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. 

It's the end of the term.

I handed in my last final project today, it's a light blue-grey silk boned bodice for show class. I had a lot of fun doing it, which sounds insane after making the 18th century stays.. more on that further down.

It's basically a bodice which is stiffened with boning, and I based my design on Norah Waugh's 1650-1660 bodice. I have her book about underwear and about women's wear, so I used both books to combine the stays and the outer bodice into one garment.
I built in about 2 inches of waist reduction, which isn't uncomfortable, since I'm not a stranger to tight-lacing.

It's so fun! The original due date was last Friday, but our prof was suuuuper nice and gave the whole class an extension until tomorrow. With the extra time, I was able to make sleeves, and achieve the look I was going for. Obviously, I could have gone for something more modern, or I could have invented something, but I really have a knack for historical stuff it seems. My inspiration came from the film Molière, which I believe to be a masterpiece. It's a wonderful story about Jean-Baptiste Poquelin dit Molière, who is a famous French playwright from the 17th century, and incorporates Molière himself into a number of the plays that he wrote. All the ladies in the film wear this wonderful off-the-shoulder look, and my favourite is Madame Jourdain's dark blue gown.

This week, I also passed-in my first tailored jacket ever. When I started it, I thought: Oh! I like men's wear. I think I've changed my mind, I like the precision of it, but I'm not positive I would want to have a career in it.

It's a wonderful teal colour, which is apparently easier to work with than black. For a first jacker, it seems like a good decision. I wonder though, if anyone would actually wear it in public. If I were a size 40 man, I probably would, alas, I'm a woman, and I'm definitely not fond of women's suit.

Before these two projects were due, I had two other final projects for two other sewing classes. (Have I done anything else than sewing this term? I'm trying to recall, and aside from stressing a lot, I don't think I have.)

Anyhow, I had to make a dress to represent Tokyo for my draping class - let me explain a bit about draping here, no I don't mean drapes as in curtain, and I don't mean drapey-looking ugly tops made of polyester knits. Draping is the art of pattern making by draping fabric on the stand, what is the stand? It's a mannequin. How do you make a dress for yourself with a size 8 mannequin? You pad the mannequin until it looks like you. Yep, I had to give my mannequin a more human shape by creating a tummy, a butt, and adding 5 inches to the original waist circumference. If there's a girl with an eating disorder in costume studies, don't take that class. Back to the project, Tokyo dress, yes!

Everyone in the class was assigned a different city, and had to come up with a design for it. I was thrilled when I opened my little envelope and found "Tokyo" written in it. The first thing that came to mind was the Shibuya crosswalk by night. I could easily picture the business of the intersection, the neon lights, the dark blue sky, the myriad of people everywhere. I went to my mannequin and played around with an old bedsheet and draped the bodice of the dress first, which is structured with a cotton-twill lining. The skirt is flow-y, and has a blue satin ruffle at the back. It also had pockets, because pockets are great! I have lightly beaded the right shoulder from the mid back to the waist point with oil-slick iridescent coloured beads, and the effect is subtle and quite nice, though I took this picture before applying the beads. This project was also finished two days before the due date because I was attending a reception after the opening night of Pericles, and I wanted to wear a nice little black dress.

The prize for most intensive end of term project goes to my 18th century stays. I got stuck in a bad situation when my fabric took three weeks to arrive, instead of the two weeks that I had planned on. It left me with exactly one week to make a pair of stays. Seven days, and during those seven days was Tech weekend, so I had to be at the theatre, and I also made that LBD. Damn it was a busy time.

These are a pair of stays with stomacher from 1730-40 in a gorgeous peachy silk taffeta. The pattern is taken directly from Norah Waugh's book, and altered to fit our bodies.... and a few other changes too, introduced by the Lynn Sorge-English method. The shift (or chemise) that I'm wearing underneath is also for this class, and is the one I'm wearing under the blue silk bodice. The stays are "half-boned" which means that we put in only every other bone from a fully boned pattern. Sounds right, but when you actually do the math, it's closer to 3/4 boned, and thus it feels like armor. We're not using whalebone (for obvious reasons) or reeds, or other natural matierial, but rather 1/4" wide steel bones... It took about 14 hours just to get all of the bones cut and prepped to be inserted in the channels. I have only one inch of waist reduction built into these, I thought I had more, but somewhere during the construction process it disappeared. Oh well, no biggy, I still get the right shape through the torso, and that's what matters.

I'm happy that I finished everything, and on time too! Actually, I was done everything early except for the stays, which I finished an hour before the class in which they were due.
I know it's really vacation time when I start building a doll. A friend of mine saw my Molly pincushion, and asked me if I could make a doll of myself for her. I started it today, and it's already almost done. It's also dressed like I am today!

I know, this is an awful mirror selfie... BUT, it's the only one that really shows the clothes I'm wearing and the doll's too. I made the purple skirt a few years ago, and apparently still had some of the fabric left over in a bin, so I made a skirt for the doll with it. I'll paint either a heart or a ribcage on her torso, and I'll have a creepy stitched shut mouth across her face. I also still need to add more yarn for the hair, but other than that, she looks a lot like me. I'll be done tomorrow.

I'm going home to New Brunswick on Friday, I'm really looking forward to it. My plan for the break: research, PAD application and hanging out with my family, 'cause you know, family is important.

On that note, Happy Holidays!!