pre-Raphaelite paintings, but rarely on display.

Madonna Pietra della Scrovigni

The main reason for the visit however was to see the exhibition, "Costume Drama: Fashion from 1790 to 1850". This exhibition contains mostly women's clothing of the period, but also some items of men's and children's clothing. As well as silk day and evening dresses, the exhibition includes clothing worn by less affluent members of society; a day dress from 1837-39 belonging to a member of a local farming family, and a countryman's fustian and cotton corduroy suit, dated 1830-40.

My favourite part of the exhibition was a set of four, "dresses worn by affluent ladies". After my gripe about the Glamour exhibition in Bath, I was thrilled to see that these were displayed in a way which allowed you to look at them in detail, front and back.

silk dresses; evening dress 1800-1810, day dress 1841-1846, evening dress 1841-1846

To see more images from the exhibition, click here.

Fortunately it was a lovely sunny day (at last), so Mr Tulip was able to stroll round the gardens and go for a walk while I studied the costumes at length!

I had one final reason for visiting Sudley House. When I came to Liverpool as a student, I initially lived in a hall of residence, University Hall. It consisted of three large Victorian houses joined together, and although it was mixed in my day, it had been set up in the late nineteenth century as the first hall of residence for female students. The three houses were called Holt, Melly and Hardman, after the three ladies who founded it, and their portraits hung in the dining room. I lived in Holt, named after Emma Holt, daughter of George. Her portrait now hangs in the library at her family home, so I popped in to say hello.

Emma Holt, by Percy Bigland

Better late than never

Since the start of the year I have been taking part in the Bridges on the Body 1911 Corset Sew Along. The Sew Along actually ended in early March, but a broken sewing machine and wedding dress alterations (more on that soon), plus a serious rework of the corset itself, all got in the way. As a result, I have only just finished.

Finished at last!

 The Bridges on the Body blog follows the process of making all the corsets in Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines. For the 1911 pattern Jo invited other people to make the corset with her. Although the book provides scale drawings of each corset, plus a line drawing of the finished item, there are no instructions. Instead Jo posted regular, detailed, step-by-step instructions of each stage as she completed it, along with wonderfully clear photographs, interspersed with illustrations of corsets and dresses of the period like these.

As if this wasn't enough, Jo was also on hand throughout to answer any queries posted on the blog. Thus we all learned how to scale and resize the pattern, make and fit a mock-up, add a waist stay and facings to the real corset, insert the busk and bone casings, and make garters

Up to the point of lacing and trying on the corset, I was pretty much on schedule. Unfortunately this was the point at which I realised that the fabric I had used for my mock-up, although a fairly sturdy cotton, had a lot more stretch in it than I had thought. The gap when the corset was laced was far too wide; so much so that the lace I had wasn't long enough to lace it, and I had to tie two laces together!

After so much work I didn't want to abandon the project, or start again from scratch. I posted a plaintive comment on the blog, and Jo came to the rescue with the suggestion that I could open up the side seam and add a panel there, along with an extra bone.

The pattern. Jo suggested adding the extra panel between pieces 3 and 4

This wasn't entirely straightforward; because I had added a waist stay I had to unpick part of each bone casing and the facings to remove the stay and replace it once the panel was added. Also, I didn't have any more of the brocaded coutil I had used, so had to make the panels from plain coutil. It was interesting to see how what started as a rectangular strip became a curved piece in the finished corset. I'm tempted to follow the flowery language of corset advertisements of the time, and describe this as "a firm side panel imparting a smooth line to the hips", rather than something which rectified an error!

Side view showing the inserted, now curved, panel

I made the garters a dusty pink satin, and bound the edges of the corset  with bias strips of the same fabric. In keeping with the illustration I added a broderie anglais trim along the top edge. Even with a further bias satin strip threaded through the eyelets I felt that the trim was too stark, so I overstitched some of the embroidery  with shades of pink embroidery silk, which I then also also used for the flossing.

1911 corset - illustration

Finally it was down to the finishing touch. The illustration shows a large bow on the corset, but while I loved the exuberance of this example from Metropolitan Museum, when I tried to make a bow from some spare bias strips, the practical side of me worried that it would ruin the line of whatever was worn over it. I definitely wanted something to finish the top edge off, so settled for a small rosette instead.

Top detail - the embellished trim and the rosette

There are a few things I would do differently next time. First, and most obvious, I would be much more careful what fabric I used for the mock-up. Second, I would wait until the mock-up was made before ordering the coutil, bones etc. Although you may think that you know what you'll need from looking at the pattern, it is only when you have an actual garment to try on that you can be really sure.

The whole thing was great fun to do, and having the schedule to work to really helped me to keep focussed, and not let other projects take over. Finally a huge, huge thank you to Jo for all the hard work, time and help she put into the Sew Along - when's the next one?!

Tackling "The Stash"

No pictures this week, because to photograph it all would take up far too much time, and space!

If you sew more than a very occasionally, you will have a 'stash'. It's as simple as that. The dressmaker who claims that she doesn't have one possesses either a) a truly impressive amount of self-discipline, or b) a stash so out of control that she is in complete denial. The fabric which you just can't resist, the trim which you fall in love with, those stunning vintage buttons: it all adds up.

As well as fabric, my own stash contains patterns (including a worrying number of much the same basic shape, with variations which I could have drafted myself), and several boxes full of various beads and sequins. The last category comes from making dance costumes; I always keep an eye open for suitable trimmings for the myriad costumes I am planning to make 'one day'.

However as the bolts, boxes and cupboards full of fabric and associated bits and pieces threaten to take over my entire workspace, I have decided that something needs to be done. Therefore I have resolved to follow the example of Jo, who writes the wonderful Bridges on the Body blog (more on that in a later post, I hope). Jo's rule is:

"I can only buy fabric if I use a pattern I already have. And I can only buy a pattern if I use fabric I already have. The only out is if I go through the work of drafting the pattern myself then I can justify some new fabric. .... The goal of the sewing rule is to have less fabric in boxes and nicer clothes in my closet."

I'm going to add an extra condition: I can buy supplementary fabric such as lining or a contrast for a collar etc. but the main fabric must come from my existing stock.

So, we will see how I get on.