I think we need a little non-period, non-H/A, fantasy/fairwear love!

[Raelyn Fey]

Here's my inaccurate costume! It was very last minute for my first faire ever last year. I had a blast.

[GryffinSong]

That's wonderful! Very colorful and flattering.

[Raelyn Fey]

Thank you! EBay was my friend with the shirt and cinch belt. The skirt and pouch were made in a day, and the belt was from the men's section at Wal-Mart. My first faire was wonderful, and I'm dying to return this year. Why must September be so far away? 

[Oswyn Fenecote]

this is my tree (you can walk in it and the mouth movs like a puppet)



and a victorian-inspired walking dresssssss (worn by my bestie)

This needed a bump.

[scarletnyx]

...
and a victorian-inspired walking dresssssss (worn by my bestie)

...

The dress and model make me think of a Victorian-period female serial killer horror movie. The model is hauntingly pale and beautiful and there is just something about that dress... Beautiful!

[Alaric]

Did someone say Non HA ?

The Mrs in her Red/Green iridescent getup

[gypsylakat]

Just wanted to bump this up because I love this thread and want MORE PICTURES!


Here's a bigger shot of my profile picture.. a new skirt is getting made this week, still staring at some green linen and deciding if I'm doing Gored, Gathered or some other method. Just super unhappy with the orange skirt, I didn't get the fullness right at all. Next week is a new chemise.

[gem]

Kat, HOW FUNNY! I was literally coming onto the board (right now) *especially* to bump this thread! Great minds... 

You look so cute in your garb, and I happen to kind of love your little chemise! (I have funky blue glasses, too, but I don't wear them at fair. One photo of me-as-a-Valkyrie at a con in my glasses... can't do it!)

I am thinking of investing in some more fairwear--a really over-the-top ensemble. I don't feel like I pull it off as well as my more historical garb, but Milord really likes it and thinks it's more fun. We'll see what happens.

Here's a shot he liked from the weekend.



That corset is too big for me, since I've lost 20 lbs, but I still like it.

[gypsylakat]

haha- I have to wear the glasses, I only have 3 contacts left from the trial I got from the eye doctor- I'm hoarding them.

The little chemise is a little discolored- I've had it since the 9th grade and college students aren't very careful about separating whites from denim... at least I'm not. It's a little blue.

SPEAKING of blue- Gem, in the first post on this thread you have a blue skirt (with the reversible bodice), how was that constructed? I'm trying to get a visual gaze on the difference between gathering, cartridge pleating, and gores as the skirts are on actual people.

Edit: I still want to know about the blue skirt, but I did find this on Centuries Sewing for anyone else curious
"Various types of pleating"
http://centuries-sewing.com/research-and-tutorials/various-types-of-pleating/

[Rowan MacD]

gypsy-Perhaps this would work: I got this from the IWG forum years ago.  It's actually a quick way to get a full skirt out of a length of cloth with little to no waste.
  I used this to make extra skirts for layering with wench wear.
  Take a length of cloth and cut it into sections like this:

______________________
   \          /    \           /    \
     \       /       \       /        \
___\    /_____\    /______\

Make the narrow end of the triangle about 12" and the bottom approx 36" (Or you can substitute any dimensions-as long as the 'base' of the triangle is 3X the width of the top).
  Flip the 'upside down' triangles so the narrow ends are all pointed up and sew the pieces together.  You should end up with a reasonable facsimile of a gored type circle skirt.   The narrow ends can be gathered in to a waist band and the wide ends are hemmed.   The length of the skirt will depend on the width of the fabric you started with.
  Use the 'extra' 1/2 gores you have left from the beginning and end of the cloth and sew them together along the flat sides, leaving the top of the seam open 6" or so. this will be the back/waistband opening.
   Gather top of skirt into a waist band to fit you and sew it on.  add lacing holes or hooks.  Hem.
You can also just fold over the waist of the skirt and run a drawstring through it.

[gypsylakat]

Thanks, I've made two gored skirts previously, one was with a pattern back in middle school for a costume.. well my aunt made that one and I helped- it's how I know sort of how to sew!
I made another one recently but didn't get it full enough (some math error somewhere probably since I didn't use a pattern) and I'm not a fan of how easily bunched the cotton I chose was it just didn't drape well, but good enough for a mockup to see what to do differently next time since it was super on sale.

So I bought some linen I'm excited about and am making a new improved more drapy skirt NOW WITH ADDED FULLNESS. Just trying to decide what I'm doing at the top of the skirt

[gem]

SPEAKING of blue- Gem, in the first post on this thread you have a blue skirt (with the reversible bodice), how was that constructed? I'm trying to get a visual gaze on the difference between gathering, cartridge pleating, and gores as the skirts are on actual people.

I can do you one better! I can show you what all those different versions look like ON ME!  (To be fair, there is a weight span of about 20lbs depicted here, but hopefully you'll still be able to get a good idea!) Also, to add one more thing into the mix--the green skirt in the picture I posted yesterday is a circle skirt (as is the skirt in my Valkyrie shot). The green is a half circle; the Valkyrie is a full circle. Circle skirts give you maximum volume at the hem and minimum at the waist/hips, plus a spectacular swoosh and drape. You don't really see a lot of them in Renwear, though, maybe because they are yardage hogs (you need a lot of fabric to get a full-length skirt on an adult).

1.) GORES
That blue skirt is the underskirt from Simplicity 7756 (now OOP). Here is the line drawing, if it helps at all (the skirt marked A/B):



Like Rowan's diagram, it's three BIG gores. You cut them on the fold so when you cut them they look like semi-narrow triangles, but when you fold them out the gore is only slight. Does that make sense? So there is somewhat more fabric at the hem than the waist, but you still have to gather the top quite a bit into the (elastic) waistband. I also used that same skirt pattern for my purple kirtle, but cartridge pleated it and stiffened the hem. And here's another version, this time worn over hoops.

2.) Gathered yardage
Here is another skirt with different construction (I didn't make this one, it's from Venefica Corsetry on etsy). This one is (the best I can tell) just two rectangular panels and a drawstring. When I first got it, I was skeptical about the lack of reduction/compression at the waistline, but I really do like the fullness of it (although a drawstring is not the most comfortable waist treatment!):


(I'm actually wearing bloomers under it in this shot, which also adds a little fullness.)

3.) Cartridge pleating
Here are two skirts that are simply 5 yards of linen cartridge pleated to a waistband:

(Sorry my arm is in front of my waist!)


And...click here and scroll down (past the blue skirt, to the black one. Pix show up sideways when I post them here!): http://elizabethcbunce.wordpress.com/historical-costuming/16th-century-middles/ 

Here's a closeup that shows the waistline really well: http://elizabethcbunce.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/black-bodice-closeup-e1378815920138.jpg?w=750&h=981

And for comparison, this gown has ~four yards of linen cartridge pleated to the bodice.

HTH!!

As you can see, I'm sort of all over the place when it comes to my skirts. The only thing I don't currently have is a knife-pleated one! For my fairwear, I really like the, um, simplicity of the Simplicity version--elastic waists are easy to wear and forgiving of size fluctuations. I hem them longer so I can wear them over hoops (although that photo is the only time I've ever done so! Ha!), but hike them up under my bust so my bodice holds them in place, and there's no gapping at the waist. That pattern is, unfortunately, out of print now, but most of the Renwear costumes from the Big 4 (Simplicity, McCalls, Butterick) are pretty much the same.

Have fun!!

[gypsylakat]

That was SO FREAKING HELPFUL, plus I spent like 20 minutes thumbing through your wordpress and decided I really need a linen working class dress or a kirtle, one of the two, merely for the fact that I adore the way the gathers join up with the bodice.

I think I definitely want to try out cartridge pleating, I really like the extra folds in the volume of the skirt pleating seems to encourage. I also think waistband is the way to go- I want to use some sort of attachment, either hooks/eyes or ties to keep stuff from slipping down onto my hips (another reason the idea of the working class dress is so attractive)

[Chelsy]

All I have is fairwear! I work in a colonial museum every day, so I don't really mind getting away from HA for a while. Plus, I'm poor, so I don't have anything custom-made. I love what I wear, though!

And don't even get me started on the husband's get-up...

[Lady Renee Buchanan]

So.........   here is some of our hysterically inaccurate faire wear.

A couple of Bristol shots on our 35th anniversary.






The MN Renaissance Festival over Labor Day weekend.  I was a tree fairy/sprite/whatever, and Steve was a wizard.  We had a ball in our "costumes," definitely the first time we didn't wear "garb."






Steve made the cape thing I'm wearing.  Glued to it is all kinds of dried/silk flowers and shrubs.  We both did all the decorations for these.  Including 5 nights of over 300 pieces of bling glued onto my chemise one by one.