SCA: Making Over An Old Dress

 Approximately one million years ago, I started making a pendant-sleeved gown for myself with some plain, tabby-woven silk that was given to me by a friend. She had dyed it a bright kelly green, and at the time I had visions of one of the hunting scenes from the hours of the Duc du Berry in my head: 

However, I never finished it, and it sat for so long that over the years it somehow magically became too small for me to wear. However, it was still quite a bit of fabric, and the construction was pretty simple: rectangular front and back, with triangular side gores. I thought, if I cut the top off of it, I might be able to refashion it as a Viking apron dress…maybe? 

So I dyed it with the blue dyes that I had left over from the last dye project (royal and navy) with a bit of charcoal to tone things down a bit, and I ended up with this gorgeous dark hunter green: 

I cut the top of the dress off at the waist, cut off the hem and re-hemmed it by hand (the original dress had a long train at the back, which I removed), and made some straps out of the fabric from the top of the old dress, et voila: 

Since this is essentially the skirt of a much longer dress, the gores start from just under the bustline, instead of at the waist, making this a looser, more A-line shaped dress than the ones I normally wear, which are fitted to just underneath the underbust and flare out from there. I really like the fit and shape, it’s very flattering on me and will look nice with or without a belt. 

The long seams of this dress were originally done on the machine (and thank goodness the old thread took the dye pretty well); I did all the new sewing by hand - the top and bottom hem are done with a herringbone stitch, and the straps are folded and whipped together, and attached to the dress by hand. 

I don’t currently have anything with which to decorate the top of the dress,  but that’s fine for right now.  I can wear it plain this coming weekend (our fall Baronial event), and then when I have time I might be able to weave something for the top hem before the Bjornsborg event at the end of the month.  

At the moment I’m just pleased that I have a new dress for free, and that it’s not blue. I love blue, but literally ALL of my apron dresses are blue, and I’ve been wanting some variation.  This color is probably not period-appropriate (neither is the fabric, really), but it’s what I had, and it’ll do just fine.