Ring of Stars Quilt

One more customer project I completed a little while back is this quilt made for a little boy as a present from his grandma.  It is twin size and completely hand quilted, though I can't take all the credit for that one, my mother came and assisted me with a few rows near the end as it was taking me entirely too long and it was quite depressing quilting by myself.

The fabrics were to reflect things the boy liked, fishing, music, cars, trucks, boy things. I found several 'Cars' fabrics at Walmart (not my usual venue for good quilt fabrics), and everything actually made up very nicely. The quilting is in red stitches all around the white stars and little white squares.

Rapunzel Gown

Also made recently for a client is the pink/purple gown from 'Tangled'. Unfortunately I did not get very many good pictures of this gown. 

It is two pieces, the front lacing bodice, and then a skirt with both elastic and drawstring in the waist. The main part of the bodice is crepe back satin, and lined in cotton broadcloth. It laces shut with lucet cord through hand-bound eyelets over a placket.  The upper sleeves are made of the same crepe back satin with satin ribbons sewn down at even intervals, since we could not find an appropriate fabric. The lower sleeves are made of lycra, upon which I hand EMBROIDERED with success! 

I'm very sad this picture didn't turn out as the embroidery turned out really well, but it gives a vague idea.

I made the skirt appliqués by first making the shapes out of pink satin and appliquéing them to pink felt with machine zigzag stitch and then cutting them out again and hand sewing them to the skirt by hand. I did not make enough to go around the entirety of the skirt edge as time and money was limited. 

The underskirt is attached as a lining, and edged with eyelet. Again, sadly no picture, but it is seen often in the movie, like when Rapunzel first comes out of her tower. The skirt itself it made from gores and both layers are very full and swishy. 

Again, this was a very fun project, translating an animated concept into real life. Fabric and lace selection took forever, as there are so many different little pieces to co-ordinate, and three types of lace (the eyelet on the underskirt, the pink lace on the bottom edge of the bodice, and the narrow white lace at the cuffs and neckline). I am very elated with the finished gown. 

Merida Gown

And here's some pics of a project I recently created for a customer; Merida's green gown from 'Brave'.

The chemise is made from some very crisp muslin (Moda, my fav). The wrists each have two rows of elastic, and the neckline is gathered with cord.

 The gown is made from linen and lined in cotton broadcloth. For the decorative lacing at the top of the bodice I ran embroidery floss through separately for each row, and covered with silver machine embroidery thread using a button hole stitch.

 I hand bound thirty eyelets for the back lacing. The lacing cord is purchased cotton cord.

All the sleeve joins are tubes inserted with elastic and sewn in place. I was not able to do a fitting in person for this gown, and figured that would be the easiest way to ensure adjustability and fit while remaining true to the movie version.

The cloak is made from coat weight wool and the edges are finished with a blanket stitch. I we could not find a good image of the front closure of the cloak I used what I had on hand. 

Over all I am very happy with how this project turned out, its quite fun translating clothing from an animated movie to real life:-)

IRCC II, finish pics of the Bacchiacca Gown

Here they are at long last;

Wardrobe Elements for Lady Nicolla

Wow....its only been how many months since I have posted last? A quick run down of what I have been doing...finished the IRCC 2 (will post more finished pics later) working on renovations with my husband, hunting, tanning hides, made a quilt for a customer, made two adult sized animated movie costumes for customers (Merida's green dress from 'Brave' and Rapunzel's dress from 'Tangled'), started on the first of many wall tapestries for our house and many other various little bits.

My current project has been pushed back to now, after being requested several months ago at Uprising. My dear friend Lady Nicolla requested some user-friendly camp garb. She is involved with both equestrian and heavy fighting and needs some pieces that reflect her late period Italian persona, while remaining feminine, being durable and easy to dress in by herself as she runs from equestrian to fighting to court etc with few minutes to spare.

So these are the ensembles I have planned;

l. Seafoam green linen doublet with black velveteen guards, plain black 'venetian' breeches, and over a lightly embroidered linen shirt.

2. Italian gamurra out of indigo linen, front lacing, with either a split skirt or very very full skirt to ride in, over a plain, fitted camicia.

3. Linen and silk, front lacing Venetian gown based off of the portrait; Portrait of a Lady with a Heron by Paolo Caliari c 1550's. over a long linen camicia.


And then, my favorite (not); she is also in need of a new arming doublet, her current one having been well used up over the last few years.

I ordered a few new fabrics, but allot of it is coming out of an overflowing stash that I don't mind using, since her budget is pretty low.

She lives three hours away, and we plan on seeing each other this weekend, so I am going to try to have the innards of all the bodice portions ready to fit her with.

I've started on the riding doublet. Unfortunately I must have been have crazed when I made the toile on her as I made quite a few parts of it really wonky, so I compared the usable parts with a doublet  pattern I had made for her several years back and it was close enough that I felt confidant going ahead and using that.

I started with cutting out the pattern on some extra black linen/cotton and then out of scrap quilt batting (unfortunately it probably has a rather high poly content, but was bulky to store in stash and needed used up) which I then trimmed to reflect a more feminine shape, and then pad stitched the respective pieces of batting to their linen comrades.

I am lining the doublet with the same sea foam linen/cotton, so I placed the lining layer atop the bare batting layer and then sewed the shoulder seams by hand, flattened and whipstitched the seam allowances down.

I then lay the outer layer (with shoulder seams also already sewn and pressed) atop the layer of black linen and machine basted along the long sides, ending up with two halves of a doublet. I then pinned the back seam and side seams together along what would be the seam allowance so I can fit her on Saturday.

Planing on cording the gamurra bodice, so need to run to town and see if Ace has what I need. The cord I have is buried behind flooring and boxed countertops and I do not have the energy to dig it out.

The fabric for the Venetian gown is pre-washing as we speak.