The Bliaut
The next step in this project, as I was awaiting Daniel coming up for a test fit, was to start work on Ennelynne's bliaut. I have several inspirations for this piece, but am striving to make as historical of a reproduction as possible.
The bliaut will be out of black linen, with red beading and gold stencil embellishments. The neck lining and arm bands, as well as the lining of the sleeves will be made with red linen. I have so far sewn and pinned the maunches, and cut out the dress.
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| The body of the gown, cut and pinned |
I'll be hand sewing most of the edging on this dress, and am honestly toying with the idea of hand sewing the entire thing. I've doubled the edges all around in order to attach the binding for where the lacing will be, and I think it will just look better and be more accurate if the entire thing is hand stitched together. I have to do all the actual sewing on the edges, they are just pinned and pressed at the moment, but I think the extra time will be worth it for the finished product. Plus, rolling seams around curves is so much easier by hand.
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| Long side seam, pinned and pressed |
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| Curved armpit seam, pinned and pressed |
I also cut out and assembled the maunches (the draped sleeves) for this gown, and they are fully lined. They are pinned, pressed, and awaiting their hand finishing. All the evidence I've seen on this gown is that these portions were assembled separately, and then bound together above the elbow with the seam generally covered by some sort of decorative trim. This allows the main body of the over gown to lace from hip, along the body to this elbow seam providing a close customized fit.
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| Maunch, showing lining and pinning |
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| Maunch, note the square shape |
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| Entire gown, laid out flat to show proportions |
The gown is laid out in it's entirely here, and you can see how long the maunches are in comparison to the rest of the garment and the body. I had a hard time guessing what length to make these, so it really is a guess. I found a few photographs of other bliauts that people had made and guestimated where I thought the sleeves would end based on where they hang when the wearers had their hands at their waist. Hopefully it all comes together and looks nice when it's finished.
I'm a little bit worried that the arm hole on the maunches is going to be too tight for Ennelynne's arms, as I believe hers are slightly bigger than mine and I know that she likes more movement in her garments. With the lining and over the under tunic the sleeves fit on me, but they are tight. Worst case scenario I can add a small amount of stretch when I bind the two together by sewing a small gore into the seam and covering it with the binding for the upper arm.
I'm excited to get home and keep sewing on this project ;-)
-E
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