#historical study

Panel practice

23/10/19 | 100 Days of Productivity Day 30/100 I prepared the sleeve cuffs today, cutting them from silk, basting the information lines into them (front, back and gathering points) and began tacking the pipping on. I had an academic tutorial in the afternoon where I discussed my dissertation topic and I feel a lot calmer about that now!  24/10/19 | 100 Days of Productivity Day 31/100 Today was a dissertation day, I camped in the library and got 800 words bashed out.  25/10/19 | 100 Days of Productivity Day 32/100 Tech skills this morning, we’ve finally started on the victorian bodice, in the lesson today we discussed accurate toile making and the steps that should be taken before cutting into top fabric to save on time. We traced off the patterns and transferred them to the coutil lining with carbon paper and cut them out. The boning channels were then prepared.  I spent the afternoon finishing off the sleeve cuffs I started earlier in the week completing basting the piping in and then sewing the secondary layer of silk onto the cuff using a back stitch. The sleeve are now ready to be assembled! The coloured tacking stitches will need to be removed first and that will be a pain in the a**. In the evening I went to a 1862-63 dressing evening at The School of Historical Dress, this is my absolute favourite period in history and the evening was a dream to me. I throughly enjoyed it and learnt a lot! We even got to look at extant garment after the talk. A successful day. *Pictured are some of the pictures I took during the dressing (photography was encouraged) 

I am in pain.

A bit of a stressful week, Royal Mail lost my fabric order but otherwise productive in the dye room and I made further progress on my hand sewn dress.

10 | 11 | 19 Today was a Victoria and Albert day, I will never tire of visiting this museum.

8/9/19 Dunster Castle  Last week I visited Dunster Castle, the original grounds date back as far as the 11th century, the castle was expanded upon and modernised in the 17th and 18th centuries and later remodelled in the 1860′s-1870′s to fit a more Victorian gothic aesthetic. In 1976 it was given to the National Trust. 

25/11/19 | 100 Days of Productivity Day 61/100 Skirt day! I underestimated how long it would take to baste the skirt layers (silk and lining together) so I spent a very long time doing that today. The skirt hem was evened out as it was ever so slightly shifted. It was about 6pm when I started hemming the skirt, by 8:30pm when I left I’d finished about half of it. Dissertation draft grads back today and I got a B!!! I have until the end of January to work on it and bring my grade up to an A.. 26/11/19 | 100 Days of Productivity Day 62/100 I finished hemming the skirt in the morning, its about a 5m circumference hem and as the top hasn't been pleated yet I’m not able to hang it yet so for now its been carefully folded into the draws under my desk.. My brain absolutely melted in the afternoon so I went and worked on my research portfolio in bed.  27/11/19 | 100 Days of Productivity Day 63/100 I had an academic tutorial in the morning to talk about my dissertation and how I can go about raising my grade, this went really well and I have some new ideas to work into it too. The sleeve band drama of not having wide enough bias tape left to make them concluded when I spoke to a technician and realised the bias is pleated and my thin tapes would do the trick. Both boning channels on the side bodice seam have now been sewn and the armhole piping basted in.  Cute evening with friends eating crepes.  28/11/19 | 100 Days of Productivity Day 64/100 all seams to the inside of the bodice have been whipped down to prevent fraying. I started smocking down the first sleeve which is taking longer than expected but I prefer that to any broken threads! Formative assessment (end of term check up) which really well, I’m on top of everything and my work is of a high standard.  29/11/19 | 100 Days of Productivity Day 65/100 tech skills in the morning, I worked a little bit on the sleeves for this but returned to my more exciting sleeves by lunchtime. I finished smocking the first sleeve and evened out all of the smocking. All of the threads were tied off so its ready to be put into the bodice! But I’ll finish the second one first so I can put both sleeves in at the same time.  *Pictured is a back view of the bodice showing the pipped seams and armhole, the second pictures is a front view of the bodice with the sleeve pinned in.