Vest progress

Turns out I did have more progress shots on the vest then I thought I did!  So lets get to this!

The inside out edition of my lining for the vest.

And now the outer layer, with the lace in the armhole attached.  I actually originally made the armholes more like for a shirt and then later decided to make them bigger before I sewed the gray layer together, which ment re-drawing the lines on the pink lining after it was sewn.  Which was sooo much fun since it was a slithery fabric and already sewn, but it worked in the end. Live and learn.

The vest once again is ment to look kimono like, so here is where I added an extra strip over the front of it to give it that bound look.

And here is a (sadly blurry) picture of the bound edge with the purple detail edge attached to it.

The vest, on my judy which also houses the nearly done 13th fairy costume (just needs a hem and hat/staff).

The vest (with collar!) inside out as I attach the lining to the outer fabric along the armhole openings.

In dire need of a good pressing, here is the vest, all that is left is to fit my model for the hem and attach the lining to the back vent and hemline!

I actually fit this on the model yesterday along with the sleeves and I didn't need to take it up at all! Score! One hem coming right up.

I aplogise for the lack of updates, or updates that are few and far between of late.  The fashion show is in a month as of next week and  stress is kicking in and making me work straight though without remembering to take pictures!

Here is the cut out fabric for the vest for the snow princess.

Sadly as I said, I got too focused and have failed in taking too many more photos!  I'll see what I have and upload them.

Time to roll up those sleeves and get to work!

I actually made these last week, but waited to post about them!

Here is what that Bias cut cotton strip was for, edging on the sleeve.

What it looked like after it was sewn down and ironed to the right side.

And again with a more full shot of the sleeve.

The Sleeve cap is pointed, and stands up so here it is before it was sewn, once side was interfaced with a stiff interfacing and the other not.

The crown now sewn together. I did in fact wear it as a hat for a while.

I skipped a step there, above you can see there is lace on the sleeve. I bought it pre-gathered and then sewed it to the sleeve.

The sleeve flipped right side out and ironed.

The ribbon that will  be sewn into the back seam and will hide the elastic gathering in the sleeve later.

And on to the lining!

Due to the way the lining works and the shape of the sleeve, I couldn't really sew it all the way around, so I sewed it to a point and then hand sewed the last bit together, thus keeping the point nicely!

The lining now attached at the hem and the ribbons  and pointed caps as well.

I had to hand sew the lining to the sleeve cap, because I didn't want stitching showing on the outside.  I later added a 1 inch wide casing on the inside as well to house the elastic when it goes in.

I hope it all stays up, if now I will add some rubber ribbon for gripping to the top of the sleeve.

Break? What Break?

It was March Break (or reading week) this week, so what did I do?  Go someplace warm and sunny? Go to Disney World?  Take the week off and sleep in/play video games and never get out of my Pj's?

No, I went to school every day from 9-4 and then again some evenings from 7-11  and worked more.  I guess I got a decent amount of work done.   I fitted a new model,  had a final fitting for Pizzazz, re-fitted the hem on Malificent and got a ton done on the snow princess.

I am  pretty sleepy so I will just post some pictures of some of things I finished this week!


The snow princess shorts have an elastic in the waist band, and the lining and outer fabric are hemmed.

The corset ruffle is bound and ready to be sewn onto the corset.

The choker collar is done, complete with 2  awesome button holes and cute snowflake buttons.

The snowflakes are on an elastic shank, and act kinda like little cuff links.

I magically removed the wire from the hot pink ribbon I bought ( I did not realize it was wired at the time of purchase) and made the Giant  bows for the sleeves.

And because I have a little baggy of  snowflake buttons, I will be adding them to the bows because I can.

And I cut some bias strips for later....

Which I then ironed and folded in a half...  but what for?  You will have to wait and see! Mwa ha ha.

I had my model in during the weekend and fit her for the Snow Princess.  Thankfully, it all went well.

She jumped around, twirled, jiggled and everything between and the corset held her in.  I do have a couple small changes which I have now made:  You can possibly just see some white dots near the bottom of the corset, I hadn't pulled the fabric down far enough when I sewed the band on the bottom so there was some ripples in the outer fabric.  As of today, I had taken that apart and pulled the outer fabric down and now there is no rippling.  I also tacked the lace down more, cause it wanted to flip under and finished off the piping ends.

The back now with grommets.  The dark bits hanging down are the ends of the purple piping that is along the top. One of the final steps is to tug on them, which brings the top of the corset into the body more, thus  containing and securing the chest better.

After I fit the corset, I fitted the culottes.  It was really only a matter of pulling in the elastic in the waist band and then after that, marking the hem for pinning.  When the costume is done, the culottes will be under the corset, but my model wanted pictures of her wearing both. :)

This, which currently looks like a bleached version of what I am sure Kermit the frog looks like before he is sewn and stuffed is in fact the sleeve for the snow princess.

Which, once sewn, looks like this!

 I fixed it today, I made it shorter and made the points at the top not as huge.  It will stay up by a combination of elastic and possibly some rubber waistband strips to avoid slippage.

The last thing I fitted is the false collar/choker for the snow princess.  It will be held on by two snowflake buttons on an elastic shank (loop) which will go through button holes.

I've got a dream, I've got a dream, I just want to see the floating lanterns gleam!

Just a wee update on the recent change to the corset for the Tangled Princess costume!

I hadn't liked the fit of the sleeve under my arm, it  bagged in an unpleasant manner.  I had thought I would take out the chiffon sleeve and make an actual undershirt like Rapunzel is wearing under her corset, but then the problem was "how do I get in and out of it?  It would have been a fitted shirt and well I could have put in buttons, snaps, grommets or a zipper, but with the corset over that, it would have really dug into my skin.

So I decided to just put a casing the the arm seam and sneak in an elastic :)

Which first meant I had to un-attach the sleeve from the corset!  Fortunetly,  it was only hand stitched in.

And then I had stitched a casing into the sleeve, I didn't have enough purple to make it with, so I used the white from my skirt lining.  Not pretty, but no one will ever see it after this.

Now ready to be reattached.

At last, the corset is hole again!

And now a  couple pictures to explain why the Tangled corset took me a month where as the Snow princess one took 2 weeks.  All the purple strips you see there had to be hand sewn down, as well as the purple check and the white lace.

Where as the snow princess was all machine done, with the exception of the white lace and the purple band at the bottom.

Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, cabbages and kings

Hello I am a skirt/skort/culottle in desperate need of an elastic!  What is this? The elastic you  have is too wide and wants to bend  over and not go through the casing nicely?  How sad.  You should by some thinner elastic and while your at it, some more thread, some interfacing, some more white trim and some dye for that other costume that is not this one.

So I did!

The dye is actually for the Tangled costume, I need to dye some lace pinkish to go on the skirt, cause lets face it, I am not Rapunzel, I am not stuck in a tower 24-7 and do not have the time to embroider all those flower and swirls along my seams and hems!

What I do have time for is pleating!

After some thinking, pinning, un-pinning, re-measuring and a bit of "how do I do this again?"  I have the "dust ruffle" (as I have been calling it) for the snow princess corset.  I had originally thought I would gather it, but decided that no woman wants a line of gathering right over her abdomen and realized pleats would achieve the same look and be flatter.  I chose knife pleats instead of box pleats. I find knife pleats nicer to look at and box pleats really only work on school girl style skirts.

These perticular pleats are 7cm wide by 6cm deep. I had hemmed and surged the fabric before I did the pleating.

Before I sew them down I wanted to check to make sure they were long enough to go along the bottom of the corset.

Now that they are sewn its time to iron those suckers flat!

The pleated edge of the corset has a white gathered ruffle under it, so I sewed some eyelet lace to some while lining and the next step will be to bind it and attach it to the corset, but only after I have fit my model on the weekend. I put a bone up the front of the corset, which sometimes works out really well, and other times pokes out oddly, and so I want to make sure it isn't doing that before I attach the ruffle to the corset.