chargirlgenius

So, despite my medical malaise today, I forced myself to make progress on my dress. Once a project is on the table, I can sew through anything. But it takes a special alignment of the planets to get me to start anything. Anybody else like that?

Here is the fabric and lining. This is the 1470s V-neck gown:


(Since hardly anybody actually posts on LJ/DW anymore, does anybody actually care if there's an uncut reasonably-sized picture anymore?)

From me and from others:

( My boys, taken by me )

( Pics of the Veil, taken by ichseke )

I need to take a lot more process pictures, but this gives an idea of how the frilled veil is going.

(Geeking planning post here for DW or here for LJ)

( pictures below the cut )

I have the first frill entirely attached and arranged into order. The ends aren't done, as I haven't thought about how I want to finish it up yet. The second frill is about a quarter of the way attached. It actually goes a lot more quickly than I thought it would - especially since I'm not ripping it off three times like I did at Pennsic.

For every one thing I cross off of my pre-Pennsic list, I seem to add two more. Things are getting done, though. I got Jeff’s doublet put together over the weekend, took in two dresses, did a bunch of ironing, and planned out a frilled veil. More details on that below.

I think I have enough clothes. Well, there’s never enough, but it’ll do. :-D Right now my problem is deciding what to wear and when. Tuesday is the roughest day. The St. Michael’s tournament is in the afternoon, with a time period of 1410. That’s from 4-6. I have another engagement at 6pm. The Armour Archive gathering is at 8pm. Then after that, I want to visit Sir Gaston’s new new Pennsic House housewarming party. The trouble is, I have the perfect outfit for the 1410 St. Michael’s Tournament. I also have the perfect outfit for Sir Gaston’s Pennsic house, which has some late 15th c. decoration elements in it. They are not the same outfit. I have no time to change!

Not just a first world problem, a first world geek gentry problem.

In other news, I started planning a frilled veil, that I may try to cut and work on at Pennsic. Along with the five other things that I’d like to work on at Pennsic. In any case, I wrote out my explanation and justification last night to send out to the La Belle list, but I figured I might as well post it here as well. I’m open to commentary and constructive criticism!

( Frilled veil geekiness )

I have a piece of fabric I bought almost 10 years ago. It’s beautiful stuff – 90% silk, 10% linen, creamy brocade with little gold fleurs-de-lis on it. It’s a perfect fabric for a sumptuous 14th century dress. I’ve been hanging on to it for a long time, waiting for just the right project. After a while, fabric speaks to you, and tells you what it wants to be.

The problem with figuring out what I wanted to make was that I only had five yards, it’s single direction, and only about 45 inches wide. I could squeak out a 14th century dress with short sleeves, but the gores would definitely have to go the wrong way, and I couldn’t get over that. I know I should, it’s fine, but it was a mental block. I wanted this fabric to turn into a *perfect* dress.

I pulled the fabric out at the La Belle meeting, since we were talking about spiffing stuff up. After admiring it, I decided to check the yardage. I unfolded it, and it’s more like 54” wide! WIN!

Then I started measuring length. Yard after yard I pulled out. After yard after yard. Er, I have almost EIGHT YARDS of it! Not five!

This is why we let fabric age. It GROWS!

Now, I still am left with a decision on what to make out of it. I need to find some similarly colored gold silk for the lining. A white lining makes the dark stripe of the gold show on the right side. An orange silk lining shows through the light parts and also looks striped. And now that I have EIGHT YARDS of it, I have to decide if I want to make a short sleeved 1380s gown with tippets, and have the gores all run the right way, or make a 1410s gown with floor length flap sleeves (or even something fuller), and never mind the gores.

FABRIC GROWS!

First off, where on earth are the two spools of silk thread I bought two weeks ago? ARGH.

Secondly, I love the new gown that I made for my Lady Joan outfit. I love the color, I love the fact that it's very light weight wool and I'll be comfy in it even on hot days, and I love all of those damned buttons.

But I'm afraid that it doesn't drape very well in the skirt. I dunno, maybe I need to line it, but I don't think that would even really do the trick. I might rip out a couple of the seams and see if I can fix it by stretching the bias edge more or less. But since it's *really* lightweight wool, it just kind of floats... sticks to stuff. It just didn't really hang.

Maybe I'm being too picky, but I'm going to be a bit self-indulgent about it. Only because I can't find the silk with which I have to finish the seams. Gr.


( ETA: Ok, I'll be even more self-indulgent and add some pics. )

Sunday is Easter. It's also the next scheduled sewing day. (Last time and the next time conflict with LH events.) Most of the Easter stuff we do is in the morning, so we'd still be happy to host sewing in the afternoon, hang out with friends, etc.

If we had sewing day, would anybody come?

(  He’s wearing pants! )

Stuff left to do:
Take pictures of how the points were sewn in.
Readjust the chest padding
The quilting is every two inches. It needs to be every inch.
Finish quilting around all of the seams.
Add eyelets up the entire wrist opening.
Add a collar for protection.

You could take that to mean “the stuff in between the lining and the hemp”, or to mean the stuff that I did between posting pictures a month ago and last week. :-D

I’ve finished uploading pictures to the Arming Cote Picture Gallery. There might be some rearranging yet, but most of what’s going to be there is there.

During crunch time, I didn’t actually post that many pictures or describe my thought process much. Since I documented the heck out of everything else, I’d like to make it a complete garment diary.

I’m breaking this up into several posts, since there are a LOT of pictures in here.
(  Starting to pad and quilt the upper sleeve  )