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Grey Middle Class Kirtle and Gown

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So, sometime during the season, while bemoaning the fact that
I had absolutely *nothing* to wear to faire, the clue fairy dropped in to give
me a good whack with a blunt stick and I said, “Hey! What about that grey
dress that teddy told me I should actually *finish* someday?” (From one
of last year’s diaries.) So I
dug it out of the closet, and I thought about finishing it, but I’d long since
lost the fur I was going to use (more accurately, a cat left a memo on it, and
it had to go byebye), and I could only find one of the lower sleeves (I swear,
I thought I only had one box left to unpack!), and I never did figure out what
to make a hat out of. So rather than finish, I wore a simple wired veil with
it, and stamped it Close Enough(tm).

There’s a great lot about the construction in the diary. It
worked out pretty ok. There’s a horridly annoying wrinkle diagonal-wise on the
bodice to remind me that I need to take it in about 3/4″ at the armscye
on each side, and I should take in the sleeveheads a little at the bottom.

Beyond that, it’s a rather solid little middle class number,
and I kinda like it. I’m even enamored with the silly little veil. ;)

Photo Credits: Yvonne Curley, who takes some of the best darn
pictures… Chainmail Girdle Courtesy of Chris Kailhoffer. If you’re looking
for one, I can put you in touch with him.

2 Comments

  1. Viv
    Viv February 9, 2013

    I found your blog a wee while back when looking for farthingale info, read the alcega posts, bookmarked it and I’ve finally found the time to have a really good read through your posts. Your stitching work is awesome, your writing style is entertaining and your tips are great. But here’s the thing, I understand you migrated everything to a new blog host at some point in 2010 or long enough ago all the bugs are probably pretty well resolved by now but I cannot find any of the dress diary’s you refer to in your finished project blogs. Am I going mad, am I just a silly ninny who can’t navigate around properly? Don’t they exist anymore? I *really* want to see your ‘making of’ stuff!! For example:
    http://www.sempstress.org/2003/diaries/grey2002/index.shtml
    but I just get a 404 :/

    • missa
      missa February 14, 2013

      Thanks, Viv!

      You are not going mad. Sorry about the 404s. You’re right – those links are from before I moved the site and converted to WordPress. I’ve been meaning to do some organizational work on the site for a while – I’ll try to collect all of the old dress diaries somewhere. (I apologize now, because I probably will not correct all of the internal links.)

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