SCA: Return of the Cotehardie : A Dress Makeover

 I’m in love with my new 14thC bycocket, but I had nothing to wear with it to the next event. It’s been years since I busted out ye olde cotehardie - and while I am no longer young and thin, I’ve seen plenty of larger women rock a cote and look fabulous doing it, and so I shall be among them. 

So. 

I took a ride through all of my old costumes, and I found one that actually *almost* fit. Luckily, it had HUGE like 2” seam allowances from old alterations taken to make it smaller in previous years, and I was able to take almost all of it out and re-shape the dress so that it fit me again. Success!! 

The next problem was that it was pea green. It was a neat color, but totally the wrong tone for my skin - it makes me look really pink, and not in a good way. More like in a carbon monoxide poisoning way. So I overdyed it with Rit’s dark green, and voila - it came out a dark, warm, sort of hunter green: 

I order to spiff this dress up, and because the old polyester thread didn’t take the dye, I: 

• removed all the visible hand and machine stitching and replaced it with hand stitching in the correct color 
• removed the machined buttonholes and replaced them with hand stitched buttonholes 
• removed the buttons and re-sewed them with dark green thread, since for some strange reason I had  originally attached them with orange jeans thread (see pic above)
• removed the neckline binding and re-stitched it by hand, repairing a rip in the binding in the process

With the stitching and dyeing out of the way, it was time to make some new sleeves for this dress - it has half sleeves on it with long pendants, but I had no dress to wear underneath it. So I made a pair of half sleeves out of a blue cotton drapery fabric I had on hand, which I basted into the insides of the green short sleeves: 

 I also made a “medieval sports bra” sort of under-bodice thing out of the same fabric to wear underneath.  I had no modern or period contraption to make my bust look the appropriate shape and placement for this dress, and the dress itself, being unlined linen, would stretch out of shape as soon as it warmed up and not hold me correctly without supporting undergarments. So I made basically the sleeveless top half of a cotehardie out of the same fabric as the sleeves, which will support me, bring my waist in a little,  smooth out my back, and - along with the half sleeves - make it look like I’m wearing two layered dresses: 

All put together, it goes a little something like this: 

Bonus:  along with this dress and the blue bycocket I trimmed up last week, I made some new jewelry to go with it.  I had a purple and silver costume piece (plastic and pewter) which was badly tarnished and the plastic setting was chipped in a couple of places, so I took the whole thing apart and put the beads on new gold metal, and painted the plastic centerpiece setting with gold leafing paint to make it gold:  

Tada!  Now I just need somewhere to wear this.  I'm posting this in the hopes that nobody I know is reading it, because I want this to be kind of a surprise - I've been a Viking ever since I came back to the SCA in 2018, and whenever I wear this ensemble will be the first time I've worn anything but Viking since then.  I can't wait to wear my new hat and dress!  :) 

Button Pins

So far I've posted photos of my under dresses held together at the neckline with my new trefoil brooch.  But I've read that Viking women probably used 1" round brooches to hold their necklines together (link).  Since I wanted to use my trefoil brooch elsewhere, I decided to make myself a couple of little round brooches:

This was once one of a pair I made to hold my sleeves on when I was wearing 14th century stuff.  I don't know where the other one has gone, but this one has been commandeered by my Viking wardrobe for now.

These pins are all made from 1" buttons.  I clipped the loops on the back off with my wire cutters and then used a metal nail file to file the cut ends as smooth and flat as I could get them so that they wouldn't snag on my clothing.  Then I attached a 1" pinback to the backs of the buttons with superglue. The pinbacks are a little too large;  they stick out one side of the button, but that's okay.

Here's a silver one I made last night.  These only take about 10 minutes to make, so I made two.  I only glued buttons to my fingers three times, and I glued my finger to a spiral notebook just once.  I'm getting better at adhesives!

Here's one I made out of a button that looks like an old Roman coin.  Would the Vikings have used old coins as jewelry pieces?  I have no idea - I suspect they probably would have traded them for the metal value, if they'd come across them.  I just thought it looked neat.







There:  two new, and one old, little round 1" brooches to hold the necklines of my smocks together. 10 minutes of work each for a little extra bling and function.  Sweet.

The Pinkhardie

I'm starting a new wardrobe re-fit project, like the one I did with my Viking clothing last year, and my Florentine outfits the year before.  The first two were about making both sets of clothing more period-appropriate and replacing worn-out pieces.  This time around, I'm pretty much replacing my entire Gothic wardrobe.  Most of it is 4-6 years old, faded, worn out, and none of it fits me correctly anymore. 

I started with making over the blue velveteen cotehardie, which you can read about here. After having tried a few different versions of my cotehardie pattern in the past couple of years, I decided that I really loved the way the blue velveteen fits better than anything else I've tried, so I've gone back to that one. I drafted a new pattern from the blue velveteen and ran a couple of mock-ups to make sure it would work.

The next step was making two new cotehardies with that new-old pattern, both from stash fabric.  This pink one is plain linen, with bodice and sleeves lined in white linen, and buttoned in front and on the sleeves.

You can see where the bodice lining stops in this picture, because the fabric is so light!  I have a white underdress that I plan to wear with it, though, which cleans that up when it's actually on me, thank goodness.  That'll become an issue when it gets hot later this year, though, especially with the lining already in the top half of the dress.  I may go back and line the skirt; or I may just make a plain, white, linen underskirt that I can wear with more things than just this.






 

"original"

Finishing this dress involved some color changes. First, I tweaked the color of a dress a little bit by dyeing it in a bath of plain, black tea. The pink was a little bit too bright and Easter-egg-y for me; I really prefer a more ballet-slipper pink color like you'd get from a natural dye.  The tea toned down the pink to something more like you'd get with madder and less like Paas.

Photographing pink is hard.  The picture at left is NOT a good representation of the actual color of the fabric; but it does a pretty good job of illustrating the difference the tea staining made in the fabric. This fabric came from Fabric-Store.com; their photo of the fabric (here) is pretty close to its actual color. The real finished color is kind of on the line between pink and pale peach.

This is actually pretty close.
Stupid pink. Stupid camera.




It's weird for me, wearing pink. I think in my life I've only ever owned like three pieces of pink clothing. I really love this dress, though.

Top: single coat of polish (left); two coats (right)
Bottom: unpolished buttons (left) and after two coats (right)

 
The second adjustment was in the buttons.   I had some 5/8" silver buttons with a pretty compass rose design on them that were almost perfect with this dress, except that they were a really dark, cool, silver tone.  A couple of coats of gold nail polish ("I Married A Gold Digger", by Orchid Nail Laquer) took care of that: 



(This is the dress, by the way, on which I used the Washi tape to help me with the buttonholes, which I talked about briefly last week). 











 

What's Next?

Candlemas is tomorrow.  After that it's all Gulf Wars all the time until March 11th.  I'll be finishing a second new cotehardie, altering and updating a couple of older ones, sprucing up some accessories and making some new ones, and talking about a whole bunch of changes going on with my campsite arrangements for both myself and for Caerleon.  

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Blue Velvet Redux

new dress, for Candlemas 2016

In 2012, for my second Candlemas, I made a midnight blue velveteen gown that was more or less cotehardie-ish, with a shimmery leaf-green lining in the sleeves, embroidered with gold thread and tiny faux pearls. It had seen some wear, and was far too small for me, the last time I tried it on (six months ago), so I decided to adjust the sizing a bit, and to change the look of the whole dress.

In an awesome turn of events, when I tried the dress on a couple of weeks ago, before starting this project, it fit me perfectly!  Yay!  No re-sizing necessary!

Here's What Changed: 

1.      I removed all of the gold metallic embroidery and beading, steamed out the impressions left by the decoration and brushed up the fabric's nap with a soft brush to smooth it back out. 

2.      The original front lacing placket was removed and replaced with buttons. 

3.      I unstitched the neckline edges and flattened them out, then re-shaped the neckline at the bust. 

4.     The neckline was a wee bit deeper in the front than I wanted before, so I added a 1/2" edge binding in a linen the same color as the velveteen. 

5.      A twisted, blue, cotton, embroidery floss was couched in along the join between he body fabric and the edge binding. 

6.      I removed the green sleeve linings were removed and replaced with a blue washed-silk fabric from stash.

7.    Finally, I put smaller buttons onto the sleeves.  The size and design don't match the front buttons, but the metallic tones of both styles look great together, and I like having smaller buttons on the sleeves, anyway - less banging my arms on feast tables. 

The dress in 2012, made from a pair of
cotton velveteen curtains purchased at Ikea

Buttons and edge binding on new dress

One Last Thing

I tried out an embossing technique that I'd seen online - there are many tutorials on YouTube and on various blogs out there, this is one.  Basically, you wet the fabric with a spray bottle, place a rubber or foam stamp underneath it, and use a hot iron (without steam) to dry the fabric against the pattern of the stamp.  I thought it would be nifty to have a band across the lower hem, and one at the hips -  similar to the decorative bands in this image from Les Belle Heures du Duc du Berry.  At first, it looked fantastic: 

yay?

After a day or two, though, the embossed design simply disappeared from the fabric.  I tried it a few different ways (wetting the fabric on the inside, the outside, different iron settings, using starch, not using starch), but no matter what I did, the pressed pattern simply would not stay where i put it - after hanging for a couple of days, it just vanished. Oh, well.  It was a neat idea.  

Okay, Two Last Things

I thought I might "reupholster" my old red ear cauls for this outfit, as well, before I remembered that one had gotten badly crushed at war last year, and I'd thrown the pair out and resolved to make a new set when I needed one.  

Instead, since I felt like trying out something new, and didn't want to spend the time on making a new set of cauls, I decided to try my hand at making a bourrelet, or padded roll headpiece, instead - which, of course, ended up taking more time than a new set of cauls would have.  Whatever. :) 

Cotton/poly damask scraps from stash, over-embroidered along the fabric's design, with (plastic?) silver trim, plastic pearl beads, and a glass "ruby" and plastic pearl drop in the front.  There's a wire inside from an old Halloween witch's hat, and it's stuffed with the contents of an old bed pillow that had gone flat.  I love recycling old stuff!   

I may or may not end up doing some more embroidery on it.  The more I look at it, the less finished it actually looks.  Then again, 90% of it will be under a veil.  I'm not sure yet. 

I'll have pics of the finished outfit, with jewelry, veils, and other accessories, after Candlemas. 

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ROMA VIDA

Okay, okay, one last thing.

Because I had a minute today, and because after all the work I've done making sure I won't freeze to death at war the weather forecast now predicts warm temps and sun for most of the week, and because I had a couple of yards of linen that was once the victim of a horrible dye accident* and has since had no purpose in life, I made myself a simple Roman chiton.  It's a tube-style, with seams in the center front and back, like the cotton gauze one I made for myself a few months ago (and which has since gone missing, for whatever reason. House gnomes. I have no clue).

I'd seen this on Pinterest in recent months, and thought, hm, I could put nifty little cloak clasps at the shoulders just like this!

(actually a fibula pin and chain set)

But I didn't have any cloak clasps.  And I couldn't find any I liked.  While I was tooling around the sewing room looking for something to do next (to avoid what I should be doing, even now, which is packing), I found a pair of lion's head drawer pulls with a screw back.

HMM.  

Lion drawer pulls, and some velcro (the fuzzy side). 

Poking a hole in the fabric with a knitting needle.
Holes made in velcro with a leather punch. 

There's a piece of velcro between the screw and the
fabric, and between the fabric and the hardware on
the other side, with the fuzzy side of the velcro
against the fabric to prevent pulling and fraying. 

The front of the dress is sewn to the
ring with a couple of loops of embroidery
floss tied around the middle to secure them. 

And, of course, all of my Roman
jewelry is green, except for my
angelite bead necklace. LOL. 

* By the way, the horrible dye accident?  Was this one.  After that horrendous failure, I bleached out the fabric and hit it with another dyebath of blue to even the color out, which it kinda did, but then I washed it with some red after that and ended up with a really, spectacularly awful Barney-purple, which I then rinsed out with a dye remover, and it ended up being the magenta shade you see here.  In November I very nearly made it into a Hello Kitty pilgrim bag for a friend as a prank, but didn't get time.  

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It Was HOW Cold??

Okay, so, the event last weekend was *amazing*.  It was also SUPER COLD, and I didn't end up getting pictures of me in my new dresses for you, because everyone, including me, was too concerned with keeping warm to do much else, hehe.

It was in the low thirties all weekend, and raining for most of it. Windy, as well - with the wind chill, the temp was around 29°.  For those of you in the Great White North, lol, that's *ridiculous* to us southern Ansteorrans.

In this picture, I'm wearing two pairs of yoga pants, two pairs of socks, knee-high boots, two chemises, my new green cotehardie (more on that in a second), like two scarves, five veils wrapped around my head in layers, a big, fuzzy blanket from my bedding, and a heavy wool cloak.  (I'm allergic to wool, but the cloak is a blend, and lined with cotton, so it didn't bother me except where the neckline rubbed against my skin under my veils and scarves).

Here's the new green cotehardie I'm wearing in the picture above:

Heh. The front doesn't close on the mannequin, since its boobs don't squish as much as peopleboobs do.

Cloth buttons, very small train in the back, and elbow-length sleeves with attached pendants.

Linen stretches when it warms up to body temperature.  It's a very fine line, getting a supportive or closely-fitting cotehardie to fit so that it will close when it's cold, and not end up baggy when warm.  This one stretched out a bit too much last weekend, so this morning I took in the armpits and side bust a tiny bit, so it should be perfect for war now.

:)












I'm going to inundate you with new posts today, since I have two more projects to share and not a lot of time to sit around blogging, so, stay tuned!


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Caerleon Over-sleeves

By request, the Caerleon over-sleeves I showed you the other day, with the Swiss kirtle:

Black linen shell, with a gold linen lining.  No interlining.  

Gold linen buttons. 

The Caerleon company motto is painted on the inside of the sleeve cuff, so that when I have the cuffs turned up, they face away from me (see top picture).  The motto is Ut simus invicti:  "together we are undefeated." 

There's an Ansteorran star painted inside the top of the sleeve, so that I can turn the top down over where I have the sleeves pinned onto my dress to show the star, if I want.  

The motto, star, and the three white lion heads (which are the device of the company, though properly they're shown vertically on a black field), were all painted in plain old craft store acrylic craft paints, mixed with a little fabric glue and water, to help the paint soak into the fabric and resist cracking.  

I mix the paint with a tiny bit of water, and some fabric glue or Tacky glue (at a ratio of about 3:1 paint:glue, with just a few drops of water).  The water helps the paint-blue mixture flow on a brush; the glue basically turns acrylic paint into fabric paint, allowing it to soak into the material rather than forming a crust on top which could flake off, and it also makes the dried paint flexible to help prevent cracking.  (Eventually, yes, the paint will crack and flake; but this mixture lasts a long, long time.  I have a banner I made many years ago for another group I belonged to, which hung in a tree by my campsite for about four years in a row, and it never showed any damage from the elements).  

Previously...

The sleeves above are my first set of sleeves.  There's an introductory period to membership in my company, and certain conditions that you have to meet to be fully inducted and to earn the right to wear the lions.  Before that, you can wear the motto and colors only.  So my firs set of Caerleon sleeves were simpler: 

Gold linen with black borders at the top and bottom of the sleeves, and the motto painted in the same way, with the paint-glue-water mixture. 

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Eyelets!

I'm sure by now you've figured out what this red thing is that I've been posting pics of - it's another freaking cotehardie.  This year's process of refitting and replacing my garb wardrobe has left me with none, so I went ahead and whomped this up.

So far it's cut out and mostly put together. The linen was bright fire-engine red, and I toned it down by over-dyeing it with black Rit.  You've seen the gold hem tape (rayon) I've applied to the neckline, front opening and sleeve openings, and the cloth buttons I made for the sleeves:

And I showed you one of the finished sleeves earlier this week:

Today's job was the eyelets in the front:

Now I can finish putting the dress together, hem the skirt, and then do some pretty massive and epic machine-embroidery in the skirt.  More on that next week. :)


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AT LAST, MY ARM IS COMPLETE.

Phone pic at work, sorry.  36 @$%&^$@# hand-sewn buttons AND buttonholes.

Buttonholes are HARD, y'all.  29 in, and I finally figured out why they looked wonky, so, like the last six are *great* and the others are ugly as homemade sin.  Thankfully, though, they're mostly hidden by the buttons, and I'll have loooooong tippets over the upper arms.


Finished product very soon, now that the #%^&$^$@%#$ buttonholes are done on both sleeves.



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January Sewing Challenge + Blue Silk Cotehardie Finished

TADA and stuff.

Hey, look, it's another blue cotehardie. I should start a blog or something.

Closeup of sleeve buttons and buttonholes.  Nom.





Buttons given to me by a friend in trade for some jewelry and jewelry parts.

Photo of the actual fabric texture, a woven stripe with very nearly a seersucker effect, once washed and pressed.


This fabric was a birthday present!  :D

Since I wanted to button the sleeves, I had to convert the top-seam raglan sleeve pattern to a back-seam pattern....I realized after I'd cut the whole thing out.

Nearly thirty years sewing, and I still do stupid crap like that.  I originally made two right sleeves, too, and had to re-do one.
Derp.

So I sewed the top seam closed and cut a line up the center for the new opening.

I intended to make a paper pattern for my raglan-sleeve cotehardie pattern set from this, but there were some minor complications* that led me to skip it, for now.

The sleeve openings and neckline/front opening are faced with a dark blue washed silk bias tape that I cut from a remnant.



(That's Rabi, my sewing helper, or, as a friend of mine calls these things, a "fuzzy pattern weight").









*About that "minor" complication:  while I'm not normally one for New Year's resolutions, I did something crazy this January 1st and joined a gym, and have been going nearly every day since then (go me).  While I've lost a bit of weight already, I realized, while doing the final fitting and alterations on this cotehardie, that I've got muscles in new places, and I'm already taking on a completely different shape:  not just "less of me", but my upper back is widening with muscle development, my ass is higher and hips narrower, and my biceps seem to be reaching for the Hulk Hogan stars.  Gotta watch the upper arm development, yikes.

That's all well and good, but I cut this dress out weeks ago and have been just staring at it since then, until just the other day.  I've changed shape so much since I cut out the pieces that the dress no longer fits - and it's not a matter of letting out or in: there are sections of the dress that just aren't the right shape, as if I'm putting on an outfit tailored to someone else entirely.  Which means, sadly, that I can't wear my Candlemas dress to Candlemas.

I did, however, come up with a solution to at least that problem.  Details tomorrow!

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In Which Our Heroine Is Up 'Til 3am

An  11' flattened tube of black linen, 3" wide, all machine-"embroidered" (it's just fancy stitches my machine does).  I'd started with the white and yellow, thinking "silver and gold on black", but then somehow it became a "garden" of green "turf", red "flowers", and blue edging for water around the outside of the white "fence."

Yeah, I have no idea.  It was 3am.  I went through FOUR SPOOLS OF THREAD.  All stuff I had laying around not being used, so, no big.  It also took me just over four hours.  But now I have a pretty, and looooong, cloth belt to wrap and use with my bliauts and things like that.

Tiny picture is tiny.  This is just a plastic "pearl" button.  I painted the "pearl" with red nail polish, LOL, and will be sewing it to the front V of my new purple dress.  As a centerpiece, yes; but also to cover up a place where the decorative stitching is a bit f'd up.  I promise the red doesn't look this plastic and pinky in real life.  You'll see.  :)


Three days and counting!


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