I know I know, I'm a flake. Sue me. Now let's talk sleeve drafting. And then some.

Yes, I'm alive. Barely. LOL. I'm just trying to recover from a case of bronchitis, nearly pneumonia, which leveled me for this week. I'm on prednisone and antibiotics and slowly feeling something akin to normal tonight.

What brought me out from underneath my damp rock was a question on my most infamous post (the Benefits of a Bib-Front), which still garners countless hits and Pinterest pins nearly eight years after posting it. Always a plus right? Sort of makes me nostalgic for costuming whenever I see the hit counts. After just checking, seems like the old post on stays on the old ORS blog page is also still often-visited. It feels good to know that my efforts are still found useful. I hope to return to these things soon one day. Once my little cottage* is finished and I can breathe a bit. *I'll expound on that in a moment.

The reason for my post is that someone posted a good question. How do I draft sleeves to a Regency bodice?  I tried to answer with just words and it wasn't really working for me trying to explain it without some visual aid. So I uploaded this quick video, very spartan so that it can explain how I do it when I'm cobbling together my various drafted gowns.

If I were smart, I would have made ONE muslin and just used it repeatedly, but I tend to lose my muslins, or I just draft boldly and stupidly onto the fabric itself and then roll with whatever happens. So my advice is, do it in a muslin until it works, and then keep it for future projects. You can add wedges and extensions as you please to whatever basic sleeve pattern you create using my 'technique'.



So that is it. Fairly simple. Center all your measurements on the shoulder mark (top of the sleeve) and it should be a nicely fitted, free-moving sleeve. Add any arc *over* the top of the sleeve, not like how I penciled it, by the way. Seam allowance gives you a little give as needed as well. Wedging in fullness at the top will give you more pouf if that's your cup of tea.

Now, let's talk about THE COTTAGE and its evolution.

Now, everybody who has historically followed this blog knows that I'm a head-case. LOL. I have been stricken with an anxiety disorder that manifested itself on top of a lifelong battle with chronic depression and dysthymia. It has been a huge fucking struggle. I have never bothered to hide it or sugarcoat it, and I will talk about it everywhere I possibly can, because I will not pretend like it's something that I am ashamed of or should be worried might annoy someone to discuss. It is a real problem, and something I have had to take a great deal of pride in accepting. A control freak (who is in essence displaying overt signs of anxiety by desiring to control everything that gives them anxiety) does not like to concede that they have no control over the levels of fear and worry in their own heads.

So I have retreated. I've struggled with a balance of medications, trying to find some measure of normality. But it is a continued battle. I'll have long phases of seemingly normal days and then suddenly have daily panic attacks, some resulting in losing consciousness and striking a great deal of fear in both my husband and sadly, my son, who now has comforting and helping his mother as part of his routine, something no kid should have to do. I found him lying underneath my head once, because I had fallen onto the floor, and he didn't want my head to hit, so he squirmed underneath. This makes me so very sad. But it is my reality now. It has hampered everything I do. And one of the things that once gave me comfort and respite from it, is no longer part of my life. Which is probably a good thing, in the long run, but it means I do not get to see people I became very much attached to over the years.

Oh well.

However, I refuse to go down without fighting. And I don't like the idea that this imbalance of brain chemicals should somehow make me useless. I am a highly creative person, and one that needs many outlets for it, or I will go mad. And my husband knows this, and from the previous post last spring, you can see he cared enough to help me find a place to express it. And he built me my cottage.

It has been slow progress but in the last month, it has sprung forward quite a bit. From being painted up like a lady, to gaining an electrical system with plenty of outlets and light cans, to now being insulated and wall-boarded. The mudding and taping will soon be underway at the beginning of the year, and that will leave only washing up the messy floor, painting, and furnishing it with all my crapola.

Then Feffie's Cottage will be born in earnest. And it will be where I will be vomiting up my creative energy in droves, I hope. From busting out more novels under my Miranda Mayer nom-de-plume to creating more hats and costumes, to returning to miniatures and dollhouses and dollhouse kits, to drawing and making prints and postcards, to fashioning stuffed animals and plushies, to dolls to whatever floats my god damned boat.  And I will sell my shit. Because being an anxious ass doesn't mean that I can't contribute to the household. I will just do it on my terms, without an overarching presence who will set off my anxiety and make me crazy.

I hope you folks will be with me on this journey. However it may end up. You've been reading this blog for god... years now, and I'm still here. Scrabbling along. You were with me from the first office specials, the struggle for pregnancy, the surprise child, the costumes, the drama, the snark. So here I am. Hoping to pick myself up and get back to my Hungarican ways. :) Maybe I'll even post a new recipe or something? I don't want to get ahead of myself. These are no longer the days when I posted my updates on the clock of my job. But maybe this can become part of my job as owner of Feffie's Cottage. Maybe.

A Velvet Bonnet for Agnes

My bonnet-pattern testing phase is still going, although often interrupted by other things. I was blazing away on this project when mom died, so I've only just gotten back to finishing it.  One of my friends from the ORS (she now leads in the WRS group) asked that I make her a bonnet/hat with a triangular top. She asked me this eons ago when I made another one that ended up being super small. She sent me all the supplies for covering and decorating, and it idled on top of my bedroom closet for months.

But finally, when I made the capote bonnet, I decided since I had everything else out, I would go ahead and design this bonnet for her.

The basic frame, assembled. I started with a paper mock up, then a
poster-board model. I used that to cut the buckram.
I wired both ends of the pipe and the outer edge of the brim.
I then shaped the wire into a triangle. Carefully.

I cut the top cap accordingly. Don't mind the small photo-bomber.

It's a little big on the head, which is a good thing. The last one barely fit
her, so that was a problem. LOL.

I put bias tape on the edge of the brim and the top of the hat to avoid
any unsightly wire eventually wearing through.

I hand sewed everything, but for this part, I did cheat and used
rubber cement to affix it there. Sue me.

I then added mulling. I whip stitched most of it in place. I lined the
outer bonnet. 

Then it was just a matter of covering and decorating it.  Agnes sent me some velvet, some moire ribbon that was really wide, some pale slate blue ribbon, an assortment of feathers, and some embroidered thistles.  I tried to use everything in a tasteful way.

I made the feathers into a separate bundle with a ribbon base that can be pinned to the hat, or removed as desired. There is a lovely black ostrich feather, and several small peacock feathers. 

I made some cockades wherein I added little pouffes made from the embroidered thistle.

The most time-consuming bit was the line on the inside of the brim. It is a line of the same ribbon, which frayed. I then stitched a little silver border along both sides to neaten it up. The silver is also repeated in the ruched ribbon chevron on the front of the bonnet.

If I hadn't run out of the blue riboon, I might have taken the ruching
all the way 'round the back between the two cockades too.

You can see, the feathers can be removed.

It's difficult to see, but the inner brim is ruched. I lined the inside of the
hat with the wide moire ribbon, which is black.

All in all, I think it's a lovely bonnet. I kept it simpler, because it is the kind of bonnet you want to add stuff to. I hope Agnes likes it. She waited long enough for it. Sorry Agnes. :)  I think this pattern is a win. I might do several top-shape options on it, as well as a variety of brim-styles.

The finished test capote bonnet

Thoughts? I think it looks somewhat like the original. A few tweaks of the design and it'll be ready to put up as a pattern. The angled arm on the brim is broader on the original. And the back has a bigger area to tuck in the updo. But it is a start! Onto another test with some modifications. I will be bundling this pattern in with another bonnet pattern--and selling them on my blog page along with my other patterns.

I'm auctioning off the test-bonnet. It's not the best craftsmanship, it's a bit sloppy, so I'm making a starting bid of $25. You can bid HERE.

Nuptials, family and a stays win!

There was a wedding a few weeks ago. And good god what a wedding it was. Such drama. Weddings seem to be more drama than anything else anymore, now that there was some sort of universal permit given to brides to be complete spoiled rotten brats and congratulated and cajoled for it. “Oh, it’s *her* day, it’s okay,” they say. “She’s got so much on her mind.”

Sunflowers were the theme. Lots and lots and lots and lots of sunflowers.

I allow for brides to be overwhelmed and stressed out. That’s okay. But to be rude and obnoxious? Why is that okay? It’s just not. My wedding day was a stressful drama-filled mess. My mom had arrived at the venue, and our attempt to keep her and another family member from the booze by foregoing a bar at the reception was made pointless because she and that other family member went straight up to the Ramshead bar on the third floor.  She was already buzzed by the time I and the bridesmaids got there, and had already insulted several members of the in-law family, and promptly lost my veil and corset, which made the wedding very late while everyone went in search of it (she never came to my room when I was dressing, she was too busy outside smoking).  During ALL that time, and with all this bullshit and hurt feelings and other crap going on, I never once snapped at anyone, was rude to anyone, or even made a spectacle of myself or cried (except when I saw my hubby at the end of the aisle). I was a polite, somewhat nervous bride and I was not an asshole to anyone.

But brides these days seem to have it in their head that it is somehow open season on everyone the moment they get the engagement ring on their finger to act like complete horses’ asses.  They invite people to participate in the wedding party, most of the time at their own expense and then heap abuse and nastiness on them to boot. This bride was a passive-aggressive drama queen at times. Tears flowed because things didn’t work out as expected even though she never communicated her expectations; episodes of malicious snottiness because something didn’t go her way, obsessing and being nasty about stupid things, and then barking orders like a task mistress.  Worse, her mother and sister and their respective husbands were really just plain rude and obnoxious too.  The wedding guests were 95% on the bride’s side, and the small percentage on the groom’s side (including my husband who was the best man) were treated like crap. They were censured for not wearing the right colours, for changing out of clothes too soon in spite of being told it’s okay, for not knowing if or when there would be toasts made, in spite of none of those things being communicated to the bridal party. My sister-in-law Jess was made to run errands for the wedding, but treated very much like an encumbrance and a peripheral, and while the bride’s family members had corsages made for them and were included in things, my sister-in-law was left to be insulted about her hair, (I need you to do *something* with that hair…) and to being ignored or barked at to do one thing or another without an ounce of consideration, politeness or couth.

I think the worst part of it was, after the ceremony ended, all the guests were left to stand out in the searing heat with very little shade and barely anywhere to sit for a full hour and a half while the bride and groom ‘rested’.  A little basic organization would have made all these dramatic moments much better. A meeting with the bridal party telling them the schedule of the wedding and what the expectations were, for instance. Letting people into the reception venue but not putting food out so the guests could sit down and cool off. Instead of waiting for the chairs to be brought in by the staff and set up, have the guests grab a chair or two as the ceremony ended and bring them inside would have been much quicker and offered some consideration for the people they invited. Obviously, the bride was concerned about her comfort alone, and more worried about her experience than she did about making this event pleasant for everyone, and also, being considerate enough to treat the people who she was now attaching herself to as new family with more grace and kindness.  But I saw from the mother and sister that grace and kindness might not be within their capacity.  They were really just a couple of rude classless boors. Sorry, but that’s the impression they gave by the way they treated the groom’s mother, sister, brother and other family.  I’m surprised the groom himself came out of it unscathed, honestly. 

Seeing the behavior of the bride on her special day is a very stark glimpse into the kind of person she really is, and the kind of people her family really is. And it doesn't bode well, in all truth.  If she is that self-absorbed for one event, what does that mean for the rest of the marriage?  Well, it’s none of my worry… I didn't marry her. I don’t have to live with her or her family. Thank god. ::oy::

The décor was rented for a couple of grand, and it was so profuse and overdone that there was barely room on the tables for plates. LOL. But hell, who cares? The memories were for her alone. I was nice, and polite, in spite of the ridiculous drama, and took lots of pictures between trying to wrangle my overheated, overtired baby.

My boys.

Enough about that.  More important things have been going on. My sister and brother came into town to spend some time with my mom.  They showed up last Tuesday and were on a plane Friday morning. But it was a nice visit.  This is the first time I've seen my eldest brother in sixteen years.  He’s aged a smidge. He’s 57. He’s very youthful looking though, and god, he looks SO much like my father, it is almost painful to look at him. The same face, the same head of hair, the same flash-point temper and passionate interchange.  I needled him just so I could see those flashes of papa, I confess, but he played along quite well. I was all ready to be pissed off at him, but the moment I saw him walking up, I just lost it. I cried and clutched onto him and kissed his cheeks and hugged him again.

Istvan holds Baby J so I can eat a bit.
His profile... ugh. He is the spitting image
of my father.

My sister Anna finally got to meet Baby J. I’m not sure if he ever seemed really real to her in spite of all the pictures. She was kind of detached I think, until she saw his little face in person. We met at a really great Chinese seafood market/restaurant (Istvan wanted to have some good Asian food while in Oregon, of which there is no shortage, thank GOD). She basically glanced at me as she walked in, pretty much pushed me aside and bee-lined for the high chair where Alex was then assaulted with affection. She pretty much loved on him at every possible moment after that for the duration of her stay. He was so attached to her by Thursday night, when I was in bed breastfeeding, she came in for something (they rented the vacation cabin next door, which was kind of cool!), and when she tried to leave, Alex cried. She came back, he was happy, then turned away to walk out, he cried. I had to distract him so she could make her escape.

My sister Anna and Alex. She was feeding him little bits of Tofu from her soup.

I moved mom to a rehab, where she is to stay for a bit until we can figure out a different kind of living situation for her. They had nice visits with mom for three days.  Anna will be back in October, we rented a beach house in Long Beach Washington and are going ot have a little week-long reunion with us, and include husbands and such. Istvan wasn't part of the original plan, but I do hope he comes; although I confess I don’t really have a good feeling about his wife, who hates the liberal that I am. LOL. That’s not about to change, so live with it, I say.

In other news, I took my new stays out for a test drive this weekend. We had a demonstration event at a senior housing facility on Saturday, where Nora taught about tea, and I called a couple of simple dances for seniors to watch. My stays were unbelievable! This is the first set of stays where I did not experience some measure of discomfort. The tightness on the rib cage, the weight on the shoulders… I experienced none of that. I moved and danced, my breasts were comfortably held aloft, they were separated by the busk (a carpenter’s pencil, LOL), I was more comfortable than when in a standard bra, I am not exaggerating.

One boob is definitely puffier than the other... those are the pitfalls of
breastfeeding. Alex sometimes favours one for the other, hence the
imbalance. LOL.

The extra gusset was the trick. It made the stays a lot less confining, and the looseness that’s in the body of the stays made no difference since the waistline and cups were doing their job.   These are the best stays I've ever had, and I will be posting a pattern for you plus sized (18-22) ladies with D, DD, and DDD cups. I wager it could probably hold some Es and Fs too, if the gussets are slightly widened.  I took these pictures when I completed them. I was using a standard #2 pencil as a busk then, and they were already doing great. But a day of use has proven to be the stays I've been working towards since 2007.

Yay!

Small Hat, Big Stays

So what has the Hungarican Chick been up to lately? Not very much that doesn't involve more baby-talk. Yes, I've become one of those people. I post so many pictures on Instagram and Facebook, I'm pretty sure my friends want to shoot me. But that is just too bad. I love my little boy with every molecule of my body. I took this brain-meltingly cute picture of him the other day standing naked on his changing table, with his bum facing me, turning and looking at me, but I won't post it lest some disgusting lech of a child molester steals it to fap to. Nothing can just be innocent anymore.

But yes, I have actually been occupying myself with some costume stuff during me free time*.  I made a hat just because I felt like it, I wanted to create a couple of new patterns for the workshop in 2014, but I cut it literally to my paper mock-up without allowing for extra space for I dunno... my HEAD, so it ended up being WAY too small, which is a shame because it turned out to be a beautiful hat.

Velvet Hat/Bonnet

I ended up putting it up on eBay where it sold for fifty bucks. I have the pattern, it requires tweaking, but I will make another. I used a slate grey velvet that I bought a long time ago for a spencer, and some striped taffeta for the lining and ribbons. I was sad to say goodbye to it, but it is now in Cincinnati (or almost there) hopefully being appreciated by its new owner.

My other project which I work on during those 'free time' hours, is my new set of stays.  I've made a few since my first endeavor into the custom transitional stays project. These stays I wore for a while before giving them to a friend, who wore them to the point where the steel boning rusted and began to jab out of the fabric and cut her. I resolved never to use that kind of boning again.  But that one pattern that I customized has become the template upon which all of my stays have come from since, the only change from those original stays is that I now habitually make them rear-closing with a short busk up front. I also added another gusset to the side just to give it a little more shape. I'm not sure when I started doing that, but it's now there. These work for me and have always worked for me.

They work out very nicely in spite of the fact that I am plus sized and am/was a DDD cup.  I know this is a conundrum for many women, finding stays that work for their bust size. Most patterns top out at DD (the short stays may go larger, but again, I do not recommend them for large-busted women because they just flop forward under the weight of the girls.

The reason why I'm making new stays is not because my most recent stays are ruined or such. It is because my breasts have grown bigger from the advent of the child. So, I resolved to make myself a new set with an extra gusset in the cups to broaden the space allocation and widen the 'platter'. My old stays would tube-out on me, and then become prow-like before me because there was just not enough room in there to fit all that boob.

So that is the most recent mod to my pattern. The extra boob gusset. I'm not sure yet how this is going to work, I haven't quite finished the stays. Since I decided I would hand-stitch the whole thing, and stupidly thought I'd do some cording to boot, I made it a lot bigger of a project than was necessary. But I do that to myself all the time. And I do it late at night, listening to Austen on Librivox, until I can barely keep my eyes open any more.

The Regency Silhouette, early and late (but in reverse here)

I've made a couple of posts on the Oregon Regency Society page about the regency silhouette, and corsets and attaining a decent fit when you are making regency stays.  This post about fit is one of the most popular posts on the ORS blog page. It talks about gussets and the empire waistline and la-di-da... but I haven't jumped into the shape and silhouette.  Many early period stays were modeled in the fashion of the 18th century corset, which was a boob-squasher. It created a hard-angle line that slanted in towards the stomach. There were some early stays made in this style where the empire waistline isn't really distinguishable. The chest sort of seemed puffed up rather than lifted, and because the corsets were designed to create an angle, the waistline was never very defined. Examples:

Stays like these do not have the bust-gussets that create the shape of the cup.  They promote a harder angle, and a slightly lower 'waistline' if any at all.  They squash the lower half of the breast and heave the cleavage up, which can be very attractive, but it isn't what I'm looking for in a set of stays. Especially in the case of a larger bust, where the heaved up breast, with the angled underside can often make the wearer look like a strutting pigeon--more Edwardian in shape than Regency.

Coo... cooo... strut strut.

Regency became a fashion of the natural form, and in the 1800s, the gusseted/ruched cups appeared to help define the waistline quite well, and to lift the breasts aloft over the waistline rather than force them up by squashing them. Then you have a bust in your bodice, not just a great big chin-touching cleavage. This is the look I prefer, because it works best for a big-busted girl for one, for two, the waistline isn't widened by the shape of the corset, and it's the most flexible for the gowns that go over it, not limiting the gowns to be worn to just 1790s styles, well, at least without looking like one is wearing a 'modern gown' with an old fashioned set of stays... like wearing sixties torpedo bras today. LOL. I like having my bust defined and 'presented' rather than squashed.

Little gathered cups give a bust rather than just cleavage.

Most regency corsets you find (pattern-wise) will have two gussets per cup and as I said, topped out at DD cups.  I could have widened the gussets themselves, but I don't really want to have something ridiculous looking, and since my girls need more width in the cup anyway, adding that extra gusset will hopefully do the trick of accommodating all that extra boobage breastfeeding has created.  I may also add a drawstring to adjust them if my girls shrink down again when I am through being a dairy cow.

This is the original pattern I customized. Note the two slits close to the center-front
for the gussets. I will add a third closer to the shoulder strap.

I transferred the old pattern onto some soft buckram a while ago and added the gusset slit
for the trunk. I eventually added another gusset to go between this front piece
and the side piece.

And there, I drew in the third slit for the gusset. I made it a smidge shorter
than the other two.

I cut this in two layers of cotton duck.  I usually add a third inner-layer for the hell of it. But I didn't this time. Just the two layers.

I hand stitched the pieces together, and then got to work doing the cording and boning channels. Here is a small sample of what I've done so far. I'll post pictures when it's done completely. I'm almost done with the cording (I want to add some little leafy shaped channels or squiggles still, but I haven't gotten to that point yet. I have one panel still to finish cording, and then I have to bind these babies--which with the tabs is kind of a byeetch.  But I am a glutton for punishment. And I like the tabs when they're done. They're cute.

Some cording and boning (ppfffftt... she said boning)

I will be making one of my amateur patterns for this set of stays for the ladies out there in search of something for their larger bosoms. This could fit a 40-44 DDD, possibly E ... but only time will tell. When it's done, I will put it on and model it for you all, and let you decide if this is the look you want.

*Free time consists of the hour after Alex goes to bed, around 8:30 or 9:00 PM, until 1 or 2 AM when I can barely keep my eyes open. It's the only time I have to myself these days.

Bib-front pattern? It's about damned time!

Yes, it's taken an age to get my err... stuff together and make a simple pattern from the pieces I use for my 'infamous' bib-front gown. It's an amateur pattern, meaning, there's no sizing, and it's just a pattern made directly from what I created. You will have to use your own ingenuity to figure out the rest. I am available for troubleshooting, but I recommend you consult the original tutorial post I created about this gown first before you come to me.

 This pattern not only includes the bib front pattern, but it also includes some simple instructions on how to use these pieces to create a drawstring version of this gown. I will be making a gown like this soon and will be making a tutorial post about that in detail, and will probably explain it a lot more succinctly than I have in the instructions of this pattern. Give me time. I'm slowly getting back into the groove as my baby's schedule is evening out.

The pattern is a PDF. You can have it printed in large format at a local Kinko's or other large-format printer. The first page is a large format page, and the additional pages are the instructions that can be printed on normal 8.5 x 11" paper.

Please be kind and try not to share the file with other people. The income from this pattern, small as it is, is important as I am a stay at home mom and we need every penny we can get. The instructions describes the best choices for fabric, quantities, etc.

The gown will create, if successful, a drop-front/bib-front gown like this:

Or a round gown like this:

I hope you will be cool, and post me links to photos of your creations, or post them on my Hungarican Chick Facebook Page. I love to see variations and how people use their imagination and creativity using the same pattern. Share share share! And like my blog's FB page too while you're at it. :) Comment below if you want to shout at me for my amateurish offering, I may or may not reply. LOL. ::hugs:: The HC

Pattern Regency Bib-front Regency Round Gown for Download