Monday, February 3, 2014

A Starfleet Bustle

If you've been in the Trek circles on Facebook or Pinterest, or even Tumblr, you've probably seen the fabulous photo of two lovely ladies in Starfleet uniform inspired bustle gowns. I'd been doodling some designs before then, but never really settled on one, but once I saw their fabulous outfits, I knew I had to get to it and finally finalize my design!

While those two ladies had looked to the Voyager style uniforms for inspiration, I had looked to the First Contact ones. I was lucky enough that while looking through fashion plates, I happened upon this fantastic outfit.



It's already very much like the First Contact uniforms! I knew I had to use that bodice design for my bustle gown, but I wanted to have different skirt. After letting it stew in my brain for a while, I decided that a plain underskirt in division color, with a black draped overskirt, would be just the thing.

I started with the overskirt first, because I got in the mood to do some draping.


Because of the weight of the suiting I was using, I added two layers of black tulle as interlining to give it some umph. And boy, is there umph! This thing is super fluffy!

Unfortunately, when I went to sew down all the pleats, the needle on my sewing machine wouldn't catch the bobbin thread. It turned out my timing was way off, so I had to take it in to be repaired and cleaned, which would take about a week. Of course, this happens two weeks before the event I intended to wear the dress to. Eep! So, while I couldn't sew anything together, I could at least do some patterning, and I started draping the jacket pattern.



But after patterning and cutting out the fabric and just starting at it, I couldn't take just waiting in limbo, so I started sewing the jacket together by hand. I did that until I got to the yoke. My hand-stitching just isn't even enough to do the quilting lines on the yoke, so I finally had to stop and let it rest in limbo again.


So, this is how she sits right now, awaiting that magical time when my sewing machine is back in working order and the rest of the outfit can be sewn together. It's going to be a crunch now, with just a week before the convention to finish the entire dress, but I've done more in less time before, so I think it can be done. Sleep may have to wait, though.

4 comments:

  1. Pfft. Sleep on the plane. I do so love the historical mashup costumes. I can't wait to see it finished.

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    1. I'm excited to finish it up soon! :D There are actually a few people doing Steampunk Star Trek at the Vegas TrekCon this year, so I'm definitely bringing this one with me!

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  2. Just came back to your blog to admire your Cardassians again and found this post about the Starfleet bustle. I'm one of the two ladies in the picture that circulated the Internet in December (the one in the command uniform Natural Form dress) and I can't wait to see your dress. I love your costumes and I'm sure your Starfleet bustle will be stunning! (And Genovefa and I won't be so alone with our dresses anymore).

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    1. Hello! Your dresses were so wonderful! I'm excited to finish my own dress as soon as my current Regency bits are finished up. ^^ Thank you for the wonderful inspiration! :D

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