Aprons for Christmas

I was wondering what to get for some of the ladies in the family
then I remembered a saying my grand mother told me once;
"a hand made gift is always closer to my heart than anything you can buy for me"
and since these ladies enjoy cooking and baking what would be better than a apron with their personalities in mind.

The green apron, for a lady with a big heart


The Blue on for someone with a slight rebellious streak

and the purple one, for the sweet young lady ;)

I hope they will be well used and many lovely baked goods and dinner will come from wearing them. :)
Until next year having a great new year ! :)

Rococo Garment finished

Finally it is finished and I have been graded for it, guess what I passed!
Anyway I am planning to have some better photos taken but here I am in my kitchen without makeup or hair done.
the side
the back
and the front
there are a few more things I would like to add to finish it off a bit more but for now this is it. :)
So glad I made one, so would like to make more.

soon I will have another project to show you.

Rococo Garment update

On the bodice I have added the stomacher and the trim, the stomacher is hand painted and embroidered.

All the trim has been pleated, mainly box pleated.

The sleeves have also been pleated

I can see there is still lots to do, I have a little more than 3 weeks to finish this and once it has been marked I will try and find a place to have a photo shoot so you can see the finished product. :)

Rococo garments update

Here it is, I have put together the skirt and bodice. Now the embellishments and finishing, there is lots to do.

This is the skirt so far, more to come.

The printing I had to do on the hem, and hopefully it will still be seen after all the box pleating is done.

More to come soon :)

The Rococo bodice

I have been working on the Rococo gown and forgot to up date my progress. At my next fitting I will bring the real camera and take some decent photos.
So here is where I am at;
I have cut out and put together the bodice, I have also started on the large amount of trim box pleating that has to be done.

The Skirt is still to be printed and sewn together completely, the stomacher is also to be printed and embroidered.

The Colours came out a bit lighter than expected but it is growing on me, and with the embroidery done there will be more texture.

More images to come soon :)

Designing for Dance

Last week the dance piece I designed for was performed, it was a interesting process working with the choreographer and the dancers. I was lucky to have a great understanding of what the Dance piece was going to be about and being able to design something simple but good for the choreography.

Some photos are movements shots so they will be blury

Here you can see the 3/4 pants with the strapping on the torsoes, it was a all male cast so the bare chest worked well.
It was about the masculine qualities, made into dance. It was funny but also interesting to watch, I enjoyed it :)

Some very expressive movements

Hopefully these great boys will go onto doing lots of fun things in the future :)

Burlesque Costume for Cécile Mimieux

I make all sorts of Costumes, burlesque is one of the more interesting areas of costuming for me.
This Costume was made for

Cécile Mimieux

And under the Brand
V & V

The costume includes Bra, Torsolette, Garter belt, skirt and detachable tulle. Then a g string and pasties both in a white and silver.

There are more such things in the works so please stick around to see what we make next :)

Me in my under garments

So here we are me in my Rococo undergarments, as you can see the corset is very tightly laced and the panniers are rather large. :)
I hope you enjoyed, there will be lots more coming soon.

Rococo undergarments

Okay I received the undergarments back from being assessed and here they are on one of our dummies. (please note the corset doesn't look too good on a dummy because it changes a persons shape drastically when worn and dummies don't squish)

from the front

a close up on the flossing

from the side

now with the panniers and petticoat, the panniers have 18 meters of string steel in them and the petticoat needed only 12meters on fabric.

here it is from the side

and here is the close up on the pin tucks I had to do because I am a bit of a shorty :)

Thank you for looking I hope to put up my design for my dress soon :)

Rococo costume update ( CORSET )

So here is where I am up to with the corset, I have the binding on all the bones in and all the cording is in.

And now I have started the flossing

these will become more elaborate

But it gives the idea of how it could look

Soon I'll be able to start on my dress, and there will be photos of that also.

Rococo Costume corset fitting

Today I had my final corest fitting for the rococo costume I am making. It went well, everything fitted I just need to fix some of the boning channels to make sure the bones don't have a chance to escape.

I have also finished the panniers and fitted the petticoat to suit these panniers. There is still lots of work to be done but I am nearly finished with the undergarments.

See for yourselves :)

for some reason I can't keep a straight face but if you were being squeezed by one of those corsets you would understand hopefully. ;)

More up dates soon

Rococo costume update

here is where I am up to with my Rococo garment, I am having a fitting with my corset panniers and petticoat on Wednesday. So I have a lot of bones to cut and round off, eyelets to put in and bias to dye.
Here is how the corset looks now

the 16 meters of ruffle I box pleated for my petticoat

the petticoat on the table, without the top yoke attached

and here it is draped over my panniers, I probably will have to put some tucks in to shorten it a bit. the waistband isn't on yet either.

There will be more to come soon, I will have some photos of the fitting soon.
I hope you enjoyed what you saw.
:)

Long hours working on stundent films

I am sorry I haven't been blogging but I have been very busy with uni stuff, working on the student films doing costume stand by.
yes its not all glamorous work, its long hours and sometimes dusty work, but it can be really rewarding.
here are some pics of me on set, sorry but I can't show you much more.
and here I am as stunt driver with some serious camera equipment in the back :)
hopefully I can update on my corset soon and then there will be more photos :)

My Period costume version 2

This is a continuation of the introduction to my costume classes at uni, there will be many more until the end of the year.

here I was fitting my corset toille and making alterations to the pattern, then I had to measure the length and width of the petticoat I will be making over the pannier.

this is the three views Back

Side

Front

And this is the pattern after I have made all the alterations

I had to take in 6cm in the waist, when I originally thought I would only need to take in 2cm. amazing how much our bodies compress.
stay tuned for more stuff in the next few months. :)