Steaming On #15: no more I promise!

The story of the final stages:

I stayed up til about 130 last night finishing things, as I wanted them for today, and I’d had a longish nap early in the evening.  Ahem, 2 vodkas straight after work, what a lightweight.

Waistcoat:  all I had to do was understitch, sew the single sideseam, and make fastenings.  Easy.  So I twisted the shoulder when pinning the side seam, and didn’t notice until I’d almost finished catch stitching the lining opening closed.  And of course, I’d done it perfectly.  Swear, unpick, repeat.  Fine, but not as good, bloody typical.

Anyway, on to the fastenings.  We had several options, D decided she wanted the frog fastenings…but I was dubious about them holding closed firmly enough, so I made use of the giant antiqued press studs which I’d stashed on a ragmarket trip a while ago, for extra security.  The front neckline, despite being heavily stabilised wanted to bulge out, so I tweaked the overlap into a rather smart asymmetrical placement, and it worked brilliantly.

I sewed the studs on very very firmly.  Then realised two halves were upside down.  Buggrit!  Unpicked, resewed.  Done.

The stretch black fabric behaved itself beautifully after I’d used heavyweight fusible woven interfacing.  Cheapo satin lining frayed like the devil, but the panel of taffeta I used for the back was fine.  I did some rather odd [and stupid] things while cutting the waistcoat out, but the wife absolutely adores it.

I poured a voddie after all this, and got out the glue, cogs, feathers and tat to trim my hat.

ew, double chins and neck wattle ahoy!

Two quills on one side, with a bottle of ‘invisible ink’, attached with a hair elastic and a few judicious stitches.  On the other side, calipers snagged in the ragmarket for 50p, a grotty old key brooch that Dawn had painted a bit, all attached with a few stitches and some clever tucking and interweaving.

Finally, my bag of teensy watch parts and loads of fabric glue, and I made a sort of random applique of coggy bits.  Amazingly, it had dried solid as a rock by this morning, no shedding at all except when I nodded my head very vigorously and the ink bottle flew off on a brief adventure.  Sigh.

smile you wrinkly old bat!

Wrinkled because it had been gathered up for walking all day

Break the internet!

  The previous days’ sewing had finished the shift and the skirt waistband, and also the [brilliant idea, huh] business of the drawstring chains on the front of the skirt.  I need to make some bustle points, and improve a way to anchor the chain to keep the skirt gathered when I want it…but today I made do with safety pins.  The bodice looked and felt much better with the chemise underneath, and the wide waistband of the skirt was very comfortable.

I wore my bustle over the chemise, then the skirt [which has to go over my head because of the bustle], then the bodice, and finally of course hat and coat.

My lovely wife realised that her ‘button’ boots would look better with my outfit, and also found me a matching green umbrella to use as a walkingstick.  I love the tattoo tights!

My hair got slicked down with olive oil and wax to minimise ‘hat hair’.

Other pics of the day out on ‘the big reveal’