Not Dead Yet
Wow, long time no blog. And I keep missing Wednesdays, too. Well, here's what I'm up to!
I have silk for two ostentatious bliauts, because I love my first (linen) one dearly, but it's really the wrong type of fabric for the garment.
Okay,
so the green dress I have ten yards of green for, and 4 yards of peach,
and 2 yards of brown. I figured out, with 1.5-yard-long sleeves, I will
have nearly 7 yards for the skirt, because I'm making the bodice
and skirt separately. I can't wait to gather 7 yards into the
just-about-one-yard circumference of my hips. It's gonna be great.
I actually still need to buy fabric for that one because the bodice is
going to need some kind of lining to support the weight of the skirt
(...and it's wild to think that I have to worry about supporting the weight of this silk. It's sheer! How can it possibly have any quantifiable weight?!? But then again...yards. Literal measurable-on-a-football-field yards
of fabric.) I'm thinking a nice very fine linen for the lining, and I
may do something clever with the lining and the bodice fabric so I can
still have those nice belly wrinkles that show in most illustrations of
bliauts.
On that note, the brown bands at the hem and arms and collar are all going to be heavily embroidered with gold silk and probably pearls or other gems, depending on what I can get my hands on (garnets!! the great gemstone love of my life! I'd love to use lapis lazuli, too, but that's actually still expensive. Also, I am avoiding red-white-and-blue like the plague.) So I'm researching possible embroidery pattern ideas and learning about stitches that would make sense to use, and the great delight of the crusading era is that there was huge...erm...let's call it cultural exchange...between Northern Europe and the rest of the world heading east. Totally not the result of genocide (actually some of it wasn't, but the more I learn about the Crusades the guiltier I feel about loving Kingdom of Heaven). ANYWAY. It means I can snag decorative motifs from almost anywhere, as long as they look like they'd make good repeating patterns and won't make me want to claw my eyes out. (Talk to me again after I've done 10 yards of embroidery.)
And the blue dress is, if possible, even more
ridiculous in some ways. I have 6 yards of blue and 3 of red, so I had
to do a completely different layout of pieces (because getting used to
one pattern that works well is logical and I don't do logic in these sorts of projects).
The body and skirt will start with one long strip for front and back, and I'm going to insert eight triangular gores (hip to floor length) at the cardinal + intermediate directions, which uses up nearly all the blue...I'll have enough left over for the upper halves of the sleeves (shoulder to elbow), a little (19)50s neck scarf, and a silk handkerchief. Very rough math suggests that this will give me a 10.5-yard hem. Which I will actually have to hem, since it's going to be all raw edges.
This
means I get to use most of the red for big semi-circular sleeves (I
played with those tiny pieces of paper for about an hour figuring out
what shape I needed to cut for the effect I wanted) and the belt and
bits of trim (no hem trim on this one...I don't think I have enough red,
and it needs to be doubled to appear truly red over the blue because
it's so incredibly sheer).
I'm toying with gold embroidery on this
one, too, although probably less of it. Dark blue would also look
great—and a friend of mine says I should do both. We shall see.
I'm stoked about making some dresses that are really ostentatious and time-consuming and more like the point of the garment. These weren't practical at all, and that was the entire point. And I'm a total history NERD and also it gives me an excuse to wear gorgeous clothes.
Otherwise,
finished these lovely skeins on my wheel. Nest Fiber Club,
Constellations (I think...I may have lost the bag with the colorway on
it). No idea about the yardage; I forgot to count them while they were
on the swift, so that'll have to happen after washing.
Wollerton
Old Hall is delighted by the cooler weather and blooming gleefully.
Such a photogenic creature, and she smells lovely, too.
And for the rest of this week? Mad, mad RenFest sewing. I finished my blouse (photos when someone else can take them) and I'm going to try for a vest (with at least one internal pocket for keys and other important modern bits so I don't have to worry about losing them). We go on Sunday. I can totally pattern and stitch an entire vest in that time.
I have silk for two ostentatious bliauts, because I love my first (linen) one dearly, but it's really the wrong type of fabric for the garment.
On that note, the brown bands at the hem and arms and collar are all going to be heavily embroidered with gold silk and probably pearls or other gems, depending on what I can get my hands on (garnets!! the great gemstone love of my life! I'd love to use lapis lazuli, too, but that's actually still expensive. Also, I am avoiding red-white-and-blue like the plague.) So I'm researching possible embroidery pattern ideas and learning about stitches that would make sense to use, and the great delight of the crusading era is that there was huge...erm...let's call it cultural exchange...between Northern Europe and the rest of the world heading east. Totally not the result of genocide (actually some of it wasn't, but the more I learn about the Crusades the guiltier I feel about loving Kingdom of Heaven). ANYWAY. It means I can snag decorative motifs from almost anywhere, as long as they look like they'd make good repeating patterns and won't make me want to claw my eyes out. (Talk to me again after I've done 10 yards of embroidery.)
The body and skirt will start with one long strip for front and back, and I'm going to insert eight triangular gores (hip to floor length) at the cardinal + intermediate directions, which uses up nearly all the blue...I'll have enough left over for the upper halves of the sleeves (shoulder to elbow), a little (19)50s neck scarf, and a silk handkerchief. Very rough math suggests that this will give me a 10.5-yard hem. Which I will actually have to hem, since it's going to be all raw edges.
I'm stoked about making some dresses that are really ostentatious and time-consuming and more like the point of the garment. These weren't practical at all, and that was the entire point. And I'm a total history NERD and also it gives me an excuse to wear gorgeous clothes.
And for the rest of this week? Mad, mad RenFest sewing. I finished my blouse (photos when someone else can take them) and I'm going to try for a vest (with at least one internal pocket for keys and other important modern bits so I don't have to worry about losing them). We go on Sunday. I can totally pattern and stitch an entire vest in that time.
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