A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

The final weekend of Northern 2013, I managed to fulfill a lifelong dream. I worked Northern faire! Top that!! It was an incredible opportunity and couldn't have gone any better--and I can't wait to do it full force with St. Luke's this year for the 2014 season!

My weekend pass! Backstage here I come!

Of course, I couldn't just be satisfied with what I already had to wear and had to try to sneak in some sewing during the week before returning to Northern. The first little project was fixing those pesky, uncooperative gores on my new waistcoat. It was very simple to just pick out the machine stitches and hand stitch them on the right way. Look at the difference!

The second project, however, was astronomically more difficult. I wanted to attempt a new pair of bodies--in less than a week! I'm not sure what demon possessed me, but it was a crafty (pun intended) one.  I found a beautiful marigold linen at Farthingale Enterprises at faire and couldn't control myself.

I decided to pair the yellow linen with bright red binding & eyelets
and bone-colored ribbons & thread

I wanted something light and comfortable under my waistcoat, rather than my bulletproof steel-boned corset. So it's just two linen layers, machine-sewn channels, and a couple of pieces of hemp cord. I decided to skip making tabs, since I'm not asking a lot from these bodies, just looking to smooth out my lines a little to fit nicely under my waistcoat. It's really more the top half of a petticoat-bodies rather than a full-blown corset. Surprisingly, the hardest and most time-consuming construction step was machine sewing the channels.

Each piece was finished separately, whipped together, and then all of the edges were bound at once by sewing the bias tape on one side with the machine, then hand-stitched down on the reverse with herringbone stitch.

First time using herringbone stitch--looks cool and was quick!

Unfortunately, I didn't get enough eyelets done to wear my new bodies on Saturday, but it gave me something to do while sitting in the guild yard. I was amazed at how many people stopped to ask what I was doing or to take pictures while I finished the remaining eyelets.

Here's a shot of my full outfit from day one. As you can see, I'm all buttoned up--it was definitely chilly that morning, and when the sun went down that evening it was downright cold! My partlet comes in handy once again!! The cold had me running for the hills that night (ok, my mom's hotel room) rather than camping with the crew, but I was back bright and early for Sunday. Unfortunately, I didn't catch a shot of day two's outfit (there's a couple on Facebook that others took)  but I paired my tan waistcoat with my red petticoat and square-necked smock, with my new pair of bodies underneath. I even folded back the corners of my waistcoat when it got hot in the middle of the day to show off my new handiwork, and the red binding looked swell with my red petticoat.

What a great weekend! I met a ton of wonderful people (especially Lauren, who took me under her wing all weekend), got to interact with patrons in front of the Guild Hall and in the lanes with the St. Luke's signature "Ask Me" poles, and even joined in on the final parade! On top of all that, St. Luke's asked me to become one of them, and I received my very own guild pin!

My head has been spinning with new ideas for costume and character plans for this year, which will of course be captured on here. I am going to seize this incredible opportunity and soak up every bit of Northern I can! But, of course, sewing and planning hasn't been the only faire things I've been up to after Northern ended. Still more to catch up on! Next: a trip the very next weekend to the wonderful Folsom Renaissance Faire with a very special guest!

Everything's Coming Up (Tudor) Roses

I can't believe how long it's been since I last blogged--especially because so much faire excitement has happened since then! So I will try to bust out all of the missing entries to get this Elizabethan train back on track. We left off getting ready for a trip to the grandest show of them all, the Northern California Renaissance Faire!

Ye crew! My sister looks enthusiastic as always, ha ha.

Mom, Veronica, Goody McMannis, and I headed to the Oktoberfest weekend of Northern, and we had hotel reservations so we could stay the whole weekend. Fortuitously, an historical costume contest was added to the schedule on the Saturday. Of course, I couldn't pass that up! But what to wear?!! There was no possible way that I could get my blue and orange waistcoat done in time, especially by hand and with all of that trim (it's now April and I'm still working on it). And nothing else I had was contest worthy. So I had the genius/crazy idea of sewing a new waistcoat by half machine/half hand in a week! Plus, JoAnn's had a perfect tan wool that was very similar to the commoner's waistcoat that the lovely Tudor Tailor ladies brought to their Vallejo workshop over the summer. So off I went!

With Frida Kahlo's help, naturally!

As per usual, I made no mock-up, did no fitting, and just went for it! I am ever the sewing daredevil. It was a smashing success, I must say! I even had enough time to hand sew all of the hems (so that I wouldn't hate it later). The only issue I had was that I sewed the gores in by machine, and it just pulled all wrong (the photo with the number down below shows the problem), but that was easily remedied the following week. I managed to hand sew a plain apron to finish off the look, and made a new hat for my Ottoman Turkish look that I wore on the Sunday. Not bad for a week!!

The apron definitely looks cuter with 16th century clothes!

This was such a fun hat to make. What a showstopper!

I actually remembered to take a few candid shots to spice this post up, including the requisite selfie (or Holbee, as the Elizabethan Costume Facebook group calls them). On the other hand, I managed to forget entirely to get a shot of us in our Turkish looks on day two. I know, I know, bad blogger!

Blue steel!

I'm really starting to love my Elizabethan look.

And now, that moment you've all been waiting for...the main event...the costume contest!! I was so eager to compete that I was the first contestant to sign up, so I got to rock the #1 sign!

That makes me the number one contender, right?!

I rocked the stage early-modern style and earned third place! Outfit looks pretty damn good, if I do say so myself, especially given how quickly it was put together. Even better, Her Grace Queen Elizabeth whispered to me as she gave me my prize that I was HER favorite--so in my book, I earned the win!!!

That, however, was not the best part of the costume contest. My look caught the eye of the Assistant Guild Mistress of St Luke's, the middle-class guild at Northern, and I heard through the lovely proprietress of Farthingale Enterprises (the sewing notions booth that I blow all of my money in at faire) that they were interested in meeting me! Luckily we were staying the whole weekend, and the next day I found myself in an impromptu interview with the Guild Mistress--with an invitation to do a test run with St. Luke's the next weekend!! If there was ever an occasion to shout huzzah, this was it. HUZZAH!!

As you can guess, my next entry will be about Northern again, but this time from the other side of the curtain! Everything's coming up (Tudor) roses!!