The Beginning of the Blue Bustle

I just finished cutting out the pattern for my bustle. I am using the Laughing Moon Mercantile pattern #112 Hoops and Bustles pattern, View E. I am making the bustle as part of a steampunk outfit that I have planned. The bustle will also be able to be worn with a bustle Victorian costume in the future.

I am using a blue sateen cotton for the bustle. The fabric is from my stash and I decided to use it even though I originally bought this fabric for a different costume that has not come to fruition yet. I will take some pictures and post as I actually get some progress made. Hopefully that will be soon as I plan on wearing this costume to the SF Dickens Fair.

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Starting At The Beginning

A wise person once said that in order to tell a story, you start at the beginning, keep going until you get to the end, and then you stop. Pretty good piece of advice to keep in mind as I start my first blog post. When I was young, I learned to sew by watching my mother and my grandmother. For many years I only used those skills to replace missing buttons or fix torn seams. Then I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and was taken to my first Renaissance Faire as part of a guild. I had such a great time that I knew I had to make my own historic costume. I ended up making something new almost every faire for the past 2 or 3 years now. I have become a costume addict! I love making costumes, planning new costumes, and the hunt for that absolutely perfect fabric. It is true that whoever dies with the biggest fabric stash wins. Several friends convinced me to write a blog about my costuming experience and I finally took the plunge. I look forward to sharing my experience with costume of ...

The Dewey Decimal System

If there is one thing as a little girl that I wanted more than anything from a Disney movie was the library from the Beast's castle. The sight of all those books and the information that was just waiting for me to open the cover is still with me to this day. To put things into perspective here, I typically read a book a day... sometimes more if it is on the weekend. Even as a technophile, I still love my books and collect books for my hobbies. Maybe someday if I can have a table sized screen where I can do multiple tasks at once while working on a costume, I might change my mind. For now, I do research online but most still comes from books that I either purchase or get from the library. I wanted to share some of the books that I am using currently for historic costuming and general sewing references. As a friend recently pointed out to me, there are people who would like to take up sewing but don't know where to start. I'm lucky in that I was taught sewing at a young ...

Ottoman Empire Gomlek

I recently started joining the local Society for Creative Anarchism (SCA) group to meet up with like-minded individuals interested in historic costumes and research. There is an upcoming event with a middle eastern theme and I have nothing to wear! So of course that meant frantic research into what middle eastern costume I wanted to make, draft the patterns and begin work. I finally settled on Ottoman Empire (Turkish) costume consisting of shalwar, gomlek, entari and caftan. I did quick and dirty research and The documentation that I found the most helpful are the following: https://serenesabiha.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/aripattern.pdf http://baronyofatenveldt.org/uploads/library/Ottoman%20Coat%20Handout%202011.pdf http://www.katjaorlova.com/FemaleTurkishGarb.pdf Linen gomlek before the added neckline facing. The first link has a great measurement chart that is helpful for keeping documentation of your measurements. I used the gomlek (or women's shirt) pattern and fo...

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