Look at these pretties

As I mentioned in my last post, last week I improvised a pair of 18th-century-looking shoes.
Why would I do that?
Two reasons spring to mind: I need some sort of footwear for the end of the year show that we'll be having, showcasing our awesome 18th century clothing (can you feel the sarcasm in there? I'm half super excited, and half annoyed by this), and secondly, I wanted to try my hand at modifying shoes.

Materials needed:
-Pair of shoes for sacrificial purposes
-Paper to make the upper's pattern
-Canvas or 2 layers of cotton fabric glued together
-Decorative fabric, such as upholstery fabric
-Spray Adhesive
-Glue Gun
-Scissors
-Heat resistant fingers (or a high tolerance to hot glue burns)

I started out with a pair of pale pink shoes with a small Louis heel and a slightly elongated but rounded toe. Of course, I didn't start taking pictures until after I had started hacking and cutting off different part of the shoes... I removed the heel strap, to be left with something that looked like a mule, and also removed the hideous little bow at the front of the shoes.

I started taking pictures around this moment now. I made the paper pattern by draping a piece of cotton on top of my foot inside the shoe. I put my piece on the bias to get a little stretch out of it. Since I was going for an 18th century look, I extended the upper to a point over my foot.

Once I had the paper pattern, I cut out three layers of fabric. Two of factory cotton that I glued together, and a third of my upholstery fabric. On the third layer, I added an extra half inch of fabric to be able to fold it over the raw edge of the layer underneath, and have the semblance of a finished edge. I clipped the extra seam allowance and glued it down on the inside with spray adhesive. I also put some fray-check on weaker areas, as upholstery fabric frays like crazy! I also added a line of sewing at the very top, just as a precaution.

Then, I sprayed the heel of the shoe with adhesive and draped a piece of bias fabric on it to cover it completely. You can't really tell, but there's a shoe under there.

Here's a look at the heel after I stretched fabric over it. Then I let it dry, and once it was dry I removed the excess fabric, taking care to leave about 1/2 inch all around to tuck down and glue in place. I clipped into this extra allowance to allow it to lie flat against the inside of the heel and the insole of the shoe.

Once that was done, and glued, and dried, I took the uppers that I prepared earlier, and did something similar. Applied hot glue to the top of the shoe and around the sides, and carefully applied the stiff fabric layer in place.

Here's what it looks like from the top and bottom, after all the excess has been clipped into and secured to the bottom of the sole.

I know there would have been the possibility of removing the sole of the shoe, tucking all the ends under, and sandwiching them between the shoe and the bottom sole afterwards, but I lacked the physical strength to drive a screwdriver in between the two layers of the shoes. So I had to make-do.

Once that was all done, I put a piece of factory cotton under the part of the heel that shows (but not under the grippy part) and another piece of cotton on the inside. The goal of these extra pieces is to hide any fraying that happened/is-happening/will-probably-happen-in-a-near-future to the outer layer of fabric. It also looks nicer and neater.

I then put the shoes on! And realized that there was a rather large pull right across the front. I guess I shouldn't become a cobbler. But no worries! What's the eighteenth century without a few well-place bows? Ta-dah! With bows on, you can hardly tell it even puckered in the first place. (So clever of me.) And I rather enjoy the way they look with the bows too.

Yes, these are shameless mirror selfies... I'm also wearing spiderweb tights underneath my stockings. Crazy crazy! Also, these are my hand-made, short-gored stockings, which are silk jersey, and embroidered with locally sourced green silk floss. The stockings are tied with ribbons above my knees. (The ribbons are tied fairly tightly, otherwise they just fall down.) My eighteenth century legwear are now finished! It's too bad my skirt will cover up all of that work.

I also only got two blisters from fooling around with hot glue. I burned my fingers several times, but always in the same two spots... These shoes aren't perfect, far from it. I wouldn't ever claim so. They do look adorable though, and they're only intended to be worn on a stage for a few hours in April. As long as no one looks too closely, they make a fairly good impression. 

Why are you so goddamned productive?

Why are you so goddamned productive? is a rhetorical question I encountered just a few times this week.

I have to say, I took advantage of my week off to create a massive to-do list, and frankly, it was a great decision. I got so many things done this week, I'm really proud of myself. And I feel much better than if I had sluggishly camped on my couch watching stupid shows all week.

I alternated working on school projects and working on my personal projects, so that I would feel like I was getting the important stuff done, and rewarding myself by working on something I really wanted to do.

For example, for school I: made and fitted a mock-up for 14th century hose (they finally fit), finished a cloak, started my 19th century waistcoat, wrote down many pages of research for my honours project, altered a linen shirt, and worked on my 18th century skirt and jacket.

For myself I: altered a skirt for a friend, altered some of my own clothes, made a whole new skirt, finished my stockings, transformed a pair of shoes to look 18th century-ish, started muddling my way through a bralette made from a lace tank top, painted a few images for the first time in weeks, and documented a week-long lipstick experiment.

Would I have been able to do all that if I didn't have a week off? Absolutely not. I totally abused my sleep schedule so that I work my heart out!

On Tuesday, I was in the studio, and one of my profs came in an said: Audrey, what the f*** are you doing in here. Go home, take time off! 

I guess in some regards, I really do work too much, but I'm not unhappy. I actually enjoy it. And I usually multitask, so I'll watch a movie AND work at the same time, so it totally counts as leisure time. If I'm not working, I tend to just take really long naps in the afternoon, which are nice once in a while, but they're really an indulgence.

What does it matter if I'm a work horse? If I feel over-worked, I'll take a few steps back. If I don't feel like that, I'll just keep going. I'm in my prime years, this is the time for me to work like crazy, develop my character and prove myself to the world. Ten years from now, I won't have the same energy levels and won't be able to power through everything in the same way.

Yes, I'm an enthusiast, a keener, I'm always the one in the back corner who springs up and says: YEA I'LL DO IT! And I mean it. If I want to carve a place for myself in this unforgiving crazy world, I have to be able to prove what I'm capable of. Green hair and everything. I want to be the best in absolutely everything I do. Perfection is my goal, and I'm aiming directly at the moon and the stars.

I do wish I had another week off now, since I've done almost all I wanted to do, and this time I would actually lazily walk along the waterfront and enjoy the peaceful quietness of mornings while sipping my coffee and listening to French classics by Édith Piaf. I guess I'll just have to wait until April.

I'll post pictures and tutorials to some of my projects in the coming week. In the meantime, I'll leave you to think about the things you'd like to accomplish but keep pushing back, on the pretext that you have no time.

Also, do you know anyone who can rock a Christian Dior jacket, green hair and mini-black lips like I do? ;)

3 months until I graduate

I've been in university for a while. At 22, I'm in my fifth year at Dalhousie University. They call it a victory lap, and I refer to it by that name too, though it feels more like the last struggling jerks of a fish that has been out of the water for too long and is on the verge of dying... Okay, maybe a little too morbid. But sometimes it does feel that way.

I pride myself in being an excellent student. My work is always on time or early, and I put all of my heart into it. Maybe it makes me a loser without a life, but eh, I don't care and neither should anyone else.

I'm going through all of my mental lists of things I need to do before the end of the term, and it doesn't seem like that much. Then I come back to the reality of the day-to-day routine and realize how busy I really am. I'm taking my four final classes, all of which are more or less a giant sewing lab in different areas. In three of them, I get to make clothes for someone else, and luck and a bit of magic made it so that it's all for the same person. I asked one of my friends to be my model for my 19th century tailoring class, and he also happens to be in the 4th year acting class. Now it gets weird. In my fourth year Show class, I'm the cutter for one of the actors, who happens to be my friend who's also my model for tailoring. And since I'm combining my fourth and third year classes, I also get to work on the show in my third year class, where I am my own first-hand, or basically my own minion. It's a confusing and interesting time when I'm trying to sort out what goes where for those two classes. I also refer to myself as cutter Audrey and first-hand Audrey in turn, depending on the day.

Then, my fourth class is aesthetics of historical dress, or Lynn-dom. We are basically reproducing garments from the 1700's in Louisbourg after its foundation in 1713 until the English took over in 1745. I am my ow model in that class, and though it is sometimes (incredibly) painful to sit through, I'm making an effort to change my attitude toward it to enjoy the class. I do love historical reproduction, and I'm doing myself a dis-favour if I'm always in a foul mood going to that class.

I also realized that I always refer to what I'm doing in terms of century. !9th century tailoring, 18th century Lousibourg, and 14th century garments (that's show class, the department is putting on the Decameron).

Throughout all of this class-related excitement, I make it a point to work on my own projects, to bump up my portfolio. To date, I've made my first bodysuit in black burned-out velvet for circus class. Yes, circus class. I needed some sort of physical activity, and circus is just perfect. The hoop is certainly my favourite, since I seem to get lost in the silks. The rope is growing on me, and trapeze is also really fun. No upper body strength makes it an unending challenge, so until I can hold my body up using only my arms, I'll be stuck doing basic stuff.
The bodysuit is basic, a front, a back and two arms. It was my first time dabbling with stretch, and though this isn't the best fabric choice, I'm quite happy with the way it turned out.

This weekend, we had the day off on Friday, and I decided to travel to the north of the province to Cape-Breton and to visit the Louisbourg fortress with one of the student societies. I figured that it would be the cheapest way to visit it, and it would be a fun weekend. I've now learned that it doesn't always go according to plan, and instead of a weekend visiting landmarks of Cape-Breton, we spent the entire weekend eating too much food in a chalet. Good job guys. On the bright side, I went snowshoeing for the first time ever, and I had brought two projects to work on during the drive and throughout the weekend.

I'm making some 18th century stockings in silk jersey to go with my 18th century outfit. I decided to handstitch them for fun (I'll embroider them too once I get silk floss) and I got a good chunk of work done on them. It's a very funny-looking pattern, but I'm really happy with the way they look. The next thing I'll be doing after I finish them is making a little pair of shoes look like 18th century mules. The stocking reach up about half-way up my thigh, and they'll be held in place by a peach-coloured ribbon. I left it at school, and that's why I'm using a measuring tape on the picture... You get the idea. It's really nice to work with silk jersey, it's so soft. Did I mention that I looooove silk?

 Another little project I brought with me on the trip is my first pair of mitten. I finished the first one on the drive to Cape-Breton on Friday, and started the 2nd one on Saturday. It's the easiest pattern I could find, and the next logical step after mastering the giant scarf.

Future projects include the 18th century shoes I mentioned, a pair of 18th century pockets, a skirt for a friend of mine, and possibly some new miniature paintings. I only have six full days of class this week, and two days with only one class, thanks to reading break that kicks in next week. Around doing assignments and plucking away at my honours thesis, I think it leaves ample time to work on a number of these. As long as I skip on sleep, but that shouldn't be a problem.