The Tudor Rework

Well, it's been a while since I've posted, so time for an update on the latest project. I'll go back later on and add a blog with some other things I've been working on in the meantime.

Our Highness asked for a rework of an old Tudor gown she made, for the Atlantian Twelfth Night event in Mid-January. Below are some pictures of the gown as I received it.

 The over skirt. On a solid waistband stiffened with plastic. Silver machine embroidery stitch down the edges. Decorative clasp on waist.

 Close up of the embroidery and decorative clasp.

The bodice. Machine embroidery top and bottom, Silver fleur and plain white pearl beads. 

 Close up on bead/embroidery work.

 Center Fleur-de-lis

 The sleeves. The arm hole should be readjusted for much greater drape. 

 Close up of embroidery on turned back cuff.

 Attachment of sleeve to bodice and embroidery.

False sleeve. 

False sleeve cuff.

Forepart, with bead work down front panel.

There's going to be a fair amount of reworking going into this dress. The plan is to remove all the machine embroidery from the bodice and heavily embellish the top of the bodice with trim work and beading. The fleur in the center will be gold-couched and have small beads applied to the points. The skirt panel will have thick decorative trim added down both front sides, to match the embellishments on the bodice top. The sleeves will be attached directly onto the arms of the dress, and the embroidery on the sleeves will be covered with matching decorative work also. The skirt has been removed from the waistband and will be attached directly to the bodice with a panel in the bank for ease of getting into and out of the gown. Some minor fit adjustments in the neck and shoulder area, as well as a repair to a couple of split seams will be finished as well.

The under-sleeves will be remade to better fit underneath the drop sleeves, as the sleeves would suit the false sleeves much better if they had a significantly larger drape. As they are fairly tight fitting, cut sleeves in the french style will be made to go underneath. The possible choices for the under sleeves fabric are:

The left is a cream, with a natural gold/brown work, and pale blue fleurs. The design in this would complement the forepart. The right is a gold brocade weave, which would also go nicely with the dark navy of the gown.

The trims selected are shown below, accented on either side with a plain gold braid trim. The trim  will ornament the top of the bodice, the front of the skirt, and most likely the sleeve cuffs. 

This gold braided trim will line either side of the above decorated trim, and embellish the neck line, sleeve cuffs and front edges of the skirt.

It's going to be an intensive project as I've got about a two week window to get it together and reworked, as well as some adjustments of fit to the shoulders and bodice.

Looking forward to getting it done, and getting some shots of it on our Princess :)


~ E.

Commission in Progress - Red Coat

Well, the red military coat is slowly coming together. This project has definitely been a learning experience. The entire thing was patterned and cut out in about 2 hours Monday night, and then I spent another hour starting to sew it together and work the seams. The pattern required some minor adjustments as it's loosely based off a Simplicity costuming pattern for Neo's coat from the Matrix. It's been shortened to just below the knee, and a lot of the extra "Floaty" fabric taken out.

Based on the costume from Zulu Wars, the idea is a final piece somewhat resembling this: 

I've had to simplify the sleeve design some, as flat stitching cording onto the sleeve proved rather daunting. The entire coat is cut out of duck-weight red cotton, and the sleeve is black linen along the cuff attached with a satin stitch. Next time I do something like this, I'll use a light weight interfacing as there's a little puckering, but that should be able to be ironed out and lay flat once it's lined. So far, the sleeve is like so....

The patterning on the decals are slightly different, but the idea was to get the same look without killing myself on time spent. The thick band is a piece of trim, zig-zag stitched down, and the twist cording at the bottom is piping cord, also free stitched down. I think I'm going to add one more band of the cording above the loop at the elbow, and call the sleeves good.

The second piece that is completed is the collar, and ready to be attached to the garment. It's black linen, red cotton duck, and a liner of stabilizer in between. It's worked together with edge piping, as I discovered a nifty way to do that, and then the trim was flat stitched on top. 

The collar looks huge, but it's for a man that is bigger than me, and should fit pretty nicely when it's worked together. I tested fit on my boyfriend and it looks much more proportional on him! 

As for attaching piping, I found a great resource online at http://www.designsponge.com/2010/06/sewing-101-piping.html

It outlines a step by step. You start by attaching the piping the "wrong way" to the OUTSIDE of the garment.

Clipping corners as necessary to go around curves, you then stitch with a zipper foot as close to the piping as possible along the outside edge. 

This leaves a line on the back side of the garment where the stitches are. Lay the other piece, insides to insides, over top of the stitching. Align the edges, flip everything over, and sew down the same stitch line you made attaching the piping. When it's all attached and you flip it right side out, voila, beautiful clean piping. 

Tonight I'm taking a break from sewing and going to my first Zumba class. If I'm not too tired when I get home, I'll be working on sewing together and attaching the liner to this thing ;-)

~E.

Corset Finished and New Commissions

Well, the pair of bodies is finally almost finished. I need to reinforce the lace holes and add shoulder ties, and then it's ready to wear. It was a serious project but I'm glad to be done with it and looking forward to wearing it. I'll snap a finished picture of it here soon. I put all the boning in and got it on for a test fit, safety pinning the straps down. I decided after I had it on and looked at it some that I had originally cut my boning a little too long, I thought they might be a bit too close to the seam edge after finishing so I trimmed them back. After taking about a 1/4in off each boning strip, it was time to sew the entire thing shut. I used a backstitch with buttonhole thread to sew the edges together. Below you can see the backstitching around the edge, and then I've tacked on the bias tape to one side of it.

After the entire thing was sewn around on one side with bias tape, I was ready to flip it over and start finishing the outside. This piece was attached by whipstitching it on the inside first. Next time I'll open the bias tape all the way and straight stitch it on the outside so that the stitches are hidden in the fold. Learning experience ;-)

There's the entire thing with the outside stitched down. Below you can see what is the outside, with much smaller and a little neater stitching as that side is visible.

I'm glad to be done with this project, or at least mostly done. There's probably 30 hours or so of sewing into it while sitting on the couch, driving in the car or on my breaks at work.

Next up is more work on the over gown, which I'm dying to get finished. I've currently got two commissions which I'm looking forward to working on, although one of them is taking precedence over my gown at the moment. The first project is one that I can take a little more time with, it will be a Norse style banner with an appliqued raven. The second is a reproduction of a Zulu coat for Dragoncon this year. It's very blatantly based off a British Redcoat, but with a bit more embellishments. 

SO. Wish me luck ;-)

~E

The Red Dress

After my first little hand sewing project, a short shoulder cloak with a small hood, I realized that hand sewing really isn't the end of the world. I had previously bought some fabric and trim to start a late period Spanish gown, and decided I would try and hand sew the entire outfit. The dress is inspired by one of Anne of Austria's gowns, when she reigned as Queen of Spain. The portrait it is based on was painted by Alonso Sanchez-Coello in 1571.

The Spanish doublet style front, and false sleeves are a look I find very flattering, and as I wasn't able to get any extra yardage of fabric I opted for that cut, as the sleeves are very conservative in terms of how much fabric they use. I selected a very pretty burgundy and sage green beaded trim, with gold embroidered trim edging the beaded trim to give a similar look to that in the portrait. I am very much looking forward to seeing the progress on this beast as it comes together!

After drafting the pattern with much assistance from my Laurel, and much erasing as I am apparently not great at measuring, I was ready to get started. We figured that with careful cutting I would have enough fabric to cartridge pleat the skirt onto the bodice, and decided on a pattern for trim application.

I started working on the trim application a few days ago, and I'd say have about 15 hours of sewing into this dress so far. I decided on a chevron pattern as the trim is costly, and this is my first attempt. Here is the front of the bodice:

It was a trick getting the edges to line up, and deciding what angle and how much space in between for the chevrons. Because they extend to the seam line on the side of the bodice, I'll have to sew coordinating ones along the back too. Below is the main trim before the gold is added.

And another after sewing on the two pieces of gold thread. Both trims were hand stitched on using a whip stitch, evenly spaced along the edges of the main trim, and down both sides of the gold trim catching the thread in each loop. Very time consuming, but has been a good process so far. I'm using just a basic sewing needle, and Coats & Clark All Purpose cotton thread, stiffened with beeswax. There appears to be a tiny bit of puckering along the trim lines but I'm hoping that will clear up as soon as it's ironed.

So far I have the right side of the doublet completed, and the thick trim on the left side. Hoping to get both front sides finished tonight but we'll see how that goes.

Total sewing time to date: About 15 hours

In the beginning...

Well, here we go. My first attempt and keeping a costuming blog, or rather any blog at all for that matter. I've been in the Society for Creative Anachronism for a few years now, and have been attempting to keep track of my sewing and costuming projects since I started. I've come a long way since my first Simplicty gowns and arguing with my sewing machine, to finishing my first hand sewn project - a small hood - last weekend and deciding to attempt a fully hand sewn dress. It's been fun for me to keep photographs of everything and be able to go back and look, so I am hoping with this blog I will be able to keep a more detailed diary of my projects.

And without any further ado, pictures! This was my VERY FIRST dress. And man, was it a struggle.

I learned when creating this dress that there are tiny little pieces called gussets which go in the armpit of the dress, that you -really- should remember to sew into your dress if you plan to do crazy things, you know, like lift your arms above your waist. Needless to say after much frustration, and getting closely acquainted with my seam ripper, the dress was complete and I was ready for my first event. I made two others that weekend from the same pattern, and they were glooooorious, or so I thought ;-)

At the end of the day they served the purpose great, and were period enough to not raise any issues at my first few events. As I spent more time in the SCA I was able to learn more about the different styles of garb, different time periods that were popular, and get some wonderful advice on sewing that it would take me years to accept as truth.

This past spring I was able to apprentice to a very talented costumer in our Kingdom of Trimaris, and I am honored to be her associate. I am very much looking forward to growing my skills and abilities, and hope to document my progress here!