Regency: Teal Velveteen Pelisse

Behold:  a finished velveteen pelisse for winter wear!  

Last fall I acquired a huge stack of velveteen Ikea curtain panels from my local neighborhood swap group.  I knew right away I wanted to make a pelisse out of it. The fabric is heavy and warm, but not TOO heavy - perfect for our relatively mild central Texas winter weather. 

It would be a nifty addition to my Regency wardrobe, I thought, but more than that, I was in dire need of a long winter coat that was affordable - so I knew I wanted to make one, but I could never find the right fabric and pattern for it.  Yes, I absolutely plan to wear this in "real life" as my regular winter coat! 

left: fashion plate from Ackerman's;
right: design inspiration from Laughing Moon

This fashion plate, and this gown, were my first inspirations.  I loved the ruffles around the neckline and the big tie in the front of both, so I decided to use my Laughing Moon Spencer pattern (#129) for the bodice and sleeves, since it already has the shaping and design on the bodice that I wanted. 

I used the skirts from my Reconstructing History round gown pattern as a guide for the width and length of the skirt panels. 

dyeing the velveteen

The first problem was the color of the velveteen curtain panels:  they were bright aqua, which - no. Too bright and cheerful for me.  

Fortunately, they're 100% cotton, so they dyed pretty easily with Rit dye.  I used a 2:2:1 mixture of dark green, teal, and charcoal gray,  and came up with this lovely deep muted spruce green color.  (Okay, it's TEAL. Rit dye's formula charts call this "Blue Spruce Green," but it's totally teal).  

 

inside ties and hand-finishing

The pelisse is lined in a sage green cotton fabric that started life as a duvet cover I had sitting around not being used. Here you can see the ties I placed inside the bodice to help hold the thing together - I didn't want to rely on the belt/sash to do the job on its own.  The ties will help keep everything aligned properly when I wear it. 

The problem with dyeing the fabric was that I originally did it in two separate batches.  I measured carefully, and used the exact same dye on both batches...and yet, they still came out slightly different colors - one batch was a bit greener, and one batch was a bit bluer. 

So, after I finished the pelisse, I overdyed it again to bring the colors back in together.  The lining dyed, as well, and now it matches the velveteen fabric. 

bodice back

Since I do plan to wear this coat mundanely (i.e. not as a costume, but as regular daily wear), I made a few modifications to the pattern to help it be more wearable - the inside ties are one. 

I also lowered the hem of the bustline by 3" to accommodate a "normal" modern bustline.  It still fits fine when I'm corseted, but since I mostly won't be wearing this with a corset, I wanted it to conform to my "regular" bust shape when I'm wearing it to the office, for example.    

I added hidden side-seam pockets to the skirts as well.  Bitches need pockets! I generally don't carry a purse - just my phone which is in a wallet case, and my keys, and I needed somewhere to stash them. 

I also added belt loops to the side seams of the waistline, to help keep the belt/sash in place. 

before hemming the bottom

Altogether, this pelisse took me about 12 1/2 hours (over the course of 7 days) to construct and finish.  Most of it is sewn on the machine, although I did do all the finishing - anything that's visible from the outside - by hand.  Because it's so long, and there's so much fabric, it's surprisingly heavier than I thought it would be, and it IS very warm.  It'll make an excellent top layer and windbreak in winter weather this year. 

Thankfully, our winters are generally pretty mild, usually averaging about 40-50º most of the time, and only getting down into the 20s-30s for a couple of weeks in January or February; so this pelisse didn't have to be very heavy - it's mostly just a windbreak and an extra layer. With a sweater underneath and a scarf at the neck, it'll be just fine for the weather here.  

Things I would change if I had to do this again: 

(1) the sleeves are a teensy bit too long. They're lovely, but I worry about them being in the way while driving.  

(2) the back of the bodice and the shoulders are very fitted, and I worry that they won't accommodate more than a very thin shirt underneath - I won't be able to wear sweaters with this thing.  (Good impetus to lose a bit of weight before this winter!) 

(3) The belt loops are laughably too big. I should have made them half the size I did; but it's okay, I doubt anyone will notice or care. 

SCA: An Exercise In Repeated Failure

And now for a fun post! Warning:  I'm going to cuss in this one.  You'll see why.  

Sometimes things just don't go your way.  I love dyeing fabrics and clothing, but man, when dye goes wrong, it goes WRONG.  I had this "natural" colored (oatmeal colored) linen serk that I wanted to dye blue, and it took way more work than it really should have...mostly because I screwed up in the beginning. 

Here's where we started.  This "oatmeal" color is lovely, and correct for the period, but this tone looks AWFUL on my skin.  Every time I wore it, I looked ill.  No bueno.  

I selected a teal Rit dye, and a charcoal gray one.  Just a bit of each, and the gray was supposed to tone down the tealness of the teal and make it more of a plain blue.  According to the Rit recipe from the website, it should have happened that way. 

Except that I forgot to take into account the native color of the fabric, which was basically BROWN.  Brown + blue = more brown.  So effectively, the two colors cancelled each other out and all I added was gray.  So the dress came out...gray.  

So I bleached the fabric.  Twice.  The first time didn't accomplish anything at all; the second time returned the dress to more or less its original color.  

But I thought...I could go lighter.  

Bleach spots on the third time through.  Oops again.  And also, fuck.  

I tried again, with double the bleach the fourth time.  I was leery of doing it, because too much time in the bleach can start eroding the fabric.  Thankfully, throughout this process, THAT never happened, at least. 

After the third round with the bleach, I had achieved something that looked kind of like zombie flesh:  mostly chalky white, with some brown streaking and spotting.  Gross.  

But once the dress was dried, the spotting/streaking barely showed, so I thought maaaybe it might be ready to take dye now.  

Wary of using too much teal dye (and no gray this time!), I only put a couple of capfuls into the washing machine with my dress. 

Shit, it's green!  Like, candy mint Peeps green.  UGH.  

But the color came out even.  Hm. 

I decided to give up.  I threw the rest of my teal dye in to the washer, and a couple of capfuls of the gray, and let 'er rip, let the chips fall where they may.  I was sick of messing with this dress. 

To my surprise, the dress came out a light greenish blue - exactly the color I'd wanted to dye the dress in the first place!  

Finally! Yay!  The color is nice and even, maybe a touch dark around the side seams, but that's okay - that'll be hidden by an apron dress anyway.  

SO DONE WITH THIS DRESS.  Glad it turned out ok. 

The End.  

SCA: The 2,000th Hedeby Bag

 Just kidding, I only have four of them at this point.  I just feels like a lot, you know?  I have more Hedeby bags than I have days in a standard weekend event.  And I'm about to make a new one: 

Remember the herringbone linen? I still had some scraps left over, and so I decided to make a new Hedeby bag with it.  I actually have enough for two bags, but I'm focusing on this one for the moment, while I decide what to do with the second.  

I dyed the fabric this deep blue color (Rit's "evening blue" with a touch of "teal" to warm up the color a bit).  The lining fabric is linen, the last of the "agave" color from Fabric-Store.com, left over from a previous project.  

This time I made the handles from pine. I recently acquired a large bundle of small pieces of thin oak planks from a friend, which included ONE pine plank that just happened to be thick enough for these handles, and long enough to cut both from the same piece. As always, I cut the basic shape out with my jigsaw, and fine-tuned the shape with my drill, sandpaper and chisels.  I originally stained them with a dark walnut color, but it didn't take well on the soft pine, so I sanded it off and stained them instead with an ebony stain, and it came out much better.  

Instead of attaching ribbon or decorative fabric, this time I decided to sew on a strip of wool tablet-woven trim in the Oseberg design (same stuff I used on my blue herringbone apron dress, purchased from Etsy).  I used the remainder of the trim as a carrying strap. I also couched a length of teal acrylic yarn around the edges of the bag, using navy blue embroidery floss as thread - the yarn and floss coordinate with the colors of the trim pretty well, I think.  

I opted for fabric straps to attach the bag to the handles this time, instead of sewing the bag onto the handles with embroidery floss as I've done in the past.  I've always liked the look of fabric straps, and it was certainly faster and easier than the embroidery floss method.  At first I attached the straps to the outsides of the bag, but given the color of the linen, that looked too much like a blue jeans patch pocket, and so I took the top of the bag apart, put the straps inside, and closed it up again.     

So that's five bags, if you count the one with no handles which I hate and might have actually thrown away.  There's a green one coming up next.  :)

Dyeing Stuff: A Pink Cotehardie

I made this pinkhardie in 2016, and I loved it - except that it was pink.  It was a lovely pink, but I'm just not a pale-colors-person.  I usually keep my SCA wardrobe to blues and greens and earth tones;  in Mundania I wear black almost exclusively, except for a few very dark colors.  I needed this cotehardie to be something I was more comfortable in.

RIT dye to the rescue!  I hemmed and hawed forever over the color - red or purple? - when what I really wanted was a deep mulberry tone.  Why not mix them, I thought?  I do it with house paint, art paints, and nail polish - why not dye?  Turns out, RIT has a handy color mixing chart on their website - and the answer was red AND purple.  And brown.

1 = Wine only; 2-4 = varying degrees of Cocoa Brown;
5-7 = varying degrees of Eggplant;  8 = final mixture

I used a bottle of Wine, a bottle of Cocoa Brown, and then added 3/4 cup of Eggplant to cool off the maroon color and give it a hint of purple.  I tested the color on strips of paper towel just to be sure I had the color right before dropping the dress in.

This was all done in my stainless steel kitchen sink, by the way.  I keep meaning to try out my washing machine, but it's new and I'm not sure how well it'll work yet, so I keep opting for the safer, known route. The water in the sink gets hot enough to steam and burn people, so I assume it's hot enough for dyes, and I have yet to have a problem with colors coming out right.

I LOVE the finished color! (It's a good thing I love it, too, because my thumbs and a couple of bath towels are now also this color.  Oops).  The linen took the dye really well, without any splotches or voids or other weirdness.  The color is a little bit lighter than my test piece after going through the wash to remove the excess dye.  Still, it's rich, deep, and kind of delicious.  Now I have the dark mulberry cotehardie I've been wanting, and the whole process only took about 45 minutes.  I've got two other dresses that need to be re-dyed, and now I can't wait to get started on them.

A note: the buttonholes were done in polyester thread, so they didn't take the dye at all.  Yup, I have pink buttonholes.  At some later point, I can either pick them out and replace them with new thread, or try to stain them with ink, which I've done successfully before with black ink.  We'll see. 

What's Next?  

I'll be making new handles for my Hedeby bag soon, and at the moment I'm painting a wooden chest.  Updates soon!