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!  :) 

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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Cheating FTW

I have to share a nifty thing with you guys.

My shiny new sewing machine is down for repairs, so I've been using my old 1994 Singer 2517.  It's a hoss, but definitely leaves something to be desired in the buttonhole department.  It's almost completely a manual process - each of the four sides of a buttonhole are stitched individually, and the wheel has to be turned to the next setting for each side. Stitch, turn, stitch, turn, start, stop, start, stop, wash, rinse, repeat.  It's got a clear foot that allows you to see markings on the fabric to guide your buttonholes, but it's actually really hard to see any detail through, and doesn't let the fabric slip under it smoothly at all, so I end up using my regular steel one - and no matter which foot I use, the feed dogs walk the fabric ALL OVER THE PLACE when the buttonhole settings are in use, so it requires a LOT of pressure and fidgeting to get the things to come out relatively straight.

So on my latest project (which I'll show you in a few days once it's finished), I tried something new:

That's Washi tape.  Washi tape is a craft masking tape that is re-usable and doesn't leave a sticky residue on surfaces.  My roommate uses a lot of it in her paper crafts; she got this measuring tape Washi in a sampler pack she ordered (Etsy? I think?), and passed it along to me. It only goes to 16" and and then repeats; but the measurements are accurate, and so I've been finding lots of ways to use it in my sewing room - there's a yard-long strip on my table in front of my machine, and a 6" strip on the machine it self for a quick guide. 

On my most recent project, I also used it to help me make a nice set of buttonholes.  I wrapped one piece of tape around the edge of my garment, to line up all the buttonholes correctly near the edge of the fabric, measured my buttons, and then placed a second piece of tape on the outside - all I had to do was go from one piece of tape to the other, and I used the measurements on the tape to space the buttonholes out evenly.  I still had to put a lot of pressure on the fabric to keep the buttonholes straight, but that was the ONLY thing I had to worry about. And when I was finished, the tape lifted right off the fabric, didn't pull the fibers at all, and didn't leave anything behind. 

It worked GREAT!  I had 42 buttonholes to do on this proejct, and the tape was a HUGE time-saver. In the 22 years I've been using this machine, I've never had it go as smoothly as it did with the Washi tape!  I will definitely be doing this again! 

Until I get my new machine repaired, that is.  

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A Very Wrinkly Bliaut

Another commission finished, yay! 

Another bliaut, for the same client as the blue and magenta one, and the viking coat.

click to embiggen

• Gold linen with black linen trim, lining, and applied neckline and upper sleeve contrast bands.  
• Same pattern as the blue and magenta one, with a different neckline. 
• Caerleon livery, yay! 
• Side-laced, with hand-sewn eyelets.
• Lions (7) hand-embroidered (*fingers fall off*) 

Yes, I could have ironed this before I photographed it.  But...I didn't.  :P 

Closeup of the embroidered lions.  I'd originally planned to appliqué these,  but they're only about an inch and a half high - way too small to appliqué on the machine without it becoming a huge mess.  I decided to stitch them down by hand instead; but seeing that the white embroidery thread I was using to edge them was a completely different white than the linen I cut the lions out of, I decided to just embroider the entire thing(s) instead.

I finished the lions on the neckline facing before attaching it to the body of the dress, then ran the lining in last, so that all of the seams were enclosed within the lining and the back of the embroidery would be fully hidden/protected. 

I'm rather pleased with the way these little guys came out. 










The gold stripe along the edges of all the black pieces is a couched cord of embroidery floss.









Whew!

I have one commission piece to do in September, but first I have to make it to/through LPT without spontaneously combusting from stress.  :D

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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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Fall Ball* Projects

At the event over the weekend I took a *fabulous* calligraphy class taught by a really nice man, and I used an inkwell pen for the very first time.  Where has this BEEN all my life??  It's so much easier, and nicer to write with than those stupid felt-tip calligraphy markers I've been "practicing" with.  I'm never using those again!  Really cool class.

The shire had a fabric and book sale fundraiser going on for a while outside the hall, and I picked up:

10y ltwt white cotton blend for $9!   Book for $2!  :D

pretty little textural details; the fabric is
semi-sheer and soooo soft

And there was a free scrap with purchase, too!  I grabbed a pretty pomegranate-red bit of cotton, and, since I happened onto the sale table just as I was out of things to do for the next couple of hours, I sat right now and made a little bag for my new camera, entirely by hand.  (This is actually the first project in the SCA I've ever done entirely by hand).

first period buttonhole ever - MAN these things are easy! 

* Yes, in January. Long story.

Opashen [---------------------------90%------]

The opashen for Vasilii is almost done!

This is where it stood as of Saturday.  It's actually completely finished now, except for the collar, which I'll do tonight.  Yay!

And, just because I forgot to post it before, here's a shot of the hand-stitched lacing eyelets on the front of that green linen gown.  26 of them, oy!  It looks and works great, though. Love it love it.

More Underwear!

I love underwear. I really do.  This week it was a long-sleeved, front-laced chemise.  And it bugs me to no end that after searching for HOURS online, I can't seem to find the single painting from the 15th century that depicts this thing that I made from memory of the painting.  (Read: "I have documentation, I just don't have it with me, Officer").  I thought I bookmarked that thing!!

Anyhoo.

You can see why I'm trying to find at least the one picture I know of that shows an example of this style of chemise or under-gown. I've found plenty that depict a tightly fitted [sleeveless] chemise, but I can't find the *one* picture I know I've seen where one had a short lacing placket down the front like this, as well as the long sleeves.  It's out there somewhere. Laughing at me.

It's looser in the skirt than most, and longer; the sleeves are long and fitted; and the front is laced tight under and across the bust.  Not as supportive and constricting as a côtehardie, but enough to, well, help, and it fits nicely and smoothly under a buttoned côte.

I'm not sure if there's a better term than "under-gown", but that's it's function.  I have a plain, sleeveless chemise that works just fine for what it is, but I wanted one that could double as a true foundation layer and not just a layer of fabric between my dress and me.




And guess what?  Also this:

WHAT  A  PAIN  IN  THE   BUTT!  I decided to try hand-stitching eyelets on this thing, one, because I hadn't ever done it before, and two, because I'm thinking of lacing an actual kirtle with hand-stitched eyelets on a future gown...and now I'm seriously re-thinking that.  Pain. In. Thebutt.

The chemise is a soft, lightweight cotton...a sheet from a thrift store, actually.  It's not really sheer, but you can see in the shoulder seams and the edging around the neckline that it's not entirely opaque, either.

I put a boring ol' lettuce edge along the end of the sleeve cuffs, so that when it does show, it's decorative, though simple, without adding a bulky cuff hem underneath another sleeve worn over it.









I've learned two things from this project:

1. I want more period underwear. 
2. I think I'm going to have to have a white côtehardie one day.  I wonder if I could actually wear one for any length of time without spilling stuff on it. 

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