A Long-Overdue Project Update +

Back in **2013** I posted about a dress I was making with fabric I'd gotten that year at Gulf Wars -  an amethyst-colored rayon-silk blend that I was absolutely in LOVE with.

The fabric is very thin, and hangs very close to the body, so it looks kinda weird on the mannequin.  It is, however, extremely comfortable and lightweight, which is perfect for the hellish climate in this kingdom.

(L) wearing it at the A&S Tiny Tourney September 2014
(R) on Violet the Mannequin this week

Speaking of Gulf Wars, I made a whole bunch of cold-weather clothing in January and February of this year, thinking that as usual, Gulf Wars would be frigid for the first several days at least.  It turned out to be a scorcher from minute one, and an entire BOX of warm clothing I packed with me was never worn.  (In fact, it was so hot that on the second day I walked to the market, bought linen, and wore it as a Roman chiton for the next two days, because they don't let you walk around in the nude even if it's 9,000 degrees outside).

One of the cold weather pieces that I made early this year was a Burgundian dress, in a green cotton velveteen, trimmed with brown faux-fur.  I still haven't had a chance to wear it.  I thought I'd posted it here, but earlier this week, I realized I never even mentioned it.

It doesn't show well in the picture, but the bottom hem is trimmed in the faux fur, too.  The dress is fairly loose when unbelted, and open low in the front, so I'll need to wear something underneath it.  (I'm just sure I made a little privacy panel to pin into it, but I couldn't find it anywhere today when I was photographing this, so maybe I imagined it?)

The little truncated hennin I made in January of this year got crushed at the bottom of a pile of fabric in my craft room, sadly.  I'm looking forward to getting to wear this dress later this year;  I'll just have to make a new hat for it.  :)




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A Finished Commission!

I'm back at it, and slowly but steadily cranking out the last two sets of commission pieces before I get on with work for this fall's event season.  Here's the first one, a linen bliaut:

"Olympian Blue" 100% linen, with magenta linen sleeve linings, skirt guarding, and appliqé neckline, with...

A thin, white, cotton cord couched along all the edges of the magenta trim pieces, and the sleeve edges, with a little silver-and-pearl button closure. 

The recipient was very pleased! Yay!

Next Up: 

• a pair of chemises in white rayon challis (already cut out)
• another "casual" bliaut like this one (simple) (already cut out)
• a rather fancy bliaut (court wear, multi-colored, heraldic, appliqué'd and embroidered)
• a white linen Viking dress
• a Viking overcoat
• a short stack of minor alterations to some fighting clothes, and
•  another six painted flags for the Caerleon campsite fence (designs already sketched, plotted, ready to transfer to the fabric)

WHOO!  That's a ton of work - I got REALLY backed up in June.  I love my new day job, but after not working for seven months, suddenly jumping back into the 9-5 with both feet, and into an intense and complicated work stream to boot, really sapped my energy as I was getting used to it.  I'm so glad to be sewing again, though. 

It sound crazy even to me, but I'm hoping to get ALL of that list finished by the end of July.  In August I have a Landsknecht and a couple of intricate Viking pieces to get done, as well as a project for Laurel's Prize Tourney in September.  And somewhere in amongst all of this, I STILL have to complete all of my own new Viking stuff, AND do alterations on the rest of my wardrobe: my new job takes a lot of walking, and I'm going to the gym nearly every day after work - I've lost nearly fifteen pounds already, and I'm hoping that trend will continue, alterations be damned.  :)

Nose the grindstone sewing machine.  Here goes nothing.

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A Bliaut In Three Parts

1. Russet-red silk twill from the fabric district in Dallas, TX
2. Black linen
3. Calontir trim

Technically, I guess the fourth part would be drafting the pattern. The fifth might be that this lovely lady is lending me her serger machine for my work, and it is EPIC.  

The dress is side-laced, with the lacing going up into the underside of the upper arm for ease of getting on/off, and for movement.  The idea came from the lacing I saw on this Flickr page, via Pinterest. 

The black guarding along the bottom of the dress, below the trim, is...seriously...because I f'd up cutting out one of the panels and it was WAY shorter than the others. I had to cut them all off to match, and then used the black linen to lengthen the dress again, LOL.  :)

You saw the preview yesterday, which is a better shot of the trim, which can be found online here at Calontir Trim. 

An aside: 

The first pic is from the Village of Castleton, Bryn Gwlad, Ansteorra, for our annual baronial event (last weekend).  Castleton is AMAZING.  It's a medieval village built by several of our members many years ago, whose buildings include a number of small dwellings, a castle, a wooden ship, and a smaller replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, called The Curtain Theatre.  I've attended many a court in that theatre, and performed there, and it's heavenly.  I adore this site. 

The Curtain Theatre

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You, Madam, Are Out of Order.

In what I'm sure is an adorable attempt to keep up with things I say I'm going to do  ...

*pauses for laughter from the audience*

I return to October's Monthly Sewing Challenge, which you may remember from this post.   While I did not finish the purple 12th century gown in October, I DID finish it this month, and will have pictures for you very soon.

In the meantime, I DO have pictures for you of my 13th century cylcas surcote, done in Caerleon's heraldry, for the War of the Rams at BAM last Saturday:*

All linen, with machine embroidery around the edges of the neckline and sleeve openings.  And for once, worn with all appropriate and period layers (with some modern ones thrown in.  It was fücking cold):

• knee socks
• knee boots
• leggings
• linen braies
• cotton chemise (white)
• linen underdress (green - and this is actually my plain beige underdress that you've seen me wear with my blue Viking apron dress.  I dyed it last week for this event).  
• Linen cyclas
• Hair: net snood, barbette, and linen pie crust hat.  I was also wearing a veil and/or scarf wrapped around my head and neck most of the event, as well as...
• a "cloak" which was a plush lap blanket from Waldemart that I picked up for $4 at the last minute to wrap around my shoulders

I was SO WARM.  Man, all those layers feel like walking around bundled up in blankets.  Yay!  

mostly the whole thing

Cotton duck screen-printed lions satin-
stiched in place, and tongues painted with
50% mixture fabric glue and craft acrylics

Bonus project for November:

A long tunic for one of my very favorite
Vikings up in the Steppes area (Dallas). 

Green and black machine-embroidery on the
neck facing. 

Evidently I'm on a machine-embroidery kick lately.

Wait til you see December's project.  :)

SO ANYWAY, now that you've seen November's project (s)...I'll put up pics of October's project later in the week, LOL.  And then maybe afterwards I'll have my poop in a group enough to get things done and posted on time.  ;)



*  Very short event review:  fücking cold. 

A Poopy Purple Preview

*Nothing* I could do could make this color come out right in pictures, so, I'm posting these now (because the dress is DONE!), and I'll bring you daylight, outdoor pics of me IN the dress after the event this week:

Finally, finally finished.  This was supposed to be done by the end of SEPTEMBER, you guys.

This is the purple antique satin I bought at Gulf Wars (rayon/slk), with black linen on the trim.  It's not lined - it's cross-woven, so the inside of the fabric is black.

This stuff was HAIRY AS CRAP.  And Fray-Check rolled right off the stuff, and what little soaked in spread too far and just gunked up everything, so I had to keep trimming and tucking and wiping little purple "ants" and black hairs off of EVERYTHING.  ARGH.  

12th century pendant-sleeved gown - basically a bliaut with a different sleeve - as shown here, and here. They actually hang down well past my fingertips, since they're meant to be turned back and pinned in place.

Yeah.  Photo editing.  Phuck it.

The black linen trim, with some white machine embroidery on it.  I did the same thing around the sleeve bands and the edges of the sleeve openings.  Oh, and around the hemline, too.  Yay, machine embroidery.

The whole time my dog kept coming in and looking at me like, "Moooooom.  Are you dooooone yet??"  *mope*

Not finished yet:  a looooong black linen belt to be worn along with this.

Also to go with: my pie crust hat and barbette, and long silk veil.

I'll wear my all-purpose underdress (it's just a long, long-sleeved, loose cote with a keyhole neckline, untrimmed, beige) underneath it...and I may actually be dyeing it tonight.  Ve shall zee.


To be continued...


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T- 10 Days and Counting

Until Bordermarch Autumn Melees, that is.  I can't wait!

So I kinda waited until the last minute (10 days out is the last minute), and still needed a replacement for my Caerleon uniform sleeves.  I haven't had money to buy fabric, and I didn't have time to wait to order some;  but I managed to find a friend who had some Ansteorran-gold linen (this) she was willing to sell me.  Three yards of it - not enough to do a cotehardie of any stripe the way I normally do.

After the last post, I almost...almost...made a "gates of hell" type 14th century sideless surcote.  But (a) I didn't have enough black to make trim for one of those, and (b) I'm seriously digging my pie hat, and wanted to wear it again.

And so:

This is where we start.  Note that the pattern is sized XS, S, M, indicating that I've owned this since I was in high school.

Fortunately, though I currently rock a size 20, this dress is cut loosely enough that I didn't even have to add anything to the girth for my new garb.

All I did, in fact, was to lower and armholes to just above my natural waistline (the blue pencil line).  I left the neckline alone.

I did cut gores to put into the sides, but it turned out, I didn't need them.  The skirt was full enough for me on its own.

The only other change I made to the original pattern, aside from the arm holes, was to add 10" to the hemline to make it floor-length on me.

This is by no means finished - I still need to put the lions on (and decide where they go), as well as paint the company motto along the neckline and sleeve trim, but the body of the dress is finished.

This is a 12th century women's cyclas, which started out as what we call a "tabbard", and evolved into the ubiquitous "gates of hell" sideless surcote later.

I'll  be wearing it over a plain black cotehardie, with my pie-crust fillet and barbette.  Not sure if I'll wear the veil or not yet.

I'm also not sure about the lions down the whole front, either.

I rather like them arranged like this - still vertically, but lower on the front, below the belt line (which is just below the bottom of the side slits).

I'm still playing with ideas.  Mostly because the other night, when I took these pictures, I was completely out of black thread.  (What??)  I'm picking some up tonight on the way home; but then I have to rush home and cleanup for guests I have coming later in the week.  If I end up with time to finish this dress, I'll show you guys - and of course, there will be event pics in two weeks.


:)






P.S. - I love the way this fits, looks, and feels, so very much, already, that I'm already planning TWO more.  I have yet to make a heraldic anything - and this would be a FANTASTIC format for my device.  Also, a friend gave me four yards of a *lovely* blue silk that I think, together with some gold brocade, might make a gorgeous cyclas  or even a long-sleeved loose cotte!  Ve shall zee.

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To-Do List for November

Oh, man, I just remembered that I used to do a month-in-review.  I'm such crap at remembering stuff like that, wow.

November!  

The big event in November is "BAM":  Bordermarch Autumn Melees.  It's kind of a big deal in Ansteorra.  I can't go all four days, only three, but I'm excited as all hockeysticks about it, lemmetellya (last year I could only daytrip the event, and I missed SO much!!)

I'm digging the early-Medieval kick I've been on lately, and I can't wait to do more.  I've decided BAM this year will be my impetus, and my showcase.  Heh.  Listen to me talking like I'm actually going to get shit done around here.

*sly*

And so, I have three weeks in which to:

• trace a pattern from the blue surcote pictured above, which was borrowed from a friend, and make one for myself.  I have a green cotton I've been wondering what to do with, and I think it'd be perfect if I have enough.  
• Finish the purple dress!!!  
• Locate my batiste veil, or make a new larger veil from a lightweight linen to wear with my barbette, fillet, and pie-crust hat, because the silk veil in the picture is too sheer, I think.  It works best when there's a fancy hairdo underneath, or jewelry I want to show.   
• Create a new Caerleon uniform for myself, based on this style, because the sleeveage I made before Gulf War isn't quite working anymore (read:  I've gained enough weight that the black dress I wore them with is far too small)

Bonus points for: 

• Making myself a new pair of linen buskins/socks
• A second hat for the period, this one in blue silk with beads, maybe? 
• making another wooden chest for myself (the pieces are already cut, I just need to assemble the thing and paint it) 
• Making a court-worthy sideless out of a beautiful piece of blue silk that a friend bought for me for my birthday last week.  Hooray, silk!  <3   
• Losing fifty pounds by the 22nd.  Riiiiight.  

So there you go.  All that, plus all the work I need to do in the garden, and all the projects in the house I have going on...egad.  And you wonder why I never get anything done. 

a mood board for the purple dress that I made a while back

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A Sewing Challenge!

SarahLizSewStyle is doing a garment-a-month sewing challenge, and I'm joining in!  I'll be doing it with SCA garments, though - and maybe the occasional mundane piece.  I'd begun a new outfit for our baronial event just last week, so I've decided that that will be my October garment and my first one of this year-long challenge.

If you'd like to get in on the challenge, visit Sarah Liz at her blog here, SarahLizSewStyle:

The dress I've begun (and I spent about two hours on armpit gussets alone last night; apparently this is going to be one of THOSE projects, egad), is a 12th century pendant-sleeve down.  Much like a bliaut in cut, fit, and shaping, but with long drooping sleeve ends that start at the wrist or mid-forearm, rather than the elbow or upper arm like a bliaut.

Inspiration-wise, I give you the following:

Mistress Aénor d'Anjou, a 12th-century clothing Laurel, via Pinterest, and her website.

Revival Clothing's 12th century linen pendant-sleeved gown (there's a red/black version on the website now, though I prefer this photograph).

This lovely and simple gown by Antalika on DeviantArt.  










The fabric I'm working with is an amethyst-colored "antique satin" (a satin or silk substitute developed in the 1950s which can be made of several different combinations of fibers;  mine is rayon and silk), which is cross-woven with black and with a slubbed weave and a very subtle luster on the outside.  I purchased it at Gulf Wars in March, and while I don't have a picture of my actual fabric, it's just about this color, maybe a tad lighter:

SilkBaron's "blackberry" dupioni

I cut out the dress pieces last week; last night I managed to get the body all put together, the neckline shaped, the gores in the skirt and underarm gussets all pieced in, and the sleeve pendants shaped, but not attached.  Not bad for one night!  Especially when you consider that I'm basically improvising this pattern as I go along.  I cut the basic body shapes based on my cotehardie pattern, without didn't cut a neckline so that I could do that later, and a tad large so that I can slip the entire dress over my head.  

This fabric is what my mother used to call "hairy."  It unravels like crazy, and SHEDS EVERYWHERE.  While the fabric itself is strong, trying to pick out an errant line of stitching is like walking on a rotten rope bridge across LAVA.  UGH.  

That said, otherwise, it's been wonderful to work with.  It has some give on the bias, but mostly doesn't stretch at all, so there aren't any weird tension issues with it pulling.  It's lightweight, but with a beautiful heavy drape, and feels wonnnnnnnderful against my skin.  I'm almost disappointed that I have to wear a chemise under it, hehe. 

The fun part is, I have to have the dress finished by THURSDAY NIGHT.  @_@   I still have to create an exterior neck facing and attach it, attach the sleeve pendants, finish all the interior seams, and hem the skirt. If I end up with time, I may also run some very simple embroidery (by hand) along the edge of the neck facing, and maybe around the edges of the sleeve openings, but I'm not sure about that yet.  

For now, the dress is just a pull-over, meant to be wrapped with a loooooong cloth belt (which I don't have, by the way, so there's that).  I'll be wearing my linen pie-crust filet hat, with a linen barbette, and either my large silk veil, or my small chiffon veil with the pearl edging.  Haven't decided yet. 

Fun!  So we'll see how far I get tonight.  Update when finished! 

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How Much Do I Love Pie?

You know, for a woman who once *hated* the idea of covering my hair for the sake of periodicity (1), I sure do love my veils and hoods these days.  And now I have made my first second hat!  I've been wanting a "pie-crust hat" for some time now, like this:

Oh, wait, no, that's Adrian Paul.  This: 

hat on the left (image from the Manesse Codex)

My previous hat had one problem:  it got smashed flat in a box somewhere on the way to its first event, and I never even got to wear it.  Sadface!  A good friend of mine, H.L. Catherine de Harewell, suggested this alteration to the next design:

Yup, it's flat.  

 It pins together in the back (or the side, whatever).  This way I can pack it flat without worrying about it getting crushed!  Is that not an awesome idea?

The hat is plain white linen, all hand-stitched (I made 90% of it in the car on the way to an event), and stiffened with heavy cardstock paper.  If I end up loving this as I wear it around this fall, I'll open it up and replace the paper with something more durable; but for the time being I just want to make sure the hat wears well.  No harm wasting paper for a trial run or three.

And here it is with my uber-period cow-print cotton bandana, and v-neck tshirt.  Oh, and also my roots showing.  I should probably do something about that.

SUCCESS!  I can't wait to wear it.  I can't wait to show you the dress I'm making to go with it!  I can't wait to show you ALL KINDS of things I'm working on right now, beginning with painting my sewing room - I've already done the closet.  Busy busy!

P.S.:  a lot.  Like, a LOT a lot.  I'm famous for it.

(1) "Periodicity", coined by Lady Harewell, and used with assumed permission.  ;) 



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Bliaut Progress & Sleeve Adjustment

Progress!

•  sleeves have been lengthened with a long, diamond-shaped gore in the long seam under the sleeve (they were too short before;  I added about thirteen inches of both length and width)
• seams finished and flat-felled where they'll show (sleeves, lower hem) 
• trim applied to the upper arms and sleeve hem.  

I also split and hemmed the side seams in the body so that I can lace the sides;  I'm honestly not sure if I want to mess with it (hand-stitched eyelet holes...blergh...), so after I did that, I sewed the sides back up again.  Means I can wear it right now, and if I decide in the future to do the side-lacing, I only have one seam to undo and no prep-work on the edges, just the eyelets themselves.

Next:  neckline trim & lower hem.

sleeve gores to widen and lengthen

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In Which Our Heroine Makes Yet Another Blue Outfit

Because, as you know, I need more blue dresses.  I only have like five.  Because my heraldic colors are red and black, LOL.  *shrug*  I love blue. :)

And I love making these things:

This is going to be a 12th century bliaut - navy, with the exact trim you see in the pic above (from Calontir Trim, purchased at Gulf Wars in March), with a deep teal undergown (just a simple lace-front plain gown).  I'd been thinking about doing one ever since I saw a friend in a really pretty black one at Gulf Wars this year.  Then I saw this, and just I had to get on the bliaut train. :)

The belt is not a cloth or woven belt like you usually see with bliauts -   I'm no weaver.  I've tried making belts like that out of just fabric, and they always bunch up and become fabric ropes.  So I'm still testing out some ideas that I think might work.

(And yes, that's a hair tie around the waist in the pic.  Without it the dress just looked like a bunch of blue fabric on the hanger, hehe).

For the time being, I have this awesome, BRIGHT blue leather belt that I bought at Gulf Wars (for fifteen dollars!);  and Kress needed to order belt parts for himself this week, so he got a set like the one shown in the picture for me, too.  Yay!   (Hardware from Armor and Castings).


So far, so good!  It fits beautifully, and the only thing I plan to change is that the sleeves aren't as long as I thought they were going to be (because I measure wrong.  Whoops!)  That's a simple fix, though; and once that's done, I'll be ready to finish the seams on the inside, and then start working on the trim and the bling.  Yay!