Porpentine's Period Productions

2006-08-26T01:55:00.000-07:00

Porpentine's Period Productions

Not MUCH of a gap there then!

Well, we got a kitten, that's my excuse. His name is Graeme and he is now a handsome 12lb ginger paws.

We also attended the Regency Ball, source of all the crises last year....

We're back

2005-09-01T23:33:00.000-07:00

and I'm tired, my knees hurt where I fell in the street the other morning, and my hair is filthy.

Other than that splendid.

Wedding photos when we get them....my stays have been returned to their rightful place underpinning the black brocade dress so on with that this weekend I guess.

It will be lovely to be CLEAN!!! 5 days in a tent - eewwwwww!

Briefly back to the waistcoat

2005-08-24T23:57:00.000-07:00

To be worn with a dark green velvet coat and breeches, with gold lace trim and peach/green shot taffeta lining. Which sounds quite diabolical but in fact isn't. Honest.

Actually this was just an excuse to share my favourite online fabric shop
Cheap Fabrics Online (www.cheapfabrics.co.uk) - can't get the link to work or I would have put up a link to the fabric samples :-( but if you have five minutes have a look at their site, they have some gorgeous stuff. Fabric for my wedding dress came from there, wine red silk. Mmmmmmm.

Cheriton looms...

2005-08-24T23:47:00.000-07:00

Radio silence for the next few days from the family Porpentine, who will be in Hampshire getting married for the edification of the general public. Silk ribbon knots all sewn to my skirts ready to be pulled off by the guests. Poking stick at the ready to fend off the adventurous should the guests get too lively...

Spent last night packing the rucksacks ready to go, I think I have everything (including a hot water bottle in case of rain... oh I love camping...)Tonight to make my authentic bread and if I remember to pick some blackberries from over the road. Lots of linen squares to tie our cheese and bread up in.

Quite excited....determined not to buy any kit from Traders' Row mind, but excited.

I do want to try and find myself some parchment though for making reticella lace, which seems a perfectly admirable thing to do on the Living History site.
The lace I've made so far - which admittedly I tend not to finish but that's laziness more than anything - has all been card or plastic sheet templates. If I get some parchment I will post the patterns up!

2005-08-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

The splendid waistcoat - with buttons!

Buttons for breakfast, lunch and supper!

2005-08-22T23:36:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of buttons on that waistcoat :-)

This is a preview of the bit I've done. Probably to be shown piecemeal....as that's how I'm sewing it!!

There is a possibility that Porpentine Posh Productions will be making its debut at the Historic Fashion Show at the re-enactor's market in October, provided that yrs truly can co-ordinate things with the organisers. Which means that I've got quite a lot of sewing to do... big sigh. Ah well I can't say I don't enjoy it.... keeps me busy....

Life is good...

2005-08-22T05:53:00.000-07:00

Buttons for the waistcoat of doom arrived this morning, huzzah and more photos to follow (such an exciting weskit how can I contain myself?)

AND I found my errant mobile this morning. In my shoe. (Nobody's texted me in two weeks - how unloved I am!)

Ahhhh the ghost of old High Cross St strikes again....

Busy busy busy

2005-08-21T03:39:00.000-07:00

Up at 7.45 am cutting out pattern for the black brocade polonaise from Janet Arnold's "Patterns of Fashion"

Three quarters of the wretched thing is pinned to the tailor's dummy when it occurs to me.... it's too dmnd big in the waist. Oh hell. Much pinning and pondering later, I still have an inch or two to play with (aren't I a lucky Kitty?) but that should get taken care of by the darts in the pattern at the back.

Oh - and finished the bodice for my authentic wedding next week at Cheriton. Can't find my 17th century stays so going for the 18th century version - oh well, one hopes no one's going to see my with my kit off except the man who's lacing me into it :-)

2005-08-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

Kitty in kit

Lord Rochester is in the building....

2005-08-19T14:31:00.000-07:00

The Pimp is in.....!

The stunning waistcoat! This is it in its full remarkably green glory. Structurally, it's finished. It still needs buttons - which have been ordered but which haven't arrived yet - and it's still awaiting the gold braid..... the braid has been on it but I've unpinned it all the better to show the stages of construction. But there it is.
And my black brocade arrived today.... I've had it out on the bed stroking it lovingly and admiring it. Beautiful brocade! I've got the heavy black lace sleeve ruffles finished, sewn to tape to attach inside the sleeve.

PS this photo really is in our kitchen the bedroom is in too horrid a state of fabric-y mess with 10 yards of black brocade piled on the bed. Ahem.

Does my bum look big in this?

2005-08-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

Still sulking about the waistcoat. Spend the day sewing binding to the edges of my stays. Sewing through canvas with a leather needle is painful work. Bloodstains on my corset lining? how authentic!

Also thinking hard about underpinnings - cork rumps and all that. Not being entirely sure where one finds a cork rump - an *rse extension, to all intents and purposes - it would seem that an appropriate substitute would be the bum roll, the 17th century instrument of torture intended to make one's backside the size of a small planet. I haven't got one. (A bum roll, that is, not...) Before I start to make one I must consider just how big it needs to be. I'm thinking rolled-up pillows here. 5-6 inches in a crescent shape round the hips, tapering to nothing at the front so there's no bulk at the front of the skirt - just sides and back. I decide to try draping a skirt on the dummy when I've got the corset finished. Ideally the bigger the bum roll the better, within reason - more contrast between waist and skirt.

Suits you, sir.....

2005-08-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

DISASTER! Waistcoat all sewn together and ready to press. Looking splendid. All tried on, fitted like a shiny green second skin with skirts. Mmmm. Dashing. Foolish here, having spent the last 12 months working in nothing but natural fabrics, forgets that the aforesaid shiny green is 100% artificial silly dress-up stuff, cranks up the steam iron to "steam" and sets to with a will. Fifteen seconds later, a regrettable sizzling noise and a small melted burnt patch on the front of the splendid waistcoat.
Having briefly thrown my toys out of the pram I have three options.
1) Cut a completely new front panel. Will certainly solve the problem, but I had the remnants of that brocade earmarked for making another waistcoat.
2)Put a patch over the offending area - it's an idea, but not sure that a big clunky patch is quite the thing on a swish court waistcoat.
3) Patch it, and then embroider (or applique or in some other wise apply bling decoration) over the burnt bit.
Hmmmmm. Wonder which it's to be. Looks like... "The pimp is IN!"

Il faut souffrir pur etre belle

2005-08-01T14:16:00.000-07:00

Otherwise known as suffering in the name of vanity.....

Stays. Don't you love 'em? Such a pretty, delicate brocade shell - John Lewis upholstery fabric, no less, like most of the rest of my stays - and then fully boned underneath. Like light armour plate. Fully boned, mind, means there's hardly an inch of unboned material. Hell, I hope they don't have metal detectors on the train station - it's always so embarrassing having to remove the steels from your corset to demonstrate that really, you are not an international terrorist, you just happen to be wearing stays.... (Yes, it has happened to me before, which will teach me to go out wearing my stays as a top!)
Anyway, a weekend's work, give or take a few hours, and I have my corset mounted on my tailor's dummy in the corner of the room ready from some serious brocade-on-brocade action.
Seriously, I'm horribly proud of that corset - I think it's one of the best things I've ever done, and if I don't get the edges bound soon I'm probably going to sever an artery on one of the edges of the steels still showing through the fabric. All that considered, it does what it's supposed to do, and gives me a splendid period shape of flat front and bosom up round my chin somewhere. Best not to mention the waist reduction. Not sure if the beloved is perfectly keen on squeezing me in by a good 5 inches....

The Queen of Air and Darkness

2005-07-31T14:14:00.000-07:00

Me. And what the heck can a girl wear if her nearest and dearest is bedecked in Chinoiserie, without clashing horridly....
Whilst making a horlicks of ordering suitable fabric samples (note to self: they haven't arrived yet, perhaps they're too embarrassed to be seen in company?) my eye lit upon a rather splendid black and red shot taffeta. Having a care for the size of my behind, and not wishing to be mistaken for part of the upholstery at this ball, I think a dress with panniers in shiny taffeta may be a small fashion faux pas. However, it would make a divine petticote.... and so the Queen of Air and Darkness is invented.
Being a shy and retiring sort I would find it near impossible to go to this ball and be "myself" in a big dress. On the other hand, I can put a persona on to suit the costume. 'Twould be terribly dull if the lady in the panniers turned out to really be a civil servant.... one has to enter into the spirit of these things!
So - black brocade for the polonaise, huge hip pads and a pillow under the bum, and the beauteous taffeta for the underskirt.

Regency Foolishness the Second

2005-07-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

Funnily enough, the first thing we decide on is the flashy brocade. Which is shiny and green and has excitable-looking dragons scrambling all over it. I can't get it into my head that it's green and not blue, and so order assorted blue fabric samples for the coat lining. It isn't what you might call subdued by any stretch of the imagination. Is it authentic? Is it hell. It's definitely more "Plunkett and Maclean" than Jane Austen. Which is probably just as well. We don't do tasteful....
Anyway, this astonishing fabric arrives from eBay with alacrity, and our postman goes blind.
Moral dilemma - is it quite fair to expose any area of this stuff to an unsuspecting public without providing protective eyewear?
However, its...ah.... greenness solves another problem, which is that as of now I'm dmnd if I'm going to make him a suit in anything other than the darkest shade of forest velvet I can find. Gold sequins, check. Embroidery, check. Big frilly cuffs and buckled shoes - um, maybe. But no more patterns. We are not going for the New Orleans pimp look here. I put my foot down. So.
Some research dredges up a rather fetching pattern for a 1770s coat and vest which strangely enough we had been considering from a photo in the book "Historical Costume in Detail." So there we are. He's sorted. Admittedly, we still have to find a wig and other suitable accessories - including poking stick - but we've got the basic dilemma sorted. Which brings us to....

Regency foolishness

2005-07-28T13:57:00.000-07:00

We decided that we wanted to go to an 18th century ball in Bath next April. And we've been put on the mailing list and we should get details at the turn of the year - huzzah! No particular reason, and no great desire to take up proper authentic 18th century re-enactment, but in my case the inclination to wear even bigger skirts, and in my consort's case, an excuse to wear flashy brocade and powder. (Not, for once, black powder!)
That, and the prospect of cleavage you can drown a mouse in....

Ecce Porpentine!

2005-07-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

We have a rather classical theme to our Porpentine tags.... what with "Carpe Porpentine" being the motto under our, ahem, guidon. (Pretentious? Nah, we just struggle to find our tent on a crowded camp site...)

So - behold the Porpentine.

Brief introductions. Kitty, which is me, and the Wascally Woyalist, which is my fiance. Both in the Sealed Knot- English Civil War re-enactment society - me Parliamentarian, him Royalist. Doesn't cause many arguments. Honestly. I've been sewing for years, having always been somewhat inclined towards the gothic end of the fashion spectrum. I love velvets and satins and lace, I love big skirts and merciless corseting.... I mean, really, 17th century re-enactment was just made for me, really, wasn't it?

Anyway, we're getting married in late 2007, in 17th century kit, at Trerice near Newquay in Cornwall, UK. (Which is about 10 miles from where we live - most convenient, though I wouldn't want to walk there...) So the ongoing saga of the wedding dress will doubtless be a constant theme from now until then....

We've also got a couple of other projects in the pipeline, which will be revealed in good time....