I had fallen in love with some Chinese style fabric at Nortex Mills a while back… obviously bought some for the ‘stash’, along with a plain contrast. I had had to guess how much to buy as hadn’t planned anything when I bought it!! Naughty naughty! Browsing Pinterest I had found a different style I wanted to try for Steampunking. More of a ‘lolita’ style, but with a twist!

I am not sure how it came about, but a wanted a cross-over top with big sleeves, a short-ish full skirt, with a bit of ‘bustle’ at the back. I wanted a ‘big’ belted / corseted bit too. Now it is by no means perfect. I would do the big sleeves differently, and the corseted bit different too. However, I love the full skirt and the bustle back.

This was completely self drafted and scaled down the daughter. The boys got the usual Sweeney Todd waistcoat to match us. What do you think??

These were of my daughter trying it on…

And us out as a family at their first outing at Whitby Goth Weekend:

I loved making the 2172 and thought it would be great to scale down for my daughter. There was significant guess work involved in doing this!!! I did the jacket first, which was worn with a hitched up skirt from a charity shop, but then also made her the skirt. This butterfly fabric is one of my very favourites, and after making this I bought more, and made myself a ‘normal’ everyday jacket out of it.

I think it turned out pretty well 🙂 She has grown out of this too now, and I am always delighted to see our friends’ daughter wearing it (probably more often than mine ever did!)

I like the shape of 2172 so much I thought I could use it to make a jacket for my son too. He chose a really expensive fabric from The Fent in Macclesfield. They were extremely helpful. Asked what I was planning to make, looked at the size of him, and advised how much they thought I would need to save money. They were blob on too. I had bought a bit extra to what they said, and they said that would be enough to make him a cushion cover. There was, but I still haven’t made it!!!

Anyway, I took the back of 2172, downsized, of course. Used the front of a double breasted waistcoat, and made it jacket shaped!!! And also used the style from the back of the sweeney todd waistcoat. I love how it turned out, and so did my boy!

I love this picture of them together.

I seem to have misplaced my pattern for this one. I made the trousers with the flap front, and a velvet jacket for my husband. He hasn’t worn them very often 🙁

a) It was summer, and the velvet jacket was TOO hot!

b) No pockets in the trousers…

This is obviously very disappointing, and I can understand, but making the jacket was absolute HELL! Remember to make sure you have a walking foot if you ever try sewing velvet. I don’t think I did at the time. I had so many pins in, at different angles, to try and stop the fabric slipping, but it still did. Velvet is also very thick, and I don’t think I trimmed seams accurately enough to get it neat enough. It looks okay from a distance, so that is what I will post here 😉

I thought this would be something special for The Asylum, which I was attending for the first time this year. This would be for the Ball event in the Assembly Rooms in Lincoln.

Construction of this skirt was very similar to the Simplicity 1819 skirt, but without the side cascades, and with a much bigger bustle, which also trails at the back. It is also underlined, and has a built in bustle pad. This has lots of pleats!! It even has pleats on the INSIDE at the bottom, with lace frill attached, on a layer of hair canvas, which is presumably to protect the bottom of the skirt.

The pleats on the train are 2m – so 6m of fabric pleated. The pleats at the bottom – about 2.5m each, but I seem to have put a space in between each pleat, so only about 5m of fabric per row of pleats – 3 of them. So in total 21m of fabric made into 9.5m of pleats!!!

The bodice is interlined and boned. The boning casings are hand sewn in, and the eyelets were also hand sewn!! Here I made the BIG mistake of using plastic boning… it isn’t a corset, so I thought it would be okay, but they bent when I sat down, and have never really been a good shape since then. It is also a nightmare to get in and out of!! Needing lots of assistance!!

I don’t seem to be able to find a good picture of the back being worn, but here are some of the front. I also made the fascinator, which is a crocheted teacup and saucer 🙂