On the first day of December.

...and the wine did help! so did the sleeping..and I was cool as a picknikbasket on weed at the day of the Christmas feast. After all that stress fixing a party was not so bad..and an awesome party it was! We had  lots of food (potluck-style) including mincemeat pies, strawberry jellocake, Bûche de Noël, more wine and of course..the oh so Swedish meatballs and mash potatoes! But like with all the good feasts I barely got one good picture ..actually they are all pretty crap. Most of the pictures were taken right at the beginning and right at the end..but at least I want to include the pictures of my creations:

 

I've moused my pictures cause the first one was taken in pre-party-stress..and the other one at 4..when people had left and it was 2 minutes til I fell asleep..and between these two there was a lot of laughing, eating and drinking, interesting discussions, some drama and one surprise...how very Victorian!

Right now I'm taking a little break, my only creating is some Christmas presents. I'm generally not a fan of the materialistic mass-hysteria that breaks out around Christmas time..seems like most people just want an excuse to revert to some sort of spoiled child..but this year I am doing presents. Home made ones! I will never cave to the pressure again, hahaaa! 

Soon though I will have an other big project..you see..I was proposed to at the Christmas feast. I said yes. So soon there will be some wedding dress planing in this blog. I am very much not the kind to wait for things...

But I'm not the only one getting married. being in the marriage-boom-age I also have a friend who has asked me to do her wedding dress! Exiting stuff! 

                                Wonder how it will all turn out...?

...hopefully not as it did for miss Havisham...!  

 

Friday afternoon

This is a very short one. Just wanted to tell...my dress is finished...on time..finally! I'm not a fan of big projects on a deadline..I remembered I lose interest really quickly if something else comes in my way. But now I'm good to go for tomorrows Christmas feast! (I'm so gonna have wine to celebrate my accomplishment when my Lus goes to sleep!)


Just wanna squeez it in, thanks to Bambi for all the patience with my unpredictable temper and all the time and space..  And thanks to my Lus for not stepping on the fabric and helping me needle things. Until next time I'll know that 2 weeks is not enough time for that much work. Now, I'm gonna take a chill pill!

Thadaaa!! nr.2

It's now 3 days left and today I completed my 1870's underwear! I must say it turned out really pretty looking. actually I'd like to be dressed like this everyday!

There's a lot of criticism to be found about wearing a corset, and to be fair my corset is not very heavily boned nor extremely tightly laced (like I said, I can breath without issue), but it's really not that uncomfortable. It's about as comfortable as wearing a bra, only in a different way. 

The chemise is all soft and warm and I just LOVE the layers of petticoats! Not that that's really anything out of the ordinary..I wear layers of skirts almost everyday. (People don't seem to know that skirts are so much warmer than pants when it's cold..?)

Aaaanyway, I'm enjoying my new girly underwear and going nuts for it before I start on the actual dress! 

Also...Christmas has been starting to appear in other ways too...check out the Christmas tree.

Housewife on speed!

I realized i needed a break from my designing and clothmaking..it's time to stop when you can't even watch a movie without constantly obsessing about how that dress was made and "i wonder how that would look as a bustle dress"!

So today I was the desperate housewife instead. Because as everyone knows...all housewives are desperate...and I know why! It's not because they can't work and be "free" (how working is being free is out of my understanding) NO, and it's not because it's really hard work (and it is!) NO, and it's not because you have to wear really big rolls in your hair to make your self look pretty and uncomfortable until your husband comes home so you can greet him with coffee and newly baked bread (rollers are actually quite fun!) NO, it's because how ever hard you try..it's never good enough. There's always something more... (I really do sound desperate don't I). 

Like This! one would think that after a day of cleaning ,washing, baking, cooking, wearing a dress, doing my fucking hair, and everything whilst taking care of my son and caring for my sick husband I'd get more than -4 on the 30's housewife test! -4!? I bet it was the"flirting with other men at cocktail parties" and the "being late for appointments" that draged me down..Damn you 30's women and your perfect wavy hair.

I'm always trying for this kind of housewife

 

...but somehow I always end up like this kind of housewife

                        (minus the obvious stupid face!)

                                                



                                    ....and most of all...this kind of housewife

Tomorrow it's probably back to creating and imagining..but sometimes it's actually nice to do something where you don't have to use your brain at all..and THAT, I think, is the reason I'd hate being a real housewife. It's 3 am and that's good night for me.

Water over head.

         I just wanna say that.. I Hate Shawl Collars! 

..a one day project became a three day project, partly because I took a break while making my sons grandmother an Edwardian-apron-dress (nice to be on familiar ground again), and partly cause of that fucking shit pile of a shawl collar! Never making that again! But double breasted vests I might try to do more of... But here it is, the Victorian Christmas feast vest!

Next in line is the peachy skirt to my feasty dress.

1 week and 1 day left..

First of all, I have to blog about my "new" floor-pillow! I found it in the tiny old house where my family keeps random unused things. Actually I was there to pick up a table for the Christmas feast and my son started playing around with some soft animals...and there it was. The same pillow I sat on in front of the fireplace at my grandparents 15, maybe 20 years ago..so obviously I snatched it. Lookin' good in my own livingroom!

But now, back to the feast-outfit. I've been having some problems finding fabric for things..it's just not as awesome as I'd want it to be..everything is just so..midlife-crisis-curtain-making-fabric..! This..and millions of other reasons is why I so wanna move away from the little town I live in. But the finally I found some in a bargain-bin at the fabric shop and then some at the salvation army flee market, so now I can start!
Bargain bins and  flee markets is the shit!
  Right now it looks like this..just a pile of things..(I'll be really proud of my self if I pull this of in a week) but that pile is going to become chemise, bodice,skirt and possibly underskirt (depending on the time and how well things fit that I already have) for me, and waistcoat (vest) and cravat for my Bambi (it would be fun to make a shirt too, but I think that would be tipping it over the edge on my time limit). Lucky for me I made Lucien a new Victorian suit a month ago so that's what he's wearing.

kinda like this, but totally different!

So...tomorrow I'm starting on the waistcoat...good luck to me..!  (I think this is what they call a labor of love..? Also, I totally wont be doing any sewing on my own vintage sewing machine even if my picture implies I would. That's just too much labor, too little love. Also I wanted to brag about having a vintage sewing machine. ) 



 

Thadaaa!!

Now I found an other good thing about blogging! because I blogged about it I know it takes me 4 days to make a corset. Good to know.

So now, after 4 days of bleeding and hurting fingers ( most of the corset has to be sewn by hand..)  and obsessive mind, Here's my first piece of the Christmas feast outfit! 

I'm actually really happy about how it turned out! The more comfortable I get the more I try to go for more boning and more "real looking" ..Hopefully I'll get the patterns I want for Christmas so I can try out the original and compare it to the ones I've come up with on my own.

Weirdly enough, even if I do look pretty laced up, this is really not very tight ( I can totally breath and all!)..keeping in mind that I'll be eating dinner in this. So it's just basically keeping the shape i already have in place for my dress...okay I might make it a little bit tighter later!

                                                            ..hopefully not like this though. 

Midnight in the forest.

This is today(tonight?)s happy place: PARIS

                          ..because going to France is like going home. Vive la France!

Corset is the new Christas

This is part 2 of  my re-discovering Christmas experience. Since it's MY Christmas I WILL dress my self Victorian style and NO ONE is allowed to give me the stink eye! Anywaay, I've now started on my first piece, the corset. 

All I have done so far is cut out the fabric and do some mixin and matchin.

Hopefully at the end it will look more like this.

2007 and 2009

I do have corsets so I wouldn't really have to make a new one..but the ones I have a bit too loose or too decorated and I need one to fit under my dress. And also corsets are really fun to make!


These are my earlier corsets, the first one I made is way too loose (and too modern!), the second one is the one I  made, under extreme time pressure, for my can-can dress (worn by my friend Amanda in one of my previous blogs) and it's bit too lacy and thick to fit under anything..also they are both red.So I get to make a new one yeeei!

My Christmas collage!

This is my Christmas collage! 

 

I really hate Christmas, and have since I grew up at about 8, but this year is going to be different! This year I'm creating Christmas as it should have been.. It will be a Christmas feast with presents only for children(!) , I'm dressing up Victorian style and I'm gonna try to make a tipsycake! starting to plan now.. I'll know if it's a good idea later...

                                                ...kinda like this...

Red ridinghood and the pants of sadness.

Sometimes people want things made and I do make them..but really..I should really have an extra fee for boredom. If I ever start my own official business, I will charge extra for ugly and uncreative work..
So I need a break to cheer up! 


And I knoow, it's not nice to make fun of fat people and small penises, but it sure is funny! and I need a bit of fun to take my mind of ..you know..


And if I need more fun I can always ask my son to sing "soft kitty"!

               Then I'm gonna make an outfit like this one:

the potion maker..ish.

I made some witch supplies for my friend Amanda as a moving-in-present..actually I wanted to make potion jars and she just happened to be moving, so I called it a moving-in-present. Never the less I might have gone a bit too far with it..

There's the elixir of life..an empty jar..a mystery fairy jar..the love potion..and my favorite, the shrinking potion.
Then there's also some witch bags and some spells to match.

my kitchen shelf with "no whining"-sign

My own kitchen shelf is not quite as witchy but I am thinking of making my self a shrinking potion too to mix things up.




 

1876 - the Dollhouse

Like I said earlier, before the grisette dress came the house that inspired it. This is acctually a house I've been wanting to make for some time (since I found the picture I based it on) but I haven't really known that much about victorian details to make it as awsome as I wanted. But then last winter I found "Doré's London" on sale in the book shop and after that my project started.
 
This is the original picture from the 1830's (I think it's called tableau de Paris), and my own 1870's dollhouse version:

1830's  &  1870's

On the first floor there's a dress shop called Amandine. I named it after my friend Amanda who gave me the idea when she described how she would make her dream sawing room. And the girl in the shop would be  Amanda her self.

The second floor is the rich and fancy people.I made the lady with my sister in mind, but I think she became more of a my sister and me- blend.

Third floor is the middleclass. An old lady and her grandchildren sitting down to dinner ( I made the room with my own grandmothers kitcken from when I was little in mind). And on the other side, a young family moving in (with my own family on the picture).

In the attic lives the poor people. The street artist on one side, and the kept woman on the other.

 In a way I kinda like the doubble life and the behind the scenes drama of the 1800's..and obviously the wide range of cool clothing! so I might be sticking with it for a while...

 

1876

I decided to go dressed up as mrs.Lovett at this years Halloween party, so I could reuse my 1876 dress..just spiced it up with some messy hair, dark makeup, wooden spoon and laudanum bottle.

But really, the dress is one I made for the Night of Arts in august and it's inspired by the dollhouse I call "1876" (I'll probably blog about that later) . I call the dress "Grisette". 

It's a 4 piece outfit: first an underskirt with ruffles at the back 1870's style, then a plain underskirt, then the light-green-gray outerskirt   witch is looped up at the back and last the gray upper piece with black lace and dark green corset attached. The dress is fastened by lacing in the back.

Grisette was an 19th century word for a girl working as a seamstress or with something else involving clothing and fabric selling, who was part of the artistic and bohemian life of Paris and many times also sold them selfs at music halls and cabarets trying to find a rich lover to support them. The name comes from the cheep gray fabric they made their dresses of. Being a seamstress was one of the worst paid jobs a woman could have, but the freedom was unlike any other. Too bad the world is different now, or I'd be of to Paris in my "Grisette"- dress right away!   

But I have done my best to make my self a modern day grisette..except..you know..selling my self at bars..obviously. Having men pay for drinks counts too! 

Amanda and me walking the streets at the Night of Arts

Grisette and zombie

Bambi and me Halloweening