Press Call at the Portrait Gallery

Now that things are revving up for the ECA fashion/costume/textiles show, it's all starting to feel a lot more real. Graduation is imminent! There are only three weeks left to do ev er y thing!!

Part of the lead-up to the show was a press call which took place day before yesterday. All graduating costume designers (post and undergrad both) took one costume to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery where they were modeled for invited press. The location was stunning and some really lovely shots of some of the costumes ended up in the papers and there was a nice little segment on STV as well.

I was rather excited to see my fairytale wedding dress for The Girl in the Edinburgh Evening News the next day!

If you're in Scotland at the end of the month you can still get tickets to the catwalk show, which will be April 23-25. The fashion design portion of the show is quite interesting as well, but let's be real. Costume is where it's at. ;) And there will be some seriously amazing work on display... everyone's stuff is so different and exciting!

I took some of my own pictures on my iphone at the press call... I only wish I had had a better camera with me to capture it with!

An end is in sight

Contrary to what the utter lack of posting lately has indicated, I have in fact been very very busy making and designing things. That said, I very much do NOT recommend going through a bad depressive episode during grad school. That way lies misery, guilt, and sorrow. However, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, I have been able to pick myself up these past couple months and have made real progress towards my final MFA degree show.

Naturally, however, the catwalk show which occurs before the degree show is only four weeks away and there is still SO MUCH to finish! With depression somewhat subdued, I am no longer spending my days struggling to get out of bed, but instead spending my days convincing myself that I don't need to pick up a million new hobbies and projects immediately...

After May I can sew for myself and pick up tablet weaving and make all the bath bombs and perfumes and incenses that I like (and post some of the many, MANY blog posts I have already planned and sort of drafted). For now I have a design book to finish, and a hussar inspired Queen and an 1820s Devil to make.

Til then, here are a few pictures I snapped behind the scenes at a recent photoshoot (for show promo etc.). I had chosen two costumes in the photoshoot, both of the same main character from my story The Girl Without Hands. My two lovely models, Poppy and Charlotte, are both undergraduates in the Performance Costume programme at ECA. I can't wait to post some of the resulting official photos later... they turned out beautifully!

Life in Scotland: Outlander

I sometimes think that no matter where I go and what I do, I will never escape the 18th century.  This time though, it has become a part of my life in a very different way than before.  Since the begining of my summer break, I've been working as a Costume Trainee on the Starz production of Outlander which is filming here in Scotland.  This is my first experience working on a TV show, and I've learned quite a lot in the last couple months!

 (Official production still of the two main characters: Claire and Jaime)

The series premiers on the 9th of August in the US, and if historical drama and fighting and romance is your thing you should definitely give it a watch!  Apparently the book series it's based on has quite loyal followers, but not having read the books myself I can't tell you much on that score. ;)

Check out the trailer below and see what you think!  Even if I wasn't working on it, it's the sort of show I'd probably be really into.

American vs. British English - The sewing vocab version

As someone who transplanted from the US to the UK about nine months ago, there have been some things to which I've had to adjust.  I figured that the vocabulary differences wouldn't be an issue... after all, half of my extended family lives in the UK, and everyone already knows about basic things like sweater/jumper, truck/lorry, crisps/chips, sidewalk/pavement etc.

What I didn't know was that in the UK they often use different words for various fabrics, notions, or sewing terms than are used in America.  So for all the sewists out there looking to hop the pond in either direction, here's what I've run across so far:

Cheesecloth = Muslin
Muslin = Calico
Burlap = Hessian
Mock-up = Toile
Seam-ripper = Unpicker
Stitch Witchery = Bondaweb
To baste something = To tack something
Serger = Overlocker
Snaps = Poppers

If anyone has any more words to add to the list, please let me know!  I'd love to have a comprehensive list going!

I'm also trying to get better at working with the metric system... having 1 or 1.5 cm seam allowances have at least begun to seem somewhat natural, though it's a work in progress!

I have a mighty need... for 1900-ish beauty.

In the middle of all sorts of mad dashing about recently, I paid a brief visit to my brother in Bury St. Edmunds during my Uni Easter break.  My sister-in-law is working at Ickworth House not far from Bury, and as I'm always more than happy to see historic houses (especially neo-classical and/or victorian) we spent an afternoon there.

Ickworth was lovely, but it was one of the few costumes they had up on display which really captured my heart.  There was no placard or any information on hand, but it looks like a fairly typical evening gown from about 1900-1905. 

It's been absolutely ages since I last made myself something, and I think this dress just shot straight to the top of my list.  I want it so badly you have no idea.  I took a ton of photos and would have been happy to spend the rest of the day just staring longingly at the gown.

In my little corner

The large majority of my time these days is spent in my little corner of the room for the performance costume 4th years and masters students (of which there are two), trying to make up for an unfortunate lack of real productivity earlier this semester.  At the moment I have quite a lot of projects 'in progress', and am slowly chipping away at the list of things to get done.

First priority for the rest of the semester is finishing all the final costume illustrations for The Girl Without Hands.  I've decided to do them on illustration board, and start with a pencil drawing which then gets set with fixative and varnished so that I can paint on top.  I just do a simple wash of acrylic to tone the board, and then use thin layers of oil paint on top.

(this one was sort of at the half-way point here)

I've also started mocking up and making costumes for the main character, and am aiming on having three toiles and at least one finished final costume by the turn in date in May.  In spite of not having masses of time at my disposal, I'm still doing quite a bit of hand stitching on the final pieces... such as the shift currently on the stand.  After all, there's nothing quite like focusing on hand work for some quality stress relief!

I can't believe March is half over already. Ridiculous.

So I guess I've been kind of MIA online lately, but it turns out that dealing with illness and some personal issues while trying not to fall too far behind on grad school work means that something or another was going to have to fall by the wayside.  And that was pretty much most of the internet. (aside from tumblr which for me mostly consists of reblogging fandom or feminist stuff.  and cat pictures.)  So massive apologies if I haven't responded to emails… if you've messaged me, I haven't forgotten about you! Promise!

That said, I've got a lot stored up to talk about… still tons of images and research from the Germany trip, as well as epic fabric shopping in London, and of course what I've been working on in the studio for the past month or two.

'Til then, I'll leave you with some little sketches from when I was working out ideas for a couple costumes before committing to final illustrations.