Spoonflower Swatches — Color Wheels

There are many projects I keep meaning to post about, and then before I get around to actually doing so, I completely forget. Now that I am jobless (temporarily, hopefully), I may try to catch up on some of the forgotten and neglected posts. So, to start with, Spoonflower.

Sometime last November Spoonflower held a 'Buy-1-Get-1-Free' deal on Fat Quarters. So, I got motivated to put together a full set of Sylvanian Family clothes to be printed out. That by itself is unrelevant to this blog, but I also had a swatch of some of the exact same designs printed out at FOD. Spoonflower has a cotton voile and FOD has a polyester voile, so while a direct comparison isn't quite possible, some examination is still useful (and is something I've been meaning to do for awhile). That post will probably come next, however.

Anyway, I figured I may as well print out full fat quarters of a few of my fabric designs while I was at it. I mostly work in Inkscape, and I prefer to work in HSL or CMYK colorspaces, so I made up a set of a few color wheels and had those printed out.

Fat Quarter on Arrival

After Washing and Pressing

Of particular note is the difficulty in getting all the in-between blues and pinks. There's also a fair amount of shift in the lightness of the colors (as compared to what's on my screen). Spoonflower now has a $1 8in sample of colors they've selected to be close to screen colors (they may have had it for awhile, but I only found it after my I'd already received my color wheels), and I ordered that this spring. From that, it looks like a decent range of blues is possible.

Spoonflower Sampler Colors

So while color wheels are traditionally useful, these mostly they just tell me that gradiants will fail horribly. On the other hand, its good to know that my normal adjustments in HSL or CMYK won't work as I expect, and I'll have to mostly stick to the colors I actually have printed out if I want the printed cloth to match my intentions.

Anne of Denmark — Neckline and Collar

I came across an old post by a friend asking what this sort of neckline would be called:

The collar style is unusual enough that I decided to look up general neckline descriptions. The closest appears to be a neckline called either the Elizabethan or the Queen Anne, but the descriptions all concur that the bustline for a Queen Anne is a sweetheart shape, and the bustline of this is more of a scoop neck shape.

Curious about the naming of the neckline, I did a Google image search on the term 'Queen Anne'. This primarily turned up images of Queen Anne of Great Britain (1665-1714) with scooped neckline but no collar. The search also turned up images of Anne Boleyn (1501-1536) with a square neckline, Anne of Austria (1601-1666) with the scooped neckline but the wrong collar, and Anne of Denmark (1574-1619).

Anne Of Great Britain (1665-1714)

Anne Boleyn (1501-1536)

Anne of Austria (1601-1666)

Looking at the Wikipedia article on Anne of Denmark resulted in the following set of images:

I don't know if images of Anne of Denmark were any sort of basis for the Queen Anne neckline, but I do think the first image I showed of the white top is a nice modern interpretation of this 16th century neckline and collar.

Costume College 2011 - Day 3

While I have not yet managed to wear any costumes to Costume College, I have participated in Sunday Undies each year. The first year I wore a light blue pinstripe Victorian styled corset (pattern LM100) I made in a workshop held by Lacis and taught by Carol Wood. Last year I wore my machine-washable corset (all the bones and the busk are removeable), which was drafted and modified from Corsets and Crinolines (#43, pg 84). So I decided that this year I should really finish up my stays and wear those.

I started my stays over two years ago, before my very first Costume College. They were drafted/scaled-up from a plate by Leloir. By that first costume college they were, for the most part, corded, boned, and put together, and I was partway through attaching the binding. I finished the binding some time ago, and they have spent the last year or so sitting around waiting for eyelet holes to tie the shoulder straps, and a couple more bones to stiffen the last few tabs. So in off times between when we arrived Thursday night and Saturday night I finished off those last couple things. I also finally got around to hemming my chemise (which has been sitting around, folded up and neglected, in its unhemmed state for the last two years). No pictures for now, since I didn't think to have one taken on my own camera.

After breakfast, I went to the 2D to 3D comic/anime lecture, found time to go by the costume exhibit, got distracted buying 3 gross of buttons at the marketplace, so was late to the Knotty Girl hair to wear class, and finally attended the hat blocking lecture and the electronics in costuming lecture. I spent the evening in the Hospitality Suite and had a wonderful time hearing about fruit-platter-hats and miscellaneous other items.

At the costume exhibit, Lynn McMasters had a nice display of hats up, with paper hair in the appropriate styles. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a picture of the whole table. One of my favorites because of the bright colors:

I saw two examples of a black netting overlayed on gold colored cloth, and I really liked the look, in particular of the bodice/corset near the entrance to the exhibit (on the left below).

Many more pictures from the costume exhibit here.

This concludes this mini-series about Costume College. Previously Day 1 and Day 2

Costume College 2011 - Day 2

On Satuday, day 2, I went to the Chinese Armor learning circle, which was neat to hear about. (Some pictures here.) This was immediately followed by the corset fitting learning circle; I now have some ideas to try to adjust the fit of my modified Edwardian corset.

Later I attended the Boutis Provencal workshop (resulting in Unfinished Project 2 of the weekend), "The Corset Unboned: Florentine Form", and "18th Century Fan Language - Fact and Fiction". I may or may not actually attempt to finish the Boutis Provencal sample we started on in class. While it may be nice to finish the sample and have it around, the overall idea is fairly simple so I may just jump to a final project (if/when I decide on a project to use it on). The Corset Unboned lecture was extremely informative as was the Fan Language lecture. In particular I liked hearing about the attempts to track down the original references and sources for the fan language (and finding out it didn't really exist in the way the later references implied). I think it would be awesome if the museum with the example of the 18th century parlor game coversation fan had reproductions made; it might be fun to have an event based on parlor games.

Friday night was the Gala: Creatures of the Night. I helped set up so I was able to get a few photos when the lights were still on before the doors opened:

I felt like a lot more costumes had lights this year (and lights which were used well), which was exciting to see.

More photos from the Gala

Previously, Day 1. Next, Day 3

Costume College 2011 - Day 1

This was my third year attending Costume College, and probably my most relaxed: I didn't even bother trying to think up or make any costumes; and I didn't spend the weekend working (no writing papers or revising my dissertation, like the last two years). I arrived late Thursday night with my friend. Friday I spent all day in the Regency era corded corset workshop (taught by JoAnn Peterson of Laughing Moon). We were guinea pigs for a new pattern: exciting! My gussets were inserted and all the grommets were set before the end of class. Stitching all the cording the lines is going to take awhile of course. So, Unfinished Project 1 (of the weekend).

The Friday night social featured the contestants of Project Funway. I only managed one still photo of one of the dresses.

Highlights of the night from my point of view were the teapot purse, and finding out about a particular Simplicity pattern. The teapot purse:

One of the marketplace vendors was selling similar teapot purses; I didn't like the sizes as much, so I may try to look for my own acceptable teapot at the numerous thrift and dollar stores nearby.

I saw a lady walking around with a blue coat on, then another lady walked by with the same coat style in different fabric. Look at the difference the choice of fabric can make to the look of a pattern:

This is Simplicity 2171 by Theresa LaQuey. I really like it. If I weren't right on the borderline between their size sets I would get it. Instead I may get it, or I may redraft something similar; I think one of the Francis Grimble books had some vaguely similar coats that I also liked.

More photos from the Ice Cream Social

Continued on Day 2 and Day 3

A Continuing Trend

My fabric design contest entry (mentioned a few weeks back) reached a new low in the number of votes received: 26. Total. From this I have learned that pirates are popular, and the theme of the contest is irrelevant. (Although supposedly they do attempt to filter off some of the really off topic entries.) Also, maybe this time I will actually learn not to bother entering any more of Spoonflower's contests.

In other, more positive news, I have been working on a charting app. I finally got frustrated enough with my current charting process to make something better. My process before for posting charts: Google Docs Spreadsheet → app script I wrote → LaTex → pdf (using pdflatex) → clip/paste into GIMP → get a png → upload to Picasa → link to from blog post. New process for posting charts: my web app → svg and symbol key → include svg in blog post. Unfortunately, inline svg images are not supported in IE and older browsers. I can also do: my web app → LaTex → pdf, easily enough; getting an image to link to from the blog post is the annoying part.

So I am thinking of only posting the svg versions on this blog, but eventually making collections of the charts available in pdf form. My plan is to start with the "Fish Napkin Patterns" in Lambert's book, My Knitting Book, vol. 2.

I have a long list of uncompleted projects, however, so swatching the patterns may take awhile. In the meantime here is the Double Rose Leaf Pattern - Revised (originally mentioned in this early post and also mentioned in my last post).

Edging Pattern For a Hat

A couple months back I decided to make my mom a hat after finding a really lovely silk yarn (Louisa Harding Mulberry in 21/Claret). I started by looking through a number of hat patterns on Ravelry. I particularly liked For Joana by Agata Smektala, but my mom wanted a little more ruffle along the bottom edge. So I thought of doing something like the leaf edging along the bottom of this Greenleaf Cap by Freyalyn Close-Hainsworth, but perhaps using the Double Rose Leaf pattern. So I did a test swatch of half of the pattern with a faggoting stitch like edge as found in some of the edging patterns from Jackson's Practical Companion to the Worktable (for example, the pattern on pg 103).

The swatch and corresponding chart:

The green stitches in the chart highlight the leaf motif, and the blue stitches on the right indicate short-rows used for forming the curve.

I decided that the leaf pattern didn't curve and ruffle well.