I built a house!

Yeeaaahhh, so I haven't really quite been doing much sewing lately. I've kind of been distracted by my latest interest - building miniatures (read: adult dolls house obsession). So in lieu of sewing adventures, here's a few pics of what I've been up to lately instead:

The place still needs furnishing, and the chimney-top constructed, but doesn't it look fricken awesome?! It's a 'half scale' dollhouse, which means its only about 30cm high. I've bought two other 'full scale' dollhouses as well, one made up which I'm going to renovate, and the other which only has about two walls up so I can start that one almost from scratch. (Thank heaven for Trademe. Buying full-scale new would be thousands of dollars...)

I will get the nurse's uniform finished one day, I promise. Also, I took advantage of a pattern sale at Shitlight (I mean Spotlight) and picked up these scrummy 'Archive Collection' McCalls patterns from the 1930s. Maybe they will help get me back in the saddle.

WWI Nurse's Uniform: The Dress

It wasn't only soldiers that went to war a hundred years ago. Thousands of New Zealand and Australian nurses went as well, serving anywhere from convalescent hospitals in England, to casualty clearing stations not 100 yards from the front line. Most nurses served through the New Zealand Army Nursing Service (NZANS) and the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS), but some served through Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and the Red Cross.

I have focused on making an AANS uniform, as thanks to the mini-series Anzac Girls, based on the book The Other Anzacs by Peter Reese, I managed to make a detailed study of the costumes made for it.

 The cast of Anzac Girls

The rest of my research showed a lot of variation in uniform styling, and I am yet to find a set of actual uniform guidelines for any of the nursing services, so as far as I know it was anything goes as long as it was tidy.

I had hoped to have the entire uniform finished by this Anzac Day, but working six days a week for the past two months hasn't left a lot of extra time for sewing. What I do have today though, is the finished underdress. It should be a darker shade of grey and the skirt isn't quite long enough due to fabric restrictions, but here we are. I ended up using Simplicity 9723 as a general base.

Getting there!

Four weeks later and it still only looks like this... but it's wearable now and only needs hemming so that's something. Now just to make the apron, capelet, and preferably a petticoat or two. But that is SO not going to get done before Anzac Day, as that's only six days away.

Well, the Gallipoli exhibition at Te Papa is going for four years to commemorate the duration of the war, so I guess I've got some time yet before I've completely missed the boat. Looking forward to going to see that actually.

I've started!

See, I've started the nurse's uniform! I'm not completely full of it!

Let's get this party started

THREE MONTHS?! Has it really been three months?? Right, that's it. I'm vowing to update this baby way more often than I have been. My day-job is boooooring and no one is hiring me for what I actually want to do, so I need another outlet for something I actually care about. Cue blog update!

Haven't actually made much lately, just one dress which I wore to a hen's party last weekend but didn't end up getting a decent photo of me in it, so will get on to that soon, promise. Also making the bridesmaid's dresses for wedding relating to said hen's party so that will be coming up on the blog soon too.

In the meantime though, I'm going to put something out to the universe. Every morning I walk through the construction site of Wellington's WW1 centenary Memorial Park on my way to work, and every morning I think "I would like to do something to mark this too". I love the Edwardian era, I love practical clothing, and I admire the working class of all ages. I'm going to make a WW1 nurse's uniform.

Inspired by the story Glory Days magazine did on the up-coming Anzac Girls mini-series to mark the Anzac Day Centenary, I bought the book the series is based on and started coveting the uniforms.

Judging by what I've researched so far, I reckon McCall's pattern M4548 will be a good base. 

A lot of the old photos of the nurses have high collars, but that would be so uncomfortable and I've seen enough photos will flat collars that I reckon it'll still be legit. Here are some of my favourite images: 

The famous Violet Jessop

Queen Mary with Princess Mary

"A New Zealand Army nurse wearing an indoor uniform", Australian War Memorial archives

Some of the cast of Anzac Girls

The cast of Anzac Sisters, a play by Geoff Allen

It's just a pity I can't study the costumes in action from the series itself, as I'm pretty sure it probably doesn't screen until Anzac Day.

6 eras in 6 months - Abort Mission

I'm clearly too productive for this mission. In the space of twelve hours yesterday, fueled by spontaneous motivation and no need to shower or leave the house, I got inspired by this image I found on my Pinterest board (among others):

Callot Soeurs c.1926

And went from this conceptualised-drapery-and-accessories-match:

To this pretty-much-finished-dress-that-just-needs-hemming and refashioned-hat-that-just-needs-a-few-stitches.

This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that I ended up making the blue 1950s dress too small and it won't fit over my ass. I swear they're doing funky things with the sizings every time I try a new pattern. Yep, that's the reason. 

Anyway, screw the mission, I'ma sew whatever I want, whenever I want. And I'm NOT bitter that the blue dress doesn't fit. Really I'm not. 

Finished ages ago, I swear

I did actually finish the 1940s dress a couple of weeks ago, but was hanging out for an opportunity to photograph myself actually IN it. And after a long stint of weeding down in the garden on a hot sunny morning, I figured enjoying a well-deserved beer on the deck in my summer dress would do the trick.

And damn was it sunny. Even my new prescription shades weren't enough. Forgive the choice of beer, we were feeling poor when we bought that box of Export Gold. Anyway here's a better view on the mannequin: 

Very 'sweetheart' 1940s, I must say, which is not usually my style, but it still came out quite nicely. Especially considering the amount of guesstimating that went into expanding the seam allowances to make it slightly bigger. Now, this month (of which there's really only two weeks left) I figured I'd follow the trend and do 1950s - a blue brocade cocktail dress from 1951. 

It's going to be sweeeeet. Going to have to fudge it a little as I laid the pieces out on the fabric and it's not qquiiiiiite enough, but of course I'm never one to shy away from a challenge. Thought of perhaps wearing it to my work's end of year christmas party as - get this - the theme is 'Christmas'. And I would love to turn up in something as least christmassy as possible. 

6 eras September: 1940s

The lovely sunny spring day we're having today must have influenced me, as I've picked a flowery 1940s number. Should be easily accomplished, now that I'm back at work and really only have the weekends.

I do, however have an epic outfit in mind. Very similar in style to the blue wedding dress I made last year, but there'll be more adornments and also a day and evening wear option. I made cute little miniatures to help visualise my concept: 

I'll be using a combination of Burda 7880: 

Simplicity 5457: 

And Truly Victorian patterns TV361 and TV170, which Rebecca graciously let me keep after finishing her dress. 

TV361

TV170

So, the idea is that they'll come out looking somthing like this: 

Hous of Worth, 1880s

And this: 

Mme, D Michaux, 1880s

I imagine this will take months and months, and I'll probably make a practise bodice or two, so this is definitely a long term project. Wish me luck!

6 eras: August

A week late, but ended up so busy last weekend that I couldn't do the finishing touches on the skirt like I wanted to. Many lessons learnt from this outfit - didn't quite get the blouse tie sitting right, but I saw a similar blouse in an op-shop recently and had a lightbulb moment as to how I would do it next time; the lining fabric I used for the skirt is too thick, and makes the seams look massively bulky; got over-zealous and trimmed the hem far too much and made the skirt too short - remember, less is MORE!; don't like how the hem of the pleats are sitting but I know what caused that and will do it differently next time.

I will have a rifle through my pattern stash tomorrow and hopefully come up with an idea for September. Also have an epic idea for some gigantic gold and cream striped curtains I acquired recently. Might treat you to that as well :)

Easy peasy.

So I smooshed together two patterns - one from the 1940s and one from the 1960s - to reach my desired design.

However I didn't alter the yolk properly so the neckline sits a little funny, and the ties aren't quite long enough. Not bad, though. I have a similar texture fabric with cats printed on it that I might use to make another :)

Since I got this made so promptly, I'm going to try and make a skirt to go with it too. The challenge WAS to make an outfit from each era, so a blouse alone isn't quite going to cut it. 

August: 1930s blouse

I have twelve days to complete a project for August, so I've chosen a realistic item for that time - a 1930s blouse with bow-tied neckline a-la Upstairs Downstairs:

Ivy 

Agnes

Persephone

It's going to be made from a chiffon-type maroon fabric, so working with something that flimsy is going to be interesting...

July: Regency-ish, not-quite Victorian

Yes, it's two weeks late, but better late then never, right? Here is my late-Regency/early-Victorian mish-mosh of a dress. As mentioned previously, it's from Butterick 5832, although I took some liberties with it. Love how the match of the contrast fabric worked, and I also refined my piping-construction skills. I have enough of this material to make another dress too. Love when that happens, means you're not putting all your creative eggs in one basket.

Will have to pick a less complicated era for August...I've only got two weeks left...