16th Century Sewing Plans (Again)

I've been tweaking my historical costuming plans again. With the Renaissance Festival fast approaching, I know I need to prioritize and plan so I can get stuff done.


I wanted to make some sort of outerwear and I've decided on a linen jacket like this:

There's a pattern in the Tudor Tailor that looks really great for this sort of jacket. Plus layers are great for all day events.

I also really want to make an apron. Since I hate blackwork, I think I'll try some lace insertion.

See pretty lace work aprons!! (source: left, right by Jennifer Kluska)

I also have this great striped fabric that I bought ages ago for that Simplicity pattern. Now that I know better I want to make something more historically accurate. Thankfully, the fabric is a lighter weight than I remember and there's more of it than I remember so I'm going to make a dress!

The Italians did wear stripy garments like these two girls. (Giovanni Antonio Fasolol, c. 1560s: Paola Gualdo and Daughters)

And look at those great sleeves!

I also really like these dresses! ("Three Children with Dog" by Sofonisba Anguissola c. 1590)

Lily of Mode de Lis did a fabulous recreation based on this portrait.

I won't be doing a recreation of any particular portrait but borrowing details from different ones to make my own dress. The first part of this project will be to make a bodied petticoat to wear under the dress. I could use my wool kirtle but I want something lighter to wear on warmer days. (And in Florida!)

Eeep! I'm super excited for faire season!

HSF#8: UFO

This challenge for HSF is a UFO or unfinished object. I didn't have a whole lot of UFOs to choose from but I did pick one to finish. I finished the beading on my Renaissance court dress forepart.

(Please pardon the messy sewing table)

The Challenge: UFO
Fabric: none
Pattern: none
Year: Late 1500s
Notions: glass pearls ($9)
How historically accurate is it? oh, probably not very. I do know that foreparts could be pearled (with actual pearls of course) but I did no research as to patterns or designs. I just made one up that looked nice to me.
Hours to complete: 4 or 5
First worn: not yet
Total cost: $9

 I started pearling this way back in January as part of the Make Do and Mend Challenge since I was doing a major over haul on my court dress but then I ran out of pearls and it sat in the UFO pile for a while. It is now done and ready to wear! I still have more trimming to do on the dress as a whole but faire season is still months away.

I did have one 40s UFO that I started working on but then I didn't have a zipper in my stash that matched and with vacation just around the corner, a trip to Jo-Ann's is out of the question this week. Oh, well. I did get some non-historical UFOs finished too so this challenge was quite inspiring! :D

HSF#5 Bodice

This is yet another Renaissance Fair costume fix, but this time on the bodice of my red peasant dress.

This is the original dress which closes with lacing rings. I opted for lacing rings since I still had yet conquered my mind numbing dread of hand sewn eyelets. Now that I'm an eyelet pro (or at least not a raw beginner!) I wanted to remove the lacing rings and do eyelets instead.

Also, after making my gray kirtle and tweeking the pattern a bit, I wanted to have more of a straight edge to the front rather than such a pronounced curve.

You can really see here exactly how curved that center front seam is!

Tada! New Bodice! It's still slightly curve but follows the bodice pattern 2.0 much better.

You probably also noticed that I still chickened out on the lacing rings. I opted for strips of ribbon with loops. I saw this done by Jen of Festive Attyre (alas, the page has gone missing....) and I thought I'd give it a try since I still didn't want to do eyelets....

It's still not perfect but one thing I've learned from historical costuming it's that the second one is always so much better. This one is improved and good enough.

The Challenge: #5 Bodice

Fabric: Red linen rayon (for the original kirtle no new fabric used)
Pattern: Self-drafted
Year: late 1500s
Notions: grosgrain ribbon (stash)
How historically accurate is it? fabric content is meh (no rayon this period) and eyelets would have been more period but I'm going with it looks more period on the outside than it did before so that's an improvement.
Hours to complete: 4 or so (this is why I hate adjusting things! Takes twice as long as making from scratch plus all of that seam ripping!)
First worn: not yet, I'll come back and add some photos of it on me during faire season
Total cost: $0

HSF 1: Make Do and Mend

Originally, I wanted to do something 40s for this challenge but I decided to focus my energy (and free time over Christmas break) on making do with a bigger project.

Oh, my Elizabethan court dress..... It started out as a Tudor dress (right) back in 2011 when I'd only been sewing for about a year. The construction was fine (although it took forever) but the fit was not so great especially since my corset was too big. The right is the Elizabthan-ified version of 2012 after I'd lost 30lbs, made interchangeable sleeves and got a new corset. But it still really didn't fit well. I only wore it once last year to a ball and I knew that it needed some serious work before it could be worn again.

I decided to completely scrap the bodice and use my gray wool kirtle as the supportive undergarment rather than the second corset.

Tada! New bodice!

The Challenge: #1 Make Do and Mend

 I had to piece a lot of the lining but waste not!

Fabric: Leftover fabric from making the dress the first time, cotton scraps from another project for lining and leftover cotton twill for interlining

Pattern: I drafted it from a combination of the original bodice pattern (Simplicity 2589) and my gray kirtle pattern.

Year:  Tudor/Elizabethan (ie second half of the 16th century) depending on what sleeves and headgear I use

Notions: red thread from stash, plus I reused the bones from the original bodice

How historically accurate is it? Well, the outer fabric is polyester and the lining and support layer are cotton so not so good on the fabric. Red and gold were popular colors during the period so that's good. The shape is much better with the new underpinnings and newly drafted bodice.

Love the new shape on this dress! 

There's still a bit of curve near the bust, but that's perfectly period.

I also did much more period construction on the new bodice. I made it the same way I made the kirtle bodice. The biggest thing I wanted to improve (after the fit) was to do hand eyelets instead of using huge ugly grommets. So much nicer looking now!

 I did dig out the old modesty panel from the original bodice and added it in after the photo shoot. And I'm going to have my husband practice his lacing skills before faire season. It does, in fact, lace all the way closed except for right above the waist seam.

 No more gaposis!

My original idea for interchangeable sleeves were to attach lacing rings to the armscye and the sleeve head and tie them together. It was a major fail! They were super fiddly and the sleeve facing kept poking out. This go around I decided to lightly whip the sleeves in. It's a bit more work when it's time to interchange them but they function much better when in.

You can see the whip stitches but I'll follow the old costumer's adage-If they're looking that close, kick them!

The original skirt I kept the same except adjusted the pleats to fit the smaller bodice waist. It was partially hand sewn and partial machine sewn to the original bodice and I hand sewed the entire thing to the new bodice. The rest of it is the original machine stitching from when I first made the gown.

Hours to complete: I lost count. It was a lot of hand stitching but it went a lot speedier than my first go at a mostly hand stitched piece.

First worn: January 2014 just for pictures

Total cost: $0 everything was leftovers from other projects.

 I'm so happy that this dress is wearable again but it still needs some major trimming! I don't have enough of the trim from the old bodice to trim the new bodice so I'm going to have to start from scratch. Shucks! I have to buy yards and yards of trim.

 Not to mention, I was never very happy with the particular shade of gold I used when trimming this gown. It reads a bit tacky halloween costume.

Speaking of trim, as part of the make do challenge, I also removed all of the scratchy gold trim off one of my shifts. You couldn't see it anyways.

 I'm thinking something gold that more matches the gold in the dress fabric plus pearls! I loved beading my 19-teens does Elizabethan fancy dress.

You may have noticed an Eizabethan explosion on my pinterest this week. I may or may not have spend most of my free time this week "researching".

 Yay for having the hard part of this dress done and just the fun part left!

An English Noble Woman

My Renaissance Faire ensemble got a bit of a makeover since last year (1) (2) . Interchangeable sleeves, a partlet, some new trim and a fab hat took it from Tudor Rose to Elizabethan Noblewoman.

It was pretty chilly so I ended up wearing me jeans underneath and still being brrr.

My mother-in-law came along and wore my lower class red dress. She had a ball.

My hoops are looking a bit elliptical instead of circular but my bum roll looks sharp.

The hubby donned the kilt again this weekend. He's super excited about it.

Yay for a great day at the faire!

A Cape and a Kilt

It's hard to tell if the weather at the end of October is going to cooperate or not but it did this past weekend so I could wear my latest costume!

It's little red riding hood.

Me-made cape and skirt from peasant dress

thrifted blouse

leather corset Brown Cow Art

The cape was made from red stretch velveteen and black taffeta. Not my first choice for a fabric combo but it was stash busting and I made it work.

All in all, it was a quick cheap costume to go with my new corset!

My husband was super excited to wear his new kilt.

And I was excited that he decided to buy all of the pieces for this outfit! I was not looking forward to all of that pleating.

Sometimes life gives you lemons

This past weekend, the hubby, some friends and I packed up for a camping trip plus two day Renaissance Faire extravaganza. Of course, Thursday I started feeling under the weather. :( Saturday, I muddled through a day at the faire but didn't get any pictures of my outfit. :(

I did get to see a joust featuring the host, a coach and the runner up from Full Metal Jousting on the History channel.

And the Queen and her entourage. Love all of the costumes!

Sunday, I was feeling miserable so the hubby and I went home. *Sigh* Guess I'll have to do a photo shoot sometime when I'm feeling better. We will be back for one more weekend on Oct. 13th. Hopefully my sinuses cooperate so I can enjoy it!

In lue of pretty pictures of me dressed up from this year, check out my past Renaissance costuming efforts.

If you can't wear a pretty dress, you might as well go shopping

Since the forecast for today was overcast and rainy, this Renaissance Faire trip was not a good one for costumes, but we made up for it in shopping! :)

My splurge for this year was a lovely leather corset from Brown Cow Art. It makes my waist look like it's been photoshopped. :) And it's not even nearly as tight as it could be. I'm sooooo happy that I was good at Jo-Ann's this weekend and only spent $10 instead of bringing home the 6-10 yds of $10/yd fabric that I fell in love with.....

The lady who helped me was very enthusiastic and let me try on several corsets before I found one I liked. Of course, now I need some appropriate clothes to wear under my corset.

My husband's big purchase for the season was a kilt and accessories. He's been wanting one for a while and aside from the fact that wool is ridiculously expensive, I have zero desire to do all of those pleats so he opted to buy one instead.

I also got some accessories for my new Renaissance costume.

I got earrings to match my growing collection from Stillwater Chainmail.

A nice black belt from Blue Flame Leather.

And a leather pouch found at a corset shop of all places (Renaissance Fashions). It's not nearly as nice of a quality as the leather from Brown Cow Art or Blue Flame Leather but I really wanted this size and shape and it was not too pricey either.

If you missed last year's haul, it's here and here. To catch up on all of my Renaissance costuming adventures, set aside a few hours and start here.