Romancing the Chemise

che·mise
Pronunciation: \shə-ˈmēz, sometimes -ˈmēs\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, shirt, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin camisia
Date: 13th century
1 : a woman's one-piece undergarment
2 : a loose straight-hanging dress

Or in other words one of my favorite things in the world. No seriously there is nothing more comfortable, more romantic, more lovely, than a chemise. The possibilities are endless, with the right fabric and lace a whole slew of emotive expressions can be achieved. Add a pair of bloomers and you just opened up a whole new world. Great for their original purpose of keeping outer clothes clean from body sweat, they also do wonders for layering up on cold winter days when you still want to wear a dress. They make the classiest pajamas I've ever seen, and I've seen many a girl on a hot summer's day passing them off for tops and dresses.

So really the most versatile garment ever.

Now generally speaking when one says "chemise" and isn't met with confused stares or a "God Bless You". The image that comes to mind is a cheap cotton broadcloth drawstring shift with short of long sleeves usually worn to Ren Fair. While this does fall into the category of what a chemise is, and is in fact one of the first piece of garb I ever made. It is by no means the limit of the what the garment can be.

My love affair and mind expansion on what a chemise can be, came about when I found Jen Thompson's (see her WONDERFUL costumes) tutorial on "How to make an easy Italian Chemise". This was not a drawstring number, that comes loose and untied and gets in the way. Or a elastic enhanced smock. This had volume, this had options, this was so ridiculously easy to make and alter.

So thank you Jen Thompson for opening my eyes to the world of rectangles and triangles. There really isn't anything you can't make with rectangles and triangles.



I think I'll call her...Lillian

Lillian was just completed today, in time for a photo shoot on the morrow and is the predecessor of many a chemise gown, and bloomer to come. She makes a charming and lovely nightgown, boudoir dress, and a staple piece of costume for anyone's starting wardrobe.

Yes she is for sale, I haven't got an etsy site up yet but if your interested in claiming her for your own please email me: the.renengade.artist@gmail.com



Made out of 100% cotton (that has been laundered and shrunk to a supple softness) she is a one size fits most. Her neck band is 49" around, and from shoulder to hem is 43 1/2".



Black knot trim offsets the white ruffle at the top. The top ruffle was completely hand stitched with a rolled hem. While the bottom hem is trimmed in polyester black lace of a floral design.



She was a lovely piece to work on, and in the process I stumbled across an idea that I'm dieing to start on. A chemise and bloomer line inspired by fairy tales. It just sounds to charming to pass up, Snow white would look a lot like Lillian, but with some apple buttons that I've seen hiding around. But then like Beauty would be in a soft pale green with rose red trim and lace, some rose embroidery. Rose Red would be a soft dusty rose color with red trims. Really I could go on and on about this lol. I should instead just get moving on making them.

Time to put something new on the ironing board!

Stay tuned.

Branwen

Blue Goddess

As promised I am actually going to be posting something I've made, & recently to boot! Over the past couple of years I have sewn myself several jersey knit dresses, all of them simple (except for one halter but that was a little bit of a disaster) and all of them assembled from squares and rectangles, and all of them seemed to be admired.

I love them because they are light weight, flowy (that is a technical term by the way), and most importantly easy to wear. Throw it on and some flats and you're ready for the day, throw it on and some accessories and you can look charmingly classy/flirty/romantic/you get the picture lol.

Currently I'm working on nailing down a couple designs out of jersey knit for casually elegant wear and for more specific ritual/fancy garb as well. The dress I just finished was for a dear new friend of mine, and served as a sort of proto type for one option of the ritual wear.

I call it the Blue Goddess



It's in a lovely heather blue cotton jersey knit, which looks fabulous on my friend. Simple pattern that relies mainly on the drape against the body, with an open Grecian neckline and sleeve. I love this style of dress, because really it looks good on just about every body type. The sashed waist can be adjust to accentuate the smallest part of your body, so if your one of the lucky people and it's your waist you tie it there, but generally directly under the bust at the ribcage gives a lovely silhouette to most figures.



The trim I braided myself, out of chenille yarn. It's an eight strand braid that lays flat and works really well as trim. The buttons are mother of pearl, and the glass pearl accents I think just dress the whole thing up.

Overall I'm happy with the way it turned out. It looks really smashing on her and I'll have to corner her sometime and get a picture of it being worn. But there are some things that I would tweak next time. Because I made this particular dress with stash material I only had an allotted amount, if I had more I would have either cut the dress to have more flare in the skirt, or added gores to the side. But that's a personal aesthetic thing. ( I like a LOT of skirt)



One last look at the Blue Goddess before moving on to the next pattern proto type. The next goddess dress will be in an earth tone and a different cut. But that's not what's on the ironing board for today, nope today we leave simple elegance's for something a little bit more complicated, a little bit more romantic and high class.



And that's all the hint you'll get lol.

Stay tuned!

Branwen

The Beginning

Hello all,

Currently this little blog is in it's starter stages. By that I mean it's a lovely little template I found and not what it actually will look like when I've got the time to sit and design it.

But for the moment I think going forward is more important than worrying about the stylish choices of CSS and making my own graphics.

This blog is going to be my dress blog, and it will be filled with photo's, rantings, sketch ideas, blunders, and hopefully some home runs. It is my intention to really start making some truly amazing clothing for other peopler and not just myself,

A little about me. I am a self learned dressmaker. *gasp!* I know, it's so avante' gaurd. But it's the truth, I haven't taken anything above the very very basic this-is-how-you-sew-in-a-straight-line class. So, you ask, "Why do you think you can make clothes for other people?". Frankly because I can.

I started making clothes for myself about 5 years ago. I wanted a lovely long floor length circle sirt in burgandy to wear on New Year's Eve and intrusted my mom who could sew to do it for me. Needless to say it took my mother WAY longer than I had anticpated to make this skirt. So the next time I wanted a dress (and it didn't take long because they just don't make skirts and dresses that I like!) was for a cousin's wedding and I decided to just do it myself. A foolhardy thing to do I know.

I picked out one of the cute 1950's retro patterns of Butterick B4513. But as with most commercial patterns the picture of the dress and the pattern didn't quite match up. The orignal pattern was just a circle skirt (which I knew did not have quite the fullness of the picture) and a elastic waist (which I hate). So I decided to alter it. And I did.

I added more volume to the skirt by cartridge pleating much more fabric in the back ( a technique I found on the interwebs while looking at ren faire dresses). I got rid of the elastic in the waist in favor of a buttoned waistband and made the back of the dress lace up to take care of the new closure for the waistband and get rid of the extra fabric. In fact here is the sketch I did of all my alterations.



Needless to say it was a hefty endeavor for a first dress, and no I did not make a mock-up, I just did like I do and dove in head first. Surprisingly it turned out well. On reflection I could have done with less volume in the back, a box pleat would have sufficed, and the waist band hit at a funny part of my torso and should have come up about an inch or two to extentuate the smallest part of me. But ah well. I have since given the dress away after it hanging in my closet forever with only one wear in it's history. I'll have to see if I can get a photo of it from the new owner.

The pandora's box was opened and now I knew I could make myself whatever the hell I wanted to, it didn't matter if they didn't have the exact pattern for it.

From there came experiments in ren faire garb, historical patterns and techniques, gothic lolita skirts, lots of costumes, ritual wear and the discovery of the wonders of jersey knit.

Which brings us to the now.

I make a lot of clothes for myself, a lot of repurposed stuff, a lot of historical costume stuff. I frequently find myself frustrated at not being able to find the type of clothes I want to wear (like winter dresses, where the hell did they go?). And more frequently find myself liking things in stores, but the prices for the quality. Surely I cannot be alone in this.

In fact I know I'm not. Because a have a large group of friends who all feel the same way in varying degrees. Some of them lack the time or interest to sew, and some of them just don't think they can. It seems a shame they should be without beautiful quality unique clothes to dress, play, and enjoy in. So this is my endeavor to change that, and to see if I can make a business for myself out of it.

Thanks for listening, if you made it this far I'll let you in on a little secret. Within the next few days will come the first real post of the blog and it will cover the creation of the casually elegant goddess dress ;)

Stay tuned.

Branwen