Tag: steampunk

Paul Smith – Kraken Hunter

Paul Smith - Kraken Hunter

This is Paul at Chepstow Castle, part of Waltz on the Wye 2012. Despite being May, the weather was absolutely freezing, so he hijacked my new Clapotis for most of the weekend.

Paul Smith - Kraken Hunter

But what was he hunting with his camera, high up in the remains of the castle?

Kraken at the Castle

Why, the Kraken, of course!

Paul Smith - Kraken Hunter

When he wasn’t off adventuring, he dressed smartly for an evening’s entertainment at the Drill Hall.

Paul Smith - Kraken Hunter

Both waistcoats are from the Harlots and Angels Sweeney Todd pattern. The brown one is moleskin, the grey is pinstriped denim. They’re a little bit big, but they pull in nicely with a little corset-style lace-up belt at the back.

I had a bit of trouble with the pattern (the amount of interfacing needed wasn’t clear, and the construction method seemed unnecessarily complicated), but once I’d decided to ignore the instructions and just sew, they were easy enough to put together. Because my sewing machine refuses to make buttonholes and I didn’t have time to do them by hand, each waistcoat is fastened with poppers and the buttons are sewn on top.

Thankfully I took a sewing kit with me, because I made the grey waistcoat in such a hurry that I’d sewn half the poppers in the wrong place! That was easily fixed, and the sewing kit came in handy a few times over the course of the weekend.

Paul’s usually extremely averse to dressing up, but he was so comfortable in these waistcoats that he’s thinking of wearing the grey one to business meetings instead of a suit jacket. I call that a sewing success!

Steampunk Silk

Steampunk Silk

This is a costume that I made for a friend, way back last October for a Hallowe’en event. She already had a corset and a mask, so they dictated the copper, gold and brown accent colours.

The ivory silk had a previous incarnation as her wedding dress. The slightly distressed texture is a result of putting it through the washing machine, but it left the fabric amazingly soft and a joy to work with. There was enough to make a jacket and a bustled skirt, with some left over for accessories.

Steampunk Silk

The jacket is a modification of two Simplicity steampunk patterns – 2172 and 2207. The back and sleeves were taken from 2207, with the front from 2172. I added lacing into the princess seams at the back, and beading to the cuffs. The buttons were from the original dress, as were the Swarovski crystal beads.

Steampunk Silk

The bustle and swags are in sections, all interchangeable so they can be worn in lots of different ways. They simply tie at the waist with ribbons. The skirt itself is bustled at the back, using ribbons sewn through channels in the centre back seam. This can be let down into a train. There’s a little bit of ruching at the front too, conveniently placed to disguise a stain that wouldn’t come out! (Shhh, don’t tell…)

I also made a petticoat to go underneath, to give  the skirt a little bit of extra fullness. I don’t know why I didn’t take a photograph of that, but you can just see the ruffle peeking out, here. There are better photos of the outfit being worn to stunning effect, but I need to get permission before I post them here. Thankfully it was well received, and looked absolutely fabulous!

As always, I wish I’d had a bit more time to make this. The bustle and swags were a bit rushed, and I would have liked to add much more beading to the cuffs. But I absolutely loved making it. It was a real treat to work with such sumptuous silk duchess satin, and to swap creative ideas with a friend. In fact, it’s inspired me to modify my own wedding dress for an event I’m attending in May.  You’ll have to wait and see how it turns out!

Wild Boy’s Ball

So, at long last, here is the completed stripy/steampunk outfit!

Paul and I went to the Wild Boy’s Ball at Kensington Palace, and had an absolutely magical evening. You can see all the photos that Paul took, over on Flickr.

We started off by going inside the palace itself, which was actually quite different from the last time I went. They’d repainted the entrance staircase, and changed quite a few of the rooms and installations. The giant dolls were gone, which was a shame, but they were allowing photographs (without flash) inside this time, which was brilliant. Perhaps the most enchanting but also the most creepy things were the new light installations by artist Chris Levine. At first glance they just look like a tower of flickering lights, but when you turn away from them you see people in your peripheral vision! (Sadly they gave Paul a terrible headache and made his eyes twitch.) I sat in the knitted throne, and was bowed-to by two of the Wildworks cast – who went on to give me a knitted orb and sceptre to hold until I made a wish!

When we came out we saw a show by The Gaiety Engine, which was hilarious. We also walked around the sunken gardens, which had been transformed with hundreds of red baubles hanging from the arches. Each bauble contained a piece of artwork or a secret written down by a member of the public. There may have been a certain amount of posing for photos… and as we were walking back, the official event photographer asked me if I’d mind posing for him, which was exciting – that’s never happened to me before! I suspect it’s just because I was conveniently wearing the right colour of dress, but he took some lovely pictures. Shame I didn’t think to give him my email address so I could get copies. You can see the whole set on Kensington Palace’s Facebook page.

I wanted to do the craft activities, so I made a pretty paper rose. (Like this, only bigger.) I didn’t make a lantern because there was a massive queue, but I rather cheekily brought all the lantern-making materials home with me, so I can make one anyway. Photos to follow when I’ve glued it all together and found a tea-light to pop inside. It’s very pretty.

There were supposed to be some people giving period dancing lessons and seduction tips, but we didn’t see them – although there was a small group of people in period costume, so it might have been them. At the end of the night there was dancing in front of the Orangery, run by The Last Tuesday Society. Every single piece of music was a waltz, and I tried very hard to teach Paul how to dance, but sadly he couldn’t get the hang of it. Which was a shame, because I could quite happily have waltzed for an hour, if I’d had somebody to waltz with. Paul and I did dance a bit, but it wasn’t waltzing by any stretch of the imagination!

Striped Tie

Stripy tie

Paul decided the day before the event that he would come with me after all.

Thankfully I managed to get him a ticket, and I had just enough striped fabric left over to make him a tie to match my outfit.

The diagonal stripe is because I didn’t have a big enough scrap of fabric to make the front of the tie in one piece, so I had to make a join. The stripes didn’t quite match up as precisely as I’d have liked, so I ran a piece of leftover braid across the seam.

Not bad for a last minute dash and a few bits of leftovers!

Steampunk Coat

Almost finished...

Here’s the final part of the outfit – a somewhat modified version of Simplicity 2172. Actually, it’s not as heavily altered as you might think – I just left off a few pieces that were surplus to requirements. Like the sleeves.

The buttons are the original ones from my friend’s military jacket. There are four on the front (complete with more hand-sewn buttonholes), two on each pocket, and an extra one at the centre back.

Almost finished...

As you can see, I decided to bustle the back of the coat, so I made thread loops in the seams which simply pop over the buttons on the pockets and at the back. The coat was exactly the same length as the skirt, and the red lacing looked a bit out of place without being able to see the red of the skirt to tie it in, so to speak.

The feather collar is actually a cape that I bought from Next, last winter. Sewing it into place around the neckline of the coat forces the feathers upwards into a more wing-like shape, rather than the cape simply sitting flat around the neck.

In case you’re wondering where on earth I’m going in this outfit, it’s for the Wild Boy’s Ball at Kensington Palace. All I need to do now is add some more feathers to my mask, and carefully choose the rest of my accessories. I’ll make sure to show you photos of the entire outfit when it’s finished!

Steampunk Petticoat

Petticoat

You might have noticed that this is made to roughly the same pattern as the black linen dress. This time the ruffle’s a bit shorter, but that was mostly because I’d almost run out of stripy fabric. The body of the dress is a little longer to compensate. The hem is trimmed with one layer of wide flat lace, and another of red gathered lace to provide a little bit of extra fullness. The butterfly sleeves are simply overlocked at the edges, and the beaded trim matches the skirt.

Petticoat and skirt

Here’s how they look together – rather smart, I think! The plain red doesn’t exactly match the stripes, but I think they’re close enough that it doesn’t matter too much. The petticoat doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference to the fullness of the skirt because it’s much too narrow, so you probably won’t even see the two layers of lace. The attention to detail makes me feel better about the outfit though, so it’s worth the effort.

Simplicity 2207 – Striped Steampunk Skirt

Simplicity 2207

The title says is all really – this is Simplicity 2207, my striped steampunk skirt!

Somewhat eye-bending, but I knew the stripes on the skirt would end up going in all directions, so I deliberately placed them vertically on the front and horizontally on the ruffle.

Both edges of the ruffle are finished on the overlocker, with the “raw” edges left visible. Over the gathered join is four metres of beaded trim, with four metres of braid stitched over the top. I think I spent more on the trimmings than I did on the fabric!

(This was sadly evident as I was sewing – the black stripes are printed rather than woven, and I ended up with very grubby hands. Yuk.)

Simplicity 2207

I attempted to put pockets in the side seams, but that turned out to be a lesson in reading the entirety of the instructions before you start. The waistband has a somewhat unusual construction, so the two sides of my pockets didn’t match. Not wishing to rip out all the overlocking and start again, I simply chopped off the pocket pieces and pretended I didn’t want pockets after all.

The back of the skirt is twice as full as the front, and has an elasticated waist. I have a horrible suspicion that, despite measuring, I’ve cut the elastic a little bit too short. Thanks to the waistband construction I can’t easily get in and change it, so for now I’ve adjusted my dress form to be a little bit bigger than me, in the hope that it’ll stretch out a bit before I wear it. Fingers crossed.

Satin Bustle Skirt

Bustly skirt - front

To go with the silk corset, I made a satin bustled overskirt. The idea was to have something that could be worn over several different skirts, and could be varied in style.

The top layer is from Simplicity 2207, with a bit of modification. Instead of using a single layer, I doubled the fabric to give a bit more volume. Rather than making ruffles, I gathered a pretty wide lace along the centre back and the lower edge.

Bustly skirt - back

The under layer is made from two widths of fabric joined together in a french seam and gathered in to the waistband. Left rectangular, all the edges were trimmed with the same wide lace, and then the sides were gathered tightly to create the draping at the front. The whole thing simply ties around the waist.

In between the two layers, below the waistband, are several plastic rings. These correspond with ribbons sewn onto the skirt. The ribbons can be pulled through the rings and tied in place to create different bustle effects, or left loose to create a train. I used six metres of satin in total, but because it’s such light fabric you get a lot of volume without too much extra weight.

The skirt, corset, pirate shirt and waistcoat all took a trip to the Summer Darkness festival, and I’m hoping to be able to show you some action photos soon!