Sempstress

This was a commissioned costume for a very nice fellow who
is playing Robert Cecil, the incredibly cranky hunchback. The costume was a
challenge on a couple of levels. The most obvious is that the actor wanted to
actually have a hunchback, which means that I got to make, and draft all my
patterns around, a prosthesis (ie, “oddly shaped little shoulder pillow”). That
wasn’t so much of a problem with the weskit (the red bit that you barely see
behind the black slashed doublet), but it was a royal pain in the patoot for
the doublet. See, the doublet has very long vertical slashes across the chest
and back. If you’re machining something like that, it’s easiest to make up a
bunch of separate panes and attach them to each other where they are supposed
to be attached. There are three slashes on either side of the chest and back,
making for a total of 15 pieces on the body of the doublet. Each of these pieces
is lined, which means they are all sewn right side to right side with their
linings, then turned. The right and left sides of the doublet are completely
different shapes and somewhat different sizes. And I *cannot* tell left from
right to save my life. (Honestly. I have to take my hands off the wheel and
do the “Left makes an L” think to follow directions while driving.) Needless
to say, the doublet involved about 15 nervous breakdowns and a lot of double
checking. I was doing very well until I suddenly realized that I had done an
entire set of panes backwards, started ripping things out, then realized that
that was the *back* section of the doublet and backwards was, technically, correct.
I really have to get a handle on that left and right thing…..

The costume consists of a weskit (semi-boned underdoublet)
in dark red wool crepe, the doublet, which is black wool pique trimmed with
matte silver soutache, sleeves, which are made of black fine wool and edged
with silver cord, venetians, which are of the same wool as the sleeves and have
a stripe of black velvet edged in red velveteen running down each side (the
stripe on the right conceals a pocket), and a nearly full circle, knee length
black velvet surcoat with a red velveteen turnback edged with matt silver braid.
There was a surprisingly large amount of handwork on this costume – the edges
of the weskit are neatened by hand, the doublet hem was completed by hand and
several panes in the doublet had to be edged by hand, the cording on the sleeves
had to be attached by hand, and of course, armscyes are almost always done by
hand (this was no exception) and the hook and eye tape on the weskit and doublet
was secured to the front edges of the respective garments by hand. There’s also
a hat and one of those silly nightcap looking coif thingies that go with this
costume, but I was a doofus and did not bring them to the dress rehearsal where
these pictures were taken. I’ll get more pictures with those later.

There’s all sorts of info on how this was put together in the
diary I kept while making the
dress. (Well, mostly I kept up with it. Until I got distracted by the actual
sewing part, that is….)

The basics go like this: It’s a big silvery yellow brocade
dress, in a roughly venetian style that feels pretty risque to wear. (And risky
— that bodice is on pretty sturdily, and never budged even a scosh, but I couldn’t
shake the feeling that it was about to fall off.) There’s a bit of stiffening
built into the bodice, which is worn open at the front, over the chemise. (I’d
love to tell you that I made a special camacia for this one, but, frankly, I
was busy working on the sleeves.) The sleeves are basically two spiraling panes
each. Having tried this, I’m not sure I recommend it. They do look kinda cool,
though.

As always, I will at some point try to get a better set of pictures. Honest.

I was playing around with the idea of doing reverse applique in leather when
I made this — it’s more of a test piece than anything. The technique itself
was used in period, and is seen on a suit of men’s clothing in Patterns of
Fashion (Janet Arnold). It’s really not, to my knowledge, a peasant thang.
But I was doing up a series of experiments of various construction methods and
detail/decoration techniques, and trying to work out what level of detail I
could do using a sewing machine to apply the leather and standard scissors to
cut away the design was part of that. I’ve worked out over the years that it’s
more than a little silly to start an experiment with plans for a full noble
gown, so now I end up doing completely unreasonable things with peasant bodices,
which have the advantage of being fast and easy. This one is a lightly boned
bodice made of, erm, two layers of cotton duck that I dyed at some point, and
an interlining of muslin (just to give me something to make boning cases with).
There is boning that goes all the way from the front to the back over the
shoulders, which keeps the straps from slipping around. I like that. I fuss
with straps constantly when the droop — mine, other people, random strangers,
it doesn’t matter. I’m on some sort of subconscious jihad against droopy
straps.

The skirts are pretty well just skirts. The green one is pleated
onto a waist band, and the blue one is just a drawstring waist. (The weave on
that blue stuff is tight enough that both my serger and my sewing machine refused
to go through three layers of the stuff, which rather made pleating it a non-option.)
Neither of them is even hemmed — I just ripped the fabric to length (literally
ripped, btw — that’s the fastest, most efficient way of getting a length of
yardage straight on the grain for an even weave fabric, and a good stress relief
to boot). The chemise actually have pretty elaborately embroidered sleeves,
courtesy of an old bed sheet that I picked up at a garage sale years ago. I’ve
got it work tucked up in the shoulder straps of the bodice. Either it was really
hot out when the picture was taken, or I had put the sleeves up to keep them
out of my way while I was doing something and never put them back down, or maybe
I was trying to even out my driver’s tan. I have no idea. And I was apparently
having a fantastic breast day. ;)

The posed picture was taken by the peerless href="http://www.liesofbrian.com">Brian
Morton, an all around great guy and fantastic magician who doesn’t visit
bristol enough (was that subtle enough, brian?). He refused to take the picture
until I smiled for it.

Playtrons of the Bristol Faire have embraced the tradition of having
a “Day of Wrong” — where the idea is to wear something totally wrong, especially as compared to what you would normally wear. It’s sort of a chance to bust out a little and make something in a different style, weird people out, and what have you. Read the rest of this entry »

At the end of the 2005 faire season, Bristol announced to it’s
cast/crew/the rest of us schmucks that the theme for 2006 would be "nautical….
Be prepared for a surprise!" Well, gosh darn it all if the decision wasn’t
made to add a pack of pirates, replete with a very cute (if kinda quiet) Grace
O’Malley, to the cast that already includes a fleet of fairies and Robin Hood
with assorted Merry Men. Pirates. *Pirates* Consider my timbers duly shivered.
It was a dark period for this little costumer, and I took a few months to go
through the official stages of grief over a personal betrayal – anger, denial,
anger, outrage, anger, depression, anger, hysterical laughter, anger, careful
consideration of the situation, anger, re-adjustment of personal expectations,
annoyance, planning, slight pissiness, plotting, vague glee, deciding that this
could totally work for my personal benefit, and acceptance. (If you just read
that, and you’re not at all italian, you’re probably thinking that I have a
hell of a temper. Ok, so you’re right. But if you grew up with my mother, you’d
know that staying angry is good, because it gives you the energy to plot and
do something constructive with a situation. ;) It’s not evil…. It’s pragmatic.)

So my dreams of belonging to a historically accurate faire suffered
the mental equivalent of a viking raid, mongol invasion, and roman rulership.
No biggie.

From the all that came a new way of looking at the faire situation
— one that included cool, easy to move in costumes for hot days, costumes that
don’t need full corsets, corked drinking vessels so I don’t spill my wine, er,
water when I trot off to something, reversible peasant costumes so I don’t have
to pack two costumes…. I kinda liked all those ideas. I was happy with them.
I wanted to share them with people. I wanted to embrace the new freedom and
get everyone into it, and encourage people to make the best non-elizabethan
costumes they could make. Heh. And the Faire let me, which is pretty amazing.
So 2006 was the first year of the Friends of Faire Costume Contests — a set
of one-day costume contests for non-Elizabethan costumes. We did one for pirates,
one for barbarians, and one for fairies. It was great. It was a hoot. We had
the best MCs in the history of *EVER* for it (the Fairy Godmothers of Bristol),
our contestants were totally cool and wanted to play with the MCs (well, ok,
several of the barbarians wanted to roast the MCs, but that was a simple misunderstanding
about whether or not fairies were Good Eats), and the shows got a large and,
ultimately, totally entertained audience.

Of course, any self-respecting costumer with a costume contest
to run needs costumes to go with the theme, right? ;) You knew there was an
excuse to get more costumes out of this somehow…. So I needed a pirate costume.
And even though I may think that a certain movie pirate is hotter than the inside
of my corset in august, I didn’t want to look like another temporally displaced
Caribbean pirate. I looked around at the (few) period images of lower end nautical
types I could find. I did a little reading. I came to the conclusion that pirates
of most ages wore about what their people would wear, only dirtier, and periodically
replaced worn garments with, well, whatever they found on others. There was
no Pirate Mall, selling the newest Pirate Fashion. Go fig. That was a totally
unhelpful bit of research. So I busted out my handy-dandy Vecellio book, and
looked for period female costumes with a general "pirateyness" to
them. I settled on the Peasant Woman of Gaeta, for a couple reasons. First off,
Gaeta is a port town on the western coast of Italy, round abouts the middle.
Part of my family is from round abouts that region. (Yes, I’m seriously playing
fast and loose with the geography here.) Secondly, I really like the little
coat she’s wearing. It’s close enough to the lines we’re used to seeing in movies
and associating with pirates — the collar is close to the 17th/18th century
lines we’re used to seeing in pirate vests, you get the bit of shirt at the
top (because pirates always have a bit of whatever anyone else would consider
an underthing showing, or are shown devoid of normal underthings…. I think
the idea is to show that they don’t follow normal rules of decency, but the
idea is sort of lost in a society that’s come to associate that "look,
here’s my undies" with sexy, instead of skanky.) I changed out the long
sleeves for the short, split sleeve seen in several of Vecellio’s Venetian woodcuts.
The trim pattern is a deliberate nod towards the accepted "movie pirate"
school of costume.

The shirt is simply an old linen one that I had lying around,
that had too many small tears to work with a good costume. It’s worn over a
very light weight corset. I’d meant to make a lightly boned bodice to go between
the coat and the shirt, but I never quite got there. The pants are a set of
very wide legged, striped one-hour wonders. (Cut two lengths of fabric to length
of pants. With layers together, cut something vaguely crotch shaped out of the
center. Sew crotch. Sew side seams on legs. Use hooks and eyes to make two really
big pleats in front, to a) make pants fit and b) give you a way in and out of
the darn things. Viola. If you’re me, you go back and make all those into french
seams.) I actually wore a heavy red skirt over the pants most of the time, but
the darn thing kept getting in my way. In frustration, midway through the season,
I tore it straight up the back seam, so it was open fore and aft. If you’re
supposed to be portraying a rather rough character who has to get around in
a hurry without a fuss (like, you have to keep jumping over benches, etc), it’s
a solution that totally works, and still looks like a decent skirt when you’re
standing still. My hair is braided and tied up and back with a braided belt
I got on clearance at Target, and I’m wearing a pile of necklaces my friend
Lynn and I made earlier in the day.

The really faboo little ceramic jug came from a potter at the
St. Louis ren fest, and is fabulous. First off, if you’re carrying a little
jug like that, people automatically assume you’re half sloshed at all times,
so you can act a total nut and people think it’s hilarious. Second off, ceramic
happens to keep things cold, and the cork on the jug keeps them in. And, sure,
the jug holds roughly roughly 2/3rds of a bottle of wine, but it also holds
half a large jug of Smart Water (the stuff with electrolytes but no sugar).
Between the two, I’m a happy girl. Oh, right, and if I really want to, I can
wear a proper bra with this, and no one is the wiser…. ;) Teehee. I feel like
such a naughty girl for that…..

My sweetie is involved with a faire Playtron group called The
Outlanders. They wanted to get together a group "look", and at some
point the idea that Dominic was (and still is) dating a seamstress came up.
After some talking and going back and forth on design possibilities (and vocabulary
— medieval is just not my period of expertise), we settled on doing the surcoats
in Ultrasuede and linen. Now, I know that a lot of people out there are really
opposed to faux-leathers for costuming purposes, but there are some serious
advantages. For one thing, unlike natural cows, Ultrasuede comes in a predictable
width and shape. There are no thin areas to work around. You can chuck it into
the wash. It never needs to be oiled. The colors are predictable and lightfast.
Did I mention the part about being able to chuck it into the wash? I do snuggle
up to one of these guys. Odor eradication is a serious consideration. ;)

All the fancy-pants insignia stuff if dome with reverse applique,
exposing a linen lining. Here’s a lesson worth learning from someone else’s
experience: always ask to see all the designs first. And insist that
you have the right to negotiate them. After this first batch of coats, I informed
everyone else in the group who wants one (yes, there are more coming) that there
would be an additional charge for heraldic beasts and arachnids. *grumble* Seriously.
Take a look at the pic on the far right. Sewing them was a challenge, but the
real hard part turned out to be cutting the darn things out without cutting
the backing. This turned out to be a serious foul language project. Since a
lot of my sewing time was gobbled up by hospital visits while I was trying to
get them done, my mother offered to help. I think she thought I was just pissing
about how annoying something so apparently simple could be. She learned, though.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard some of those words come out of my mother’s mouth
before…. They turned out well, though.

There were four surcoats in the original order. The fellow to
whom the scorpion belongs wasn’t there when I took the group shots. Hopefully,
I’ll have a picture of his soon. And there will be more coming, with pictures
to follow. And yes, at least one of those has a heraldic creature. :(

After a lot of sewing for other people, I wanted to sew for
me. I *needed* to sew for me. I’d been wearing the same dress most of the season.
It was driving me buggy. I’d started a new set of pretty undies a while back,
started a diary for them,
and gotten no where. In sort of a fit, I finished the corset and corded petticoat
— badly. In another sort of fit, I tore all the cording out of the corded petticoat,
which makes it a, well, petticoat. ‘Nuff Said. I also found out that things
had grown, and my corset no longer fit as designed. (It wasn’t my waist this
time, which I suppose is good.) I made up a nice, simple black kirtle (more
or less from my own draping
instructions — I really do things that way). The whole skirt is pleated
onto the bodice with knife pleats — singles in front, progressively more stacked
on top of each other as they approach the center back. It’s worn over my old
corded petticoat, and the newly uncorded one. I think the silhouette, especially
at the sides, turned out quite nicely.

The sleeves are actually the legs of a pair if ludicrously
small pants I bought forever ago (I really liked the silk jacquard, and they
were all of 5$). They’re caught with buttons and handstitched button-loops (all
bar-tacked — ain’t that fancy?). I swear I had a close-up of the sleeves taken,
but I can’t find it. That’s what happens when you let your web updates sit for
several months.