Thursday, November 29, 2007

Underwear Post

o, I guess this is going to be all about underwear...

First, we have the smock and drawers: (The embroidery on the drawers is on the left cheek. "baci questo" roughly translates to "kiss this", or so says Babelfish. This is my passive-aggressive way of telling off a couple of people who really ruffled my confidence a couple of years back.) There is somewhere an extant pair of ladies drawers that say something to the effect of "I need the heart" embroidered on them. Different sentiment, but same idea, I guess. I have a bunch of each cut out and ready to assemble so I have a change of "underwear" for every day at Estrella. Nothing special about the patterning for these. The drawers are basic 'pants' pattern, cut off about at the knee. The smock is drafted from a tank top with the straps angled out to the shoulder points.

Then there is the corset. Some day I might actually go through all the construction bits on how I made it, but here is the quick-and-dirty. Pattern is loosely based on the "Effigy" corset. There are 4 layers (seriously, it's not that bad); 2 inner layers of cotton duck, and 2 outside layers of cream silk leftover from my sisters wedding gown. It's boned with plastic zip ties (I love those things) and bound in leather. I may or may not be brave enough to post pics of me wearing it. Next corset I make I am defineately going to make it about 1-2" smaller.

Next comes the roped (corded?) petticoat and regular petticoat. The roped petticoat is knife pleated onto a yoke, and ends about 1/4 of the way up my shin and the regular petticoat is box pleated onto a waistband and ends about 2" above the ground. I used this pretty gold brocade in case it ever peeks out from the bottom. I'll be changing both waist treatments sometime in the future. The roped petticoat isn't balanced yet, but it still gives lots and lots of volume without all the bulk. I loves me my roped petticoat!

Ok, now comes the camacia. I'm torn as to whether I like it or not. I will try to get up the mental fortitude to finish it, but it's not looking likely at the moment. I've thrown it across the room a half a dozen times last weekend. You can't exactly tell from the pictures, but the neckline is square, the front is about 4x larger than the back (to get all the lovely gathers without all the bulk all the way around), and the sleeves are set in with large gussets. I have a condition that makes me twitch when there are exposed seams, which is half of why this camacia is not on my 'favs' list. I wish I had taken the time to french all the inside seams, but I thought I wouldn't care that much. But now that it's almost complete, it ends up that I *do* care that much. Oh well.

Ta-daa! I might post pics of me wearing stuff later. Maybe.