January Bonus Project (Candlemas)

Since the blue silk cote ended up not being wearable for the event this weekend, and since yesterday my office told us to stay the hell home because the city was iced over (Idk about the folks in north Texas, but we here in central and south have about as much ability to deal with ice storms as people in Russia have with dealing with tropical cyclones), I spent my surprise day off whipping up something else to wear for Candlemas.

I've wanted a sideless surcote forever, especially since I wore one that belonged to a friend back in October, and since I made that heraldic cyclas for Bordermarch Autumn Melees in November. I also had a large remnant of a pretty, pale blue damask given to me by a friend, and an old, pale blue cotehardie that hadn't fit me in ages and was kind of beat up.

Oh, and a paisley shower curtain.

[exhibit A]

 Somehow, during or after the construction of the cyclas, I lost the freaking pattern pieces I used (McCall's 7197).  Fortunately, for some reason McCall's included in that pattern four different versions of the pattern which are very close to identical, so I just grabbed another and marked it up all over again, this time for a sideless.

The finished result.

The top went together in about five seconds.  The bias trim - made from that paisley, acetate shower curtain (it's so narrow that the paisley design doesn't show; all you get is the contrasting colors) took like a million years (okay, like an hour).

The skirt didn't take long, either, since I basically just chopped off the bottom of a dress and trimmed the new waistline to match the top half.  Unless you count the epoch it took me to steam and press the whole thing, since the dress had been wadded up in an Ikea bag full of "trash" garb on the bottom of my closet for like a year. Yeesh.

Pretty, pretty blue damask. This is the leftovers, by the way, from the child's Italian Renaissance outfit that my local Clothiers' Guild made for a competition in the Barony of Stargate in May of 2012.  (There's a teensy tiny bit left, too, that will eventually become a corset).  The child's dress itself was made by my friend Francisca, who passed the remnants on to me. :)

Closeup of the brocade shower curtain bias trim; and a line of metallic silver stitching that I used to wrap the trim around the edges of the blue damask. It was going to show anyway, so I figured, why not make it pretty?  It's barely visible, except when it catches the light.  I love stuff like that.












It's sheer coincidence, by the way, that this is just about the same blue as the silk dress I made for the event and can't wear.  The first thing I did, by way of a replacement, was to alter an old, plain, black cotehardie to wear during the day.  When I thought "surcote" to throw over it for court in the evening, I originally went through all my green fabric and old green dresses, but couldn't find anything I wanted to deal with this week - the blue was easier, hehe.  (And yes, there will be a green surcote at some point soon, just not right now.  I still have a few things to finish up for Candlemas, which is in three days).


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