Ideas

I went to the Uměleckoprůmyslové muzeum in Brno on Friday. The entrance was free this weekend (lucky me!). I forgot to ask about their photography policy. I hope it's possible to take photos there, for when I go there next, because they have one of the loveliest 1840s dresses I've ever seen. Well, the only one I've ever seen in real life and not just on a picture, which makes for a lovely dress in and of itself. :-)

I got inspired and drew a sketch of my idea for the kacabajka and the OUATITW blouse. It's kind of my re-imagination of the 1848 Czech national costume... not entirely period correct, but in the same spirit. A 21st century Czech national costume, so to say.

It's just a quick and rather messy sketch I made on a train, but for such, not bad at all. :D


EDIT: I added the Research tag, for my comments below.

Kacabajka-related thoughts

That's what the nationalist 1848 Czech type of jacket was called. Kacabajka. Which, you English speaking folk, is definitely pronounced differently than you would pronounce it. But I'm not going to try to give you an idea, because my ability to transcribe Czech words in English equals that of English speaking folk to pronounce them.

I did find the passage about that particular jacket (which is in the collections of Umělecko-průmyslové muzeum in Prague). Yes, it was blue and white - light blue, with white borders, and the soutache trim was most probably navy/dark blue (it does look navy on the photo). So the fabric I have got from grandma is perfect in terms of colour.
It's not perfect otherwise, though, because the original jacket is made of silk, while my fabric is rather loosely and roughly woven... cotton, most probably.
Still, I think I'd give it a try. I like the colour and I have heaps of that fabric, so if it doesn't work out, it's not such a problem... I can always interline/flat-line it with something more densely woven to balance out its loose weave. Plus, it seems quite "period" in other aspects.
First, it's narrower than most contemporary fabrics - my guess is 1 m (roughly compared to our 90 cm wide dining table, because I was too lazy to measure it).
Second, a passage in the book says that some of the Czech nationalists of that era who promoted "national costume" also promoted the use of fabric from the mountainous regions of Bohemia, so called "plátno" - woven, and not woolen, as opposed to "sukno" which was, as far as I know, woollen, and which, as quoted in the book, some of the 1840s Czech nationalists equaled with Germans. Sometimes their logic really escapes me...
Anyway, I digress. As the book says, in order to support Czech weavers they promoted the use of Bohemian wovens from the mountainous regions, that were actually woven in satin weave - which my fabric is.



The colour is a bit off, but you can see the weave very well. And the fascinating way the weft and warp threads alternate so that the seemingly dominating direction of threads differs on each side of the fabric. If that makes sense described like this... I think, from satin-weaves, so far I've only encountered crepe-backed satin (AKA charmeuse) or damask (i.e. patterned weave), so this is new to me, and I love it.
I guess that "plátno" which they were promoting for national costume must have been very similar to this. Only most probably linen, not cotton.

The book says these jackets were worn with white skirts, which is an idea I really like. I imagine it worn with a long white skirt, and the OUATITW blouse underneath it... what a lovely mental image. Now I have to make at least one of those things. The OUATITW blouse is an obvious choice, seeing as I already have both the pattern and the fabric.

If I decipher the pattern draft correctly... if I do, to my great and pleasant surprise it seems the original wearer's bust and waist circumference was about the same as mine (at least the waist; I'm not so sure how to determine the bust measurement with the various pattern pieces).
In an ideal world, this would mean I could enlarge the pattern and use it without alterations. Alas, it is not so. Ms Ludmila Tomková of kacabajka renown was apparently very short torso-ed: 29 cm from nape of neck to waist. I, on the other hand, am slightly long-torsoed - about 41 cm, probably to balance out my undeniably short legs. So I'll have to lengthen it in the torso and, on the contrary, shorten it in the hips area, or my legs would look even shorter.

I'll conclude here with a photo of the pattern draft for your sewing-related dreams:



And here I'll leave you, waiting and drooling over its possibilities, until I finish at least some of my Regency-related and modern sewing, and that sontag from Stephanie Ann's Civil War Era Knit-Along.


(Also, this post seems to be an exercise in "How many labels can you squeeze into one post?")

The End. For now.


P.S. That was not long... I forgot to mention that, somehow, I managed to buy both a hat and sunglasses. The sunglasses are not of much consequence for this blog, the hat I'll get to later.

The OUATITW blouse - the plan

OUATITW is, for your information, short for Once Upon A Time In The West, and Once Upon A Time In The West is one of my major film loves. (And major means this: When I first watched it, I cried at the end just because it ended and I didn't want it to, not yet. And because I thought, how on earth can something so beautiful even exist? I still wonder about that. End of fan-girly talk.)

Most people whom I know to love OUATITW vent out their love for it by means of clever talk about its cinematic greatness. I can do that, too, but it pales in comparison.
So I do it by looking into its costumes, among other things.

And now I'm going to do it by making a blouse in reference to it. Although I doubt anyone would notice if I didn't tell you.

I'm going to use a pattern I've wanted to use since August 2000 when it came out in an issue of Burda WOF. Quite impressive, eh? I was twelve back then. I didn't know OUATITW yet, I only knew of its existence and wanted to see it one day, quite badly although not yet badly enough. Anyway, I loved this blouse pattern, although I wasn't quite happy about the very low neckline slit.



Ten years later, I still love the pattern and still am not quite happy about the neckline slit. Unlike back then, though, I now know what's going to become of that pattern.

Something between this:



and this:



That is, I'm going to make it in that navy cotton sateen from previous post in reference to that rogue's shirt (He's not really important; I just like blue, OK?) and I want to drop the sleeve pleats in favour of something that'd resemble Jill's sleeves more. Some kind of smocking, I imagine.

Other changes will be: raising the neckline slit (I doubt it'd make much of a difference in the fit, really - the pattern looks fairly loose), most probably dropping the center back seam (no need for that either, I think), and not using elastic in the sleeves, because elastic in sleeves is sort of crappy. Instead, I want to give it this kind of treatment:



Especially because it seems something very similar is going on at the neckline.
(That is, by the way, the sleeve of my mom's wedding dress, homemade by her mom.)

It's not going to happen immediatelly. Right now I'm working on a chemise to go under my future regency dress (and other things, hopefully), and a pattern for my mom. I started tracing the pattern, though, to get a sense of accomplishment out of it. Because I've wanted to make this blouse for ten years. TEN YEARS. Did I stress that enough? And, you see, what amazes me most about this is the fact that my taste in clothing is still quite similar to that of my twelve-year-old self. Refined in some way, slightly shifted towards things I didn't realise were possible back then, but the basics are the same. It, somehow, makes me happy. Maybe because so many things have happened in the last year that I've recently wondered if I still were the same person... You do not have to worry about my happiness and sanity, though. I still am.

Oh and the sleeve pattern piece? Quite crazy, size-wise, if you ask me:



Yes, those are holes. It's because I hate working with tissue paper on patterns, and because this particular piece of non-tissue paper had got ratty over time, so I had to cut out the ratty parts. And because the sleeve pattern piece is so big that I had to glue other papers to the bottom. Really, it must be about 65 cm wide.

For the record, the pattern is blouse 111, view A, from Burda WOF 8/2000. And I'm cutting between sizes, because I am between sizes myself. I have high hopes for that technique, considering the simple fit of this. I hope I won't be disappointed.


Oh, and on completely sewing-unrelated note, I've just discovered Kate Beaton's comics - mostly historical comics - and I've read through her whole archive today. Quite a crazy thing to do. It made my day, and it killed my day.
If, by any chance, you want to know, the other webcomics I like are Sandra & Woo by Oliver Knörzer & Powree and the very, very irregular Adventures of Boromir by Katarzyna Chmiel. Both influenced by Calvin & Hobbes. And I like Rose is Rose, too. That says something about my taste in comics, eh? And that's about it.