Making Dante's Dream come true.

24 Jan 2012

Library growing!

Hello again! I'm about starting my uni exams so... no time AT ALL! Not to talk about sewing, I haven't started anything yet, but I have quite a few projects to begin (I will write something on that soon).

Today I wanted to talk about some books I bought when I was in Italy last Christmas break. Ok, so, the Uffizi Gallery, great, wonderful, astonishing, marvellous etc. has a bookstore which honours that reputation. There were like dozens of books on historical costume (among other topics). Wish I could have got them all, but I'm not that rich :( I got three, though, which allow me to have like a preparatory stage of research when working with historical pieces.

1) Step one: look for the period and place you want to reenact.





This book is general, but it features major trends in different countries throughout history. Useful as step one, to begin and have this general picture of what you want to achieve. It also has some vocabulary on specific clothes in case you want to look them up.

2) Step two: Find specific garments: which type of sleeve was fashionable during this period? Did they wear this hues?




This other book is just GREAT. As you can read on the cover, it is an outline. What does this mean? This book is delightfully simply structured and written. Fragmented in periods by chapter, it has a paragraph dedicated to 'upper under', 'upper outer', 'bottom under', 'bottom outer', 'shoes', headwear', 'hair', 'make up', 'jewels', etc. It also recommends fabrics and colours for each period. And all that just with the minimum amount of words! It's straight, direct, it's perfect!

3) Step 3: Make sure you understood all the vocabulary! Don't get wrong now you've reached this far!


             

Perfect book to get technical vocabulary and understand everything whatever the instructions you may use say. Very very accurate.

Hope you enjoyed. If someone needs to look for something or any scans to check, just ask and I'll send you an e-mail or whatever. Regards!

10 Jan 2012

New year, new session.

First of all, happy new year to everyone! I know I'm a little bit late but I couldn't post earlier. I went on a trip on January 2nd and I spent the day before preparing my luggage so I couldn't check anything for a week. It was relaxing, though. Well, lets focus now.


I've been interseted in recreating fictional characters from novels (for example, the Nerdanel session from Tolkien), but I wanted to do something historical this time, so I went for an Edwardian outfit which is one of the 'easiest' historical costumes you can sew along with Regency dresses. So when I organized my trip to Florence (Italy) I decided to become Lucy Honeychurch from 'A room with a view'.

As some of you may know, it is an Edwardian novel by E. M. Forster also set in an Edwardian timeframe, about British snob tourists who choose to follow a traveling guide so strictly they miss the popular beauty of the Tuscany. 

In my pics I tried to show Lucy wandering through this landscapes and also wanted to show a Florence landmark : the cathedral. So here we have the results, hope you enjoy!










As usual, you can find the full session on DeviantArt and Flickr. Of course the outfit is not perfect, I'm still learning. I wanted to make a corset, but I couldn't find any time to finish it. I also picked with me a great pamela which fitted perfectly with this style, but I couldn't carry it in my bag to this gardens, it would have been squashed. I lost the right sleeve button of the chemise etc. Nothing comes out like you want, but I don't complain, it was a great experience and I enjoyed a lot my first 'international session' hahaha.