Book Review: Needles and Artifice

The Null Hypothesis Scarf

Needles and Artifice: A Refined Adventure Story with Ingenious Knitting Patterns by The Ladies of Mischief

Before I knew how to use a sewing machine, before I was a steampunk, I was a knitter.  I don't really know how long I've been knitting now, but it's at least a decade.  So I've always been interesting in the combination of steampunk and knitting, and have tried various ways to incorporate my knitting into my steampunk outfits.  If there is a steamy knitting pattern out there, I am probably aware of it.  I'm addicted to the magazine series Jane Austen Knits for similar reasons, even though the period isn't quite right.

So it was probably always going to be impossible for me to resist an entire book of steampunk knitting patterns.  I've had my hard copy of the book for several weeks now, and I finally read through the whole thing.  Because this isn't just a book of knitting patterns, but also a work of fiction.

I wasn't honestly expecting much from the story that accompanies the patterns.  The Ladies of Mischief are a group of Victorian era ladies who have various adventures, build wondrous contraptions, drink a lot of tea and knit.  The book introduces these ladies to the reader mostly one at a time, constantly adding character to an ongoing story.  They each have their own specialties and personalities.  They reside across the globe and use advanced technology to keep in touch and support each other when necessary.

The different chapters are titled for their different settings or themes, though the book is one continuous story.  The chapters are "mechanical, boudoir, airship, countryside, high society, and mad science."  The knitting patterns are also split into these chapters, which serves to mostly tie them to the story nicely.

I was really delighted by the story and the characters.  I want to know these Ladies.  Well, I'd really like to BE a Lady of Mischief along with them.  The story balances along that fine line of silly humor and genuine adventure that is really the essence of steampunk.  I will not forget the breed of tiny jungle sheep in a hurry.  There's also a strong heart at the center of the story, focused around the strong friendship of these women.

But when it comes down to it, this book is really All About The Knitting.  The 23 patterns cover a wide range.  Personally, when I look at a themed book of knitting patterns, I like for the patterns to tie in with the theme as much as possible.  I hate when a book claims a theme while presenting only fairly generic patterns.  On that front, this book is pretty successful.  There are a few patterns in here that lack any real steampunk connection, but the majority of the patterns are at least arguably steampunk, many of them exceedingly so.

The Cameo Spencer Jacket

I could honestly take the book pattern by pattern and give the pros and cons of each, but....well, I won't. There are patterns for corsets (overbust and underbust), spats, lingerie, scarves, shawls, gloves, hats, and jackets.  Every knitter will prefer different patterns.  I myself look for unique and striking patterns and things that I will actually wear.  I intend to eventually make several patterns from this book.  I am about to cast on for my first, the Cameo Spencer Jacket (pictured to the right).

I did read through portions of all the patterns and some of them entirely.  It's difficult to say without having knitted any, but they appear to be very well written and are nicely detailed.  The photos that accompany them are very lovely, with lots of attention to detail.  The book is very attractively designed, with a fantastic border of flourishes and gears around each page.  The printing of the hard copy doesn't quite do justice to the images, as it is printed on normal printer paper, so the photos actually look better in the PDF.

In summary, if you are a knitter with any interest in steampunk, this book is a must own.  The high quality of the patterns, photos, and engaging story are really only icing on the cake.

The book is available from Cooperative Press for $29.95 for hard copy and digital PDF or $16.95 for PDF only.  It is also available for download on Ravelry.

Book Review: Lady of Devices

Lady of Devices by Shelley Adina

So, free books are awesome.  Free steampunk books that are actually well-written and entertaining are even better.  This 200 page novel is available free for the Kindle on Amazon.

The heroine of this book is an upper-class young  lady named Claire Trevelyn about to graduate from finishing school.  She dreams of going to university to become an engineer, but her traditional family won't hear of it, of course.  The story is set in a Victorian era only slightly changed from the real one.  Society is divided into Wits and Bloods.  Wits are the scientists of the age while Bloods are the traditional aristocracy.  Other than that and some advanced steampunk technology, not much is unfamiliar.

Tragedy in her family leads Claire to break social norms and seek out a new independent way of life.  This story surprised me in the direction it ultimately went.  I expected more romance, though there is a hint of the possible beginnings of a romantic plot.  I found some of the events very improbable, but they did continue to entertain me even so.  I was becoming quite interested in where the story would go right about the time that the book ended.  It ended surprisingly abruptly, too.  I turned the page and expected another chapter at least, when I got an epilogue.

This is the first in a series, and I will probably continue reading it eventually.  But for free, you can't really go wrong checking out this opening tale.

Book Review: The Doomsday Vault

The Doomsday Vault by Steven Harper - I don't know why I begin most steampunk books with low expectations.  When I haven't heard of the book or the author before, well, I always at least halfway expect it to suck.  Which means that I'm almost always pleasantly surprised.

In the case of The Doomsday Vault, I was extremely pleasantly surprised.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys steampunk.

The world depicted by Harper is very close to historical Victorian England.  All the real world societal rules still apply.  Things are very difficult for women and racial minorities.  The only difference is that there is a "clockwork plague" that causes illness, death, and sometimes zombies.  So zombies are roaming the streets of London, only coming out at night or under cover of fog.  They aren't the huge threat that zombies usually are in fiction, they really are something of a minor annoyance, except that if they touch you they can infect you with the plague.

But for a very small number of people infected with the plague, the results are different.  They become "clockworkers", essentially mad science geniuses.  They don't live long, but they create incredible technological inventions while becoming more and more insane.  So society at large benefits from some of these inventions, while shunning anyone who has any contact with anyone infected.

The heroine of the book is a young woman who lost several family members to the plague and therefore is shunned by society regardless of the fact that her father is a baron.  She's seeking only to find a wealthy husband to improve her family's fortune and save her respectability.  Her secret desire is to spend her time working on automatons and putting her mechanical skills to use, but her duty to her family prevents her from acting on those desires.  The hero is a young airman from America who is stranded in London after pirates attack his ship.  The two of them eventually encounter one another and become involved in a series of mysterious events.

The feel of this book reminds me most strongly of Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series.  This book doesn't have the same amount of humor, but otherwise the attitude and tone is similar.  Alice Michaels must deal with her own secret skills and various shadowy conspiracies while also trying to fit in with upper class society, regardless of how much she wishes she could rebel against it.  The idea of uncontrollable mad scientists constantly inventing things in fits of inspiration is also reminiscent of the webcomic Girl Genius, though again with less humor.

The lack of humor isn't really a negative though, as the implications of the events in the novel are serious.  Even the personal struggles of the heroine are disturbing due to the lack of freedom she has as a Victorian woman.  In short, things have weight and reality to them, which I appreciate.

To summarize, if you are looking for an enjoyable steampunk read, you can't go wrong with The Doomsday Vault.  Plus it's the first in a series and I'm looking forward to spending more time with these characters and this world.

Event Report: Dickens on the Strand 2012

This weekend was the 39th Annual Dickens on the Strand in Galveston.  Two years ago, in the wake of Hurricane Ike, the Dickens on the Strand organizers reached out to the steampunk community in an effort to draw more attendance and more income for the Galveston Historical Society.

The steampunks responded in force.  Two years later, I swear I saw more people dressed in some form of steampunk costume than plain Victorian costume.  In fact, that was one of the best things about DOTS this year for me: I saw so many people in steampunk costume (and elaborate steampunk at that) that I had NEVER SEEN BEFORE.

Sometimes the Texas steampunk community feels a bit claustrophobic.  At many events, the same few hundred people show up.  But it takes an event of this size to really bring home how many MORE people there are out there who are interested or actually fairly deeply involved in the style of steampunk.  It really should be a lesson to event organizers that attendees are out there, if you can get word to them.  I'm sure it helps that admission is only $7 if you're in costume.

Anyway, Dickens was a total blast this year.  I only attended for the day on Saturday since I didn't want to spend money on a hotel.  But it's really this amazing combination of a craft fair, Christmas festival, and wild street party.  In costume.  It's pretty much endlessly entertaining to just wander the streets with a beverage.  From chatting with friends, to watching bits of street performers, to petting alpacas, and to laughing at drunk people dancing in the streets, there was never a lack of interesting things going on.

There were so many amazing costumes and people that I felt overstimulated by it and had a hard time focusing on individuals.  Or maybe that was the cider, beer, and mead...  I know at least once (and I'm sure several other times) I walked right past friends without seeing them until they came up and grabbed me.  I also had some great conversations with new acquaintances.

I didn't actually make it to any of the scheduled "events" so I can't comment on them.  I missed the daytime parade by minutes and the nighttime parade was a little sad by the time it got to where my friends and I were sitting outside a bar at the very end of the route.  Regardless, I had a great time at this event.

Taken at a friend's house prior to leaving.
You can tell by the lack of sweat.

Plus I got to wear my Victorian bustle dress again, now that I have a new corset to go under it.  And look at my husband being adorably hopeful about the weather letting him wear his long coat.  The temperature ended up exceeding the forecast by about 10 degrees.  You would not have known it was December by the 84 degree weather...

Dress Diary: Steampunk Cleopatra: Overskirt

To give myself a break from the endless corset mock-ups and to help me feel like I'm accomplishing something, I threw together the overskirt.  The pattern is pretty ingeniously constructed and actually looks better than I expected.

The pattern is Truly Victorian's 1880 Hermione Overskirt.  In these photos I'm wearing it over my underskirt, the Truly Victorian 1892 Umbrella Skirt with Train.  (I'm a steampunk, I'm allowed to mix my decades.)

The black fabric is polyester shantung, the gold is silk dupioni.  I knew I wanted both these fabrics for the texture, and I wanted the gold to be actual silk for the shine and luxury it gives.   Finding the right gold dupioni wasn't easy.  I thought I just wanted a bright, medium gold and it wouldn't be too difficult to find.  But all the bright golds I found were either too pale or too orange.  After ordering swatches from three different websites I finally found the site Silk Baron and ordered a bunch of gold swatches from them.  I chose Aztec Gold, which is a darker gold with a black warp thread (I think it's warp.  I'm not a weaver, I'm not sure I know my warp from my weft...)  I'm in LOVE with this color now.  It's dark, except where the light hits it, which as you can see is very bright.  I also have to recommend the website for their customer service and the beauty of their fabrics.  I recently bought some more silk in their Black Friday scrap sale and they are all gorgeous.

I wasn't sure if I would like the drooping back, but it looks very nice on. There is no bustle as both of these periods are bustle-less.

I intend to add more gold trim, definitely a pleated trim to the bottom of the underskirt and possibly also to the bottom edge of the overskirt.  But I actually kinda like that you can't tell where the overskirt ends in these photos, so maybe not...

In order to get the pleats in the gold to hold their crispness, I used a trick I read on a sewing blog somewhere and sprayed them with a water/white vinegar mixture.  It really worked and improved the look of the panniers immensely.

So now I'm going to be cutting the actual corset and working on that.  Which is frightening.  I conducted my fabric tests today to see how they reacted to using fusible web to stick the fashion fabric to the coutil.  They both worked really well, although the silk was more difficult to fuse, due to its rough texture.  I'm feeling pretty confident about that aspect of the corset, at least.

Dress Diary: Steampunk Cleopatra: Yet More Corset Mock-ups

This is the corset of endless mock-ups.  Every time I fix one thing, more things pop up, and then I have to go and undo what I just fixed.  *sigh*  Partly this is taking so long because I'm really trying to get it as close to perfect as I can.

So when last we left the mock-ups, I had made two mock-ups and though the first one had problems, I preferred the shape it gave to the second, corrected mock-up.

So I went back to the first pattern and started from there.  It's been months since I did this part, since I was interrupted by illness and then an event to vend, so I can't tell you all the changes I made exactly.  I took an entire panel out at the back to create a lacing gap.  I took more out at the waist and made some changes to the side hip curves.  I don't think I made any changes to the bust yet, because I was trying to get the waist and hip right first.  Here's that mock-up.

All in all pretty good.  The nice hip spring is back, and though the 4th panel has some diagonal wrinkles, it's better than it was.   The left side has the top folded down to the height I want the corset at.


Here's the back.  Nice, respectable lacing gap.  At this point I was forced to put the project down for a couple of months.



So just recently I was able to come back to it and I tried the corset back on.  I think it's possible I lost some weight in that time, because as you'll see the lacing gap isn't so great anymore.  I felt the corset was too big in the side bust and there was also some extra space in the high hip.  So I pinched and pinned those areas and make the alterations directly on the corset.

Here is the same mock-up with those alterations.  I also make a rough trial of the waist belt panel.  I took the original size of the waist panel and simple extended it in length to fit.  It doesn't have seam allowances here, so it's just sewn in place.  Note the changes are only to the side of the corset with the belt, the side on the right (this was taken in a mirror, so everything has flipped.)

Side view.  You can see the dart I made in the bust of the 4th panel as well as how much was taken out of the hip on the 5th panel.


The next step was to take this half of the corset apart, keeping the changes in it and use this to alter the paper pattern. In addition  to the reductions on panels 4 and 5, I took some off the top to create the top line you see here.  I also had decided the back needed to come higher to better support the bust, so I added about and inch and a half on the last panel, and slanted the 6th panel up to meet it.  So I thought I was pretty close to having a final pattern, so I only made up half of this new pattern.

I was using much lighter duck and when I tried that half on with the previous half, well, this is what happened.   I'm going with this is because of the difference in fabric strength, and also a really cheap busk.  But I did learn a few things, by pulling the busk straight and carefully studying it.

The combination of tightening the fit in the bust and lowering the top line of the front was a bad idea.  Without the side for my bust to fall into the line was way too close to my nipple for comfort.  I intend to wear this with a sheer top underneath, but I like to feel like there is NO danger of falling out of my corsets, no matter how much bending over and running around I do.  So I raised the top of the first three panels again.  I liked the height in the back now.