The Dreamstress

UPDATE: VOTING IS NOW CLOSED!  The votes are being tallied and counted and the outcome will be announced soon!

Oh my!  There were a lot of ideas  as to what the theme for Challenge #22 should be!  There were over 135 comments with theme suggestions (often multiple ones per comment), and commentary on the suggestions, both for and against.

I spent a good couple of hours over the weekend going through all the suggestions,  combining similar ones, and clarifying others, trying to get the most important points and not change the intent of people’s ideas when I combined and re-worded.  (Democracy is hard!  Vetinari had it right.  I should just be a benevolent dictator.  With committees to give people something to do…)

Like Felicity.  She rules with a firm but velvety paw.

I didn’t include suggestions where enough people pointed out that they wouldn’t be able to do it, or if I didn’t understand the idea, or if the theme was too similar to something we did this year.  Some suggestions were ones that were already on my list for 2015  some will make it on to it now – so even if they don’t make Challenge 22, you may yet see some of these (if my health and the  patience  of  Mr D  can stand a HSF ’15!).

At the end of it we have 12 fantastic options for you to choose from.  I’d like to do all of them, but there isn’t time!

Here are the options, in alphabetical order:

1. Gentlemen – Make something for a historical gentleman, or something inspired by men’s fashions.
2. Heirlooms & Heritage  – Re-create a garment one of your ancestors wore or would have worn, or use an heirloom sewing supply  to create a new heirloom to pass down to the next generations.
3. Hold it! – Create an item that holds your garment in, up, or together – belts, suspenders, garters, clasps, brooches, specialised buttons and hooks, etc.
4. No Waste – Make an item that incorporates every scrap of fabric and leaves no waste, or that uses scraps of fabric in a frugal manner.
5. Out of Your Comfort Zone –  Create  a garment  from a time period you haven’t done before, or  that uses a new skill or technique that you’ve never tried before.
6. Pleating – Make a garment that incorporates any type of pleating.
7. Sewing Secrets – Hide something in your sewing, whether it is an almost invisible mend, a secret pocket, a false fastening or front, or a concealed message (such as a political or moral allegiance).
8. Stash Busting – Make something using only fabric, patterns, trims & notions that you already have in stash.
9. Study Abroad – Make something from a culture other than your own (or a culture different to the one you usually costume in).
10. The Great Indoors – Create an item that you would only wear or use indoors (i.e.  nightdresses, dressing gowns, tea gowns, wrappers, nightcaps etc.)
11. Text-iles – Recreate  a garment as described in a period/primary text source.
12. Token of My Affection  – Craft  a sentimental piece (like a love token or 18th century garters with a motto) and/or a gift for someone else.

We’ll be using a ranked voting system, rather than a simple FPTP system, to ensure that Challenge #22 is a theme that the largest number of people  are happy end excited about.  (can you tell that I once studied Political Science?)

To Vote: Leave a comment with your THREE favourite suggestions, numbered 1, 2 & 3 (votes with more or less than three options will be disqualified).

Your #1 will get 3 points, Your #2, 2 points, and your #3, 1 point.  I’ll total everyone’s points, and the option with the most points will be the HSF Challenge #22.

Please do make sure to vote for three options, and DON’T change your vote as I won’t be able to keep track of changes.

Voting will close Wed 9 July.

There you go!  Go forth and vote my friends!  Have your say!

I say it’s time to sleep.  

Now, it’s a pretty well known fact that yellow isn’t the most popular colour.  It’s few peoples favourite colour, and many people actually dislike it.

And it’s an equally well known fact, at least among readers of this blog, that I love yellow.

Pictured: love

I’m particularly smitten with the rich, saturated shades of 17th century yellow, and the deep, acidic tones of 18th century yellow, but really, I adore yellow in all its forms.

So obviously, I’m extremely excited about the HSF Challenge #17: Yellow, due Mon 1 Sept.

I know some of you aren’t that excited about it, and some people have even had a bit of a complain about it, and that makes me quite sad.

Because, as you know, I think the HSF should be a bit of a challenge: we should have to push ourselves, and try new things (even if they don’t always work out).

And, of course, I love yellow.

I’ve waxed so poetically and enthusiastically about it that I’ve even brought some of you former yellow haters to the bright side.  And if I didn’t, that’s OK, it doesn’t matter if you like it or not, because I still will!  (though I advocate liking all the colours, because colours are awesome and the world would be a boring place without them all, and every colour, no matter how much you dislike it, probably has an application where it looks amazing (I say probably because there is a particular shade of purple that I will probably never be able to look at again without cringing, and one day you’ll find out why)).

One of the reasons many people don’t like yellow is because they find it unflattering.  I think it’s worth taking a moment to stop and think about this.

First, what we consider flattering today is often not what was considered flattering historically.  I’ve heard a lot of people say that yellow ‘washes me  out’, and that’s kind-of true: yellow can make a lot of skin tones look lighter.  But up until the 1920s, lighter, paler, and less tanned was better.  Yellow is often cited as a flattering colour in 19th century fashion literature, when tanning was definitely not the thing.  So while it may not fit in with out modern beauty ideals (though pale and interesting has returned, and I love it!), from a period perspective it’s doing the right thing.

Second, how yellow flatters you depends on the fabric, and the dye.

We wear a lot of cotton and synthetic fabrics today, and you may not look very good in yellow in them, but try a yellow silk, and you might feel very differently.   Silk reflects  light beautifully, casting a warm, flattering glow back up on your face, so a much wider range of colours will look good on you in silk (really high quality linen also has a beautiful, flattering lustre).

Finally, prior to the invention of synthetic dyes in the 1860s, all dyes were made from plant or mineral sources, and natural dyes tend to be more dimensional and dynamic, and thus more flattering.  Some of the synthetic yellow shades are very flat and harsh, making them hard to wear.

 

Even if you still don’t like yellow despite my earnest efforts to convince you of its many virtues, there are all sorts of  things that you can make for the challenge without going for the allover-head-to-toe yellow ensemble.

A yellow trimmed hat, yellow bag, yellow gloves (extremely fashionable during a number of periods), yellow stockings, or even a yellow housewife (so you aren’t actually wearing it) are all ways to add a lovely spot of colour to an outfit.

And your item needn’t be completely yellow: as long as yellow as an obvious and important part of the design it counts.

So go forth and make lovely glow-y, happy, sunshine-y things! (and hopefully feel glow-y, and happy, and sunshine-y about making them, whether you are working with a colour you already love, or being brave and stretching your boundaries – which is a good thing in and of itself.)  If you need more yellow inspiration, I have whole pinterest board full of yellow deliciousness.