Steampunk Admiral

My latest make is a steampunk Admiral's uniform.

The Admiral stands on a cliff, having left the busy ship for a while to ponder her strategies in silence and enjoy the sea.

The inspiration for this costume comes from some different sources. The main inspiration was this, which I think is concept art for a character in an computer game, set in an alternative history 1880's. I also looked at 18^th century coats, the gold-work embroidery on 19^th century military uniforms, and some 1880’s does 1700’s ladies bodices. For those who use Pinterest, this is my inspiration board.

The coat is made in wool, with about 40 m of braiding hand stitched on collar, lapels, and cuffs. The wider trim is a vintage trim I found. The base pattern for the coat is actually from a Tudor dress, and then I constructed lapels, collar, and cuffs and added them. 

The hat is a 18^th century bicorne, a model that was not uncommon for military wear during the 19^th century.  I constructed the hat pattern based on a pattern I found on this blog, made it up in buckram and wire, and covered it with the same black wool as the gown. 

Steampunk Admiral - front detail

 The black wool is very easy to work with, as it drapes well, and the soft matte fabric efficiently hides stitches that would show on the right side in a more unforgiving fabric. That was important, as the lapels, collar, cuff, and the hat brim was finished separately and then hand stitched in place afterwards. The blouse and jabot is also made by me from my own pattern. The vest and leggings are from my modern wardrobe.

Steampunk Admiral - back view

An important part when designing this costume was to make it flexible in size – more specific, it has to be able to fit over a growing belly, as I am pregnant. This was quite a challenge, as I don’t know what size I will be much beforehand, and hopefully, I will go to an event in my late pregnancy. Thus, the design with an open coat, a blouse with lots of width, and a vest that will later be changed for a much larger one. 

The biggest challenge, except for finding a size-flexible design, was designing the braiding and the other trim. I wanted the braiding to resemble the oak leafs embroidered on collars on military uniforms, organic and flowing but still powerful. It was important to keep the coat looking like a coat, not becoming a dress. 

Details of the coat and hat:

Steampunk Admiral - braided lapel and button

Steampunk Admiral - braided lapel and cuff

Steampunk Admiral - decoration on the bicorne hat

As of yet, I have only worn the costume for a photo session, but I am very happy with how it turned out.

And as always, thank you Olof for the great photography!

The facts:

What the item is: A steampunk Admirals outfit, consisting of coat and hat (new), blouse and jabot (made for previous costumes), and modern leggings and vest.

Fabric: Black wool for hat and coat. Cotton for blouse and jabot. Scraps of silk for the cockade on the hat.

Pattern: Coat is a remade version of this 16th century English Tudor overdress, which is from the book The Tudor Tailor, but I have obviously modified it quite a lot, with collar, lapels and cuffs of my own construction. Blouse is the one I drafted and made for the Edwardian vampire.

Year: steampunk, inspired mostly by 18th century and 19th century uniforms.

Notions: old buttons from some type of civilian uniform, 4 m of vintage gold band and around 40 m of gold soutache braiding, a few very small clock gears for decoration on the hat.

Hours to complete: probably around 40 h for the coat, most of that spent hand sewing on all the gold trim, and at least 10 h for constructing and making the hat.

First worn: for photo shot at Femöre outside Oxelösund.

Cost: 500 kr, for the gold band and soutache braiding (not all of it used), as the rest was remakes, from stash, or from the wardrobe.
 

It was quite windy...

The crown of the First Speaker

A very short story.

Over 30 years ago, long before First Speaker Amantha had managed to rise to her present office, she and her mother were visited by a stranded Time Lady. The Time Lady soon got involved in an intense romantic relationship with Amantha's mother. Eventually, the Time Lady left. The small family was left with tales of the possible and imossible things in the universe, and a knowledge of the Gallifreyan alphabet. Since then Amantha has been obsessed by the thought of time travel.

Eventually she rose to the title of First Speaker, through a combination of manipulation and actual skill. Since her election, the Council has put a considerable amount of its money into research on time travel. So far no progress has been made on the actual problem, but the country has become leading in both navigation and clockwork mechanics - a fact that does nothing to attenuate the First Speaker's fervent search.

(This is the story of the persona of my latest steampunk costume, that I am making for SilwerSteam. There will be lots of more pictures of the full costume later, after I have finished it.) 

Steampunk White Rabbit

A while ago, I was invited to a Alice in Wonderland themed party.  I decided to make a steampunk version of the White Rabbit. The coat is based on a 1890 walking dress that I made earlier, but never really liked. The fit was a bit odd, and as historical wear, it was painfully apparent that I bought polyester fabric with a slight stretch, in the vain hope that it would work anyway if I flat-lined it. (it did not, really)

Here, I shortened it and wore as a coat. With the fake leather parts of the tights, it almost looks like high boots in this picture. I wish...

Under the coat, I wore a vest and shirt, and a Victorian-ish high
collar, Steampunkishly combined with a 18th century inspired stock. Two watches, for the poor hurried Rabbit.

The hat is a very cheap one I bought from a shop with party accessories. The ears I made myself from fake fur, fabric, sturdy metal wire, and lots and lots of hot glue. I then added some gears to make it clearly recognizable as steampunk.

All in all, I am very happy with the result. It was comfortable to wear (except for being a bit hot since I was so covered up), and I have wanted a menswear steampunk costume for a while. And it feels good to give the coat this second life!

The joy of putting stuff on hats

Hats! I love making hats!

1905 - big!

 But why this sudden declaration of affection, you might wonder? Well, todays theme in Costume Blog Writing Month is small project, and that had me thinking. I very rarely do project that in their entirety are quick and easy enough that I could call them small, but I do make smaller garments as part of the bigger project. Interestingly, it is often those parts I end up liking the most. Liking both as in enjoying making them and as in liking the outcome. And a typical "small part project" for me is a hat. The hats for the historical eras I like are, to put it mildly, heavily decorated, which makes it very fun - I can really be creative with them. And generally I can make or adapt/decorate a hat in 2-5 hours, which I would call quick compared to a 30-40 h dress. So, here they come, a collection of some of my small projects, mostly hats.

Before and after modification...

Look how happy I get in a historical hat! Or is it the knowledge that I will soon be eating ice cream that put that smile on me?

The first hat/headdress I made, for my Tudor dress like ten years ago. The dress is scrapped, but I still like the hat.

1860's - a bit pinker than I generally do.

I didn't hear "over decorated" did I? the 188o's really liked to put stuff on their hats!

This got to have two pictures because it is biggest! :-) Also, it is one of only two hats I have that are actually useful for protecting me from the sun.

Slightly weird Tudor/steampunk hat.

Not a hat, obviously, but decorating it was a small a fun project just like the hats.

The most recent one - steampunk. Currently I am adding more decorations to it - neither my hats nor steampunk aestethics in general are known for "less in more"

Do you like making hats too, or what is your favourite small project?

Steampunk hat and bolero

For my forest/mechanical steampunk dress, I made some accessories, to go with the crinoline and dress (a post about the finished dress will come soon). 

The hat is a 3/4 sized top hat, which I made in brown velvet. The pattern is my own, and quite simple. I just had to do some testing to find a size and proportions I liked (for some reason I don't like wearing those mini top hats that are so popular in steampunk, even if I think they look good on other people.) Then I made it up the same way as my previous hats, with wired buckram, as described here. It took maybe 3-4 hours, as hand sewing the band on the brim took its time. Then I tried to put as much decoration stuff on it as possible without it looking too odd. I still think I am going add some more. Sewing all the decoration on was a bit fiddly and took a while, but I did not want to use glue, as I have a habit of wanting to change the trim on my hats (or just add more, as turned out to be the case here). The very green thing is fake feathers, made of polyester. I instantly knew I needed them for this dress when I found them at Easter. 

The staff is quite random, thrown together the night before just before I felt like having some prop. Also, I wanted to make use of more of the very green fake feathers, and of the cooper coloured globe things I cannibalized from a home decor LED light thing (and I also wanted to use my new glue gun!). 

I also made some kind of shoulder garment, I am not sure if it could be called a bolero or shrug. Anyway, it is made from the same velvet as the hat, lined with cream cotton, and piped with polyester piping. Using silky piping with the velvet meant that things never stayed put even when pinned, so I hand sewed the whole thing. The result is looking a bit wobbly, but I still like it very much. I even allowed myself to add two gears just for decoration. Normally I prefer to be restrictive in my use of decorative gears in my Steampunk, as it is so common, but here they fit so well I could not resist it.

 

And a sneak peak of them worn together with the dress. I spent the overwhelming majority of the time on the dress, but when wearing it, I think I am most fond of the look of the shrug and hat.

Have you made a project where the accessories became your (or other people's) favourite part? Please comment and tell!

Looking back at 2015

At the beginning of the new year, I will start classically by summing up the last year. Last was very productive for me sewing-wise. This was due to two things. The first was that I joined the Historical Sew Monthly (HSM), which meant a deadline each month. As I have only been sewing at vacations before, this meant that I got a lot more sewing done. The second thing was that I got in touch with some more historical sewing people here in Linköping. As sewing together is much more fun than being nerdy on my own, more people to sew with meant that I was inspired to keep up the speed in sewing. In all, I managed to get the first nine HSM challenges done. Then, my project did not fit the challenges.

So, what have I done? I started a new time period, Edwardian, with the practical 1905 outfit (that turned out to be not so practical, as the heavy underskirt pinched my stomach through the corset, the hat is large, and I could not dress myself as there was hooks and eyes at the back that I could not reach.) Still, I liked it. This project involved making an Edwardian corset (HSM challenge #1 foundations) and corset cover, an underskirt (HSM#3 Stashbusting), a skirt and a blouse (HSM #5 Practicality). 

For the turn of the century days I went to with some friends in August, I could not resist making a more upper class version, with a lace blouse (thrifted), reshaping the hat, and making a bolero and belt. I am really happy with the shape I managed to get by the use of lots of bust and hip padding.

Next big project was the 1860's afternoon dress from the book Patterns of Fashion - another new time period for me. Surprisingly, despite the large crinoline this turned out to be one of my most comfortable dresses. I modified my 16th century farthingale to get it more bell shaped instead of cone shaped. Then, there is the skirt, bodice, and undersleeves, and decorating the bonnet. (This was HSM #6 Out of your comfort zone)

In September, I started the last big project of the year - a ca 1880-1890 walking dress from a fashion plate. This will be a sneak peak, as I have not yet blogged it. As the dress neared finishing, I made the vest a bit steampunk by using large hook for fastening, as I was going to wear the dress at my Steampunk larp. I am currently making a period correct vest as well, so I can choose. This outfit consists of a skirt with soutache, and a coat with a false vest attached.

I also made some smaller stuff, to complement dresses I already had.
An over skirt and a new hat for the 1886 dress (This was HSM #2: Blue and #4 "War and Peace")

A "gröntröja", green bodice, for my mother's Gagnef folk costume. (HSM #8 "Heritage and Heirlooms")

Two Tudor caps, constructed in two different ways.  HSM #7 Accesorise.

Crazy stuff: A 18th century inspired dress in grocery store paper bags for a competition (sadly, I did not win anything...)

I also did a remake of the striped 1880's bodice, by adding a false vest and blouse. This way, it got a bit bigger (much needed!) and also a bit more fancy. I also added lots of trimming to the hat belonging to the same dress (HSM #9  Colour Challenge Brown).

After this year, I can confidently say that I have overcome my fear of making button-holes, after making a shirt and two bodices with buttons! I have also arranged a steampunk larp and a historical costume "fika", won a costume competition award, and been to at least five19th century markets or gatherings, so this have been a busy year for the historical costuming part of me! Plans for next year will come in next post.