Steampunk inspiration -The Vampire by Charles Baudelaire

I am keen to make some kind of brocade dress right now. I was looking for brocade dresses or photos or ideally paintings of brocade dresses for inspiration for a Steampunk dress on pinterest.

I found this picture of Dracula byArantzazu Martinez (2011) and the first translation of The Vampire by Charles Baudelaire on the Vampires Wife site,
and further down the page a different version of the poem by Baudelaire found on YouTube.


Great dress in the picture too! Very inspiring.

 This inspired me to look up Dracula and vampires only to find two slightly different translations of Baudelaire's poem:

The Vampire - Poem by Charles Baudelaire

You, who like a dagger ploughed

Into my heart with deadly thrill:

You who, stronger than a crowd

Of demons, mad, and dressed to kill,

Of my dejected soul have made

Your bed, your lodging, and domain:

To whom I'm linked (Unseemly jade!)

As is a convict to his chain,

Or as the gamester to his dice,

Or as the drunkard to his dram,

Or as the carrion to its lice —

I curse you. Would my curse could damn!

I have besought the sudden blade

To win for me my freedom back.

Perfidious poison I have prayed

To help my cowardice. Alack!

Both poison and the sword disdained

My cowardice, and seemed to say

"You are not fit to be unchained

From your damned servitude. Away,

You imbecile! since if from her empire

We were to liberate the slave,

You'd raise the carrion of your vampire,

By your own kisses, from the grave."

By Charles Baudelaire 

Translated by Roy Campbell - found on The Vampires Wife site

The Vampire - Poem by Charles Baudelaire

You that, like a dagger’s thrust,

Have entered my complaining heart,

You that, stronger than a host

Of demons, came, wild yet prepared;

Within my mind’s humility

You made your bed and your domain;

- Infamous one who’s bound to me

Like any felon by his chain,

Like a gambler by his games,

Like the bottle and the sot,

Like the worms in one’s remains,

- Damm you! Damnation be your lot!

I’ve begged the merciful, swift sword

To overcome my liberty -

To poison I have said the word:

Save me from poltroonery.

Alas the sword! Alas the poison!

Contemptuous, they spoke to m:

"You never can deserve remission

Of your accursed slavery,

"Imbecile! - If our deadly empire

Freed you from your present fate,

Your kiss would soon resuscitate

The cold cadaver of your vampire!"

I still have to decide on the dress I am going to make, but never mind. I found the poem very inspiring and worth recording here. Its not all about sewing after all!

Bracken

Updated lilac gingham skirt

 Really I made this skirt back in 2017 but it was never right. Last year I did not even bother to wear it and when we had Me Made May 2019 I decided it is time to root out all those badly made items I just do not wear. This skirt was on the list.

But then I thought well I do like it. It is just that the original version was so imperfect. The bottom of the frill was wrong and was sewn into the hem rather than floating free. The waistband was wide elastic which worked but I hated. And worst of all it was far too big for me!

So I decided rather than throw this I would remake it or update it.

It took quite a bit of unpicking to redo this. There are actually two versions of this skirt offered by Burda. https://www.burdastyle.com/pattern_store/patterns/ruffle-skirt-122016

This pattern makes both a frill version and a zip front version:

The original frill version

Once I had it all appart I decided to do another version of this skirt I made back in the autumn but to keep the frill as well so in reality its a mix of both Burda versions with a zip and a frill.

This skirt is actually a 3-way reversible skirt which seemed a great idea.

It is not successful!

The zip undoes as I walk. So far I have worn it for about 15 minutes and always had to take it off.


The new version of my gingham skirt has the zip in the opposite way up so undoes from the waist and it works really well so now I need to remake this skirt as well.

Thats actually quite a bit more difficult than redoing the gingham skirt due to being interfaced down the zip and having two layers.

Well this time with the zip the opposite way up this skirt works. I am happy. I wore this all day at work, it was comfortable, although I did start the day with bare legs and it was so cold here in the UK I opted out mid-morning and put some leggings on. Other than the weather though the skirt is great now I have altered it and I am inclined to spend the time its going to take me to update a few others of my Me Mades. And with each new update I not only save some nice clothes, I also become better at sewing and work out how to make my clothes fit. Oh and this skirt is also now the right size as well- Bonus eh!

I now have a normal waistband made from scraps of gingham left over from the various projects. Where the zip joins the waistband is actually not quite right. Maybe I will do it better next time but its not unwearable so I am currently happy with this despite this slight imperfection.

In case you were wondering, I also made the wrap top here: https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2017/04/95-and-96-skirt-and-top-for-tms-bright.html

Thanks for popping by

Bracken

Version 3 of The Vampires Wife Inspired dress - REMADE!

Original dress was badly fitting and too big

So I took the dress appart a while back. You can see how it looked on the top right.

I had no black thread in the machine because I was at that time sewing lots of summer stuff with white thread so had to wait then to resew until I was had finished that job and changed back to the black thread I used for this dress. Yes I know its a bit lazy, but I find I am far more productive if I make several items with the same coloured sewing thread. Then I can steam through seams really quickly.

So for example I made a pair of trousers and some circle cullottes (More later on this in a separate post) both with white thread - see my later post on summer elastic waist clothing!

This means I can literally just sew all side seams, overlock them, sew fronts to back, overlock again on CB/CF seam, then move on to waistbands so I am sewing up two garments at once.

This saves time with swapping back and forth with the overlocker and sewing machine and changing coloured thread.

Since I usually know what I am making in the next few weeks it works well for me to sew like this.

I seem to always have a list of "intending to make soon" stuff so this is the way to produce loads with least stress and effort - for me anyway.

It also helps to keep the stash down. Its a very good way to sew when you are using basic or TNT patterns anyway. Obviously, if its a new pattern that takes loads of concentration to work out what to do, then it will not work so well.

And of course it means I have a blog post garment for a future week waiting for me to photograph and write about! Staying on target with approximately one post a week really does stretch me to be honest about things. Its OK when I make something fast and simple but not very achievable when making something like this dress that takes me more time.

I managed to make the waist tie do up off-centre as you can see here. That's due to my wearing this to travel to work before managing to get the photos taken.

Never mind! 

The ribbon belt is held to the dress with a couple of loops of thread at each side. Yes! I know I should make some proper chains to hold it in place and I will do eventually. It does do up at the centre, but slips a bit due to being shiny slippery double sided satin. 

I suppose I could fasten it on one side by sewing to the side seam so the bow stays in the CB. Right now I am not too worried about that but just happy to have made this dress fit me. 

I have to have this piece of ribbon because the waist seams are not pattern matched to the bodice seams - in fact it is not at all pattern matched unless by accident. I had no extra fabric from this dress for pattern matching and little left over (or maybe enough for a couple of hair ties ) due to having just 2m of this and it was also, as often seems to be the case not well cut, so I cannot make a matching waist tie belt either so a piece of ribbon ( salvaged from a posh box of biscuits someone gave us at work so would have been thrown in the bin and sent to landfill after we ate them otherwise) does the job.

This is the side view:

You can just about see here the side seam. I will get a better photo of this without the belt attached. The darts line up to the front/back bodice seams and the skirt side seam. Its a bit tricky to get this right and does mean quite a bit of pinning and messing around to get both sides to fit as well as making sure the front bodice and skirt side seams are exactly inline but it can be done with patience.

To make this fit from the original dress

 I took in all side seams but tapered them in so that I kept the original skirt hem width. I also took both sleeves out and re-inserted. This time I sewed the side bodice seams first then inserted the sleeves. The first time I sewed the sleeve onto the bodice with side seams open and then sewed the sleeve seam and side bodice as one seam so its constructed slightly differently here. This was the easiest way to reconstruct without totally dismantaling it. I also added gathers to the sleeve heads rather than pleats. The original The Vampires Wife dresses seem to have pleats ( and shoulder pads!).

My analysis of the 3 dresses based on the style of 

The Vampires Wife dress is as follows:

Version 1
This fitted pretty well for my first attempt at this style bearing in mind I have not really much idea of pattern cutting and just followed Winifred Aldrich's book - Metric Pattern Cutting - which I bought second hand to make this. It worked first time!

The sleeves though were not right in that instead of being puffed on the shoulder were the basic block sleeves because I thought they would need to fit from that perspective before making any changes to my basic block and rather than sew a hundred muslins first I wanted to make an actual dress so I had yet to make the puffed sleeve block. I was happy enough they just fitted into the bodice block with very little adjustment.







Version 2
The only changes I needed to make to the first dress pattern were the sleeves which for a real TVW style needed to be puffed at the shoulder. So I made a puffed sleeve. And of course this is the midi-skirt length




Version 3
I added more fabric to the top of the sleeves making them more roomey but kept the sleeve width at the bottom. I think this was a good change. The sleeves work better. I prefer the single to double frills but thats a cosmetic difference.

I also added 1cm at knee length to the skirt block and then tapered this to the waist so it was actually less than 1cm on the CF of this skirt block due to the fitted part of this skirt being well above the knee when not including the frill in this length. I do not think the skirt needed this. It sticks out just slightly at CF and I think the first two dresses were better without this.

I did the same to the back skirt block. This is a good alteration. The back skirt hangs better and its easier to walk with this, so I will do that alteration again for version 4 of this dress.

The neck is slightly wider on version 4 to the other two. I prefer this. Its more comfortable. Its really because I never did stay stitching me being lazy and then tried this on for fitting. The fabric is thin and I slightly ripped the neck down by about 1cm to had to lower it. I stay stitched after that though not just to prevent stretch but to stop further rips!

So now I have a reasonable idea of what I what my final, and 4th, version of  The Vampires Wife inspired dress is going to be from a pattern block point of view. I even know what fabric I am going to use to make it. Its likely to be my last version though for a while at least. Unless I cannot resist of course. Its been interesting that despite accurately cutting etc, I still needed to make adjustments to the second and third dresses. I suppose I need to take that on board.repeating something does not mean it works perfectly first time.

I have actually now started going through my wardrobe, partly due to what I found during the Me Made May adventure this year, where I realised quite a few items I do like, need a few minor changes to make them more wearable, so that is an ongoing background project. I will probably show you a few of these as I get round to sorting them out.

Back on the subject of The Vampires Wife style: I was interested to find this NEXT dress in my inbox:

Very The Vampires Wife really, though a different neckline.

I cannot help but notice the similarity though.

I do not expect to bother copying this version. I think with the latest dress I have planned, which will be version 4 of The Vampires Wife inspired dresses, I really will have quite enough of this style in my wardrobe. I really cannot resist making just one more though!

Bracken

Red Zouave style sweat pants

So yes its just about the middle of summer and its England and its cold so I decided rather than continue to freeze I would cozy up and make these zouave style sweatshirt pants. They are not quite zouaves but the closest I own in patterns. This is a Burda pattern from the 01/2011magazine and I have made this pattern before.

Green version made in 2017

I did as last time I made this pattern up and missed out the zip. The green pair I made were a very stretch woven cotton. This time though I deliberately ( as opposed to forgot) ignored the interfacing in the waistband because I wanted to make use of the stretch in the fabric. Well why add a zip closure when you do not need to?

Last time I added a long piece of fabric as the back waistband which I threaded elastic into and sewed it into the side seams - so the the back waist is elasticated but not the front waist (so not adding waist gathers as such the way the pattern tells you to with a fixed waistband and interfacing and a side zip) and that time I had a solid front V shaped panel ( as original pattern) with interfacing to stabilise. This time I just made the proper V shaped front and the original pattern back waistband and threaded elastic straight the way round. Its not super pretty to be honest but does work and I only want these to be "round-the-house-slobbing-in-the-evening-and-watching-TV" trousers.

They were very quick to make ( about 30 mins including cutting out and sewing up time) and as I intended warm and comfy tho I do admit somewhat lacking in style. But then I do not intend to wear them out of the house in public other than to pop down the garden and visit my hens. Perfect warm trousers for cold wet summer days/ evenings after work.

Now to making some more work-worthy clothing. Maybe time to finish a few UFOs?

Bracken

What bra?

I was browsing  Pinterest pages  today and found these:

I think they originate from M&S.

Knowing what bra goes with what is useful I find and this as anyone who visits my blog will probably already know is a serious problem for me.
1) I hate bras! Yes hate the things. As a young woman I never wore one but around the age of 42 I realised not wearing one was ruining the look of my clothing. Gravity set in. So nothing for it but to wear some kind of foundation garments. For many years I still did not wear a bra and relied on cropped tops - and what is now called bralets but I never wore actual underwear or not bras anyway and if I could get away with bikini ( as in swimwear knickers) that was ok too. It was the 1990s and small tops were everywhere making it very easy for me to use them as underwear.

Then around 10 years ago I bought some proper bras. All different types - pushup, Tshirt, whispy bits of lace bras, but bras I bought.

This did not actually help most of the time because I seem to choose the wrong type of bra for what I wear. For example look at this picture:

Its not an unusual look for me unfortunately. I have an extreme love of exercise tops/bras so wear them most of the time but they really do not help my wide necked ballet tops - except of course when I am actually aiming for that kind of look. I do wear lots of ballet style tops too.

And I do like the layers multi strapped tops look so its not always an accident but it belongs with casual weekend wear and not during work. I do have rubbish taste sometimes! I often go to work without actually looking in the mirror and then when I do realise how I look I spend the rest of the day sweltering with a jumper on, even if its hot to keep covered up my bad clothing mixtures.
Here's another example with a black exercise top poking out.

My blog is full of this. Sadly. I could say its just how I am. It really is, but I do feel even if I just sort it out for my blog I should try to get my head round this, because as I said, it does impinge on my life - and my sanity, as well as ruin some very good photos. In the case of the second picture I do not actually mind the look at all but its not a good look for work. They prefer you to be neater. Students can look like that, but the staff should be more tidy - I work in a University. Casual is really OK where I work but I sometimes manage to look a bit too casual.

You can even see a glimpse of unwanted under top spoiling the look here:


And here:

So bearing in mind my current newly found desire to make underwear - all sorts not just bras and knickers, but also bustiers and corsets then I do need to have a serious think about what I actually need. Its tempting you see to jump straight in there and make some nice wearable comfortable exercise tops but they would create the same looks as these pictures above - and there are many other examples on this blog!

I found these three photos pretty fast. I do not really want to find all the others! 

I know they are all over the place.

So instead I am now thinking making some nice wearable bras. So not straight away do I want underwires, or any other instrument of torture, but instead some (fashionable) soft bralets.

Maybe some knickers too because half of mine are falling apart. I manage to make some really wearable outer wear these days so now need to concentrate on getting the unseen foundation clothing sorted I think.

And its not like I have not eagerly collected every underwear pattern given away free that I have been fortunate to come across. I have. I have even printed some of them in anticipation - just never actually used them. Now is the time so watch this space.

The info on the picture charts above though is going to be very very useful to me. I have even printed these out - yes I really do need help believe me.

I cannot help but wonder though ...do other people have this problem or is everyone else all sorted when it comes to matching your underwear with your outerwear?

Is it really just me?

Bracken

31st May and its all over for another year

 I have just got loads of MMM round-ups into my inbox which has reminded me. I have been rather busy at home so have not till today managed to have time to write this post but I feel I really should.

In the end I very much enjoyed this month though remembering to take the pictures has been somewhat difficult. I have several times worn one outfit all day, forgotten the photo, come home from work, changed into something else and realised I forgot the photo. Mind you on most occasions I have found I am still wearing me mades but its an opportunity lost for the blog.

Anyway on the very last day of May 2019 I wore two me mades - my black top
my spotty top underneath it.

This is not the best photo - snatched on the way into work - but its all I managed that day.

I have enjoyed this year mainly because I realised just what I actually do and do not want to wear. Its meant quite a bit of clearing out of old me mades which shock!! 

means I can almost fit everything into my wardrobe without squashing it. Almost that is but not quite. I also realised some items I have are just winter and not wearable right now so that meant me spending Saturday morning sorting out summer from winter clothing and storing the winter stuff in wicker baskets which live on top of my wardrobe. Years ago I was seriously vigilant doing this but recently have not bothered with the end result I have far too many clothes that simply do not fit in and live in piles in a washing basket or hanging off the bed rail ( I have a 4-poster bed). This does make for a mess in the bedroom. And loads of mad rummaging in a morning when I am wasting time looking fo stuff which has before now made me late leaving for work. Not good. Stress I can do without anyway. Its all nearly Ok now. Progress in the right direction anyway even if its still not perfect. I also decided some things just need recycling - or if the fabric is particularly nice making into something new.
So what do I actually need? Underwear. I have only ever made one attempt to make underwear and that was many years ago. I found the first bra I made and wore it on Saturday to realise its actually not that bad for a first attempt. Not sure why I just threw it back into the stash back when I made it but I did, so my aim now is use up the small bits of fabric and jump on the underwear making bandwagon. And why not? New year and new me!

Thanks for visiting

Bracken