Renaissance Dress FO

Today, my husband and I went to the Ohio Renaissance Festival! It was quite chilly (~60F) which means it was perfect for my new dress!

Please excuse the terrible photo quality. We only brought the little point and shoot this time and had really forgotten how crappy the pictures were. Never fear, there will be more (better) pictures of another Ren Fest outing.

Fabric: ~9 yds of red and gold, ~2 yds green, ~2 yds gold underskirt, ~1 yd felt, 2 yds canvas, >6 yds cotton broad cloth, ~1 yd jaquard, ~1 yd for veil
Pattern: Simplicity 2589 + Simplicity 2621 (supporting garments) + self drafted draw string bag
Year: contemporary/Tudor-esque
Notions: boning (12 yds), bias binding, grommets, ribbon, 3/4" flexible pvc piping, and a vast array of trimmings
Time to complete: practically the entire month of August and several weeks in July too
First worn: September 2011
Wear again? Of course! This was a major investment in time and treasure so this will get many years of use. I'm sure it will become more embellished over the years plus I'm already envisioning a cloak for those chilly days like today!

Total cost: you don't want to know

It's still a bit awkward in the chest area but I am a bit bustier than the average Elizabethan lady plus I didn't want to show off cleavage to all the world. Other than that, I really loved it. It was surprisingly comfortable even with the corset. Sitting was a bit awkward with the hoops. I took up a lot of space horizontally.

I also whipped my husband up a monk costume this weekend. After months of saying he didn't want a costume, he decided to tell me Friday that he wanted a monk costume. I was going to Jo-Ann's Saturday anyways so I said why not.

Fabric: 6 yds linen ($5.50 /yd)
Pattern: A McCall's nativity pattern and a McCall's cap pattern (heavily modified) because that was what was on sale for $.99 and no one had a monk pattern
Year: contemporary
Notions: thread, hook and eye
Time to complete: ~3 hours
First worn: September 2011
Wear again? He says yes. I say you better!

Total cost: ~$40

Best part of this project: We picked up 9 yds of this linen since I wanted 7 yds and they only had a 6 yd and a 3 yd piece so we got both. There was really nothing else even remotely appropriately. It was $9 /yd but I had a 40% off coupon. I only ended up using 6 yds so now I have 3 yds for the stash. I think perhaps a pair of pants are in order.

We did quite a bit of shopping and "costume accessorizing".

In addition to the staff and belt my husband has in his picture, he got these two cross throwing daggers with sheath. He really wanted to buy what I affectionately call sharp objects last year and didn't. So I kind of bullied him into getting something. He passed these lovelies up the first go around but couldn't part with them when we went back later in the day.

This is my haul minus the green bag which I made Saturday after realizing that I didn't have anywhere to carry my phone etc.

I picked up this lovely book locket at a corset store of all places. A lot of the jewelry there is more fantasy but this was one of the few pieces that could pass for at least semi-historically accurate looking.

I never thought that my husband would convince me to buy a sharp object (I'm more of the shiney things type gal) but when I found out that this "dagger" was actually a pair of scissors, I had to have them!

I got the choker on the right last year and went back to the same shop to get a matching piece and I ended up with this lovely bracelet. It's made by a company called Stillwater Chainmaille. Their pieces are lovely and the man who runs it is very nice and obviously passionate about his pieces. I'll definitely be back to buy matching pieces in future years. They're very good about doing custom color combos. The owner made this one from scratch for me today!

It was really lovely and we're planning on going back at least twice more this year. It was very busy and we didn't make it to hardly any shows or even all of the shops! Plus we're just nerds like that.

Hope you all had a lovely holiday weekend! See older Renaissance dress posts here.