The Canberra Centenary Tea Gown

Well,
2013 is finally here and all this sewing for this year has finally finished on time. This beautiful gown took me 6 months work to sew up. I must firstly thank Bernadette Thomas from www.needlewitch.com.au for her expert tuition. As everyone knows who sews you can't fit yourself. I would have struggled with the fitting and changing the pattern without her help. I have yet to know enough how to change flat patterns to fit me correctly.

This wonderful dress is made out of a blue sari that was given to me as a present. I am trying to be a good textile artist and use what is in my stash. We had to underline it with cotton as the sari silk didn't have the body that a duponi silk does.
I used http://www.lafnmoon.com/product_p/p104.htm view B as the intent was to get a gown close to what was typical for a society lady living in New South Wales in 1913. Bearing in mind I am not a pattern maker, so I have to use what patterns are commercially available given the time constraints I worked with. I made the white high collar blouse out of corded lace which I bought some time ago from Pitt Trading in Sydney.

To give my costume the correct style lines I also made the under bust corset by Laughing Moon http://www.lafnmoon.com/product_p/p113.htm in a baby blue brocade. 

This costume also has a gorgeous hat that I made from scratch. It has a velvet crown and lace brim. That is decorated with feathers and a bow decorations. I know it is a lovely ensemble and I am sure I will get lots of requests to make hat and gown for people. While I would love to I do not know how to fit patterns to make clothes for other people. Hats I would attempt but with university assignments to do and I doubt I would have the time. So thank you for your complements and perhaps you will get to see me in it around Canberra during 1913.

 

 

 

Busy times ahead.

Ah, my poor neglected blog it has not had any new posts for quite a while. The author has been tripping around Asia to Bhutan, India and Singapore checking out all things textile related. She enjoyed Bhutan and Singapore but not so much India. India's pollution problems have gotten worse since her last visit to the sub-continent and probably won't consider going back for another trip for quite a while.  

After returning to her home town the 1913 Tea Gown project demanded her attention and was hoping to get it finished before the end of October. That didn't happen so this project will go slowly until the end of the year. She managed how ever to write an article for Coztume: The Newsletter of the Australian Costumers' Guild and is looking forward to getting it published this year. 

Your author still loves costuming and them and university has now been added to her busy schedule. So with great regret this blog will have a temporary break February 2013. So if you are into technology drop over to my other blog www.aroundthewebina100clicks.blogspot.com where I will chat about my experiences of using web 2.0 technology and social networking.

Tea hats and teaching.

Winter is a good time to be in doors away from the cold. Just summer is a busy time for creative explorations winter can be just the same. The last two months I have been working on creating a mock up and workshop notes.  I can picture a design in my head and create it given proper reference materials. However, it is a different thing to explain and teach it.

I found several blogs and books gave me a good starting point to begin construction of the wire frame for this hat. Making wire hat frames as far as I know is not as popular as blocking felt or straw for use as a millinery foundation.

I used my head size measurement + 1cm and my shoulder measurement  for the brim circumference as reference points to create this prototype.  You need heavy gauge millinery wire to give the frame sufficient strength. As this frame will be covered with batting and fabric when finished.

Next I made a test pattern by tracing around the frame with some polytrace and attaching it using tailor tacks.

I used this test pattern to cut my fashion fabric to cover my hat with batting and fashion fabric. I used velvet on the crown and lace for the brim. Then I used bias cut ribbon to cover the brim edge and make a bow.

This is the finished Edwardian Wire Framed Tea Hat. This hat was taught to the local members of the Australian Costumers Guild. The ladies enjoyed them selves but need another workshop day to cover their frames with fabric and decorate them. Our hats will be worn with Edwardian inspired clothes for our capital's centenary.

Winter Sock Collection

I have been working on my winter sock collection since early February. Now I am up to my sixth pair. I must be such a speed queen! Actually it's because Taylor's patterns are very easy for me to follow. I have only being doing the beginner and intermediate patterns though. However, I am slowly incorporating colour work and using short row method for heals. These socks are turning out very nicely and I will take them on vacation with me. All of this wool I have had for years and why pay a camping store $30 for a pair of hiking/walking socks? When you can have all the socks you need with only time required to knit up all the pairs you need. I have been getting my fiber fix through  out this semester at university by knitting. Such a refreshing thing to have in one hands and a meditative space for the mind when needles and yarn work together in unison.

So far I have knitted with Opal yarn, Noro sock yarn, Patons sock yarn and I am now knitting with Natually Tussock Aran 10 ply yarn to make a thick pair of sandal socks.  I liked knitting with all the yarns except for the Noro yarn as it is slubby and unevenly spun and was weak in areas. This meant that I had to join the Noro yarn in several places because it snapped and required joining.  As you can see from there are two pairs made with Opal yarn, the gray pair with Patons and the blue verigated pair are crafted from the Noro yarn. I have learned such a lot since making the grey pair and have developed more patience and fussiness about my finished socks. I can't say enough about knitting with bamboo needles they are very easy on my hands and I can knit for hours with them.

Simple socks for forgetful knitters.

It has been a while since I picked up a pair of knitting needles to make something. One of my favourite things to knit is socks. I have two pairs of hand knitted socks already and these are far more comfortable then than machine knitted ones. I prefer to knit on bamboo knitting needles as they more friendly to my hands. The steel needles make my hands ache after using them for a while.

As I said it has been a while since I picked up a pair of knitting needles. I wanted to revisit knitting socks using 4 DPNs since my yarn stash had some lovely German self patterning wool just perfect for making socks. Perhaps you have heard of OPAL sock yarn? As you knit it the pattern appears without you having to use fair isle techniques or multiple yarn bobbins.

So what to do with this lovely self patterning yarn? Of course it already has a lovely pattern so a fancy textured sock pattern was not suitable.  As a forgetful knitter a simple plain sock pattern was what I was looking for. Just my luck to find a sock knitting book on my local library shelves. I used a pattern from The Big Book of Socks by Kathleen Taylor called Basic Fingering Weight Tube Sock on page 21. She offers an excellent tip when using self patterning yarn. Make sure you start your next sock at the same point in the yarn pattern as the first sock. Otherwise you will end up with a pair of socks not exactly the same!

Although this book is written for the American market it is quite easy to find equivalent yarn weight exchanges. Here's my approximate guide for swapping American yarn weights for UK yarn weights we use here in Australia.

US Yarn Weight = UK Yarn Weight
Fingerling          =  can be baby yarn, sock yarn, 3 or 4 or 5 ply yarn

Sport weight     = Double knit or often called 8 ply yarn and is quite often knitted
                            with size 6 needles.

Worsted           = 10 ply or Aran weight and may be knitted on size 6-9 needles.

Chunky knit      = 12 ply knitted  on size 10 or 11 needles.

Extra bulky       = 14 ply and usually knitted on size 13> needles.

I liked this pattern because after the ribbing which I always have trouble with because of the need to count stitches. It was fairly mindless as the pattern used only stockinette stitch knitted to 14" then a star toe decrease method to finish.

I really liked how this pattern shows up the lovely stripes and spots created by the Opal Sock yarn. I think the orange, green and very bright pink are a good contrast in the over all design.  The socks are comfortable, how ever I do need to watch my tension as the one thing I do not want is to have an open ribb were I change needles. That said, I will get more practice this year as I dive into my yarn stash and knit some more socks and perhaps another simple pattern from this or another sock knitting book. Do you have any suggestions about sock knitting pattern books to try? Leave a suggestion at the end of this post with the title of your favourite sock knitting book and which pattern you loved the most.

Making silk flowers using French techniques.

Making artificial flowers in silk fabric is almost a lost art. However, it is being kept alive by milliners who are interested in creating customized decorations for hats. I learned this technique in Melbourne at the 2010 conference of the Millinery Association of Australia (www.millineryaustralia.org). We learned how to prepare silk fabric, patterning, tooling and construction of artificial flowers. Recently I was asked to make some silk flower pins for an ambassadors of the National Year of Reading. The National Year of reading aims to encouraging and improving literacy in the Australian community through programs in partnership with the library community www.love2read.org.au

There are some great silk flower kits out there and I would like to thank Waltraud Reiner for her excellent modern reference materials (Torb & Reiner) Her kits helped me to remember what I had learned at the millinery conference.  I am fortunate to own a couple of vintage pattern books that are no longer available. These helped me decide how to design and construct the daisy pins. This required some thought as the vintage pattern books insisted on using wool looped into a tight ball for the centers. I decided to go with a flat center instead. As it would look like the love to read logo daisy my clients wanted.  Thanks goes  to Angela of www.jaspercatdesigns.com for her suggestions about how to finish the pins. It is great to have other millinery friends to able to chat about problems and come up with solutions. If you are looking for vintage pattern books you could try my friend Bernadette of www.needlewitch.com.au who helped me with finding reference material on making silk flowers. 

Just to top it off a good renaissance costume needs a muffin cap.

This is an out of print pattern I have in my collection McCall's 4806 medieval and renaissance hats.  I made view D the muffin cap and added some bling with silver and black gimp braid, brown velvet ribbon and an ostrich feather. You can curl feathers using the back of closed scissors and running the blade long the feather's spine.

This hat has a band and a large circle of fabric to form the crown. I had to piece the crown together using to semi circles as I wanted to use up scraps of materials left over the skirt. I made a small pocket in the trim to hold the feathers and stitched the pocket closed to hold the feathers in place.