So I’ve fallen off the blogging wagon big time. I think I need to work on accepting that it won’t kill me to make in-progress blog posts. I always feel like I need to finish a project before I can write about it, and these days, every sewing project takes forever…
Anyways, I decided to get back on the wagon by posting my Costume College photos.
Judy, Mi and I drove down Thursday, leaving super early so we could swing by the Los Angeles Fabric District.
We all got a few things. My biggest purchase was this beautiful embroidered silk taffeta. We’re not even going to talk about how much it was, instead we’re going to admire how gorgeous it is, yes?
Costume College began on Friday morning. First panel of the day for me and Mi was “History of Parasols”. I have an unhealthy obsession with parasols so this class was fantastic. I now have a rough idea of parasol shapes and sizes for my favorite historical eras.
Then an hour to grab a lunch and prep for the class Judy and I were teaching: Resin Casting 101. It was workshop style where we had everyone pour a silicone RTV mold, and then gave them sample molds to pour their own polyurethane resin casts in. It’s our first time doing this class as a workshop versus a lecture, so it went pretty well for the first time! We did run out of time though so I think we’ll need to make it a slightly longer class next year.
After that, I attended “Put Your Fabric To Work” by Scene in the Past which was about using your fabric for self trimming.
I think my take-away from this class was that I need more striped historical dresses. (Here’s the Pinterest board with all the examples she talked about in the class.)
And just to make things really cool, someone had made a reproduction of one of the example dresses discussed:
How cute is this? A cobbler setup in the hallway where he was actually making historical shoes.
For the Friday Night Social, I decided to wear something that fit the theme: Around the World in 80 Days. I have a couple different types of Hanfu from a Taobao shop (yay for TaoBaoSpree and sister-in-law who lives in China!), and I’ve also made a couple ruqun (that’s the Tang Dynasty style) dresses.
And here comes AJ’s spiel about Hanfu (for anyone who doesn’t know)…
Hanfu literally means “clothing of the Han”. The quick historical crash course is that the last dynasty to rule China, the Qing Dynasty, was Manchurian. The Han are the majority ethnicity of China but the Qing banned wearing the Hanfu. There’s been a movement in China to reclaim the Hanfu as the national costume. I’m not sure how widespread the movement is but I think it’s really cool!
This style is a shenyi. It’s a modern take on something worn around the Qin/Han dynasty.
And here are my photos from the Friday Night Social.
After the social, we decided to hoof it across the street in to P.F. Chang’s and order takeout for dinner.
And that was Friday!
