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Non Essential Learning - Life Skills
Something I have been considering for a long time is treating the costume more as a sculptural exercise than a sewing one. I am reconstructing the pet costume but in calico and glue. Why? Don't really know.
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| cast of the body - spot the high tech approach |
I had a little body on a stick from which I took a papier mache cast. This was then taped to a stand and a calico skirt was dunked in a PVA mix and draped onto it. ( recommend not doing in a busy room - the glue gets into some surprising places). Elastic bands held it up while drying which took 2 days, and then it needed recoating with a stronger glue solution to increase the rigidity At this point found the old hairdryer, taped it to a mannequin stand and blasted the thing... Not very elegant.Stage 2 was adding a false stomacher - just a triangle, dunked and glued in place. Breeze.
Stage 3 is where we are now The start of the pet. Some sewing had to happen - the Watteau pleats were pinned into the back but the big base pleat needed to be held together underneath to create the back bodice. The underarm seam is over the hip pleats like the original but I haven't made arm holes. This pet is now dunked in the glue and drying on the model. Once dry and set rigid the back neck will need trimming and casing and of course arms are needed. These I am planning to make separately with cuffs and/or flounces, dunk and set them before attaching as a complete prefab unit. Hours of fun!
The finished object should be a self supporting, fairly rigid structure of the jacket, skirt and possibly kerchief.
Really just to see if I can. The fabric is coarse calico so could take spraying or painting ...... umm..... and then what do I do with it? It will probably be 'answers on a postcard' time again.
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Costume/Sculpture II
This has been fun. Messy. Hysterical. More messy. But fun. It is only possible to do a little and then wait for it to dry and stiffen, so even little things take a lot of time, not making and doing time but standing-back-and-not-fiddling time - the very worst kind.
The back story-
Aim - to make a free standing C18th costume, inspired by Boucher and Gainsborough - using calico and PVA glue. This is a trial piece to assess the creative and practical potential of this method of working.
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| it's more like this from LACMA |
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| It was meant to be elegant like this, but.... |
Process so far -Bundled up a mini papier mache body on a stick to be the armature.
Added a skirt. Dunked it in glue, dried then redunked and dried again to make rigid. Then added a stomacher and the body of a sack backed jacket based on the pet en l'air made before Christmas. This was without sleeves or collar, to be added later. Dunked, draped and dried.
This was all in the last post - just didn't have the heart to update, adding that the weight and wetness of the jacket caused a skirt crisis and it started to collapse over night.
After expressing myself quite fluently, the skirt was resoaked and reset and redried. The jacket was in decent state so only needed a gentle re-wetting and then resetting onto what is left of the now mutant body form and re-rigid skirt.
For some reason the glue is struggling to hold the jacket closed onto the stomacher, it keeps gaping, I may have to resort to pins or tacks to close it while trying again. This sounds simple but the fabric is now rising nobly to the challenge of going rigid - the last stay stitch had to be done using pliers to pull the needle through and the cotton thread wasn't as strong as the cloth!
Patience is not a virtue I possess, there are teeth marks on the furniture. The waiting has led to several ideas/ associations. At present the height of the back neck and the general headless quality remind me 'Sleepy Hollow' - could this be Mrs Headless Horseman, or perhaps he was a cross dresser before Tim Burton came along to do the film?Sleeve making has now happened, although not quite as originally planned. The raw sleeve units were made up with flounces and elbow tucks but not then set. To lessen the weight and the awkwardness of joining rigid to rigid, just the top section of the sleeve was glued and then attached to the body, pinned (pliers again), and dried. They have moved as they dried but the glue is determined not to let go so it will have to stay. The rest of the sleeve is being painted with glue and allowed to dry in sections. I'm just about at the flounces now, without major mishaps so far!
The neck edge has yet to be sorted out- the back lowered and then cased. I am thinking of cutting out as much of the original body as possible leaving the costume to support itself. I doubt if this will be easy or neat so extra finishing - maybe a lace edging will have to be done. Another week of happy glueyness!She(he?) is in the hall drying - I keep sneaking a peek round the door to check but she is being well mannered at the moment. I hope to have it finished by next week, I'm sure I said that last time.....
Also should have an en ferreau polonaise gown done by then - I'm part way through fitting it - but key question - can I be said to be ferreauing?
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Ghostly Dress
Headless wonder !
Currently haunting my hall radiator is the finished calico and PVA dress. Had great fun and frustration doctoring up a couple of photos to ' Gothic' them. It does look strange without a body in it and is not at all what I expected at the start – perhaps it was rather ambitious to do a sack back but a good experiment overall. It is fairly rigid, quite cardboard-like, but how this will last I do not know.
Keeping shape as drying – strange things can happen.
Preventing set areas becoming wet and pliable again.
Drying times.
Unblocking pipes having spilt large bowl of glue solution down the sink( hot water and unresolved anger issues worked wonders)
Benefits - do not have holes in fingers from sewing,
very direct way of working – see it, do it, dunk it,small periods of working then put to one side to dry,
errors can be undone – frustrating but satisfying in the end.
Would I do it again? Yes.
Would want to use different fabrics – cotton-based for absorbency- patterned/ striped?
Like the idea of having the 'seams' raw on the surface – really looking at the construction and fitting.
Might keep a body form inside or a wire armature .
Will try just with cutting out and sticking, no sewing.
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So It Was Going To Be A Painting Week
So - it was going to be a painting week, that is happening, but while the watercolours were drying I got distracted again so had another go. This is glue-and-fabric-dress mkII. Do need a better title for them. This time it is based on the late 1700s high-waisted open robe shown in Nancy Bradbury's Costume in Detail. The extant example, from the V&A, gives an idea of the style of dress, The bodice detail is different but the general shapes are similar. The Bradbury one is cut low ( very low!) and pinned edge to edge at the centre front, while the skirt has double inverted pleats and gathers to give the fullness at the back but remains open at the front to show the petticoat.
The start point was the same as for the ghostly dress - a papier mache cast of a little body form perched on a stand. I took a pair of scissors to it and had narrowed the hips out of existence, there is a much cleaner line from shoulder to hem as a result. Frustratingly the first steps were regluing and then creating a simple petticoat- just a rectangle of muslin gathered just under the bust. The skirt was cut and pleats pinned in using the Bradbury measurements to approximate to the proportions (bodice=1 unit, skirt length =5ish). Back to the dunk, drape and dry routine, thank goodness for elastic bands to hold it together as it sets! And yes my high tech set up is an upside down bowl for it to stand on, and a plastic biscuit tin to catch the drips.
This was where I parted company with dress making procedure. Instead of making bodice and skirt separately and then mounting together, the bodice was built panel by panel up from the waist. The edges are still being turned under like seam allowances which did lead to problems, but working like this made fitting the sleeve on much easier. I could smear the glue, slide the sleeve head around without destroying too much this time. Should have put the cuffs on before assembling but.....
This was close to the finish - the sleeves are on - looking a bit like Victorian insect specimens with the pins everywhere. All that is left are the shoulder pieces- they go from just above the bust over the shoulder and complete that distinctive diamond shape to the back. And then re gluing the inside to strengthen it. And adding another muslin petticoat inside the first - it was indecent (and a bit short) . And re gluing the skirt hem and turnings. and not dropping it. and not sitting on it (genuine accident not vengeful malice, yet)
And (last one), of course the belt! I did try the tie at the front (dressing gown), did try with just the organza ribbon ( no clarity, looked slightly dirty against the white), the pink ribbon (too narrow). So we have the double layer of organza and satin.Be grateful - having watched the BBC's Rococo programme with Clara the Rhino, I did try a tiny elephant as a brooch on the front. The tiny pink bead is sweet but does make me think of a nose. Ummm.
The muslin at the neck is temporary, preserving modesty again - these high/low dresses must have been seriously draughty. It looks 'right' and certainly stops the unfortunate Headless Horseman associations. I think I will declare it permanent! Hurrah!
As you can see the technique is still evolving. Working out unwanted creases and dents would be a useful skill, as would compressing seams and joins without leaving holes or clip marks. I do want to get artier with it as a process - more Wuthering Heights than Jane Austen as a expressive medium..... but she does look quite good striding purposefully across the window sill.
On a different note - so much for organising my working area. She is upstairs in the bay window making the most of the natural light for photographing her, I'm working in the back room watching Sherlock Holmes wrinkling his brow in deep thought while doing this. At my feet are my painting things ( painted an inch of the nice sofa as a protest against the vile weather) and the experimental hand sewing swag bag and contents are on the squidgy chair opposite. The Front Room is the work space. I begin to think that where ever I want to be becomes a designated work place. Well, the house was never meant to be tidy, was it?
Never underestimate the power of blogging! There is blue sky! If stays good over lunch then I might make it out to see round the windmill!
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post script - It didn't.
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