Please excuse me if this post is effusive and/or ebullient. I just had chocolate and then dumplings with my dear friends Death and Brave Sir R-. I am full of chocolate and good-quality dumplings and pleasant company. I AM EBULLIENCE ITSELF.
I finished my geeky 18th Century garters on the 3rd. What a massive coincidence that the day after was May the 4th. As in May the 4th be with you, as in May the FORCE be with you, as in International Star Wars Day. I had to explain that multiple times to various perplexed people down at my opera company yesterday. Verdict: geeky opera singers are not as common as I might have bet, or I have spent way too much time hanging around with composers. Oh well. I guess this is an opportunity to remind myself how blessed I was to have an adolescence saturated in the glory of multiple forms of geekery, Star Wars being prominent amongst them. Here, by the way, are my finished garters:
If Obi-Wan was into Georgian period cross-dressing, these are what he would wear.
So in a continued vein of geekery meets Georgian-ery, I’ve started another accessory that will be essential in achieving a plausibly Georgian shape when I *finally* get around to finishing my stays and making this fabled robe a l’Anglaise. Everybody who’s anybody references this amusing cartoon:
The Bum Shop, from the Lewis Walpole Library. (On their website you can zoom)
Yes, when a lady of the 1780’s asks you ‘does my bum look big in this’, the right answer is ‘does it ever.’ In the cartoon, they’re selling ‘rumps’, ‘bum-rolls’, ‘false bums’, or whatever you want to call them (‘posterior petticoat-plumping pillows?’, ‘arse-augmenters?’, ‘decoy derrieres?’) in order to give their patrons the fashionable bootylicious shape. I saw a couple of other funny cartoons about the fashionable shape on my travels through the blogosphere…
Those are small, Paris-Hiltony dogs sitting on the ladies’ bums. Back when it was the magnitude of your bum that mattered, not your tote bag.
The caption reads: ‘The Bum Bailiff outwitted, or, the convenience of fashion.’ Notice the lady making her escape.
Again, the zoomable versions of both of those are in the Lewis Walpole Library. Type ‘bum’ into the search box and you’ll find them. It’s very satisfying to use a Yale library search engine to search for ‘bum’. Try it, and tell me it’s not titillating. Great word that. Titillating. Oh God I had way too much chocolate today…
Back to the bum. There appear to be many varieties of bum in the shop picture, so I went with a crescent-y shape, like you can see at the bottom (HA) left hanging on the wall. I didn’t have a lot of calico left (what do we make of a seamstress who routinely uses up her stash? Sacrilege!), so I had to piece it, but I tried to piece it in the sort of segmenty-pumpkin way that they appear to have quilted their bums, so that I’d have a good guide to sew down later if I needed to.
My one remaining piece of calico. Cue Mulan music: “This is what you give me to work with? Well honey, I’ve seen worse! We are going to turn this sow’s ear, into a-“.
A bum. That’s what we’re turning it into.
I also made the top bigger around the outside edge than the bottom, so it’ll puff more and sit more like a bum than a plate. I have no idea if this is period or not, but hey, I’m embroidering it with alligators, and I’m pretty sure that’s not period. That whole thing about enjoying being an amateur again.
Exhibit A: gator. His eye is a teeny tiny sequin. (Also, wow, I matched the grain lines at the seam! TOTAL FLUKE FOR THE WIN!!!)
The gator is part of a larger pattern that references the decadently violent Anita Blake series. When Anita has multiple preternatural nasties out to kill her, she likes to say that she’s ‘ass deep in alligators’. Seeing as this is a fake ass I’m making, I figured it was a priceless opportunity to use that gem of a quote (well, I’m normally arse deep in scores, not alligators, but gators are more fun to embroider and I still have oodles of yummy emerald green silk thread left over from my green soprano gown (which I’m thinking of putting through a refashion… but more on that another time)).
It’s not done yet. It’ll have two knives crossing at the front and another gator, and possibly some skulls for good measure.
I’m particularly proud of the roses.
Illustrating the probably-not-period pattern. The upper layer will get pleated into this smaller layer.
I’m happy to say the whole thing is hand-sewn so far, and I’ll keep going like that. It’s very nearly as quick, and it’ll be easier in the awkward curvy bits. I’m getting pretty fast at hand-sewing. Well. Fast for me at any rate.
I’ll stuff it with scraps (because I have a massive bag of scraps) and attach it to some twill tape. I went to Clegs (ooh Clegs) and got loads of it. I never realised how cheap it was, but despite its cheapness they don’t seem to sell it at Lincraft (grrr, Lincraft). The problem is that I like the staff at my Lincraft; they’re all friendly and pleasant and the Clegs staff are all snooty and have the temerity to ask you whether you’ve made a toile yet when you’re buying fabric. DO YOU MEAN THERE’S A COMPULSORY ORDER I HAVE TO DO THINGS IN??? Are you going to sneak round to my house and check that yes, there’s a toile pinned to my crappy home-made dressform before you’ll sell anything to me? Hell, they should be glad they’ve never met my Gran. To her, toile only means Toile du Juoy. Rant over. Then once I’m finished my bum all I have to do is finish my stays, whip up some petticoats and Bob’s your Uncle, I can (cue drum-roll) pattern a robe! FUN.
The Sewprano 