The first rough concept sketch
The underdress design and notes
Overdress A: the Louise de Lorraine knock off
Overdress B: the semifitted surcoat, or flanders gown(?)
First fitting of the skirt front: note the deep U-shaped wrinkles
The front with a top tuck on the left to eliminate the wrinkles on that side
The back of the skirt - no surprises here
Transferring pleating and center marks to the waistband
Trimming the hemline at ground level
Trimming the hemline at ground level
Continuing to trim - notice how the skirt now falls correctly
Starting to drape the doublet pieces
The rough piecing of the back of the doublet, with a few notes to myself scribbled on
The more or less finished front of the muslin
Cutting the skirt pieces from the muslin pattern
Marking the cartridge pleats
The three layers of the skirts (lining, flannel, and silk) cut, assembled, and ready to be joined at the top
All those blasted little pleats, joined with the waist band
The back of the unhemmed skirts
The skirt front, with the two large pleats pinned in
Cutting the pieces for the muslin mockup of the doublet
The skirt, half hemmed and trimmed
The front of the dress, fully hemmed and trimmed
The back of the dress, fully hemmed and trimmed
The side of the dress, fully hemmed and trimmed. This view shows the short ("chapel") train.
It's a new year, and that (in my world) means a new dress. Actually, it's the beginning of a whole new millennium, which is a pretty good excuse to go nuts. If other people can go off and plan for the end of civilization as we know it, armageddon, and all that crap, then I think the very least I can do is come up with an ambitious sewing project. This time, I swear I am actually going to document at least every other step of the way, with pictures, witty commentary, and possibly some actual informational content. I'm going to try to put this in terms of weeks (and maybe even hours, if I think about it). As always, trying doesn't necessarily imply success.
I'm going about things rather differently than I normally do. I'm actually starting out with a plan that I need to stick to (more or less). Normally, I start out with a plan and, well, if I come up with a better idea some where along the line, I go with it. The costumes that I am working on now are for court at Bristol, which means that I'm obligated to get the costume approved by the guildmaster (not as horrifying as I had thought, actually) and actually do what I said I was going to do. Erm, mostly. I might have already changed a color or bit of trim.... I'm actually terrible at following directions - I can't even follow my own!
In my world, all costumes start out with a concept. I know that a lot of people in court start out by figuring out whom they will be portraying, and suiting the clothes to the character, but I'm special. I started out with and idea of what I wanted to wear, then picked a character that it seemed pretty well suited to (a process greatly helped by the guildmaster, who was willing to give me a list of possible characters who fit the description of "interesting or something"). At any rate, I wanted a costume that was different than the normal spectrum of what's available in the Bristol court. This is another project that started out with some serendipitously available fabric (a gorgeous silk given to me by my mother's boss). It's a marvelous khaki-gold color that is absolutely smashing in the sun. Perfect. Bristol generally has lots of sun. (Except for last year, which was the year of the flash deluge.) So, that's a different-and-in-silk concept so far. This got refined midway through the season, when I realized that I was sick of trying to argue the shoulder bits of a wide necklined costume (the red and black dress) into place - it's doublet time at the ok corral. Sometime after the end of the season (augustish), I started thinking that what we absolutely don't see is any of those marvelously repressed spanish fashions with the full high necked doublet underdress and a full overgown. (In case you are wondering, the reason that we don't see then is that it gets bloody hot at bristol.) So I started looking at portraits - from books, online, anything I could get my hands on. That's how ideas start. I mean, we're talking about creating reasonable interpretations of real live clothes from real live dead people -- this is no time to start getting completely original. A little original in historic costuming can be good. Lots and lots of original? Right out. At any rate, I found a couple of portraits that struck my fancy - notable, the terrifically spanish styles worn by Phillip II's later wives (Isabella de Valois and Anne of Austria), the depiction of Louise de Lorraine from the Valois tapestries, and the portrait of Mary Denton. The final design is for an underdress of the khaki-gold silk (high necked doublet - very spanish in style but worn with a bumroll under the skirts in the english fashion) decorated with black braid, and two over dresses that can be worn interchangeably - one in an italien fashion after the Louise de Lorraine dress out of a medium blue grosgrain, and another in a style that may be the perpetually perplexing 'flanders gown' - the semi-fitted surcoat seen on the portrait of Mary Denton in a claret velvet trimmed in fur.
Since I was fully (and, as it turned out, unnecessarily) prepared to argue with the guildmaster over whether or not the idea was period, I compiled a list of evidence in my favor - portraits I was taking various details from, comparable period patterns, etc. Then I started in on costume sketches. When I had all of my research and sketching squared away, I went to get the costume ideas approved. (I cheated - I waited until I was pretty sure Stacy was in a good mood.) The designs and fabrics were accepted, my guildmaster said very happy things about my ability to actually pull this off, etc etc. So, in absolute euphoria, I went home and proceeded to ignore my fabric for several weeks. (Frankly, the idea of cutting into expensive silk, knowing that I have just exactly enough for what I want to do and no room for error is intimidating in my world.) I actually started work on the evening of january 1st. It seemed rather auspicious, and I still had enough wine left from new years to make me feel better about actually getting started. We'll call that week 1.
Week 1:I spent about 3 hours working out the toile/pattern kinda thing monday evening. (It's not really a full toile, but it's a little more advanced than a pattern.) Basically, the goal of this was to make me feel better about cutting the silk. (Alright, 'intimidating' doesn't even begin to describe it.) Pattern drafting doesn't require very advanced tools - I had a whole mess of muslin, a marking pen (don't use the disappearing ink kind), paper/pencil/calculator for the math parts, a properly underpinned dummy, a bag of tostitos, a glass of wine, and a helpful cat. Technically, the wine and the tostitos aren't necessary, but they can be helpful. (The cat wasn't actually helpful, but he did manage to get into most of the pictures.) My first step was to convert panel widths of 58" silk into panel widths of 38" muslin and make a big rectangle of the appropriate width of muslin. That was roughly cartridge pleated and tacked to a piece or ribbon that served as a waist band template for me to mark pleating on. The first thing you can see here is that the front of the skirt developed a series of u shaped wrinkles. I tugged at things a bit until I figured out what to do about them. The wrinkles can be eliminated by pulling up the unpleated skirt at the front to shorten the center front length from the top. I have a vague feeling that I should have known that, but I didn't. (I've never been intimidated enough by a piece of fabric to actually make a skirt toile before....) I made a tuck at the top of the skirt and tacked everything in place on the band, including the large flat pleat at the front side. I marked everything on both the skirt and the waistband. Then I trimmed the toile to floor length all around, which eliminated all the other little problems with the lay of the skirt. (This was complicated by a kitten who determined that his happy place was actually inside of the farthingale on the dummy.) While I was at it, I draped and cut the pattern pieces for the doublet. This is terrifically easy to do *if* you know where all the seams go. If you don't, the brief hint is that you put a seam anywhere that the fabric on the dummy starts to form small wrinkles as it goes over a curve. Seams are there to make things fit smoothly. I have every good intention of doing a longer article on toile type draped patterns, but then, I've had all those intentions for over a year now. Maybe now that I have a digital camera to play with, that might change. Anyhoo..... On to day 2, where I spent several hours arguing with a toile. (I should mention that this whole process was slowed down by the Head Cold From Hell(tm).) Here's the reason that I don't generally make anything that even resembles a toile - you have to take the whole blasted thing apart before it's actually useful as a pattern! Once I got the skirt piece off the waist band and back apart, I determined that I could get more fabric than I had thought into the skirt with a little creative layout. So, basically, that took a little value out of my careful patterning, but that's ok. I basically squeezed another 25" of fabric in at the back of the skirt. The pattern was still *basically* the same, so I used it as a template for my interlining layer. Here's a point about silk: it's a very lightweight fabric (especially in modern weaves) that does not, by itself, lend well to those great heavy elizabethan costumes. If you need to make silk behave like any self-respecting stiff weave, you interline it with flannel. The silk sticks to the flannel by sheer force of static cling. THis is one of those occasions where you want to use relatively crappy flannel. The stuff I got was on sale for about 2.50$/yd, and it sticks beautifully to the silk. Of course, crappy flannel sticks to everything to some degree, and this stuff also practically adheres to the carpet, but hey, as long as it works..... Anyway, I cut the flannel interlining to the pattern (plus seam allowances - 1" at the top, 1/2" at the center seam, and 3" at the bottom.) Then I cut the (gulp) silk, then I tried to cut the lining. That's when I realized that I hadn't bought enough lining. I puzzled on that one for a while - too long, actually, since it meant I had to leave for work before I figured out what to do. Day 3: I made do by inserting a 10" band of muslin at the top of the lining (7" in from the front opening on either side). This actually turned out to be a good idea, since it gave me a nice light colored surface at the top to mark all of the stitches for the cartridge pleating on. (I don't use pleating tape anymore - it adds too much bulk into the pleats.) Marking pleats is on my list of painstaking and annoying tasks, so it takes me a while. It would probably take less time if I didn't keep getting up to do other things. I put in the stitches for the pleats after work - they are actually sewn in dental floss this time. (Dental floss has the advantages of being a) strong, b) not prone to any stretch, and c) pre-waxed, which means it doesn't knot.) I have three rows of pleats in the skirt, so I fully expected the bloody pleats to decide to play nice, behave, and look proper for a change. I put the skirt on Janey when I was done with the pleats and, lo and behold, they did look right. (I spent all of last season envious of my friend Jenny, who managed to turn out the most amazingly perfect pleats on her skirt that you will ever see in your life, which mine mostly looked like they were a bit grumpy about the whole thing and handn't really woken up yet. I resolved that that was not happening again this year.) That seemed good enough and I put the whole project down for a few days.
Week 2:I made the waistband on monday. That seemed like enough progress for one day, so I stopped. Tuesday, I spent 3 or so hours sewing the cartridge pleats to the waist band. Every seamstress has some tasks she does quickly, and some she does slowly. This is one of my slow tasks. There are 6 layers of fabric to go through in the skirt part of the stitches, and 4 layers of fabric and one layer of no-roll waistband mesh stuff in the band itself. Erm, that's many. Beyond that, it's a painstaking task involving wrestling with far too many yards of material that would rather be elsewhere (it doesn't matter where you want it - the fabric would rather be elsewhere)and the needle that doesn't want to go through the fabric, while trying to make secure, tiny little stitches (is that a contradiction here?) with all the pleats evenly spaced. I hate it I hate it I hate it. I love the look once it's done. I just hate doing it. It would probably help if I had ever figured out how to use a thimble. (Yes, yours truly failed thimble 101. All I seem to be able to do with the things is slip the needle and propel it into my own flesh at bullet-like speeds, which results in a fair amount of damage and much cursing. Until I get this figured out, I am stuck with a lot of wincing and the occasional swollen finger from all that pushing and tugging on the needle. And an amazing callus on my needle finger....) I did finally get the cartridge pleats set and mark the large pleats with the skirt back on the dummy. At this point, the skirt needs to spend as much time as possible "hanging out" - letting the respective layers stretch as much as they are going to before it is hemmed.
Week 3: I made a full muslin of the doublet this afternoon so that I could write a bit on the alteration process. Of course, since my intent was to take lots of pictures of how it failed to fit, then lots more pictures of how to correct the thing, it up and fit on the first get go. I'm a little irked about the whole thing - think how much time I could have saved refitting things over the years if only I had known that counting on a pattern needing adjustments guarantees that it won't.
Week 5: Yep, my life has been interfering with my sewing again. Something about finding a new job... Anyway, that's not going well, so I started sewing in a fit of depression this afternoon. I was working on the doublet, which I've been putting off with a variety of excuses over the last few weeks (I should finish that corset first, recruiters keep calling and they'd interrupt me, I have to floss the cats, etc...) Unfortunately, since I was sewing as a pick-me-up, it all happened in a 3 hour fit and I didn't really stop to take pictures, so I'm going to have to go with just describing what happened. First I rummaged through a few piles an co-opted some raw silk meant for a corset lining and some black duck meant for I forget what to use as lining and stiffening. Then I rummaged some more to find the pile of flannel for mounting the silk on, then I did some serious rummaging to find the mockup and pattern pieces. (The pattern turned out to be under one of the two short bookshelves that supports my sewing table. I know I didn't put it there. I strongly suspect a cat in this one.) Then I resolved to clean up my sewing area again, and proceeded to picking apart the mockup (since it already has seam allowances in it, saving me all the trouble of remembering to cut them). Once I got the pieces apart, I cut the lining (raw silk), stiffening (duck), mounting (flannel) and facing (silk) fabrics. (And I'll be wearing this in what kind of weather???) Then I looked at the rather intimidating pile of cut pieces, felt very satisfied about the whole thing, and went downstairs to pour a glass of wine. This dress has been officially made possible by the power of Merlot. I correctly mounted the silk onto the flannel this time (sewing at 1/8th inch from the edges), rather than the sort of sloppy pseudo-mounting I normally do. Bunching can hide in a skirt, but not in a doublet. After mounting all of the silk pieces, I assembled the collar completely (because it's easy) by sewing all four layers together at the front edges and the top. With collars, you generally want to leave the bottom unfinished because it ends up in a seam. After the collar, I assembled both the lining and the stiffening, and joined them at the shoulder seams. (This is a pain. Anything that involves convincing the sewing machine that it wants to move towards an armscye is always a pain. I set those aside and assembled the silk pieces. I actually used pins for that (and the mounting, come to think on it), which is pretty unusual for me. I hate pins. I was reminded of why I hate pins continuously through this step. Once the outer shell (the silk/flannel layer) was assembled, I attached the collar to it. That involved a lot of pins and a fair amount of cursing. It all worked out ok, though. Then I joined the outer shell and the lining/stiffening bits by sewing down the front seams and around the bottom. I left the collar open so that I could turn the doublet right side out. I'll neaten that by hand later. Then I tried the doublet on janey. It fit beautifully, except for the part about how it was an inch too short. That's when it dawned on me that the mockup had not had a seam allowance added at the bottom.... On the list of potential problems to have in a costume, this is a pretty easy one to fix. For one thing, janey's back is slightly longer than mine, so it's not a serious problem at all. The doublet attaches to the waist band of the skirt via hooks and eyes (that's the plan, at least), and I can just wear my bum roll a little higher than normal, which will force the skirts up. I'm glad I found out about this before hemming the skirts, though. About two days later, I adjusted the bum roll on janey and it did, in fact, fix the issue. I then started marking the hem and determined that this would take more pins than I actually have in the house (I really don't normally use them when I sew), so I had to run out for pins. There's an amazing selection of pins out there these days, no doubt due the the incredible recent advances in pin technology. After much hemming and hawing, I determined that I was not quilting, I hate those stupid short little silk pins with no heads, I don't know what the heck a ball pin is for, and I think the ones with the plastic pearlized heads are pretty. I bought a mess of the pretty ones. I marked the hem of the skirt with about 78000 pins and every good intention of sewing the hem over the weekend (which failed to happen). The I figured out the length of the hem by the expedient means of pinning the skirt into the carpet, then marking those points as ground level. Then I pulled the skirt into basically the train length I wanted, and marked that. The train is what's called a chapel length train (on wedding dresses, at least) - it's not long enough for the skirt to break and pool on the ground, but it adds enough length for the skirt to pull away from the farthingale when I walk. It's a rather nice dramatic effect, I think, if you're into a swooping sort of melodrama. It's about 3-4" at it's longest point. I tidied up some of the neck of the doublet and attached the hook and eye tape over the weekend.
Week 6:I spent a few hours this afternoon working on the hem this afternoon. I'm trying a little experiment, so this is being done entirely differently than I normally do hems. Normally, in the interest of making my life difficult, I figure out the length of the skirt, and make the skirt panel as a single, fully hemmed piece before attaching it to the waistband. After (too) much thought on the matter, I determined that this is pretty silly. For one thing, I never get the length absolutely quite right. I know all the math to get it almost absolutely quite right, but I've never figured a good scientific way to factor in the behavior of the material itself in the math. The stiffer the fabric, the less likely it is to play nice with the hem length that the math says should work. Secondly, since I plan on wearing the skirt outside in the rather skirt-hostile environment of the average ren faire, the bottom gets a small "disposable" guard in cheap ribbon that can be replaced every year as it becomes ragged. With those things in mind, this time I decided to try a new approach. I did not finish the bottom of the skirt at all. The three layers of the skirt are only joined at the top. For the hem, I pinned the layers together to mark the length, then sewed about a half inch above where I plan to cut. I will be binding the bottom with 1.5" ribbon (double over), so anything within 3/4" of the bottom will be covered. Since I am basically a paranoid freak (it comes from having a pretty good idea of just how many things you can screw up), I did a test hem on only half of the skirt, put the skirt back on the dummy, and checked the length with hem allowance before cutting anything. I did the trimming for this half of the skirt while it was still on janey, and since it all worked out ok, I used the piece of cutaway silk from the trimming as a template for the hem length on the other side to guarantee that the two sides were even. I sewed the other half, trimmed it, put the skirt back on the dummy, then took some pictures. The astute observer will notice that the doublet seems to have a few wrinkles in it - that's because janey is wearing the wrong corset right now. She's wearing an old corset, and the doublet is designed around my new effigy model (ok, like, everybody's doing it, right, and they are dreadfully comfortable) corset, which is currently in the bottom of a duffel bag, where it is admittedly helping my sewing not at all.
