More Blythe Costumes

Been a while but I did promise to show you the other costumes I made for my Blythe dolls for the Sydney BlytheFest.


Imogen was very excited when all the feathers for her costume arrived in the mail ...




I made her fan first - from the little ostrich feathers (proper name, Blondines) and Imogen spent hours practicing how to dance with it.








Yes - it is a ShowGirl costume. 

Imogen was dressing up as Lucille Ball in this still from the 1942 movie "The Big Street"

Lucille Ball

Imogen LaMarr

We were very pleased that we already had some shoes that looked very like Lucille's! 

 
Imogen's leotard is knitted, white wool held together with silver thread then lots of beads including for those rather fancy shoulder straps. 

The 'tail' is marabou on a ribbon belt, here is a back view.







Without the fan ...

















And the Whole SheBang!!

Violetta's costume was a little more restrained!  

She was a "Character" from a movie ... one of the Flappers in "The Great Gatsby".

The dress is based on 1920s fashions; it is longer than the classic Flapper Frock of 1926 and this would be worn by an older, more conservative party-goer - black was favoured by the older ladies.

Vertical beading and godets of light weight fabric in the side seams so that you can dance ... 


Being a perfectionist - the shoulders are too wide, for a real 1920s look those armholes should look more like a singlet's.

Ballet Russe inspired headdresses were part of 1920s party-wear.  I constructed this one like a ballet headdress with some lace and lots of black beads. 

Hat Exhibition - Sun 18th March - a Sneak Preview

Yea!!   I'm part of an Exhibition (& sale) of Autumn Hats at Yuga Cafe - 172 St Johns Rd, Glebe - on Sunday 18th March.

Bold Red Hat by Carole Maher

There will be over 40 Couture Hats - all lovingly hand-crafted by a dozen Sydney Milliners who are members of the Australian Milliners' Guild.  The range will be diverse - as each milliner has a distinctive style of their own.

For example, Carole's style is bold and current, whereas my style is very vintage inspired.   There seems to be such a 1920s buzz at the moment with The Artist  winning so many Oscars & Miss Phryne Fisher solving crime on the TV ...

Flapper Girl Hats by Lyndell

The French call the 20s - les années folles.

Interestingly, from the hats I've seen so far - several of us are going for 

strong - swirling - contrasting lines 

Black & White Swirl by Carole Maher

Orange & Black Swirl by Lyndell

Swirling Beret by Jene Walker

The venue - Yuga café - combines great food, with a relaxed exhibition space and beautiful floristry.  On the 18th you can enjoy a delightful long Sunday brunch while contemplating magnificent millinery - and (if my nerves don't get the better of me) there will be live piano music a-tinkling in the back-ground ... 

The Milliners will be there to help you select a fashionable hat that flatters you.  Something perfect for the Autumn Races or to complete an ensemble or – just because hats are irresistible!

Well getting everything prepared for the exhibition it quite tiring - I think it is time for a nice cuppa' tea ...

Sweet Tea Cup Hat by Amalia Pearl

Forensic Analysis of a 1920s Flapper Dress

I've been doing a lot of mending lately - but sometimes I am given something to mend and it is just impossible - the garment is past it - gone - dead - beyond mending.   So this post comes with a warning - if the sight of a deceased garment is offensive to you, please leave now.  However, if you would know something of a genuine 1920s flapper dress then you are welcome to stay while I examine this fragmentary frock.

Here it is spread out as best I could - every time I touched the fabric it tore under my fingers.

And the colour shows quite orange in that photo and quite apricot in some of the others.  I think originally it was a peachy apricot colour, I suspect it has darkened / gone orangish with age.  Obviously this poor thing was very poorly stored and silk crepe chiffon is a fragile fabric.

Please - if you are lucky enough to own a 1920s frock do NOT store it hung up as the weight of the beading destroys them.  If you own a dress with sequins - anything earlier than the 1960s - NEVER get it wet - early sequins were made of gelatine & gelatine dissolves in water.  Now I put a very late date on the use of gelatine sequins because my mum made me a costume in 1969 with black sequins on it and those sequins went to goo when put in water - gelatine!  They were probably very old stock but dressmakers are hoarders.

Well - back to this dress - no sequins on this one.  But what we see in the photo above is a square skirt with (in the middle) a small portion of the bodice.  The square skirt, when worn, would've hung in points - this uneven hem indicates that it dates from the late 1920s.

Some detail of the beading and gold-thread embroidery.  The design is sort-of Art Deco.  Many of these dresses were made (or at least beaded) in France / Paris and it is said that most of this work was done by Russian refugees from the 1917 revolution.  To me, some elements of this design (& on other 1920s frocks I've examined) are similar to designs on Eastern Orthodox Icons. 

In the centre of the intersecting circles there are 'wheels' worked in metal (gold?) wrapped thread.  All the beads are glass and there are 2 types.   Clear glass short bugle beads that were silvered inside  - 'silver lined'  (like the clouds!)  now mostly tarnished and showing dark in the photos.  And lovely milky glass short bugle beads - I'm not sure if they make beads like this now - they are white glass and the tube is not round but a hexagon / octogon - they have flat sides and thus reflect more light.  I've also seen milky glass beads with micro-grooves on the surface - they were not so twinkly.

A corner

Most 1920s flapper frocks were tambour beaded - here is a YouTube clip that shows you how this is done.  And a lovely movie to watch (they show tambour being worked and people diving under the table / frame to see the right side) is "A Common Thread"  the original title is "Brodeuses" (2004).

Some things to mention about tambour work:

• it is done up-side down with the wrong side facing the embroiderer
• that wrong side has a distinctive chain stitch - and if you pull a thread a whole row of beads will unravel
• stretching the fine fabric onto the tambour frame (drum tight - tambour is French for drum) and punching the fine tambour hook through the fabric probably damages a fragile silk - not noticible in the short-term of course but in the long term ...

 Here we see the wrong side of the beading - note the chain stitch.  Also the gold thread embroidery and the hand-stitched hem.   A lot of woman-hours went into making these dresses.

Love the beads along the hem-line but I wonder it they snagged the wearer's stockings?


Something else to note about 1920s beaded "flapper" dresses is that they were meant to be danced in.

With this dress the square skirt would've hung from a very low 'waist' - it would've swung and moved quite nicely during a tango with all the weight of those glass beads.



And in this last photo you can see what remains of the bodice - and a double row of the silvered beads where bodice met skirt.

Seems that the bodice was quite heavily beaded - I think that row of circles in bunches is going up the side of the bodice - presume it was the same on the other side.  The back was usually beaded just as much as the front - remember - they were made for the dance-floor.

Stitches

It has been such a long time since I posted about the things I've been making  - there is quite a backlog!  

Most of the stitches have been knitting and the sewing projects are mostly things I can't really show you.  I can show you the complete mascot costume - one Hound Dog.  

Previously I've posted about the making of the head and about the hind feet - this is the complete costume being modeled by my darling hubby.

And a back view to show the tail.  BTW please do not notice the uneven lengths of those curtains!

 

Of the next project I can only show you a teaser - and tell you that it is all ecru with lace & embroidery - it involves masses of hand-stitching and quite a lot of glue.

And now to the knitting - the commissions for costumes have continued.  Some have been repeats ... and this was a repeat of a repeat   Eh! What!

 

Well, the first tatty & distressed shawl for the Bird Lady in Mary Poppins was a great success and they wanted a 2nd one - which I made from the yarn supplied - half of which was mohair.  That 2nd shawl was quite 'splodgy' and I think the mohair made it look quite elegant (it is the last item in this post).  Perhaps it was too elegant and it didn't look like the 1st shawl  SO I had to make a 3rd one ... and I now consider myself an expert in the art of Bird Lady Shawl Making :-)  For this 3rd shawl I sourced the yarn - it is a long length variegated yarn meant for socks.

 

I've also made a 2nd Cardigan / Jacket for Colline in Opera Australia's current production of La Boheme - there are some cast changes.  It is another distressed and artfully 'badly knitted' thing and I would like to avoid all shades of mustard for the next decade!   Had to hand it in without buttons (they weren't supplied) so here it is with safety pins.

 

And a back view - with those pleats and some of the deliberately 'knitted in' holes.

 Now if you go to the Opera Australia web site you'll see David Parkin wearing the 1st of those mustard cardi/jackets - with the beanie and scarf that I knitted.  I've borrowed one of the pics here ...

 Had my first commission for some knitting for the small screen - the next 'season' of Underbelly (starting in some states (or all?) Sun 21st Aug) is set in the 1920s.  If you watch the show, keep your eyes peeled during some of the more domestic moments for a character knitting a chocolate brown jumper.  Of course, it may all have ended up on the cutting room floor but I provided the knitting in 3 stages - just commenced ...

Up to the 1st (or 2nd?) sleeve ...

And Very-Nearly-Almost-Finished ...

 

  Poor ole' Bruce the Body there with those sharp metal things at his neck - very appropriate for this TV show!  The jumper is based on a vintage pattern and has old-fashioned styling including very deep rib bands.  I also had to source all those knitting needles - making sure that they looked like those used in the 1920s.  

There were some other commissions, not for the stage but via Jonathan Howard The Hatmaker.

 Donuts? toilet-seat cozies? hand-knitted UFOs?   No, but almost as unlikely.  Jonathan was making a top-hat for a client who wanted it hand-knitted and he wanted cashmere.  So these are, in fact, the parts of a knitted top-hat!

 

First I had to find the cashmere - the desired 'look' was chunky, country-fied and natural - hand-spun seemed the best option.  I bought some natural brown cashmere fleece (fluff) from Belisa Cashmere lovely soft stuff it was like spinning a cloud - I put in about 20% wool to make it easier to handle.  However, it was still brown - the client wanted charcoal so into the dye-pot it went ... until it became the colour you see above ... actually the knitting was the easiest and fastest part of the whole process!

Jonathan The Hatmaker really likes the look of my hand-spun yarns with all the lumps and fluffy bits ... he commissioned a man's scarf ...  

   The yarn is about 50% alpaca & 50% corriedale sheep, both undyed, naturally coloured fleece.    I used a simple knit/purl pattern with garter stitch edges and as it was to be a fairly short scarf, there are 2 splits.  The wearer can thread the scarf through the splits and the scarf doesn't slip off and get lost.      Here is a close up of the texture of the yarn and the stitch pattern.

I've also been knitting beanies for Jonathan to sell in his lovely boutique.  We've missed the window of opportunity to sell warm woolly beanies this year but inevitably, winter will return!  Here are 2 of the beanies ...

Again, all naturally coloured, undyed fleece, these were spun 'in the grease' so the yarn has retained some of the lanolin.  The mottled yarn is sheep - a grey/brown from the Robinson era with some very dark fleece from another Robinson sheep thrown in :-)   The stripes are 100% alpaca - the same ginger girl as in the scarf above.  Her name is Angelique and the fleece was from her 2nd shearing.

The stripes in this 2nd beanie are the same alpaca - the rest is re-purposed woollen yarn.  I found an abandoned knitting project in an op-shop - following some un-knitting and lots of sorting I plyed 2 of the colours together on my spinning wheel to create a thick tweedy yarn ...

For the ladies I knitted some very vintage, very French berets.  My own pattern but based on a 1940's vintage one.

The yarn is Bendigo Woollen Mills - their very dependable Classic 8ply.