Do you have a project that has stalled? Have you run out of creative steam and feel like you can't make yourself sew? Are you in desperate need of new clothes or just plain wanna sew something to completion? National Costume Finishing Month is for those of us who need a kick in the pants, a boot to the head, or just a fun excuse to finish a costume or three. Your mission, should you chose to accept, is to complete a costume down to the last stitch within 30 days. It can be of any era, for any reason, be it con, cosplay, faire or SCA, or even *gasp* modern clothing. Work through your stash, buy that fabulous fabric you've been lusting after, or pick up that stalled project and just sew!
What happens if I don't finish within 30 days?There is no penalty for not finishing... NaCoFiMo is all about jump starting your creativity and letting loose the costuming muse.
What if I finish my project way ahead of time?That's up to you. You can stop while you're ahead, or if you're like many sufferers of CADD (Costume Attention Deficit Disorder) and you have another costume or three that needs to be realized, you may decide to start another costume. Sew until you can't sew no more!
What's in it for me?New clothes, for one! Everyone loves new clothes. But just because simply participating in a community effort such as this isn't always enough incentive, we're going to give out made up awards! For being a finalist, you will get one of three lovely banner icons that you can display on your website or LJ info page.
Finalists with one completed costume will recieve a bronze icon banner.
Finalists with two completed costumes will recieve a silver icon banner.
Finalists with three or more completed costumes will recieve a gold icon banner. Bragging rights are included at no extra cost.
Will there be a showcase after all is said and done?Of course! It's just not up and running yet, but it will be! We also want to encourage you to post pictures of your projects in progress, because everyone loves pictures.
You are going to give National Novel Writing Month credit for this idea, right?Yep. We totally ganked their idea and decided the costume community needed a similar outlet for pent-up creativity. Thanks NaNoWriMo!
When does it start? Dec 15 2006 - Jan 15 2007
Why Then?Most people have some amount of time off of school/work in that block of time, for those of us in the SCA there are few (if any) events.
But that time doesn't work for me! So come up with your own time period and do it!
Should I wait until Dec 15th to start finishing projects?:Dude, no. That's what's gotten us all in to this mess in the first place. If you have the time to work on something, do it. It just won't count towards your NaCoFiMo "score" unless it's finished on or after Dec 15th. But YOU will know that you got something done, and won't that feel great? Besides, the more unfinished things you get finished before then, the more space you'll have in your sewing room for other NaCoFiMo projects!
How big does my unfinished costume project have to be? It doesn't matter. It can be a hem that you've been putting off for two years, or a complete dress that you got cut out but never started sewing. Sure, the latter is going to be pretty impressive when we're all done and put up the spiffy website, but you'll still get your icon/banner/bragging rights.
Now get crackin'!
It is finished. Actually, It has been finished for quite some time - since the Regency Ball in Lansing, MI last February, in fact! I apologize for taking such a terribly long time to upload the photos. I can't think of a whole lot to say about it at the moment, so I suppose I shall let the photos speak for themselves.
I know, I already posted a tidy list of things to be finished, but since then, I've actually worked on a couple of them! One of these is my Elizabethan Kirtle. It is inauthentic, wrinkly, pink, and has distressingly rebellious shoulder straps, but it's rather my pet project (I designed and drafted it entirely on my own - the dresses that I manage to complete after this process I am inordinately fond of). Above is a picture of my boning channels. I originally machine-stitched the channels, but since I have a thing against most visible machine-sewing, I handstitched over it with pink 'twist', using a stem stitch.
Yesterday, I pinned this kirtle to my dressform. Unfortunately, my dressform is wider and less 'squishable' than me, so the back edges don't meet on it. On me, though, they close entirely, which is what I was aiming for. I haven't got they eyelets put in yet, but I intend to put them in for spiral lacing. I've never tried spiral-lacing on anything, and I figured I might as well try it out on this! Hopefully I'll get them in by the end of the month.
So... I've been sketching designs, and after attempting to research the men's clothing of the era (well, not the era - I'm not a big fan of the long surcoat things - but rather after. And not English clothing.), I decided against authenticity. Paintings of the most interesting doublets don't show the whole thing!! And there was a particularly interesting one which was black, and therefore nearly impossible to see, which bothered me no end. This is what the sketch below is based off of; A Young Man, by Francesco Franciabigio. It's not very close though, if you look at the upper righthand corner of my first sketch, you can see my idea of the real thing. I added paned sleeves into my design, just to see what it looks like. Personally I find the body to be very boring and rather clumsy. I probably won't use this design. If you have any ideas as to how this thing comes together, please do tell me them, I would be so grateful!
Another doublet from a painting caught my eye, and this was one worn by Albrecht Durer in one of his self-portraits. I find this doublet to be fascinating, especially the sleeves! Unfortunately, the doublet is half obscured by a cape (DIE, thou cape!!!), and the painting is only from the waist upwards, so I have no clue what to do with the bottom. In my design sketch, I tried two different waist treatments, but left the peplum pretty much the same (peplum sounds like a distinctly feminine word, not to be used with a man's doublet!). On the left is a waistline straight across, and only has one fastening, probably some sort of ornate silver hook and eye. On the right, the waistline slants down, enabling a wider fastening, but rather more dorky in this case. Aren't those sleeves awesome?
The dress is made up of blue print cotton, with a cream linen lining. The bodice lining is fitted, with two darts on each side. The skirt lining reaches only to my knees in the front, and is about a foot longer in the back. 
The back closure is hook-and-eye. This is the first time I have attempted a hook-and-eye closure and I am inordinately proud of it (or, I will be once I fix that horrid gap on the bottom!). There are seven metal hooks, and seven handsewn thread eyes. I made the eyes by sewing a 'bar' with a buttonhole stitch over six loops of thread. Tell me if that doesn't make sense! It was really quite easy. 
The last couple of weeks, I've been rather obsessed with the dress and hair styles of the 1780s/90s (obsessed enough to start a corset for it!). I really want to make a chemise dress, but if I'm going to wear it, I need the hair. Yes the big poufy hairdo. Definitely a requirement.
So, this morning I enlisted the aid of my sister, and we set about curling my hair with hot-rollers. First, I dampened my hair with water and put a bit of gel in it (it seemed like a ton of gel to me, but I rarely put gel in my hair, so perhaps it wasn't so much). Then we put as many hot-rollers as possible in my hair, clipping them with little plastic hairclips where the metal pins wouldn't hold them in place. About half the metal pins refused to hold up their rollers, naturally.
I wandered about the house looking quite ridiculous for, oh, two and half hours. Somewhere in that time I misted my hair with a water spray-bottle and tried drying it with the hairdryer - an attempt to be sure that my hair would curl! After two and a half hours, I could no longer wait, and pulled out all the hot rollers and clips. The immediate results were not particularly promising... BUT, I just started piling my hair on top of my head and stabbing clips and bobbypins into it.
