#project: crown prince kiriona

[poetryincostume]

The Saddest Girl In The World

Edwardian-ish ribbon corset with beading, 2023

Silk ribbon, cotton taffeta ribbon, Czech glass beads

[the-grey-hunt]

Nona the Ninth chapter icons

it's time. i have my paperback, and i have the will, and this post will contain very many spoilers if you have not yet read Nona the Ninth. As usual my chapter notes contain what I think is relevant and/or the cause of the choice in icon

(note: the John chapters do not have icons. therefore they will be skipped, but their presence is noted).

gideon - harrow

(john)

DAY ONE

1- The locked tomb icon. General introductions are made. I assume the locked tomb stands for us meeting Nona.

2 - still locked tomb icon. General Nona backstory. It is implied that Nona doesn't have much longer.

3 - A tree with a single apple on a branch. Potentially an apple-of-Eden icon, especially as this is the chapter where school (knowledge) is introduced. The Angel and Noodle are also introduced.

4 - Seventh house skull. This plagues me as much as the fourth house skull in Harrow the Ninth's chapters. Why the seventh house? "For beauty as it blossoms and dies". This chapter features the Angel being worried, and Hot Sauce watching.

5 - Ninth house skull. Palamedes and Nona practice necromancy and talk about the blue light.

6 - Sixth house skull. Camilla tells a story, which includes how the Sixth House escaped.

(john)

DAY TWO

7 - Second house skull. Pyrrha bribes someone for Site C.

8 - Third house skull. Nona pretends to make a radio call to Crown.

(john)

9 - Sixth house skull. Flashback to the last time Camilla took Nona swimming.

10 - Slashed Second house skull. Pyrrha gets caught in a riot. But why slashed? In Harrow the slashed skulls represented false memories/Harrow's bubbles, but what's false or not happening or in the River about the Second here?

(john)

DAY THREE

11 - Fifth house skull. They discuss what's sexy. Blood of Eden storms the apartment. (again, the skulls of house members not present in this book plagues me. Traditions and debts to the dead. does pyrrha's opinion of "landmine people" being sexy count as a debt to dead Wake, enough to invoke the Fifth's skull? Is it something to do with Augustine?)

12 - Apple tree again. The meeting with We Suffer.

13 - Third house skull. Crown/Corona takes them to see Judith Deuteros.

14 - Locked tomb icon. Crown claims to know "what" Nona is.

15 - Seventh house skull. They hear about the broadcast. Nona tells Hot Sauce that she's dying.

(john)

16 - Icon of a tower with a pointed roof and shallow projecting windows, and a base with three arches. Presumably, meant to indicate the Tower in the river. The shadows are drawn as if to indicate there is space inside the arches where they're being cast across a floor.

The broadcast happens. Ianthe refers to herself and Kiriona as the Tower Princes.

(john)

DAY FOUR

17 - Icon of a plant with a few shallow side leaves and one large front-facing round leaf at the top with a pointed tip. The Angel has the kids at school make emergency shelter plans. Nona draws an animal.

18 - Eighth house skull. Palamedes asks the Angel if she has a House implant. The Angel considers this a fuckup and tries to have him and Nona killed. Hot Sauce shoots Nona for being a zombie (okay, I can kind of see the "salvation no matter the cost" in this).

(john)

19 - Opened tomb icon (broken chains, unshaded/white interior). Nona has a tantrum.

(john)

DAY FIVE

20 - First house skull. Corona reunites with Ianthe.

21 - Slashed Third house skull. Corona has a secret wire and is maybe betraying Ianthe to Blood of Eden with it.

(john)

22 - Slashed Ninth house skull. Nona is disguised as Harrow.

23 - Sixth house skull. Palamedes fights Ianthe for Naberius's body and wins.

24 - Gideon's skull icon (crossed-out IX, sunglasses, open jaw). Kiriona is found and starts participating.

25 - Slashed Gideon skull. Kiriona "brags" about what John has done to her and makes some demands.

26 - Fourth house skull. (Fidelity? Kids?) Nona talks to Honesty and Hot Sauce about the Convoy. Hot Sauce permits her to remain in the gang.

27 - Second house skull. Pyrrha reminisces about Wake to Pash. Number Seven sends in the heralds.

(john)

28 - Slashed Sixth house skull. Paul.

29 - First house skull. They prepare to return to the Houses. We Suffer issues them Protocol One.

(john)

30 - The Tower. Nona drives through the River.

31 - Ninth house skull. Back on the Ninth House. The devils are here too.

32 - Opened Tomb. Nona returns to her body.

Epilogue - First house skull. Alecto seeks out John.

you know what i've noticed? the john chapters only occur when Nona is asleep, unconscious, or similarly incapacitated.

[poetryincostume]

When I was regathering my long-neglected research for my Helga Sinclair ribbon corset, I rediscovered this gorgeous extant example in the V&A from 1895. Unlike most extant examples I've come across, this one doesn't feature overlapping ribbons. This suggests that it was made for a particularly slim woman who needed very little support and for particular summertime breathability (supported by the garment waist measuring 19", suggesting a laced waist of 22-24".)

To me, long-since trapped in The Locked Tomb, the ribcage-like appearance was inescapable. Wouldn't you know it, I have a Crown Prince Kiriona Gaia costume that I started a year ago that was needing a little something something to pull the design together and to help motivate me.

The pattern was adapted from my Helga ribbon corset, allowing for 24mm wide ribbon to meet at the sides and spread evenly in a ribcage like fashion at the front panel.

This time I used a beautiful shell-coloured silk ribbon. The ribbon is so beautifully soft, that it was a nightmare to work with. I do not recommend it for something that needs quite so much working as it marked with so much as a hard look! I am fairly certain that the V&A example the ribbon is self-mounted, so I again mounted my main ribbon, this time on a white cottong taffeta ribbon. If i slipped with my mounting or the ribbon twisted or buckled, i thought the white would be a suitably stark and skeletal contrast to the main silk ribbon.

As I am perhaps a little more fleshy than the lady who owned the original 1895 example, I cheated and also added a base layer of nude tulle to help smooth out the laced-up silhouette.

The overall construction process was the same as Helga: quilted the ribbon panels across the boned panels before covering and sandwiching them, and inserting the bones from the side to allow for for hem stitching.

To finish, another ivory powder-coated busk and stitched over eyelets for security.

References:

Underwear Fashion in Detail, 2010, Eleri Lynn

Corsets - Historical Patterns & Techniques, 2008, Jill Salen

Corsets & Crinolines, 2017, Norah Waugh

1895 Ribbon Corset, V&A - https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O138887/corset-unknown/

How To Make A Basic Ribbon Corset, Sidney Eileen - http://sidneyeileen.com/sewing-2/sewing/corset-making/basic-ribbon/

An Edwardian Ribbon Corset, History Wardrobe - https://historywardrobe.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/an-edwardian-ribbon-corset/

[poetryincostume]

Gideon, where is your heart?

- Sense and Sensibility, 1811, Jane Austen