Sartorial Sundays
What I would like to say before beginning my final Sartorial Sundays post is, that while I am slightly above the novice in costuming, being that I don't just buy off the rack and do do customization, I am still only starting. If you have ever seen the work of a true maker, then you know how much people take this lifestyle to heart. They are amazing and their work reflects that. While I too am a maker at heart, I sadly don't have the time or the skills to reach their level of awesomeness... YET! So take these posts as from a person continuing the journey into Steampunk, who will probably not be a master, but who gives a shout out to and tip of the top hat to those amazing people who are.
Ok, back to me.
So, I actually changed out to a more Victorian skirt, because I found it online and just fell in love with it. As for the basket, I actually found that at Teslacon and it was perfect. Reminds me of something a bee keeper would use... don't ask me why, but it does. Sadly, despite knitting up to the very last minute, I kid you not, it was 5AM of the day I was going to wear this costume, it still didn't fit as a wrap. The reason? Because the lady who designed this pattern is a freakin' midget. I'm not the only one to think so. My friend Amy did one of her patterns and also said it was way short on her too. Amy and I are of similar heights (I'm just shy of 5' 10") and when I tied this on, the back should still rest about your wait/tailbone, and it was seriously the middle of my back. Those who know me well enough know that even though I "finished" it for the con... it's not "finished." I will frog that last line and make this pattern work gosh darn it!
As for the underskirt I spent all that time on, I used two corset clips to layer the back so you could see it underneath, and it was also REALLY comfy to sit on, like your own ass pillow. Sadly, one of the clips died at the ball, which pissed me off, because they weren't exactly cheap, so I couldn't wear this outfit again for the con and went with costume two for the final day.
For the hat I actually made a wide band that snapped so it could be removed from the hat, therefore it didn't damage the hat and made it multi-purpose. Also, best place to store your passport to the con that they check all the time... in your hat band. I also had a lot of fun sewing on little gears and flowers to the band, and unlike the goggles I did, I didn't glue myself to any furniture.
Overall I really like how my costumes turned out and I love that I have enough stuff to mix and match now. Of course for this next year I have even more ambitious plans... it's going to be at Halloween... so I think the minimal is a Steampunk Harry Potter costume...
I love them so much I also bought them in black too. And seeing as I was stopping at Target I was able to pick up a cheap pair, doubly cheap because they where on sale, brown knee high socks, because my theory is, why wear tights when you don't need to?
Here is the hat I found through Ladies' Emporium, also, obligatory goofy picture of me wearing the hat. Fits like a dream and looks so nice with some of the bling I bought.
For my outfit, I view my hat as the true expression of the inner Steampunk geek coming forth. Because, let's face it, my costume so far could easily pass as just someone doing a Victorian Renn Faire. Last year at Teslacon I saw someone who had the most gorgeous hat with faux flowers in it. I had been eyeing my mother's faux sunflowers for a few weeks when I decided to go to Michaels Craftstore and check out what they had. I found these lovely beauties. The dark brown is luscious and will go so well against the hat (truly, they look wonderful together!), while the cream will bring back in the colors from the tea dyed skirt and the blouse. So in love with this find. But not as much as the rest of the stuff I found...
So, needless to say, I spent more money than I should have at the craft store, but look at all these cool Steampunk bling to mod my hat! Gears and cogs and clock bits and unfinished pocket watches and birdcages and birds! So much awesomeness I went around the store in a state of bliss. Also, cunning me, because while this costume is earth tones, two of my other costumes aren't, so I bought some silver paint to bling the bling to the starlight side!
Ok, first I tried the 10... and it was too small, by 3/4 of an inch, so up a size. Note, I usually just frog this and start over to not waste yarn, but for your pictorial benefit, I saved my gauging.
Ok, now 10.5... and still too small, closer though at 3 3/4 inches. Damn, this is taking longer than I thought it would...
Ok, final try, fingers crossed. 11 and... yes! Finally, it's right on 4" as you can see, and as for what you can't see because of the ruler, a stitch I dropped, hey, it's only a test after all. Whew, was worried there. I've never worked with needles as bulking as 11s, so this should be interesting.
As you can see, I can't really get a striking and lovely picture, the circular needles make it all bunched up, but you can see there's a mass of yarn there!
Here you can see the detail of what goes down my spine. Because that is where the majority of the increases happen, it's not only expanding the pattern, I mean there's over 300 stitches by the time I'm near the end, but it creates a nice detail too.
So you can see my copious notes and how I'm keeping track. As you can see from the bold "x's" that's where I inadvertently messed up (added and stitch and when fixing lost two stitches, but frogged it out in the end). Quite a few more rows to go, but now that I'm at 200 stitches, it's taking awhile for me to get through a row. I'm hoping the Emmy's next weekend will be a good chance to finish! That and re-watching all of last season's Community. Man, I love that show!
Ok, so here is the color palette I'm working with. I would like a yarn with more than one color in it, so not a uniform brown, but with hints of the warmer cream and pink... maybe a twill thing going on. So, I was going to go to my uber elite, high end yarn store, but that way leads to temptation. Instead, having been to Wisconsin Craft Mart and seeing that they had tons of yarn and more in the nice mid-range selection that they do carry at the elite stores, but without any of the elite yarn temptations, I thought going back there was a better bet.
The yarn was nicely priced at $6 a skein (aka ball o'yarn), and promptly upon making my choice I took apart the display. The owner of the store walked by and nodded sagely, dye lot, asked if I needed help and moved on. See dye lot is key! Most people don't tell you that all skeins have their dye lot on them. What this means is all the yarn with the same dye lot number where dyed at the same time and will therefore be the same. Because say you bought two skeins and didn't check the dye lots, then there might be a weird color shift, which you don't want in the least. So I was able to get enough of the right dye lot and skipped my way up to the register happy in my find and even happier when I got home and placed it on my outfit and it looked like they where made for each other! Now to get my knit on!
Here is the skirt, originally and holey. 
So, what I first did actually was to see if my skirt, while wet, would fit in the pot I had (yeah it did) and then I left it to soak in the bathroom sink. Look at my olde tyme sink, you can either burn or freeze your hand, no nice lukewarm water for you! Also, wet fabric takes dye better, which I remember from my days in the theatre (say it fake posh please). I had to help bulk die fabric, which had the coolness of being in a giant vat, so I felt like a witch! 
Here is me waiting for my pot to slowly boil... yeah, 16 cups of water takes some time. Time I should have spent cleaning that other burner, but, whatever, I'm really lazy at heart, though you wouldn't know it.
So here are all my calculations. I gauged the skirt at about three yards of fabric, but water for four yards covered the skirt better, so that would mean... 32 tea bags! Oh my! Luckily I had this new box of 50 tea bags, black tea as recommended, and what was nice about this brand is that they don't have a string or a tag, so just throw them in the pot! Although, as some have said (Gail), what a waste of all that tea... but it actually has a longer life as part of a skirt, because usually tea just passes right through you (oh, don't look at me like that, you know it's true). 
So the brave little bags did jump to steep in the giant pot of boiling water. Side note, my whole house now smells of strong bergamot tea. I think it's kind of nice, I mean, I don't like my tea strong, but the smell is nice. Other members of the household have been more vocal, I think brunt fruit loops and piss have been mentioned more than once this day...
So, as recommended, I didn't try to squeeze the bags by hand, but used a slotted spoon and a wooden spoon in tandem, and it worked quite well. Though my slotted spoon now has a brown tinge... hopefully it will all come out in the dishwasher...
So, I wrung out the skirt and shook it out, so as to get an even color, and into the vat it went! I steeped the tea a long time (about twelve minutes) because I wanted a darker color, so I was also planning on keeping the skirt in there for awhile. Perhaps if I do it again I will leave a lid on the pot so that the vocal member of my house will shut his yap. I left it in for about 90 minutes.
After pouring out the tea you can see that it's not quite as dark as you think it is, but I was forewarned, so I knew it would be lighter. 
A close-up of the fabric post rinse pre-wash, because I am going to use the cold water washing machine method and maybe a few minutes in the dryer as well to be safe.
Here it is all washed and dried! It has a wonderful peachy tone that I just adore. Also, whew, it looks good with the top and my over skirt! The skirt has amazing uniformity of color, so I must have done something right! Only near the waistband is there a little splotchiness, but it's under the over skirt, and even if it was, character right? The skirt is now definitely darked than the shirt. Now that they dying is done, time to get me some yarn on!
If you've forgotten, this here is the shirt I bought, all nice and creamy with it's inappropriate collar. Now, time for some fun!
Seam ripping can be one of the most fun or frustrating things out there. Firstly, I always lose my seam rippers. In my life I can not count how many I have lost. This was "logically" next to the PS3 remote... I know! I thought it would be either in my sewing box or somehow it had migrated to my mom's, but no, it was watching tv. What was interesting about this shirt, once I started deconstructing the collar, was that it had two seams I had to rip, where I thought there would be one. First, the collar was sew to the inside lip of the interior collar and then it was sewn shut... so more seam ripping for me! The exterior one went well, the interior went well and fast, but made a mess. That's the worst part, all the little bits of thread everywhere, that's why I try to pull and pluck it through as much as possible. 
So here's the collar as I want it! Yeah! But I need to now sew it up nice and neat and make it look classy. Luckily I had the right color thread at home so I didn't have to go to the fabric store. It was also already threaded in my sewing machine, which I of course didn't look at at first, pulled it out, went, shit, and re-threaded the machine. Cause that's how I do things! 
Took all of five seconds to sew it and viola, new Victorian shirt.
Here is a close up because, I'm quite proud that I didn't mess it up. look at those neat stitches yo!
Now the skirt, seen here in all it's glory!
Now to the problem of the skirt. Here is the torn section... an easy fix. I being lazy and not wanting to bust out the sewing machine for this one just whipped that wound closed by hand.
And viola... was there ever a hole? No, there wasn't, and you better remember that!
I found this lovely little peachy/cream blouse at Burlington Coat Factory for a song. It was the right color, fabric and fit. Only problem is, that collar... Emma Timmins would not approve. But as I carefully noticed, the collar under the wingy bits as I shall now call them... you know, that part men added to their shirts over a simple "Gatsby Collar" even if they where around long before Gatsby... anyway, I diverge. It was just the right Emma Timmins roundness with a Victorian peasant look, so perfect for altering. Also, all along seams, so perfect for ripping!
As you can see, tea dying is needed, they are just too far apart in color. 
Now, for the final underlying piece of clothing, ie, the over skirt, I wanted something that would show the underskirt, a bit, and have a more modern Steampunky edge, but with bustle like elements. Also it had to be in the "brown" family. So, I was looking online and didn't find anything I liked and one day I got The Pyramid Collections catalog, and there near the back was this skirt. I instantly thought, awesome. Because it was about knee length, brown, and made of jersey knit, so soft and comfy. I was sold! So, the final piece that won't need modding at all!
Here is Emma Timmins. What I love about her look is the blouse, minus the stiff collar and the earthy cream color of it with the voluminous skirts. 
Here is what I have always wanted when watching period dramas! Until recently I always referred to it as the knitted wrappy thingy that farm women wear. Yeah, as you can tell, real technical. So after about an hour online once I decided I wanted to make one, I found out it's called a Sontag. It's basically a shawl that is designed to wrap around the body and then connect. The one pictured here is the pattern I plan on using. So here's hoping it doesn't take too long. But of course, I must establish my color palette before going yarn shopping, and here's hoping I might have something in the house that will work... I do have a yarn hording habit...
Now this right here is THE DRESS that always makes me associate Lark Rise with Steampunk. How much more Steampunk could Dorcas's outfit be? While, yes, in a magical ideal world, this right her would be my costume, what I am taking to use is what I call the "cloth gauntlets." Women who where working and doing menial chores, like cleaning out fireplaces, would wear these so that they wouldn't get their shirts dirty. While here it is more fashion versus function, I felt that I would incorporate that into my look.
Yet, of course, I would go knitted, same yarn as the Sontag, with a little Steampunky design.
Finally for the skirt, I wanted something a little more modern, a little more space agey, but could still be mistaken for Victorian in the right setting, so an over skirt similar in style to this one.
While, I was originally thinking a split layering, the over skirt above wouldn't work so well, but I do want the layering with a lacier underskirt, preferably tea-stained, and the over skirt a little shorter, so as to see the two layers clearly.
