Blog Archives

Theresa LaQuey - Guest Blogger - Steampunk #2 - part 2, the fabrics

12/5/2014

Today Theresa is showing us the photos she took in her studio of these costumes before sending them to New York. The detailing shows up much better than in the fashion photo on the envelope.

From Theresa:
Fabric selection was fairly lucky this time also. I managed to score that incredible metal brocade at Discount Fabrics in Berkeley, California and that set me towards the rest of the color selections.

OH! ... see what I said about seeing detail in these photos ... I do believe she used a liturgical brocade for this corset! I love the way she matched up the motifs in the fabric.

I really wanted some nice acid green and purple accents and some aspects of Victorian trimming that would be easy for people to apply.

This photo shows off the side cascade drape really well.

Another aside from me ... see all those banker's boxes to the right under Theresa's cutting table? Well, they are FILLED with just part of her huge and diverse vintage pattern collection. She has stuff from every decade of the 20th Century, I think, at least early to mid-century, with a particularly rich selection from the 30's - 50's!

There was a little issue in figuring out this pattern. You see, I had wanted to have the red bolero longer than the black bolero, and I had thought it would be ok as I had sent in my muslins and they were approved. So, I made the bolero pattern with all of the trim placement lines and also a line marked "cut off for view B". It was just too confusing, so I had to make an all new red bolero that was the same length as the black bolero, a new pattern and get it to New York really quick.

--
Theresa LaQuey

So here we end Theresa LaQuey week #1 with a view of the pretty back. Something else the fashion photo doesn't show.

She will be back in a week or two with stories of the other two Steampunk patterns.

3 Comments

Theresa LaQuey - guest blogger - Steampunk #2 - part 1

12/3/2014

0 Comments

Continuing from Monday ... My sister Theresa's stories of her terrific series of Steampunk costumes. The story picks up after the first pattern has been published and Simplicity wants another ... YAY!

Lest I forget to mention, I was very fortunate in having a previous client, Tricia Roush, who had become a very successful milliner and has so kind in lending her hats to Simplicity for the photo shoots.

After that pattern was such a hit, a second one was requested from me. I once again did a bit of research, and also really wanted this one to have a totally different feel from the previous one. I thought, well since the last package had a long reddingcoat and a corset that covered the bust, I should do a short bolero, a corset that cuts under the bust and a much fancier skirt. Here is my sketch for that idea. This also includes the swatches I had selected.

After I had figured out that I wanted to do a bustle skirt with an apron front and side cascades, I realized that with Steampunk you could get away with all sorts of odd things, so I thought, mini-bustle! Mini-bustle with a bolero that has more of a boudoir feel to it. Here is my sketch of that idea.

and also my breakdown sketch of all of the different parts in both views.
--
Theresa LaQuey

You can see, she has nicknamed this pattern Steampunk #2 - the sequel!

In the next blog on Friday, Theresa will talk about her fabric choices and she has a bunch of cool personal photos of these costumes with some neat close ups.

But, I thought I would share the photos of her muslins now. She makes the most beautiful muslins. They could be worn as finished garments themselves. As a matter of fact her first Steampunk costume pattern was supposed to only have one garment photographed, but when she sent in her muslin for approval, the folks at Simplicity thought it was so beautiful, they photographed the model wearing it and used the computer to add some color. This would be the tan one on the left.

So, please enjoy the muslins for this pattern below.

0 Comments

Theresa LaQuey - guest blogger - Steampunk #1

12/1/2014

3 Comments

It gives me great pleasure to reintroduce my sister, Theresa LaQuey. Click on these two links to read her original guest blog that tells a bit about her background.

Link #1 - Introduction
Link #2 - Background

And as promised, this is Theresa LaQuey week. She will talk about her very popular series of Steampunk costumes and show us lots of sketches and photos of her work.

Hello to all of you stitchers out there. This is Andrea's little sister and fellow Simplicity designer Theresa LaQuey writing to tell you about how I got into designing Steampunk and some of the designing process.

I had mentioned to Betsy Burger at Simplicity about 7 years ago that I was working on a Steampunk bridal project and how interesting that art movement seemed. I said she should check it out as she hadn't heard of it. Well, about 2 years later I got a call out of the blue from Betsy asking if I might want to take a crack at designing a Steampunk outfit. I said sure and within about 3 hours I had scanned and sent her the following sketch. I started my ideas by checking out some online images to try to capture the essence of the style and then just put my mind to what I thought people would find attractive, a bit different and also a good jumping off point. She then asked if I could better describe what I had sketched and so I sent her a sketch of the different pieces for the package. Little did I know that this was going to be the largest selling pattern of my career at Simplicity nor that it would be the start of a series.

Theresa has more documentation of the Steampunk costumes that follow this one. Wednesday and Friday will be devoted to her second design #1819.

3 Comments

Forward>>

Theresa LaQuey - Guest Blogger - Steampunk #2 - part 2, the fabrics

Theresa LaQuey - guest blogger - Steampunk #2 - part 1

Theresa LaQuey - guest blogger - Steampunk #1

From Andrea

Archives