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Last week I showed 14yod's Portia costume of our next unit celebration.  The children insist that I dress up as well.  I am to be Queen Elizabeth!

This was a huge challenge for me, because I have never sewn anything like this before.  However, I was up for the challenge.  I've sewn costumes in the past for our church children's and adult choirs.  I learned a lot from a great lady who one year devised weed costumes, crows, etc the first year I sewed for her and the children's choir.  Wow, the things I learned. Then the following year she injured her arm...so I was in charge of the costuming.    I like having my skills honed; one never knows what in the world a director is going to ask for.  ;)

In addition, this motivates my children to do their history and literature readings and writings, projects, speeches, etc. It's fun to dress up at the end of every few weeks and eat food from the era and show off for Dad and Grandma and Grandpa.  Sometimes the other Grandma flies 1500 miles to view a unit celebration.

 In trying on these dresses, dd and I have learned why these ladies weren't very active and why they needed others to dress them.  My goodness, I am huffing and puffing, putting on a bum roll, hoop skirt, underskirt and then a heavy tapestry dress with hooks or ties.  And this is in dressing my daughter!  Then I'm going to have to dress me!  =0  As we learn history sequentially, it's been an interesting sewing history lesson for me.  Seeing the development of clothing styles has been interesting.  It's also given me a new appreciation for the seamstresses of yore.  My skirt was too thick to sew to my bodice on the sewing machine, so I got a tapestry needle and sew it together by hand...all they had back then.  Ugh.  My shoulder felt like it would fall off!  But, finally it is done!

I have also used a lot of fabrics already in my fabric stash, which has saved money.  For the items I need, I buy on sale or with coupons as much as possible.  These have been 1/10th, even 1/20th the cost of purchasing.  I know it has to be cheaper than rental as well.    

There is another reason why I do this, besides being a crazy woman! ;)  I hope to sew my dd's wedding dress someday.  What a great way to practice on mere costumes.   I just take each pattern one step at a time, and it works like a puzzle.  I also have to keep cleaning out lint and reoiling the bobbin mechanism.  I also remember to hold those thread tails when I start a seam, or they'll gunk up in the bobbin mechanism.  I also take my machine in for a professional cleaning once a year, while I'm on vacation.  This keeps my machine happy and cooperative.  ;)  Then when I come home, well rested, I can get back to work cranking out more stuff!  =)

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Well, I had to do it...the kids were ready to plan their costumes for our TOG Year 2 Unit 2 celebration.  As usual, they want me to dress up too.  So here we go!  So far, dd's costume is finished, so I'll share that one this week.

14yod wants to be Portia.  We found a great pattern...which uses lots of fabric!   DD selected her key fabrics, which we got on sale.  DD was really taken with the tapestry used in the bodice. Then we supplemented with extra fabrics from my fabric closet.  That was not only a great way to save money, but a terrific way to clean out the closet!

Here are the bum rolls for each of us.  They are worn around the waist to make the hips look bigger (like I really want to do that) and help make the skirt poof out more.

Here is dd's Portia costume.  It doesn't look too good on camera...but it actually it looks better in person. I was really disappointed when I saw this picture.  It's difficult to see the subtle colors and patterns and just looks blah.  DD was delighted when she came home from Awanas to find her dress finished last night!  This morning I started playing around with changing it up somehow, but dd says she likes it just the way it is.  So we'll stick with that. Of course it needs a conical hoop skirt.  I got an idea overnight of how to cheaply incorporate that.  Hopefully that will be done by next week!

Here is a close up of the trim.  Sadly, I didn't even think to lay the pattern carefully to get the stripes symmetrical on each side.  DD picked out the buttons and just loved that pop of red.  For the red and gold trim, I used a roll of Christmas trim I've had sitting around for a few years.  That red and gold trim actually runs down to the bottom of the green skirt.

This dress is so stiff (and it's meant to be) that it has startled me more than once as I see it out of the corner of my eye.  I keep wondering who that Elizabethan woman is!  It can even sit up in a chair...like I had it last night when everyone came home from Awanas...but forgot to take a picture of it.  One reason why it is stiff, is because there is actually boning in the bodice.  That was cool to work with...easy too!

Here are the bodices laid out before I did the boning.  The white fabric is canvas...which makes it even stiffer.  The red lines were made with chalk pencil, so I could sew the channels.

Here is a close up of where I sewed the channels for the boning.  The boning is the round curvy stuff on the table.  This is a nice mesh that was twice as wide as I needed.  I just cut it in half down the middle.  Then I cut it to the length I needed and inserted it in the channel.  The pink lines on the white canvas are the drawings I made to sew the channels evenly.  When you flip it over, you see the green lining.  After all that, I sewed the tapestry you barely see in the middle on top of the canvas, wrong sides together.  So you never see the channel stitching on the tapestry.

Here is a close up of the boning.  I can sew through it and not hurt the needle.  Have to be more careful with the steel bonings.

Here are the bodices now with the boning in them.  See, they are already taking shape!  LOL

My dress is similar, yet different.  That caused me no end of mistakes the other night, while I spent more time ripping out than sewing together.  Here is the bodice.  Those crescent moon shapes will be sewn to the shoulders.  The sleeves are next to it.  The reddish orange pieces are tabs that will go between the bodice and skirt.

 Here is the skirt!  The reddish orange will be the outer skirt.  The gold will be the underskirt...the part that peaks through the outer skirt, like dd's.  The white will be the rest of the underskirt, which no one will see.  These are practically new queen sized bed sheets dh didn't like.  These are cut from the bottom fitted layer. The top sheets have a gorgeous lace trim that bothered dh's face when he slept. I used the top sheets for Greek costumes for dd and I last year.   

Next week I hope to have the rest of the costumes finished.  Can you guess who I am going to be?  ;)

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My medieval dress is done!

Here's the back with the grommets...

Same pattern as dd's, so no new story there.  The story this time, is in the fabric! 

When we were purchasing fabric for dd's medieval dress, I saw the $$$.  Her end cost wasn't too bad because everything was 40% off except for one thing, so I used my 40% off coupon for that. But I had a thought in the back of my mind for fabric for my dress.

You see, we've had a little too much of this fru fru stuff going on in our dining room...

See that scarf like swag at the top?  That was mainly dh's idea..anything fru fru in our house is usually dh's idea!  LOL  It's come from his love of Victorian houses.  But knowing we could have a pending move, and after watching a lot of hgtv, I knew a real estate agent would tell me to take down the scarfs.  So I did and washed them, about a year ago, which ruined the fringe, but the fabric was in great shape...and there was a lot of it.  I stored the 2 scarves in my closet stash. 

Being inspired by Scarlett O'Hara and Maria...governess to the von Trapp children, I decided to recycle our old curtains.  I got dh's permission first.  =)  Look at allllllllll the fabric.  Well, it's hard to see, but you can make out some of the pattern pieces at the top.  I think it was about 4 yards, 44" wide.  I laid the two scarves on top of each other... After cutting everything out, I had all of this left over.  Sorry, it's still hard to see, but it's a few yards. 

My son wants me to have a train on my dress.  Although I love the idea, I don't know if it's historically correct, nor if it'd be too much for this feast.  I keep forgetting about it actually.

Then I needed lining, and I found that in my fabric stash.  I forget why I bought it but it's been sitting in the closet for a few years.  My only purchase were the sheers, trim, grommets, and cording for the grommets (no zipper or buttons in back, just like dd's dress.)

The dining room still has a window treatment, just not as fru fru...

And now you know...the rest of the story!  =)

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This week I completed my 12y son's Robin Hood costume for the upcoming Medieval Feast.  He picked out all the colors. Here is the cape.

 Here is the tunic.  I did not hem the collar, sleeves or jagged bottom.  After all, Robin Hood did live in the forest during the Middle Ages!  I also figured that a guy who was always fighting for sport and to rob from the rich to give to the poor and to ransom King Richard from France would not have the most pristine clothes.  Therefore I was aiming for a more rustic look!  Besides, the neckline will be covered by the cape anyway!  =)

Here is a close up of the neck opening.  That I did decide to hem with embroidery floss to make it look rustic and give dimension.

Maybe you can see it a little better here...

Then I did the hat.  I had to sew an inner circle to an outer circle. I meant to take a picture of that but forgot.  This was quite tedious.  I pinned excessively and took my time going around, snipping into the curve with my scissors to get the fabric where I wanted it and it came out perfectly smooth!  Rejoicingly, I had ds open it up...

Oops!  Well we don't want the interfacing to show!  So ds turned it inside out...(Did you see the hint?  Can you tell what is coming?)

 Alas, methinks I sewed the inner to the outer backwards!  See the seam line between the brim and peaked hat?  Sigh...so I had to rip out that hard work.  Then I worried about messing up the bias and getting it all wonky.  When I finally got the seam ripped apart, I didn't even bother pinning this time.  I just ran it through the machine and got...

Whew!  Mission accomplished!  Now ds will be decorating it with a feather.  That wraps up the weekly adventures of a seamstress mother and her merry children!

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This week I finally completed 14yods dress for our upcoming Medieval Feast.  Whew!  This was not easy.  Slippery fabric and  intense details but she is happy with it!

There is no zipper or buttons.  Instead we used grommets!  The pounding of the grommets enticed noise loving 12yos to investigate, and offer to finish the job!  So he did the remaining grommets...24 in all!

I was on a roll until I did the sleeves.  There are two parts.  The inner sleeve is fitted, with 2 layers, lining and sheer.  Then the outer butterfly like sleeve.  They didn't meet in the center like they should have.  Shhhh, don't tell anyone.  I threw in the ribbon in an easier way that the pattern had.  

Edited:  For those of you popping over from Shereen's today (11-9-07) may be wondering why I have a double entry.  I got lost last week at Shereen's even though I had posted this here.  This morning she left me a wonderful tip and entered this dress for this week since it missed out last week.  =)  She told me to go ahead and enter what I had already planned.  Thank you Shereen!