Monday, March 26, 2007

A 'Maternity' Bodice

Having spent the weekend working, I haven't really had much time to myself the past few days and today is shaping up in a similar fashion. In need of a bit of light relief when I finally made it home last night, I decided to lace up the maternity bodice which I set the last eyelet for on Friday.





Yes, it is finally finished, having taken far longer than something this size really should have. Made from black cotton moleskin with a cotton lining, this bodice is loose fitting, with godets set into the princess seams at the front to give it a high waisted appearance. The sides are laced closed and fitted with sewn in modesty panels, making the bodice adjustable.

The photo's don't really do it justice and it's out of context, worn over a modern top and skirt.

It's intended as a costume piece for Shards to fit a character who is pregnant, hence the loose fit and lack of boning. However, as it is based on a bodice from an illustration dating to the 1620's, I think it could be used as basic kit for other games if I wished. Either way, it looked pretty good on, fitting properly at the shoulders but very roomy everywhere else.

I'll be aiming to do a costume check next weekend, when I'll try the bodice with the rest of the kit, complete with padding. Providing Dave can be persuaded to man the camera, more pictures may be taken then.

(Click on the photo's to see bigger versions...)

2 comments:

RichT said...

Extremely neat, I can see how its going to work, but the rest of the costume will make it.

What's princess seams?

Julie Spriddle said...

It really was very roomy in there but once the bump is in place it should fill out quite nicely. :)

Princess seams are vertical seams which run over the bust point on a bodice (where a bodice is the part of a garment which goes over the upper female torso) usually - but not always - coming from the shoulder and neatly bisecting the front panels of whatever they're part of. They can be combined with darts or godets to add shaping or used to remove or add excess fabric in crucial places, but even if they don't do anything else they add a vertical seam and so tend to give a long lined fitted look.

In this case, I added them in so that I could insert the godets. Otherwise I'd have had to somehow split the front of the bodice and neatly sew in those little triangles which would have been a lot trickier than it sounds.