Spanish Style Slashed sleeves

As you probably may know from my earlier posts, Di wants to have Spanish style sleeves with her gown, with slashes, and a hanging oversleeve. I have never done this before. Annnd...the fabric we have for the undersleeve isn't exactly fray-proof...so..here goes...


As the sleeves in the photo are made of 2 fabrics, I laid my 2 fabrics out like this under the pattern,
leaving about 1/2 inch for seams, and pinning everything well in place.

I then ironed on my extremely period-accurate fusible interfacing
(ok, they used other stuff, but this is easier, and won't be visible!)
then went a little slash-happy with my x-acto blade. I made the cuts slashes
 rather than 'pinks' like Isabel's portrait due to the frayable nature of this fabric.



I cut rectangles of my second type of silk (the silk haj) and gathered
them at the ends and basted them in place all the way around the slash



I hand sewed the white trim, and then added tiny baby blue seed
beads just for an aditional effect if anyone looks up close.

The inspiration....

Third gown order!

Whee! So, I am just about done with Muriel's skirt (as in, I'm taking  coffee break then it'll be done!), am cutting out Di's as well which will be together by tomorrow, both bodice mockups fit pretty well, adjustments noted and are on their way back, which means..THE FUN PART STARTS NOW!!! Oh I SO want a tailor's dummy....
Also, I have one new gown order in! She also wants the Queen Mary style gown (as I've taken to calling it) and she's chosen a lovely sage green fabric (middle), with a lining in a berry red satin (left), with berry red trim as well. GORGEOUS! Happy days, now, back to work!

Just a note.......

I am NEVER working with synthetic silk/habutae again. EVER. Muriel's gown is going to be gorgeous, and the skirt will flow beautifully, but it took me THREE hours to piece together her skirt, measure and pin the hem, and sew 2 feet of it. And that's only the first seam. As I'm doing French seams, after I stitch the hem up, I have to go back and sew each of the panels again. Normally, not a problem. But with lightweight slippery fabric that wants to do it's own thing? It's a pain in the butt. And some of the seams aren't straight so I'll be going over those again. I am NOT looking forward to the bodice, but perhaps due to it being lined and stiffened with several layers of fabric, it will be easier than working with the habutae on it's own. Anyways, After I managed to piece together the skirt, trim the seams, measure and pin the hem (using Di's measurements accidentally), then measure it again (this time using the correct ones) then starch and iron it on the lowest possible setting, then pin some more, then trim said hem, then FINALLY begin to sew it, a tiny piece of thread got stuck in the bobbin of my machine and jammed it so I had to open it up, and used this as an excuse to take it apart, clean and oil it, put it back together, and then broke my needle. LOL. I have more needles. Somewhere. I have organized and can no longer find anything! Anyways, Muriel, if you're reading this, I blame me for offering false silk habutae as a fabric option. PLEASE don't ask for it agan if you order anything else from me? I'm begging you!! Other fabrics (aside from acetate satin and polyester organdi/organza) are sooo much easier to work with!) Linen perhaps? Cotton velvet? Duchess satin? Brocade? Wool? SO much more preferable haha. Anyways, I WILL win. End of story. Once I am finally done fighting with the skirt, and have won the battle (and oh I will dammit), have hemmed it and finished the seams, then I'll be making Di's skirt, which should go a little quicker due to the cotton vevet having a tendency NOT to slip everywhere.

Acres and acres of skirt! And that's not all of it folks...

Silk Haj partlet and other things

I bought some 100% silk haj to use with Di's gown in the sleeves and also to use to make an Italian Renaissance style partlet out of. I have never worked with silk haj before. I have never worked with any fabric that is thinner and about at flimsy feeling as toilet paper either. 2 hours of VERY careful hand-stitching later (I love it when the pub-my work- is empty, so much spare time!) and I have sewn up ONE side of the front and carefully stiched on clear faceted seed beads over the pale yellow/gold thread. I was going to have it beaded and embroidered, similar to the portrait on the left, but then decided to make it easier on myself and I bought a bronze large dress net to sew over the top to be a little more similar to Eleanora's portrait above. My plan was to fix it to the silk at each cross-section with a small bead. Except that the bronze doesn't really go with the yellow thread and clear seed beads. Now I'm thinking I'll stick to my original plan of embroidering it, and adding a collar with a thin lace trim and making it an Elizabethan style partlet instead or perhaps one with a short standing collar trimmed in lace like many of the Medici women's portraits. Except, I am going to not only use an embroidery hoop, but I will be tacking paper, with a pattern drawn on (in light pencil) or printed on to the back and sewing the design on with the paper to give the fabric more substance. I can then just dampen the fabric and peel the wet paper off later. This stuff is as light as spiderwebs, floaty and a pain in my bum. But SO soft, and so gorgeous! For embroidery patterns I found a book called Tudor Treasures to Embroider at the library and I will be printing out a few patterns from there.

2 hours, for this?? Really? Ok I was working too, but still...
not incredibly proud of this, but, once starched and
embroidered, it can be redeemed....

My other idea, to stitch on this net. I think I'll make
2 partlets...net on one and one netless

What a week.......

The red stuff, the gold stuff, and the pink stuff. None of it is incredibly period. 

So my personal life is undergoing some MAJOR issues and changes, and I have either been working or exhausted in the last week and sadly haven't gotten as much done as I'd like. Luckily, there is tomorrow morning, and Saturday and Sunday evenings to work on the gowns. I did get both bodice mockups basted together and shipped out and both ladies should have them in the next day or so, and I am eagerly anticipating the results, and hoping desperately there is little to be done. In the meantime I am cutting out the skirts, and piecing them together, and I want to get work started on the sleeves, but I think it would be prudent to wait to see how much alteration the bodices need first. I'll cut out the shoulder rolls instead. I have also discovered that I despise habutae 'silk'. It's slippery and disobedient and a pain in the arse to keep placed properly with the pattern. Luckily, I have had no mishaps so far, and I have plenty of fabric to work with. The cotton velvet is my friend right now. Much easier to work with. I am also going to go find some extra trim for Muriel's gown. She is playing Queen Mary, yet her green gown is bit austere, even for Mary with only one type and colour of 'layce' (braid trim). I may get some velvet ribbon in black or a darker green and put it underneath the braid just to give it a more opulent feel. If she lets me I'll add some tiny false pearl beads to the trim as well. No extra cost, I'm just bored! Di's gown is easier as far as sizing, she is nearly my exact size. I have grown a bit bigger it seems, I am no longer 32, 23, 33, my bust I was going off bra size but in reality I am a 29, 26, 35. My butt got bigger after baby, well, not my butt, my hips widened. The mystery of why my jeans feel weird is now solved. I have hips!

I am also making myself another gown for the faires this year, 3 actually, and boy oh boy am I going to have fun! An Italian Renaissance style gown in the style of Empress something or other from Portugal and Eleanora de Toledo, an Italian ''courtesan'' gown, most likely with cutout sleeve detail as in the photo on the left, and another Elizabethan gown, when  find enough money to buy the jaqquard I want! I have a red damask to use but I'm not sure if I have enough, and an antique gold one with a checkered-weave to it and a more modern looking pattern, I think I may actually dye the fabric an emerald green so that it is a slightly shimmery silk damask look and the pattern will dissapear a bit. I have an emerald green 'silk' and pure gauzy white silk as well. I have also fallen in love with a robin's egg blue jaqquard with red, pink, green and gold floral motifs, which is kinda period. I might be stretching it a little, but it's GORGEOUS! I am going to be buying oodles more of the silk to dye it as well and make myself a fairy gown for Faerieworlds music festival this year as well. It is so light, gauzy and floaty, I'll line it with a sheer cotton muslin and dye the whole piece together...sooo excited! I never have actually done that before...

Pattern reworking on Simplicity 3782-Sizing up

To be 100% honest, I have never made a plus size gown before, the largest gown size I made was a size 12 and I didn't modify it one bit, I'm quite liking this challenge! Muriel is a size 20-22, and the pattern I have only goes up to a 20, which is in places, a few inches taller and a few inches thinner than she is. Obviously made for size 20 models who are closer to 6 feet tall, and not for a petite lady. So I have to do some clever reworking. I want things to be held in, supported, and fitted, and so I have gotten some spiral steel boning in addition to plastic boning I will be using for the bodice. I cut out a mockup of the bodice last night and added extra room for the bust and waist, and also modified the collar a bit so it will be a bit taller, and stand up more. I made a bit of a whoops though, and didn't cut it long enough to accomodate the extra width I added in the back, so I have cut another panel to add to the back of the neck. I am quite liking this challenge, larger size=more fabric which= more room to decorate! Buuut, she wants a fauirly simple gown so far, fitted sleeves with shoulder rolls, single skirt no problem, but not a lot of trim on the bodice. I'll add a touch more on the shoulder rolls :-) The light olive green tone should go beautifully with her olive/golden undertoned skin and dark hair too, I'm so excited! I am mailing out the bodice mockup tomorrow, and then I'll start work on the skirt, sometime tonight, or tomorrow. I am annoyed with the habutae silk as it is a synthetic and therefore tricky to work with. It flows and hangs beautifully but I need to iron it on a low setting. I'm torn as to whether I should starch it to make it stiffer, or sew it while it's all flowy, I may starch it on the skirt, along the pleats to help keep them in place...we shall see.....

I have made this one out of a stiff curtain lining fabric, and will stitch it together today and ship it out to Muriel tomorrow so she can see how it fits. Until then, I have Di's gown which I'll be cutting out the bodice mockup tonight and putting it together as well so I can hopefully ship both tomorrow. I'll then start work on the skirts for both of the gowns and Di's partlet.


Finally! It's 3D!



The Peacock Gown

I have a gorgeous green false silk fabric for the main part of the gown, and a 100% real silk cream coloured sheer fabric for the partlet, and bits of the sleeves. I also have a copper coloured false silk for the sleeves and forepart and stomacher, and I am going to be adding embroidery in green, olive, gold, copper, cream and royal blue, as well as beading in the same colours. I have several designs in the works, here is the first one, The partlet is sheer cream silk with embroidery and beading, the stomacher and forepart embroidered and beaded, I think I'm going to rework the sleeves somehow... 

The fabrics are below...