LOOOONG Overdue Pictures of the Mermaid Prom Dress!

Wow, I've been sorely slacking on my posting.  Anyway, my mermaid prom dress was a success!
Everything came together pretty well... I managed to get a full circle skirt out of 4 yards of fabric.
I ended up wearing this to 3 proms, so it got a lot of wear!  Without further ado, here are some pictures:

 

...complete with a CORAL crinoline!  It was my mom's idea and she made it to match the lining (coral, geddit?  mermaid/ocean-themed... yes we are clever!)

 Here's my first prom, with my good friend David.  We are total goofballs.

And my second one.  This prom was actually in Chicago (on the 66th floor of the Sears Tower, no less!)  Eric is one of my best friends and went for a Fred Astaire look.  We're a tad anachronistic... but 1930's versus 1950's, it's all retro, right?  Right?!  We're a handsome pair, I do admit.

Here's me and my lil bro.  Even if he's much, much taller than me I refuse to acknowledge it!

Prom Dress: Progress!

Since the bodice of my dress is strapless, I've got to give it a lot of structure, so here are my additions:
- A cotton twill interlining with 6 twill boning channels
- Zip tie (plastic) boning
- Elastic around the neckline
And that layer goes between a gorgeous coral silk lining and the patterned silk outer fabric!
Check out ze progress:

Interlining layer with boning

Lining layer

Outer fabric layer

OOOOH so cute!  I love the lil octopus on this print... and I usually HATE octopi!

Don't forget to clip your curves, kids!

Hmm, I quite like this color.  Maybe I should make this the outer fabric?  ...NAH

Just for fun.

Sneak peek...

Since all this I've added the skirt, but I think it needs to be adjusted.  I'll create another post soon!

Prom Dress: The Beginning

Sooo, this year I decided I would sew my prom dress!  It's nice to have a little thing to work on that's NOT school-related.  I wanted something vintage-inspired, but made from some interesting, modern fabric.  I had seen a lot of those dresses with the cuff on the bodice, which I liked.  I wanted to get a vintage pattern, too, because oftentimes back then people paid more attention to high-quality details like boning, waist stays, hemming, etc.
So here are my sketches:

I went to Toronto over spring break and got some AMAZING fabric from a store called Peach Berserk, which my mom and I have loved for a long time.  It's the Misbehavin' Mermaids print in silver ink on top of turquoise silk dupioni.  GORGEOUS!

And in terms of a pattern, I ordered this great one from McCall's (1950).  Love the cuff on the bodice and the a-line skirt.  All I'll have to change is the sizing and the neckline.

And lastly, my grandmother gave me some awesome low-heeled vintage turquoise shoes, which i matched the fabric to.  Unfortunately I don't know if I'll be able to fit into them post-surgery, but we'll see.

And that, my friends, is the recipe for a delectable dress.

Foot Surgery!

Wow, it's been a while since I posted last!  This is due, in part, to the fact that I got my foot operated on.  You see, I have pretty terrible bunions, which is where the bone is misshapen.  It was only going to get worse over time, so I decided to get them done now.  My surgery was March 6th.  They basically sawed my bone in half, shaved some bone off, and put dissolvable pins in my foot, and wrapped it all up in a cast.  Needless to say, it hurt like HELL for the first week.  I spent 7 days in bed and unable to move, and let me tell you, that was enough for me!
I got my cast off on Wednesday though, so now I can walk on it after a month!  It's really frustrating not being able to do things for yourself.  Even simple things I couldn't do, like carrying things upstairs.  Resuming my typical housewifey activities felt great!  And I can drive again.
So anyway, here are some stupid pictures of me and my cast:

Happy Almost-Easter Everyone!  

I'll make another post in regards to Easter baking/bath bomb-making.

Sleepy Hollow Dress: 1790's Corset

Unfortunately or fortunately, gowns of the past have rarely ever been one-piece affairs.  A certain silhouette was desired depending on the era (I'll do more on this later).  The 18th-century silhouette was a conical torso with full hips and fitted, streamlined sleeves:

In order to achieve this cone shape, women wore corsets.  By this time, corsets had been well-developed and almost always contained boned tabs at the waist to reduce pinching, and laced up in the back, front, or both.  In order to achieve the stiffness required for a corset, the corset consisted of at least two layers of fabric with stitched channels for boning (basically any strip of stiff material used for supportive garments).  They were historically boned with either baleine (whalebone) or reeds.  Since I would probably be arrested for using baleine, I chose reeds.  They're quite nice!  Though I wish I'd used steel bones for the tabs... they sort of bent out of shape after some wear.
Anyway, PICTURES!

Sorry about this obvious mirror pic.

The back...

Sorry there weren't any in-progress pictures!  I made this out of a peach silk/linen/cotton blend for the outside, corset coutil for the inside, and some silk to line, with reed boning and bias tape binding.

Ah, enough vanity for now!  I wish that my figure could look this great every day... alas.

Making Danish Kringle

My relatives on my dad's side of the family all live around the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.  About twice a year, I visit my aunt's house in Minnesota and get to see my aunt, four "boy cousins" and Beste (short for bestemor, the Danish word for "grandmother").
So Beste's really into teaching everybody about our Scandinavian heritage, through her various photo albums, books, and especially her cooking.  At Christmas we make Swedish meatballs, "snow pudding" (or rombudding in Danish), and lefse, which are delicious Norwegian potato pancakes, rolled very thin, grilled, and eaten with plenty of butter.

But my favorite Danish treat is kringle.
The horrible cheese "danishes" from Tim Hortons don't hold a candle to this.  It's basically a flaky croissant-like dough with an apricot filling and almonds on top.  Some people make it with pecans as a filling but I prefer fruit.  The best part of it is the cardamom in the filling.  This gives it a great scent!

Here's a copy of the recipe:

First you've gotta make the yeasted dough and roll it out into a big rectangle...

And then you've gotta add the frozen butter block (butter + a bit of flour), folding one third of the yeasted dough on top...

And then the other side on top, like a business letter.

After repeating this process three times, you'll get lovely, flaky layers of the butter laminated inside the dough (during baking, the butter melts and releases steam, causing the flakiness of many pastries).

Just LOOK at all that butter!

Meanwhile, soak 2 packages of dried apricot halves (the more tart, California kind, not Turkish) in 1 1/2 cups of boiling water.  I added a little vanilla bean too.  Soak them until they're plump and then drain off the excess liquid.

Now you're going to cream butter, confectioner's sugar, cardamom, and a bit of cream to a frosting-like consistency...

...and then add it to the apricots and mix thoroughly.  It'll look weird.

Roll out half of your pastry dough into a very long rectangle.

Then add the apricot mixture.

Close it all up, using water to help keep the seams shut.

Put it on the baking tray into a pretzel-like shape (for some reason this reminds me of ram's horns)...

And top with beaten egg, sugar, almonds, and more sugar.

Bake for 25 minutes, and VOILA!  Isn't it pretty?

Just perfect with a glass of milk.  Enjoy!

The Sleepy Hollow Dress: Inspiration

This was my first earnest attempt at creating an authentic 18th century outfit, with all of its proper components: the chemise, the underskirt, the corset, and the bodice.
If you guys have not seen Tim Burton's Version of Sleepy Hollow, it is a gorgeous film and if that doesn't convince you enough, Johnny Depp stars in it.  He looks QUITE handsome with long hair dressed in a peacoat!
But what I loved most of all was Christina Ricci's striped gown...

So pretty!

And then I was off ordering a pattern for a robe à l’anglaise (which would be pulled up like a polonaise) from J.P. Ryan and looking up luscious striped silk fabrics.
I also got a lot of help from The Costumer's Guide to Movie Costumes (SO GREAT), since its author had also recreated this gown.  Here's the link:
http://www.costumersguide.com/sleepy2.shtml
First step: make a decent period corset to go underneath.