Wombat's
Stitchery -
Midwinter 2003Wombat's
Stitchery -
Midwinter 2003
In
a moment of serendipity, I was scavenging through a fabric store that
was going out of business, and found a piece of fabric that I simply knew
I had seen before in a painting. I bought all they had - five yards of
60" wide. (Buying fabric is one time it's good to
be short!)
Inspirational images | Useful links | Results
September 21, 2003:
Now that I'm home, with the fabric, I can only hope that's enough. Fortunately, I can see that the sleeves, forepart and over-partlet are all made from another fabric. I purchased 2 yards of green velvet at the time for exactly this purpose (I was sure I remembered a split skirt and forepart), but now I'm not sure that'll be enough of that. I can also tell that the pattern isn't really the same, but the colors are just about right, and mine is a bit more dense than would be easy to paint. I will still need to find something for the gold undersleeves. And a hood.
This is going to be a lot of work, and not all that much time to do it.
Countdown to Midwinter: three months.
September 28, 2003
For quick reference, adding a page of useful links and a page of inspirational paintings. Also, in my neverending habit of tinkering with websites, I've fleshed out the Stitchery a bit.
(October-ish, 2003)
After looking at quite a lot of other images of Tudor dress (what there are of them online), I've come to the (not necessarily surprising) conclusion that the inspiring painting (which I did know was done later, out of period) is definitely different from the actual Tudor style in a couple ways. Most particularly, in the paintings I've found, the forepart should match the undersleeves, not the sleeve lining. So, in a deviation from the inspiration, but closer to period, I've decided to do the same thing. I've got some gold stuff (it's, er, a tablecloth. :sigh:) I'll be using for undersleeves and forepart now. I've seen a couple of overpartlets that match the sleeve lining, so I'm going to stick with that, I think.
So, now I'm looking at: bodice, sleeves, and overskirt all of the yellow-and-green-velvet fabric; forepart and undersleeves in gold brocade-ish stuff; and sleeve linings and overpartlet in green velvet. Should look good.
November 30, 2003
I've been slacking on updating for a while, but the last few weeks have actually held some forward progress on the dress.
So, for this dress, I need a corset-like thing. I didn't want to spend months working on it and thus not finishing the dress. Feh. I probably should have just done that from the get-go. Instead, I decided to take apart the bodice in my Elizabethan (it's largely from the Simplicity 'Shakespeare in Love' pattern), which has a corset-y layer made of muslin and a pretty layer made of the 'fashion fabric'. So, I split off the pretty layer, and tried to neaten up the corsety layer.
This started with having a friend mark where the front needed to be lowered down to. Then, I went home and lowered the front, trimmed the bones, and replaced the two center bones with one piece made of a section of yardstick (an already broken one). Then I went back to the friend, and she fitted junk fabric on me for the pattern. All well and good.
But then I also straightened out the princess seams in the front (Oh, what I wish I'd known then!) and significantly widened the neckline of the corset. It now looks so much better than before - it actually gives the right silhouette for the paintings of the period. Wooo.
I also replaced the pathetic old lacing method (tacked down ribbon) with real eyelets. Aggravatingly, the aiglets which I recently got at the Known World Costuming Symposium were bigger than my eyelets (and I didn't really want to use non-period grommets), and I was completely unable to get my hand-sewn eyelets big enough either. So, I'm still not sure what I'm going to do to finish off the end of the ribbon for easier threading. On the other hand, I now have actually handsewn eyelets. The next batch will be better.
Next step was to cut out the pattern pieces in a possible lining material. Except, having now made such drastic modifications, the pattern that had previously been made didn't fit right! The shoulder pieces were drastically wrong - now they are much further out and narrower, as they should be. I had to tack on extra fabric to try to fit those. I also got my first experience with fitting something on someone. While it's not that hard, trying to do it on myself made it more interesting and caused my next major stopping block - there was simply no way I could fit the back piece properly while wearing it.
Fortunately, I got another friend to help me out with that tonight, so now I'm ready to cut out lining pieces and do a final fitting with them. I've also decided that I am not going with a back-lacing bodice. It'd be a pain in my butt (having to do either grommets or handsewn eyelets again) to make and then aggravating trying to get someone to lace me in every time (any day now, my husband will declare that he will never help me again). So, instead, there will be a center-fastening, then a frontpiece which hook-and-eyes to the side. I'm not necessarily 100% convinced of the periodicity, but the practicality is important, too.
December 8, 2003
More updating slackerliness. About a week ago, I started cutting pieces out of my linen interlining for the bodice. With a bit of adjustment, they fit, as best I could tell, without having put in hooks/eyes to shut the front. The frontpiece/stomacher seemed to look about right, too.
I got someone to help me drape the hanging sleeves, but when I got home and tried to fuss with them, the upper sleeve just flat out didn't seem to be working right for me. So, I took a sleeve pattern that I already had, and frankensteined it onto the hanging part. After some fussing, I think I have that about right. I just hope it's tight enough. In all the paintings, those upper sleeves are tight.After some thinking and laying out of pieces, I decided that for the sleeves, I'm going to do them in two pieces - sleevehead and upper sleeve in one piece, and the hanging part in another. It'll be mostly hidden in the foldback, so I'm not going to get worried about it.
This last weekend, I cut out the linen lining pieces for the bodice/sleeves (yes, my plan is: outer fabric, interlining, lining.) and flatlined the linings with the interlinings. (For anyone who doesn't know, that means sewing the two pieces of fabric to each other, flat (ie, with raw edges out, not turned in seams), and then considering the two pieces as one piece.) I also did some math and patterns for skirt pieces and cut those out of the interlining - I didn't have all that much of the lining. Then I sewed together the flatlined pieces together and the skirt pieces together, and pinned the skirt onto the bodice. In the midst of this, I discovered that (how, I don't know) the sleeves suddenly weren't big enough to fit into the armscye! I had to piece in another bit there. Good to find this out now, and not in the final fabric!
Then I put on the hoopskirt and an underdress (I don't really have a good chemise for this yet - for all I know, I'll be wearing it this weekend too), and then got laced into my corset. It turns out that having a big, dull tapestry needle for that purpose is quite handy. Then I put on the bodice, and sewed shut the front. Would you believe that, after all of that, the bodice is too big?
Yep. The bodice is at least an inch or two too big. Fortunately, it appears that, if said inch or two is taken out of the center back, the whole thing fits much better all around. I won't have great range of motion with my arms, but I wasn't going to have that anyway, in this gown. At least the skirt is about right. My math was rounded up a bit too much, so I'll get to have a handful of tiny pleats. Not enough to provide huge fullness, but just enough to give a little something at the waist, which seems to match the paintings, from what little I can tell (most waistlines are mostly hidden with the sleeves, darn it).
So, right now, the whole thing is folded up in my laundry basket (perfect for hauling around) and waiting to be adjusted based on the pins and then cut out of the nice fabric. Woo. And the best part is, I have all the pieces, so it'd be hard for me to do the "ooops, I forgot to cut out both upper sleeves" thing. I just have to lay them out on the fabric and cut. And sew. And make a partlet. And pattern/cut the forepart and undersleeves. Whee.
Time until Midwinter: 4 days.
December 11, 2003 (2am)
So, I've got all my pattern pieces (at this point, the lining pieces, having been fitted to me and taken apart), and I'm finally matching them up against my fabric. There's not enough. Sort of. I can (barely) make the pieces fit, but only if I turn some of them upside down (this is a directional patterned fabric), and put some parts on the bad sections (when I washed it, some parts lost too much velvet, and there's a stripe of too much velvet down part of it). There's basically no way I can get the two front panels matching (like they should). In theory, they'll be covered with a plackety piece, but...
I am so frustrated. It seems like no matter what I do with this dress from here, it's not going to look the way I want. It's really depressing to think that I'm already thinking of this dress (for which I had such a great vision) as being the 'trial dress that I'm going to give away to loaner garb after I make my next one'.
I'm at a standstill in motivation, and this dress is supposed to be done by Saturday. It doesn't help that I'm borderline sick with the nasty cold my hubby has.
Time until Midwinter: 2 days.
December 13, 2003 (8:30am)
So, I just gave up and felt defeated all day on the 11th. Took the fabric to work, but didn't touch it. Yesterday afternoon, I just said "oh, heck with it" and started cutting out the pieces. With such a frustrated feeling the other day, and already losing my attachment to this dress (and planning for the next one), I decided that I didn't want to do the interlining I'd done, so I also un-flatlined the lining and interlining. This way, I can use the interlining as a lining for the next one.
When I got home from work, I got busy on the sewing front. Got the bodice pieces mostly together fairly quickly. Got the skirt put together fairly quickly, except I made the period/right/stupid-time-wasting decision to handsew the front turn-unders (it's a split skirt in front), and that sucked up too much time. Then, I pinned together the bottom seam of the bodice - with the skirt in it. Getting the handful of tiny pleats in properly took too much time as well, but it came out great.
Then, with a fine grasp of topology, I rolled the skirt up from the hem to the waist seam, wrapped the bodice around the roll, and sewed the top seam of the bodice. Then, I pulled the skirt partway through the bodice-tube, and sewed one of the two front seams on the bodice. Finally, I pulled the skirt all the way out through the bodice-tube (turning the bodice right-side-out), and LA! My bodice-skirt are all sewn except for the other front seam, and the arm holes. (Yes, I tested this by pinning that top seam and pulling the skirt through before I sewed it.) This drastically limits the remaining handsewing.
I also got out my forepart and cheesy-hemmed the sides and bottom (ie, single turn, still raw edges). Then, I put on my hoopskirt, and a plain brown skirt over it. Then I safety-pinned the forepart to the plain brown skirt (and, actually, to the hoop skirt). It's not great, it's not right, but it'll work for today.
Then I began the saga of the sleeves. Which I managed to do entirely wrong, by the simple method of not having properly labelled which pieces were left-side, and which were right-side. Ooops. It was midnight at that point, so I just pressed through. I know they're wrong, but I bet nobody else will notice. After all, they'll be pinned back and stuff (which is why the sleeves have most of the bad fabric parts - mostly you see lining, not sleeve. But they're done, and waiting to be ironed and sewn into the armscye. I've got them properly labelled now, though, so that should help.
I still need to pattern and cut the undersleeves. Those "should" be fairly simple, though. Truncated football shapes, not that long. I probably won't get to decorate them at all. Oh, and I should probably do the plackety piece, but I'm leaving that to last, because it's most skip-able. I should put in fastenings on the bodice, but I'll probably just sew myself in for today.
Time to Midwinter: 4 hours. Time to get cracking, now that I'm awake.
December 13, 2003 (10:45am)
Well. The sleeves are set in, the hem is sewn, the front seam of the bodice is done (although the two sides somehow don't match in length! ARGH.). I need to do the sleeves. I'm pretty well resigned to not making the plackety piece and simply sewing myself in. As noted in the paintings, there are definitely front-closing gowns (although the patterns should match and don't. grr.)
So, at 11 am, after I toss together the sleeve (which looks simple), should I just get dressed and go, or should I put together an over-partlet? I don't have a proper chemise to go with this gown, so if I don't have a partlet, it's going to look weird(er). But, I don't know if I really have time for it. I'm only updating while I'm making my next cup of tea.
Time to Midwinter: 1.5 hours. I can probably push it to 2.5 if I have to.
December 13, 2003 (11:10pm)
I left the house at about 2:30pm, looking pretty damn good.
The sleeves, of course, weren't as simple as I'd hoped - sewing on the buttons (nonfunctional, but necessary) took a while, along with doing double-folded edges (so you couldn't see any raw edges). I'm going to have to take them apart later and narrow the cuffs - they're way too big. I borrowed the sleeves from my Civil War Dress of Doom for the fake chemise sleeves. I remain fairly well convinced that they must be fake - I had such a hard time getting my narrow-sleeved underdress sleeves through the upper sleeves that a big poofy chemise sleeve would never have made it. The whole affair was held on to the underdress sleeves with safety pins. Not period, but fast. I'll have to work out a better solution later.
I didn't have time for the overpartlet. I'm still not sure of a good pattern for it, so I put it off. I remembered, however, that I'd started on a partlet (under) a while ago for my Elizabethan. It wasn't quite ready, but I just tacked the collar on and it was "good enough for today".
I didn't have anything I really could do with my hair, besides just part it in the center and leave it down. Really, though, I looked pretty damn good, or so folks said. I caught a glimpse of myself in a window or two and they're right. I looked sooo right. I am so happy.
I didn't manage to get any pictures, but at least one person at the event did and promised to email them to me. Expect a new LJ icon when I get them. :)
January 5, 2004
I'm never content to wear such things once, and the crush of winter-time feast events gives me ample opportunity to keep improving my dresses, in theory. This time, the event was Caerthan 12th Night, and it was scheduled for January 3rd. Since it was so close to NYE, we decided to drive up there on the 31st of December and stay with friends.
Of course, after Midwinter, I just ignored the dress for nearly a week. It had served its purpose, right? Well, no. There were still several problems that needed to be addressed:
After that week or so, I decided I needed to start addressing these issues. So, again with my fine grasp of topology, I opened up the top seam on the back of the bodice. Then I pulled the waist and center front seams out of that hole, and tried to fix them. A complete pain in my ass, by the way, and relatively unsuccessful. The two center fronts are still not the same length, but at least they look cleaner. Then I handstitched the hole back shut.
Two nights before leaving, I tore apart the undersleeves and cut them down a bunch on both sides. I got them re-hemmed, but not the buttons put back on.
While there, we found occasion to go to Denver Fabrics (January 1 was a nice happy sale day), and I got inspired to make myself a new chemise - the unadvertised 30% sale on lightweight linen helped. So, I got myself 3 yards of tasty linen. I was also already planning to make myself a French Hood, and looked for the right fabrics for that, but was unsuccessful.
Friday morning, however, we went out to the Crafts Store and got the stuff I needed: plastic canvas, flannel to cover the plasticy-ness, a white satin remnant for the front, hem tape for the strap (yes, cheating, I'm sure), and an assortment of beads and wire and such for billiments. Then we went to the very dangerous Bead Store, where I was unable to resist two strings of freshwater pearls (partly because I had been completely unsuccessful in finding non-hideous fake pearls). I didn't find a decent black fabric for the veil, but Kat (who we were staying with) let me have a bit of black linen for it - thank you, Kat!
I spent about half an hour online looking at paintings, instructions, and patterns (especially Drea's Constructing a French Hood page), and then cut out a pattern from a paper bag and fitted it. It fitted just fine. Then I cut out the flannel pieces, used them to cut out the plastic canvas and hand sewed them all together (sandwiching the plastic between the flannel). Next, I hand-sewed on a bit of wire around the edge - I used 20ga beading wire, because I couldn't find millinary wire.
Then I used that to cut out the white satin front and the black linen back. I machine-sewed the satin to the linen, turned it right side out, slipped it over the plastic-and-flannel, and handsewed it shut. Next, I sewed on the chin strap - attached on one side, hook and eye on the other. Another fitting revealed that it fits just fine. I'm contemplating removing the hook and eye and just attaching it on both sides - it stayed tight on my head, and I could slip it on over my head without unhooking it.
Next, I cut a rectangle of that black linen for the veil and hemmed it. Then, I sewed most of it closed into an open-ended tube, and sewed the open end onto the hood part. After that fitting, I wasn't happy and closed the rest of it into a tube. I'm not sure that was a good idea, looking back on it - or it's just not a wide enough piece of fabric to quite fit on my head that way. I also discovered (at the event), that the veil is too long/heavy - it'll need to be shortened or made of something different.
Then it was time to go - I didn't have time for those billiments I wanted. Happily, Kat also gave me an Elizabethan chemise she had - said she wasn't going to wear it again! Thank you again, Kat! I need to sew her something nice in exchange, but I'm not sure what.
Again, I am slacking on pictures, but I looked so good at the event. I still had to sew myself into the bodice, but that wasn't any big deal. Every time I saw myself in a reflective surface, I was again struck with how nearly I look like a painting. The hat was totally worth it - it made a huge difference.