Eowyn, Shieldmaiden of Rohan

If there were awards for "The Movie (Series) That Spawned the Most Cosplayers/Costumers," I'm pretty sure that Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy would be a strong contender. Goodness knows, it was instrumental in getting me started on my own costume-making journey! I remember when we first heard that FotR was coming out, I made "elven" capes for my best friend and another friend to wear to the movie. Because I was a poor college student who had no idea what I was doing, I bought a couple yards each of two different colors of the wispiest acetate lining fabric, then sewed two half-circle capes with unfinished, fraying seams, the rippliest, most uneven hem in the world, and I was so proud. 

But these capes made it to NZ, to the actual filming location
of the Nazgul riding past the hobbits hiding under tree roots!

In the years since then, I've made myself a number of Middle Earth-related costumes: a green Eowyn dress (from sheets), a hobbit maiden (from sheets), a Galadriel dress (not from sheets), an Eye of Sauron/Barad-dur headdress (from a balloon), a Party King Thranduil costume (that Lee Pace then tweeted!), a Smaug fancy dress outfit, and a Denethor + Pippin look with my daughter, and that's not even counting all the costumes for other people or Middle Earth crafts I've done. But the unifying theme for all of these costumes was a lack of screen-accuracy. Don't get me wrong, most of them were certainly recognizable as their characters (except maybe Smaug), but my modus operandi is very suited to community theater costuming: get the idea across as cheaply as possible, and assume that the audience will be standing several feet back. Also, using recycled/thrifted/secondhand materials means that finding screen accurate fabrics is nigh impossible. 

But since this is the Year of the Ring, I wanted to make one of my dream cosplays, Eowyn's camp dress, as close to screen-accurate as possible, while still keeping to my not-new-fabrics pledge as much as I reasonably could. 

From the invaluable Costumer's Guide.

I started with the inner layer, her cream-colored "chemise." I reused the bodice of a toile I made for my pirate coat as my base, since the unbleached muslin worked color-wise. For the neckline that would show above the brown bodice, I used a cream-colored jacquard with swirls that I had leftover from a millinery class. I then treated that fashion fabric layer like a facing but flipped it to the outside instead of the inside, effectively finishing the neckline edge, then zigzagged the raw edge down since it won't be visible. Rather than sewing the tiny tuck lines, I opted to keep things simple and just sewed parallel lines in gold thread. I think it works fine visually while saving myself the annoyance of trying to actually make such tiny tucks and keep them even.

It fits better on me than Cecily.

How many shortcuts can you spot in this picture? ;)

The sleeves were essentially really long bell sleeves with a slit cut up the center to the elbow (see this diagram, except my slit went up higher and the overall triangle shape had a wider base) that I narrow hemmed by machine. I made them out of cream-colored crinkle cotton that I inherited from a friend's stash. For the braided ties, I ended up purchasing new trim from Jo-Ann Fabrics, but they only had bright white so I had to coffee-dye them. I accidentally left them in the coffee too long, so they're darker than I would like, but oh well. The cream-colored underskirt is a half-circle skirt made from, surprise surprise, a thrifted cream-colored sheet. The opening for this whole underlayer closes with hooks and thread loops down the front. 

Here you can see how dark the braid turned out, as well as how nicely lettucey the crinkle cotton hem is. 

For Eowyn's brown bodice and corselet, I used a thrifted dark brown cotton sateen sheet from my stash (basically if I'm at the thrift store getting kids' clothes and I see a solid colored cotton sateen sheet in good condition, I'll buy it for costuming purposes) as the fashion fabric. The bodice from Simplicity 4940 (now sadly OOP) was a good starting point, although I had to draft my own cap sleeves. For the bodice neckline and corselet trim, I toyed with the idea of custom embroidery, but ended up going the easier route of machine-sewing a line of decorative stitching and then hand-sewing gold braid to dark brown bias tape, which I then used to finish the edges of said garments. The cap sleeves had the same decorative machine stitch + gold braid combo and were self-lined, then the armhole was finished with bias tape. 

Dark brown bodice, made with Simplicity 4940. 

Close up of the trim. 

Inside: I lined it with more sheeting and used black bias tape to finish the armhole.
You can also see my hand stitches at the neckline securing the braid.  

The corselet was drafted according to the instructions on Koshkathecat's absolutely invaluable costuming page; I first used those instructions for my Bellatrix corselet and mentally bookmarked it for the day when I would actually make Eowyn, and now I have! I cut one layer from cotton canvas and boned it with zip ties, then cut two more layers: from the dark brown sateen, and from quilt batting remnants. I quilted these last two layers together to get the distinctive diamond pattern, then basted all of it together and finished it with the trim pieces. I was so glad to have borrowed a tabletop grommeter from AJ of Confused Kitty Sewing, which made the whole last step so much easier than hammering everything in by hand! I did have to purchase brown rattail cord for the lacing as well. 

I'm so pleased with how the quilting came out! 

Secret secrets revealed to you: I had to add a little bias tape patch at the top of the back opening so as to wedge in a tiny piece of (ziptie) boning since my original piece wasn't long enough, and I'd already sewed on all the trim. 

All the pieces together!

The (slightly lighter) brown outer skirt was again made from a thrifted sheet, in a half-circle using my TNT pattern, Simplicity 5006. Seriously, I use that skirt pattern for EVERYTHING, from Mulan to Ursula to Weaver Girl to theater costumes. Then it was just a matter of scouting an appropriate location; Coyote Hills Regional Park, with its eponymous hills and giant mounds of rocks, was absolutely perfect. My photographer, @captured.by.shirelle, did an absolutely fantastic job of capturing the whole mood and look of Eowyn, White Lady of Rohan, "fairest lady of a house of queens...standing straight and proud, shapely as a lily...as if wrought by elf-wrights out of steel."

Summary 

Pattern: Simplicity 4940 for the outer bodice, Simplicity 5006 for the skirts, self-drafted for the sleeves, chemise bodice, and corselet

Fabric: Two twin-sized cotton sateen sheets for the skirts, half of another one for the outer bodice and corselet. Also 2 yards of 60" crinkle cotton for the sleeves, and half a yard of muslin for the chemise bodice, remnants of rayon jacquard for the neckline of the chemise, and remnants of cotton quilt batting for the corselet.

Notions:  Seven yards of gold braid, four yards of white braid, five yards of brown rattail, three packs of dark brown bias tape, a handful of brass grommets, a separating zipper, and several hooks.

Techniques: Uhh...self-quilted fabric using a walking foot? Does that count as a technique?

Hours: Well, I started working on this last December, then took a break to finish up Weaver Girl, so all in all I'd say it was two months of my kind of work hours, which is to say an hour here or there after kids are asleep, if I don't have other work to do for school. There was also so much hand-sewing of trim that I did in five minute snatches while kids were playing-but-not-arguing-yet, so it's really hard to say. I want to say at least 35 hours based on rough estimates of how much time similar pieces took pre-kids. 

Total cost: $65, but that includes $20 worth of gold pens for the flag, and then all the new trim I had to buy was pretty costly even with coupons. The main fabrics, though, cost less than $10. 

Final thoughts: I've always loved strong female warrior characters, from Mulan to Alanna of Trebond to Aerin Firehair, so it was pretty much a given that I was going to love Eowyn the first time I came across her. It's just a nice bonus that her costumes in the movie were brilliant. Eowyn is also extra meaningful to me because of where I was in life when I first read LOTR. Growing up, it was always drilled into me that going into STEM was the only acceptable career path, and my passion for art and making things was not something to be celebrated or pursued seriously. When I got to college, for the first time I was away from home and somewhat free to make my own choices; I switched from a biology major to an art major just as The Two Towers came out, and I was struck by her fear of being caged, her desire to make her own path, one that was different from what was expected of her, and ultimately her seizing the opportunity for glory in battle as Dernhelm. I saw her act of secret rebellion as akin my decision to choose my own major, but unlike Eowyn I did not kill a foul dwimmerlaik. Instead, I saw that a huge public research university was probably not the best place to get an art degree if I wanted to actually learn skills (and not just do weird avant-garde pieces), so I switched back to biology. I did, however, decide to be a science teacher instead of a researcher, which ultimately meant that I had the opportunity to get my theater costuming feet wet via high school drama productions. Later, once I became a more seasoned teacher and didn't have to spend every waking hour thinking about lesson prep or grading, I was able to make time for actual sewing, drafting, and costuming classes at a local community college. In a not dissimilar arc, Eowyn was able to make peace with her role and place in society and chose to be a healer. Both of us found a compromise in our lives that eventually brought peace and joy, not a feeling of being caged. All this to say, making and wearing this Eowyn costume was a dream come true, and a fitting conclusion(ish beginning to a new story). 

Oh! And the flag of Rohan! That was a ridiculous process of experimentation that I documented on my IG highlight, should you care to see all the wibbling I did about making it (and the rest of Eowyn). Tl;dr if you don't want to watch the story: I did an Elmer's glue resist in the outline of the Rohirric horse on a pillowcase, then painted it with watered down acrylic paint and used various gold paint pens to outline the horse. I used vintage bias tape to secure the flag to a spear (made from foam, duct tape, and a wooden dowel) leftover from a drama production. I hadn't even really planned to make it, but when I was planning for the photo shoot I realized that I didn't have a sword and I really need some kind of prop to hold or else I don't know what to do with my hands...I'm so glad it turned out as well as it did!

Experimenting With the Ralph Pink Neck Corset Pattern

In case you thought that the bustier was the end of corsetry projects for the time being, you were wrong.

After finishing my Ursula costume, I still had a little bit of the black silk taffeta left, so I decided to give the mysterious Ralph Pink neck corset pattern a try. I've heard his name tossed around and seen his free downloads for historical corsets, but nobody seems to have actually tried any of his patterns and given them a real review, so I had no idea if they worked or not. To be perfectly honest, I was inclined to be skeptical because his grammar/proofreading on his website is terrible, and I'll be the first to admit that I can be a snob about that (despite not always following the rules myself! but this is my blog and I DO WHAT I WANT, THOR). Also he has no pictures of actual samples of this corset, which also makes me suspicious about how they look/fit on real people.

Anyway, his construction directions were a bit difficult to understand, so I basically ignored them and did what I wanted (Thor), which worked out okay. Instead of making it three layers and using two coutil layers to sandwich the boning, I opted to do a modified version of Lynda's bustier directions (taffeta underlined with flannel for the outer layer, boning channels sewn to a "strength" layer of ticking). After all, a neck corset is really more of a neck bustier (if that makes any sense!) since there is no reduction necessary. Unless, of course, you're looking to self-asphyxiate, in which case we've got bigger problems than incomprehensible sewing instructions...

The edges flip up a little bit, which makes me wish I used a darker lining fabric. 

The pattern itself has some cool lines (which I emphasized with topstitching) and is fairly quick to put together. It comes with 1/4" seam allowances, which I increased to 5/8" since my fabrics frayed like the dickens. I must admit I wasn't very careful in doing so, which resulted in some of my markings not matching up, but that was probably my fault. I also futzed around with the bone placement. The final corset ended up a bit tall for my neck, but that's easily remedied, should there be a next time. I would also want the neck-to-shoulder junction to be more curved (it's a bit wrinkly right now since the angle isn't quite right for my body), but I have no idea how to begin modifying the pattern for something like that!

Confession: I actually finished this project over a month ago, but the thought of getting all dressed up in the bustier and and neck corset and then doing a photo shoot was just too much. In light of Polka Dot Overload's comments about removing barriers (in this case, barriers to blogging, not sewing), I decided to just throw it on (well, as much as one can throw on something that involves lacing) and take pictures without bothering to find a cool background or what have you. Also I was worried that if I didn't blog it soon, I would forget about everything that went into making it. As it is, I'm already fuzzy on some of the details...

This is the only in-progress photo I thought to take. You can see the striped twill I used for the inside lining and the stitch lines from the channels. I used almost all the pins I have in prepping the bias binding!

Another barrier to taking photos: it's also ridiculously hard to take pictures when you don't have any large mirrors in your house that also have good lighting, and you can't really turn your head or crane your neck or else it'll make things sit lopsided. 

And it really does get lopsided easily! If I cared more, I'd add ribbon ties to secure it under the arm or something, but I don't care enough. 

Summary:
Fabric: about 1/4 yard each of black silk taffeta, cotton flannel, and cotton ticking.
Notions: spiral steel boning with heat-shrink tubing tips, cheap two-piece craft grommets (since again, this wasn't meant for heavy duty wear), 4 yards of ribbon for lacing.

I couldn't see the back to check if my lacing was even or lined up at all...

This was before I tied the ribbon, obviously. 

Hours used: This is where I get fuzzy since it was so long ago...about 15? The pieces are small, but there are a lot of seams and the curves get tricky to put together, and then there was all the time spent cutting and tipping boning and setting grommets.
Will you make it again? Ummm, how many neck corsets does one need? I don't foresee making another one in the near future, but if I do, I'll make it shorter for less of a strangly-feeling. And it will probably be for another costume.
Total cost: Less than $10 for materials, since the taffeta was leftover, the length of boning was so little, and the grommets and ribbon I've had for ages. The pattern cost me about $5 since I bought it on sale. Not super expensive as trials go, but also fairly frivolous considering I don't know that I would ever wear this.
Final thoughts: Like I said above, a fun but useless experiment. And now I have an idea of how I feel about Ralph Pink patterns? There's potential there, but I wouldn't pay full price for his patterns. Also, corsetry is really fun. I like the physicality of cutting and tipping boning and stuffing it into channels, even if it does get tedious and tiring. Every time I finish a corset I want to make another one, even if they're fairly non-useful as garments go!

I have one more impractical, frivolous costume item to blog, and then I promise it'll be back to real clothing sewing for a while! I've built up this ridiculous backlog of finished garments that I've been wearing, but just never got around to taking pictures of or blogging. It's nice to be back, though!

And Now, the Construction Post

Now that I've finished Lynda's bustier class, I alternate between thinking 1) my goodness, it's a small miracle that Elaine's wedding dress turned out as well as it did, because I didn't know what the heck I was doing, and 2) go me, because I actually made up something that wasn't too far off from what it was supposed to be! I learned so much from taking an "official" class, which makes me wonder what else I'm missing as a self-taught seamstress. Anyway, I thought some of you might be interested in seeing more of what went on to make this deceptively simple-looking little black top.

I left off with fitting the coutil/lining inside in my last (and only) construction post. This inner layer was just the pattern pieces cut in both coutil and a cotton quilting fabric for underlining, and then sewn together. I decided to keep things simple and just do boning channels over the seams. These channels were made from bias strips of coutil, 1.25" wide, which is enough to accommodate two 3/8" wide channels for 1/4" bones. I got my bones pre-tipped at Lacis in Berkeley, where they cost anywhere from $0.40-$1.00 each, depending on length. I've got a whole roll of spiral steel leftover from making Elaine's corset, but frankly, I didn't feel like dealing with cutting and tipping all twenty-plus bones myself. I really need to get me some steel cable cutters to make the process easier on my hands!

Lynda had us sew the inner layer with 1" seam allowances, so when I sewed my boning channels on, there was no awkward flapping of seam allowances underneath to get caught up in the boning. 

Zoomed out a bit, so that you can see how densely this thing is boned! According to Lynda no more than 3" should go by without there being bones. Because mine was a fairly small size with narrow panels, I could get away with only boning over the seams, and then one more set in the widest back panel. 

After sewing on the boning channels, I added the grosgrain waist stay, stitching it on only at strategic points. This waist stay is sewn to the inside and remains hidden, and only exits close to the zipper through two buttonholes. Lynda recommended a 1.5" wide ribbon, which is larger than my buttonhole foot can handle, so I had to improvise with a tiny zigzag stitch. To secure the waist stay, I went with my usual swimsuit bra hook instead of hooks and eyes. Whenever I have hooks and eyes at my back, they dig in uncomfortably and make me itchy. At this point, I also sewed in my zipper. It's a heavier duty 12" separating zipper, but still plastic.

Pretty good free-hand buttonhole, right? Except that the two sides don't quite match up...shhh!

Since the largest swimsuit hook I had was 5/8", it wouldn't quite fit on the 1.5" waist stay, so I had to add a tinier piece of petersham ribbon at the ends to make it work. 

After all the hardware that went into the inner layer, it was almost a relief to make the outer fashion fabric layer. Like the inner layer, it's two pieces of fabric: my black silk dupioni, underlined with flannel. The flannel provides some cushioning for the thin silk, so that all the boning channels and such don't show through. Lynda wouldn't allow us to clip the coutil seam allowances at all since it would create weak points, but with the outer layer, since it's not taking any of the strain, I notched away. Unfortunately, I had never learned that one should never notch at the same point on either side of the seam (it creates a hinge point), but now I know and I will never do it again! The most time-consuming step was then hand-stitching down all the seam allowances so that they would stay nice inside the garment.

You can see at the top of the picture the start of my shameful clipping :(

The final step was to put the two layers together. I don't know why, but I found this seriously nerve-wracking! With previous corsets, I've always sewn them wrong sides together and then bound the top, but this time I decided to go with a new-to-me method and sew the top and bottom right sides together, then flip it all right side out (this was tricky with all the bones in...good thing spiral steel is flexible!). This method creates a clean edge without having to fuss with binding, but it does create a lot of thickness due to the four layers of seam allowance + four layers of fabric! My machine was a trooper, though, and I only had to hand-wheel through some parts. The real last step was to topstitch all the way around, being especially careful at the zipper since there was a bone right next to the stitch line.

The only thing worse than trying to photograph black or red is trying to photograph black and red. You all know what topstitching looks like though, so I think you get the picture. 

All done! Much red! So cats! Very polka dot! Wow!

Summary:
Pattern: Simplicity 5006
Fabric: 1 yard black silk dupioni, 1 yard purple houndstooth print flannel, 1 yard coutil, 1 yard quilting cotton
Notions: black plastic 12" separating zipper meant for jackets, less than 1 yard 1.5" wide black grosgrain ribbon, one 5/8" swimsuit bra hook, lots of spiral steel boning
Hours: At least sixty, spread out over a month and half. That includes fitting, multiple muslins, cutting and sewing four layers, lots of hand sewing, and lots of wibbling.
Will you make it again? Elaine went to Thailand and brought back lots of yummy silk in both her colors and my colors, so I think that means yes. I think new makes will take much less time, though, now that I know what I'm doing and have patterns already fitted.
Total cost: The fabrics listed above were $15, $8, $30, and free, respectively, the spiral steel was $13, and the rest of the notions were about $5. So we're looking at a $70 garment here, and that's just for the materials. No wonder why custom corsetry is so expensive!
Final thoughts: Um, I love it? It looks and feels amazing, if I do say so myself, and in black silk, it feels very versatile. If I pair it with a nice (normal) skirt, it makes for lovely formalwear, and black is a good base for many villain/superhero costumes. I want to do a Maleficent costume with this, even if I'm dubious about the upcoming movie. Mr. Cation was pretty thrilled about the Ursula costume too, so that was a plus!

Because nothing says Ursula like a satellite dish in the background, amirite?

So that brings me to my big question: would anyone be down for a bustier sewalong? I learned so much from this class, and while I had some idea of what I was getting into because of Elaine's corset, I have to say that a bustier/corset top is one of those things where it looks impressively scary, but is actually not that hard to sew when you break it down. Obviously, I'm not nearly as knowledgeable as Lynda, but I think it'd be fun to share the process in more detail with other seamstresses who might have always wanted to make one, but thought it was too intimidating. If people are interested, I'm thinking of running the sewalong during the summer, when I've got more bandwidth than the during school year. Let me know in the comments if you'd be interested!

It's My Turn Now

Last year, my biggest accomplishment was sewing a wedding dress for my best friend Elaine. To do so, I used Simplicity 5006, a lingerie pattern that included a corset and a petticoat. It was a long process and I learned a lot, and out of it came a beautiful outfit. I must confess, though, that at the end of it I wished ever so slightly that I had put all that work into something for me. Now before you get all up in arms and call me selfish, let me say that I don't begrudge a single bit of the time I spent on her wedding dress -- after all, it's my favorite make of 2013 -- but I did wish I had an excuse to make an equally elaborate thing for myself. Well, now I have that chance!

One of my classes this semester at Canada College is Bustier Construction with Lynda Maynard, and the pattern we base our garment off of is...Simplicity 5006! So now I have the excuse I need to make myself a piece of gorgeous formalwear: oh, it's for class. That pricey coutil? Oh, it's for class. All the time spent perfecting the fit? Oh, it's for class. All the trips to Lacis in Berkeley? Oh, it's for class. You guys, I'm super excited to have this opportunity! And like the pants-making class last semester, I'm already learning tons. For example, the final garment has four layers of fabric: each piece of coutil is underlined with an actual lining fabric, and each fashion fabric piece is underlined in flannel; the pieces are then sewn together to make two "complete" garments, then sewn right sides together and flipped.

This is my lining+coutil piece. You can kind of see where Lynda drew in boning channel markings. 

It's a little wrinkly without any boning. I also need to take it in more in the chestal area. Of course. I really do like the sweetheart neckline though!

I extended the height of the back by a couple of inches to prevent the hideous back muffin top. 

Class has been in session for a few weeks now, so we've made muslins, fit them, made second muslins, corrected our patterns, and now we've made up the inner lining+coutil part of the garment. In the spirit of stashbusting, I've chosen to line my bustier with this adorable cat-print quilting cotton that I got two summers ago in an exchange with Handmade Jane. It was a scant half meter of fabric, so I'd been saving it for a small but special project...I think this counts! Even so, I didn't have quite enough fabric so the last panel is cut from another small quilting cotton remnant that I actually inherited from another friend's stash. Although I'm posting this in February, I did sew it up while it was still January, so that totally counts for the Itty Bits theme, right?

Tiny polka dots and cats! Does it get any better than that?

I'm pretty sure that I'll end up choosing a black fashion fabric for the outside shell. I thought about making something more fancy or elaborate, but in the end decided that black would be the most versatile. Besides, then I can use it for the Ursula and Maleficent cosplays that I'd like to do eventually. Any suggestions for an actual fabric type though? I don't want it to be super-shiny, but I want it to still be dressy. Help!

The Real Wedding Photos Are Here!

Not that my photos of Elaine's wedding weren't real, but they were just quick iPhone snaps. These are the professional ones taken with real cameras! All photos courtesy of Tom Chown Photography.

When I was back up in SF earlier this week for work, I dropped by Elaine's parents' house for lunch and her mom very kindly said that there wasn't anyone who didn't have something positive to say about her dress, so that made me very happy.

My one regret is that I didn't put in any kind of bustling mechanism for the train at the back...but Elaine managed to dance just fine despite my oversight!

Mr. Cation and I had a really nice dance too, to "The Luckiest," which was the song we had at our own wedding (three years ago next Wednesday!) during our unity precipitate ceremony.

And in a wide sea of eyes, I see one pair that I recognize, and I know...that I am...the luckiest.

In case you weren't following along with me in my wedding dress sewing journey, here are all the previous posts about the making of this dress:

Wedding Dress Progress Post #1
Wedding Dress Progress Post #2
Wedding Dress Progress Post #3
Not Really a Wedding Dress Progress Post
Wedding Dress Progress Post #4
Wedding Dress Progress Post #5
Wedding Dress Progress Post #6, plus my final thoughts on the making of it

Many thanks to all of you who believed in me (including, of course, Elaine and her family) and encouraged me along the way! Lastly, for those of you who don't believe me when I say how nervous I am about SHBs, I've finally got some evidence, captured on film an SD card:

There was a 3 month old at the wedding, and the photographer captured this expression of mine as I looked at the baby. Note the distress, trepidation, and reluctance to approach. I totally didn't even realize I was making this face; I seriously thought I was smiling. Yeah...