Orange and Teal ‘Steampunk’–Part 3

Click here for Orange and Teal 'Steampunk' - Part 1
Click here for Orange and Teal 'Steampunk' - Part 2

Okay, so it was time to get busy. After my long fabric debacle the silver lining of this costume was knowing that there wouldn’t be too much in the way of custom pieces. Earlier in the week I perused TrulyVictorian.net and ordered the skirts, corset, and bustle that would be needed. ~ BTW, If you haven’t looked at their patterns before, I seriously recommend them. They’re absolutely amazing. ~ The only thing I couldn’t find was a jacket I really liked… but I’ll get into that later.

Doing things properly, I started with the foundation of the garment; the bustle. ~ At some point I will probably go on a rant about people not wearing the proper foundation garments for costumes, but for today I’ll stay on topic. ~

I’ll be honest, I really love this bustle. It was so easy to make and it even collapses down for easy travel. A few months earlier I had seen Artemisia's post about her experience with this pattern. ~ She’s the author of Diary of a Renaissance Seamstress and a wonderful read if you like Renaissance style clothing ~. She had the best idea of edging each of the petticoat frills with bias tape which I totally copied. It was really simple and added the cutest pop of color to an otherwise plain skirt. Sure no one would see it, but everyone walks a little taller when their underwear is cute right? She edged hers in black, but I decided to go with a light blue cause it seemed more airy.


The only problem I had with the bustle was of my own making. You see, I only had 5 and a quarter yards of white fabric… but the pattern called for almost 6. It was the middle of the night, and I had been so frustrated with the previous fabric woes I decided to go forth with what I had on hand. The petticoat flounces weren’t really ‘needed’ so it wasn’t as though the completed bustle is lacking. It’s just not as ‘floofy’ as it could be.

I whipped out the brown skirt pretty quickly using pattern TV201 because I wanted to be sure that it would fit over the bustle. ~ When working on a time schedule, premade patterns are your absolute best friend ~

In a fit of speed, it completely slipped my mind that I wanted to put a hidden pocket in this skirt. I suppose this eventually gave my friend an excuse to tote around a cute bag with her outfit, but costumes should have a place to stealthily hide your camera, phone, etc. while your hands stay free. /sigh. Live and learn.


Next I started working on the overskirt. Again a pattern saved my sanity as I was working into the wee hours of the morning. ~ Sometimes I feel like I should have sent Truly Victorian more money as a thank you present ~.

It was right about this point that I started to panic. Orange, teal, and brown… what in the world was I thinking?!?!?! This was going to be a disaster. Freaking out, I started obsessively pinning fabric up and staring at it to see if the colors were going to cause spontaneous eye spasms.

Luckily, my compulsion helped me stop and take stock of which way I wanted the back panels to face. I had cut and stitched them with the intention of there being a huge splash of orange down the back, but instead of being this great impact, I found myself leaning more towards the blue. It seemed to set off the pick-a-boo pleats more. After asking for a few outside opinions, I decided to stick with my gut and flip them over.

Now that I had the bottom half of the outfit done it was time to finish the top, starting with a bright orange corset!

Click here for Orange and Teal 'Steampunk' - Part 4
Click here for Orange and Teal 'Steampunk' - Part 5