...8 months since I posted last or did anything sewing wise. Much has happened since the girls graduated. Heather left for college in August 07, and Holly had a baby December 16th. He's my little prince and if I'm not careful, the biggest time waster in my life.
Anyway, I just purchased Margo Anderson's patterns and can't wait to start sewing again. I realized I really suck at trying to draft my own patterns. So hopefully I will get much more accomplished with these patterns.
I am also working on some A&S projects for Mid Winter A&S. A few simple 15th & 16th century jewelry items. I have 2 weeks to get those together...yay.

OK...going to to the family thing today, my hubby, my grandbaby, 2 of my daughters and one of their boyfriends....

Tags: 16th century, jewelry, sca, sewing
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: grumpy
Current Music: none

Just a little...time flies when you are having fun. Its been insane the past 6 months. I did get the Eleanor of Toledo done...its not great. I have to make some adjustments to it. Once graduation is over I will get back to sewing!!
More later!!!

Tags: historical costume, sewing
Current Mood: blah

Dec 1 - I would have to say that this is my absolute favorite dress of all the late period Italian portraits. It epitomizes what I call “the princess dress” that I used to envision when I was a child. I can remember fantasizing of being a princess, and making drawings of me as a princess and they looked very similar to this dress. Of course it was always pink with lots of white lace, but hey I was 8! So I decided for The Festival of the Golden Lily, which is our event we host in February, that I would have a very special dress. Now mind you, this is the first time I have taken on a project like this and will probably do many things wrong…but its just like me to go for the most difficult thing first! So, its Dec. 1 and I have about 12 weeks!

Foundation Garments- I have already started on the corset or “pair of bodies”. I used The corset pattern generator here: http://www.elizabethancostume.net/custompat/
I used canvas and a pretty peach colored jacquard for the top. I pretty much followed the instructions from this site on how to construct the corset, so I’ll let you read that instead of explaining all here. My corset laces up the front only because I may not always have somebody to help me lace up the back. Also, I am using the standard criss crossing lacing as opposed to ladder or spiral lacing. I’m fairly big busted and just felt more secure using this type of lacing. I used grommets and will cover them with thread using the button hold stitch. For the boning, I used large, heavy duty plastic cable ties. They are durable…and cheap. The lacing is from Wal-Mart…I love Wal-Mart. Anyway, the corset came out a little big at first, even after I sewed in the channels and inserted the boning. It should have at least a 2 inch gap in the front and mine had about ½” so it didn’t tighten up as tight as it needed to be to hold the …ummm…”girls” in. So I have removed some boning and took it in a bit on the sides. I haven’t yet tried it on with it laced up yet, but hopefully this did the trick.




Dec 3 – Unfortunately, my last trick didn’t work. So I removed the first set of grommets…I just cut the whole section right off. I removed the next strip of boning and put new grommets in. Also, my digital camera has decided to go caput. I guess I will be purchasing a disposable and get them developed onto a disk.

I am planning on building a ropa to go over this dress, similar to the one in Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion (p. 118) with the pleats in the back. Well I had found some brown jacquard at my favorite place on the $1.00/yard table and bought 12 yards of it. It would have been perfect. I tried to dye it with black Rit and it didn’t even hold the dye. It came out as brown as it went in.

Dec 11-The last alteration of the corset worked...it actually looks pretty good if I do say so myself! And no, you will NOT see pictures of me in the corset. I refuse to be responsible for anybody having to go into therapy. After I got the corset finished right, I fitted a sloper of the bodice with the help of my daughter Heather. She's my sewing buddy. We had to make just a few small adjustments to the back piece but all in all it came out good. I am using the bodice pattern from Patterns of Fashion. I have to back peddle a bit, first we did a duct tape pattern, again with Heather's help (she's amazing, I'll tell about her in another post). I used that to make a muslin pattern, from which I made the sloper from. Then using the sloper, I made another pattern out of muslin that now is a perfect fit. Tonight I cut out the bodice and back pieces out of my fabric, canvas and lining. I will scan the fabric tomorrow...and I'm using a 100% cotton for the lining. I know it should be linen, but with 3 teenagers, I have to cut corners. Just as a side note, I never said I was making this dress using period techniques....I am doing it in period "style"..this being my very first project of this caliber I want to "practice" first. Then someday I will attempt it using period techniques and materials. Back to the bodice: I basted the canvas and lining together, then sewed that, right sides together to the fabric. And there it sits. I will do another seam over the first one for strength. Then trim and turn it tomorrow...I'm exhausted.

Good night!

Current Mood: accomplished

I just created this account so I could have an easy way to record my garb projects. I am the Guild Leader of the Shire of Beauforts Sewing Guild. I am trying to promote more garb study and creation within our group since we have quite a few new members. Hopefully by recording my dress diaries, this will inspire my dear shirelings to do the same.

I have started a late period Italian, based off of the Eleanor of Toledo dress. I will post more later when I get home from work. I just can't believe with all the security at work I could even get onto the LJ site!!!

Ciao!