Catch up and jacobean sleeves

Long time no blog...

Since I last checked in, I have spent 2 weeks doing work experience in Wardrobe at the South Australian State Theatre in Adelaide which was great, even if I did do an awful lot of unpicking. They are working on the costumes for Checkhov's 3 sisters. It was great to see the staff working on the first stages of the process from getting the designs from the costume designer, ordering materials, pulling costumes from the store, and watching the cutters start to draft patterns etc. I wish I had been able to stay for the whole time to see how it all comes together.

Now I am back at the course and working on my outfit for costume showcase. I have completed most of the jewellery and most of the bodice and am working on the sleeves. So far I have made 3 toile versions of the top part of the sleeve. Tomorrow I think I should make the definitive version :-) Basically the top of the sleeve is like a puffed sleeve except that it has  'panes' (like strips of ribbon) and tucks in between with fabric showing through. The sleeve is very tight under the armhole and shaped differently to modern sleeves. There is also a hanging sleeve and tabs (not sure what they are called) at the top of the shoulder seam. All that, plus I have to get the patterns in line with each other - wonder whether I can just screenprint the design in the right place on the fabric. I will explore that tomorrow.

Yesterday I spent the day doing work experience making costumes for a burlesque show which was great fun and today I  had a 2 hour lacemaking lesson - quite a contrast...

Photos of progress

Here are a few details of the things I am working on at the moment. Unfortunately the mannekin is a bit bigger than the actual model I have made the garments for so the corset doesn't lace up correctly.
The top photo shows chemise, corset, bumroll and farthingale, the middle one just shows the detail of the skirt showing the cartridge pleating and the bottom photo shows the back of the corset. I'm saving the rest for the actual show.

I was very pleased with the way the screen-printing came out on the skirt so here is a detail of the front.

I am about to start on the jewellery and have been trying to get better detailed pictures of it. The painting is part of the collection of the Dunedin Art Gallery and the staff there have been extremely helpful and have sent me extra photos and descriptions of some of the dark areas such as the head dress.  Ultimately this is a theatre costume not a replica thank goodness. The jewellery is completely over the top, hundreds of precious stones. I had  trouble seeing what the brooch was and was excited to find a picture of a similar item in a book called 7000 years of Jewellery edited by Hugh Tait. A locket called the Lyte jewel is very similar although it has different initials. Heaven only knows how to go about making this!

The jewels of the duchess.

I managed to blow the picture up a bit and discovered the big brooch on the right is a giant locket with jewels all around the outside. I reckon I need about 200 fake gem stones For the locket, head dress and pendant and chains. More pics of everything tomorrow when I have a photo session planned.

Catching up

It has been a long time since I last wrote anything on this occasional blog. I'm at Drama school doing the costume construction course.  At the moment I am spending pretty much all my spare time working on making the costume for my 'Major Work' for the Costume Showcase on 22nd of September.
Costume showcase shows all the costumes that the students have completed this year. For the graduating students it is a chance to really show off.

I am trying to reproduce the costume worn by this lady below.

This is a portrait of Margaret Hay, the Duchess of Dunfermline in the 1600's.  It was painted by Marcus Gheerarts the younger, in 1611 and the portrait is held in the Dunedin Art Gallery. A very potted history - Margaret and her husband were left in charge of Dunfermline castle when James 6th of Scotland became King of England and Scotland after Elizabeth the 1st died. Evidently they were extremely rich. Margaret is wearing a silk satin dress embroidered with gold thread, a bobbin lace ruff, cuffs and partlett, she is dripping with jewels including a big pendant, a huge brooch and a jewelled coronet in her hair.

My challenge is to try and make her whole outfit with a budget of a bit over NZ$200. I spent weeks going into every fabric shop in Wellington trying to find suitable red fabric within my budget which also had to include money for lining fabric and all the other layers she is wearing. In the end I had to use cotton drill and overdye it to get the right colour. Then I screenprinted in on the table tennis table in my garage. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Luckily we are also allowed to use stuff that is in our own personal stash (like lace and stuffing and beads).

The photo above shows the cotton chemise I made for underneath, (this is an item which can be washed easily and keeps sweat off the main outfit)
The corset (next time I might choose to use a smaller print fabric)
A drum farthingale
A bumroll (hidden)
The petticoat in the photo is a borrowed one but mine is similar.

I have also made
The ruff- an 8 metre length of printed mesh in his case instead of real bobbin lace
A petticoat (made of 10 metres of calico in two layers. In my opinion making this was about the equivalent of machine quilting a king size bed quilt.
The skirt - 4.5 metres of fabric which I have hand dyed and screenprinted with gold ink

I'm in the middle of completing the buttons which I am making by hand by embroidering around beads. I got the instructions from a website but can't find the address right now.

I don't want to show all the pieces until after the show but will try to put some detail shots up of the printing and beading.

Next I have to start on the bodice and sleeves but they may have to wait till next term. During the next holidays which start this Friday 17th June, I am off to Adelaide to do work experience in the costume room at the State Theatre. I'm hoping to work on some of the jewellery while I am over there staying with my cousin.

If you are having a clearout and want to get rid of lace, ribbons, beads, feathers (particularly ostrich feathers) and costume jewellery please consider sending them my way :-), I'll refund postage. I am also looking for hat-making blocks and will swap for hand dyed fabric.


Housework has been a bit neglected recently and today is the first non-rainy day for quite a while. I think I had better go and wash 4 loads of washing. Tune in for more costume making catch-up over the next few weeks.
Clare

Textile Events In New Zealand

The next New Zealand Quilt Symposium is in Taupo which is in the centre of the North Island of new Zealand. The dates are 18-23rd July 2013. Click here if you would like to register to receive information about Taupo symposium. 

There is also a mini symposium to be held in Nelson in 2012. Patches of Tasman will be held from 12th - 16th April 2012. I will be teaching my 'Modern Wagga', 'Fabric Painting & Printing' and 'Putting it into Perspective' classes there.

Queenstown Quilt Symposium

I have just got back to Wellington after a week as a tutor at the Remarkable Symposium in Queenstown. We all had a lovely time and it was nice to catch up with old friends (and new) in such a beautiful place. The autumn colours were really beautiful.

I arrived 15 mins before the tutors meeting on Monday because the plane was delayed  due to high winds in Wellington. There was snow on the mountains as we flew over the South Island.   I then worked 5 days without a day off to look around. There was an exhibition at a church that I never even managed to see because by the time I finished in the evening it was usually too late to get to it. It was very frustrating to not be able to see all the exhibitions but the quilts I did see were pretty amazing.

This morning I managed 1.5 hours looking in the Queenstown shops so I feel like I've done more than teach, eat, talk and stay at the hotel.

My students did amazing work in the 'Next Step' class which was on Tuesday and Wednesday.  My class sample for them looked like this

and the students were warned beforehand that their designs would not look anything like mine because of the process we would be following.

Here are some of their designs, published on this blog with the students permission. NB. If you made one of these quilts please email me you name so I can put it beside your quilt.

I was blown away by how different they all are. Thank-you to the Remarkable symposium 'Next step' class for letting me share these photos on my blog.

On Wednesday I taught the class' Modern Wagga'. A wagga is a 'utility quilt' often made with old clothes, tailors samples or whatever is to hand.  Here are some examples of quilts made in my class.

 We were lucky to have a small class and a large classroom so each student was able to use 3 or 4 tables to construct their 'wagga' and each was at least single bed sized which made them hard to photograph even when standing on a chair. Again, if your quilt is here tell me the colour and your name and I will attribute your work.



Here are some images from the flight home

Costume making

It has been a busy couple of months with study for the costume course and a few extras. We have to do an industry placement and I have been working with Mr Peter Rigby who is a well known Wellington character and Tailor to make a jacket for a member of Alf's Imperial Army. Each week I have been going over to the Hutt Valley to learn how to do the next step in making the jacket. I have never made a mans jacket before so I have been learning about shoulder pads and sleeve head caps!

The jacket is pretty lurid and has strange badges and buttons but I have learned a lot about its construction and fitting. pretty much every seam has been unpicked and resewn at least twice! Unfotunately I don't have a male mannekin so it doesn't show how fitted it is (I tried it on my son but he is so skinny it looked ridiculous).

As part of the course I have also made a corset and combinations and am in the process of designing and making costumes for dance. After that a few of us will start making enormous hats for a show in May.

Not much time for quilting but I will be teaching at the quilt symposium in Queenstown so am making class samples and writing notes for a new class on Sashiko stitching.