From Russia With Love!

I always knew that by coming back into full-time education I would be jumping in at the deep-end, but I never thought that my very first assignment would be to research and construct from scratch an 19th Century Russian peasant woman's traditional Costume! Well.....here goes!!

Started off by learning how to drape on the stand. This was actually easier than I ever thought it would be!

After a LOT of pattern drafting, I could finally start cutting out my toile (a kind of mock-up costume in calico!)

Need to get those measurements correct otherwise there will be dire consequences!

Russian blouse toile up and running! (sorry Leanne!)

Toile finished, so to start on the real thing. The Russian sarafan (dress) is to be made using Navy blue,100% suiting wool!

Ribbon embellishments added, zip inserted......

and facing completed!

Now onto cutting out the blouse from basic bodice blocks using white,100% cotton lawn.

Needed to enlarge the head on the basic sleeve block to create a lovely 'puffy' shoulder!!

Small gathers around the base of the sleeve

Neatening up the inside seams just because that's how I like it!!

Lovely button (thanks mother!)

mmmmmm! Love satin bias binding :)

Three months of research, workshops and plenty of sewing later and I have one finished costume being modeled by the lovely Leanne!!

The end of year catwalk show! Leanne is modelling my costume (centre right) and here I am modelling Leanne's costume (centre left)!