Necklace Spree

Today, I went out for lunch with my whole family for my youngest sister's birthday. She's 17! Its so weird--she still feels 8 to me...and she'll love that I put that on the intraweb!
Anywho, after the lunch, my other two sisters and I decided to peruse the mall (my sister had to do an inventory in a store there at 6, and we decided to help her kill the time). We stopped in the Icing store (conveniently the one sis had to do inventory in...), and I found some kick-ass-awesome jewelry!

I think this might be courtesan usable--especially the first--the pearl one. But I'm putting them both online to show off cuz they're awesome. They were from the Icing's vintage collection that is now going extinct. So I got each necklace for $3, and the matching earrings for $2.50 each. I thought that was pretty good considering the normal prices ($12/necklace, $5/earring). Score!


I think the above is so much like some portraits I've seen. And the green jewels should accent the red dress nicely.


And this was just too cute not to buy.

Eyelets are Forever

I know, tis been a while since my last update. I've been busy...but not on costumery! But I have managed to start the final phase of my neverending corset--covering the eyelets with a nice little buttonhole stitch. I have 24 eyelets to cover in totale. I have finished 12. These 12 took me 3 movies (King Arthur, Without a Paddle and Never Say Never Again) and one episode of the Venture Bros. cartoon on adult swim...

Its not much, but at least i'm posting something...


In other news, I bought ribbon to make the channels for my roped/corded petticoat. So I hope to start that soon.

Corset Conclusion, I Hope

Wow. I don't think I should've wished for the boning to come in quite so much. Cuz sometimes you get what you wish for. It came Friday night. I have been working on finishing the corset since then. The boning is perfect in it--no channel fit issues (kudos to me and my knowledgable ruler use), and it looks very nice. Note to self and others: the spiral steel boning is MUCH more flexible than I had envisioned. This makes it much more comfortable than I envisioned. But in the future, if I want to go for rigid, I would go with the spring steel. That is what i used to approximate a "busk" in my corset, and it really does the job.
This pic shows the flexibility of the spiral steel--top is side to side, middle is straight, and bottom is front/back flexibility. I found that the spring steel (its jsut a strip of plastic coated metal with rounded ends) is only flexible front to back (not side to side), and even only marginally flexible--so it makes a great busk substitute. The poly boning acts like a weak spring steel.



Once I had all the boning in and had attached my lacing strips once more to assess fit (and removed them once again--yay jack the seam ripper), I decided I was ready to put the ribbon edging on.

The ribbon I found at the local fabric store, and thought it perfect. It has a slight shell design in cream and tan. It complements my corset fabric nicely. It is thick, heavy duty ribbon, so I thought would work well for the load bearing corset. And to make it stronger, I folded it in half (it is 2.5 inches wide, and the pattern calls for 1-1.5", so this seemed a good solution).

ribbon trim on corset fabric--love the way it looks together.
The thing I didn't love was how FRIGGIN DIFFICULT it was to sew onto my corset. With each pull of my needle (handsewing mind you), I was going through 2 layers of denim, one of thick curtain fabric and two of heavy duty ribbon--and sometimes more. Ouch. The needle stuck so many times I can't even describe it. And the thread kept insisting on knotting itself. Friday night I sewed on it for about 4 hours. On Saturday, I worked on it almost all day, and thought I would go mad. My sister, who was stuck in our apartment due to Maryland snow, took mercy on me and helped me--we were stitching from opposite sides of the corset to get it done faster. But Saturday bedtime came and it still wasn't finished. Sunday morning breakfast and then back to stitching--I just want the thing to be done! About 17 hours, 3 puncture wounds, 1 pinky blister,2 bent needles, 10 numb fingers and 4 callouses later, I was finished. Ouch. Remind me not to do this again. This corset better last for a long long time! It weighs 1 lb, 10 oz. My sister and I both bled on it.

As as if it wasn't torturous enough to do the ribbon, when it was done I had about a 1 minute feeling of accomplishment before I realized I needed to put the eyelets in for lacing. I used Dritz 1/8" eyelets in gold--this took me an additional 2ish hours--Ack! While I like the way they look (daintier than grommets), they were not deep enough for my 3-fabric-layer corset, so the innermost denim layer did not all get caught into the eyelets. To fix this, I think I may have to sew a buttonhole stitch around each eyelet. It'll hold all the layers, but a side effect is that it will look more period. Quite honestly, I could care less about period on the corset that goes under the dress, but looks like I'll be going that way anyway. I'd much rather just know that I am done, but looks like the corset has it in for me and I will have to work on it a bit more...

Here are some pics, though. I think its AWESOME. Now that its *almost* done (minus the sewing over the eyelets), I think all the crazy work was worth it!

Here is a close up of the finished product. I'm loving it, personally..

This is with a skirt I already had made from the same fabric for a past ren fest. Convenient little ensemble, should I ever need it...

And here is the back view. I intentionally made it a bit small in hopes of losing my 15 thanksgiving and christmas pounds. And if i don't lose them, oh well, its still serviceable. ;-) Damn, baby got back.

Corset In Waiting and Partlet Brainstorms.

Sigh....I wait for boning. What an interminable thing. Okay, so yes, I only ordered it 2 days ago. But I want it now! Pout. And no, I didn't pay for fast shipping. So wait I shall. My frugality often defeats my impatience. So full of vices....

So, despite inactivity due to waiting, I have sewn the decorative outer fabric to my corset. It looks quite sharp, I think. I hope that I kept well enough to the stitch lines that I did not significantly shrink my boning channels. I ordered 1/2 inch boning, and made 5/8 inch channels in my design. So they better fit when it gets here. Great, now I'm worrying myself....
Anyway, I am not going to bore you all with pics of the still unfinished corset, even if I do think the outer fabric looks sharp. I will wait until I have the finished product in all its splendor. At least, I hope its slendor-ful when I finish...hehe

I am planning a trip to the store tonight to get more ribbon for the corset edging. It seems I'm rather stupid and didn't buy enough the first time round. What's worrisome is that I got it on clearance, so if they're out, I must find a new ribbon option. And I did so like the one I picked the first time round. I suppose I should also buy grommets or eyelets to enable the lacing of the corset. If I get a few other things I can keep myself busy while I'm snowed in this weekend. Apparently Maryland is getting a snow dumping. If only I had my boning I could finish my corset for snowy day diversion. Ah well....

As for partlet brainstorming:
It struck me the other day that an interesting way to do the partlet would be to bead it. I do not think it is strictly period, but it should have the right look (i am thinking gold beads with either pearls or a garnety color bead at the junctions). And, I think I can figure out how to bead a net faster than I could teach myself to weave one. Now I need to find a cheap place to buy beads so I can experiment with it--don't wanna drop too much, cuz I could be wrong about it looking right or my ability to figure it out. hehe. I am excited to try it, as I haven't seen anyone else do this yet, and so it'd be unique. So secretly proud of myself for thinking of it....

corset plan of attack

Ah, so I have received some great suggestions on how to fix my strangely fitting corset. First, I can make lacing strips to temporarily attach to the thing and see how it actually looks when laced. Awesome. Mission accomplished:


My temporary corset lacings (made of white denim and Dritz grommets)--I simply baste these on to whatever corsets/bodices I experiment with now and in the future to see what they look like laced without having to poke possibly-wrong holes into my garment before I'm ready. Yay!

Next is the whole fit and bodyline thing. It was suggested that the corset is too long around my waist/hips. So I will try to shorten the tabs just a bit, and cut the tabs up into the corset a little higher so they find my natural waist better. I'm also told this will make it more comfy. ;-)

I think that it is imperative for me to bone the whole thing (at least temporarily) with poly boning to see the true effect. This will allow me to make any adjustments before I order the more expensive steel spiral stuff in the pre-set lengths...

Tonight Jack, the seamripper, and I got to be great friends. I have never seam ripped so much. First the boning channels that I had to half cut off, then the temporary corset lacings (twice, cuz I tried it on twice). I also discovered the awesomeness of FrayCheck...Did wonders for cutting those tabs up higher when I didn't have the energy to sew a cleanfinish on the razzling demin.

Here are my results. I think I could cut the side tab even a little higher, and I will do so. Overall, I am much happier with my corset now, and though I don't think its perfectly shaped, it'll do:

My corset frontview. Notice the side tabs sticking out. I will remedy this by cutting the tabs a little higher. They will also be more sturdy when I get my real boning (steel instead of poly).

Sideview of my reworked corset. I like this line, and I think its period appropriate. And let me just tell you how weird it is for me to put such a buxom picture of myself online....Don't stare too much.

My outer corset fabric is in the wash preshrinking--shoulda done that earlier, cuz I would be able to attach it tonight if I'd planned better. Oh well, I will add it to the design tomorrow, I'm sure. I feel so productive!

And in other news....I've ordered the boning. I think I'm confident enough in the size of the corset that I can do it. Anyway, the prices really were not bad. The best prices I found were at Hedgehog Handworks. They also give discounts when you order in quanties of 4 or more, and everywhere else I looked only gave quantity discounts for 12 or more. I ordered some extras too, just in case--I probably will want ot throw a few into my gown, too, so why not?
For the boning, I decided to do a mix of styles:
1) The front 4 channels with 1/2 inch spring steel, which I read can bend forward and back but not really side to side (which means sturdier "busk" effect). I'm also doing the 2 back center bones with spring steel (but 1/4 inch), as I read somewhere that it was "must" for corset integrity.
2) The channels around the tabs will have 1/2 inch spiral steel, as this can bend side to side (important to have on your...ahem...sides). But also they are sturdier than poly, and I don't want my tabs flipping up. Hopefully that works.
3) A few non-important channels will have poly boning for some support. Mainly, these are the ones that are sandwiched safely between channels of steel--A way to save a little money.

corset woes

I am pretty sure I stole this post's title from one of my accomplices. I worked on a corset today for quite a long time (granted, I had a lot of distractions). I used the corset pattern generator from the Elizabethan Costuming page. I opted for the boned tab style, since the site said that it was the most comfortable. And in all my fun layers of courtesan clothes, comfort will definitely be an issue. ;-)

While I think it looks okay in pics, I am not sure its gonna fit me properly. I kinda tried to play with it (I haven't put grommets in yet) to test the fit. I think it is TOO straight, if that is possible for the venetian silohuette. It does not make a conical shape, but kinda a straight up and down. I am hoping that once I get all the boning into it (it needs to be ordered first) it will fit better. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic. Sigh.

I've also found that its exceedingly hard to fit a corset to yourself when you have no one to help and no dummy...Here are my attempts so far. I apologize for the poor picture quality. Usually hubby is there to take good pics, but not tonight.


corset layout/boning--all the boning is straight up and down (except for the ones on the back) . Maybe this is the source of my "too straight" problem?


Corset "fitting" . Keep in mind its not laced (no eyelets or grommets yet), and there are only a couple pieces of poly boning in there--i'm waiting to get my spiral steel boning, but I need to know what sizes to order first.

As for the corset, I still am not sure what I think of it. I do hope I will like it more after "sleeping on it" and getting the boning/laces worked out. (I apologize for the weird picture angle. I was contorted trying to hold the camera far enough out to get the whole thing in the pic.)

So far I have only used the white denim for the corset. If I can get the pattern working okay I will cut out my outer brocady fabric, but as my supply of that is limited I am waiting until the corset pattern works to use up my decorative stuff.

I guess my corset will be on hiatus until I get the boning into it and figure out what's going wrong...

fabric store fun and curly camicas

Well, over the weekend I hit the fabric store sale as promised. I cleaned up on thread. I bought all sorts of colors. Just in case....

I also got a liner for the inside of my dress bodice, a hideous 50 cent/yard fabric with teal checkers to use while drafting patterns (so i don't waste my good fabric), and some pink lightweight cotton shirting for any random use I come up with.

My other big find was 8 yards of a dark olive fabric to make a "practice dress." It was $1/yd. I have decided (and it has been pointed out) that I have almost zero experience drafting patterns. So, I am planning on doing a practice "courtesan" dress. This will be with the olive fabric. Its a poly/rayon blend, so kinda eh (not authentic), but it'll be good for practice and feels similar to my velvet weight/texture wise for good practice. The olive is plain olive on the back side, and diamond striped olive on the front side. I think I will use the plan side for most of the dress, and perhaps a bit of the diamonds for accent (maybe on the front of the bodice and around the bottom of the dress). Anywho, here are my new fabric finds:


fabricfinds--silky burgundy is for lining my velvet dress bodice, hideous teal checks is for pattern drafting, olive is for my practice Italian gown, and pale pink is cuz it was 50cents a yard and it might be good for something....

Other than that, I found that Simplicity patterns were on sale for a dollar each, so I bought two of them. #8881 is the Elizabethan dress pattern. I may try to use this pattern to loosely base my own bodice pattern on. the necline is basically correct, and I'll just have to tweak it toadd back side lacing, and fix the waistline so it is more Venetian (change the point in the front and add one in the back). The other pattern is #5794. It is a cloak. I will make it if I'm feeling luxurious. Particulary since my existing cloak may be sacrificed and recycled to be part of my red velvet courtesan dress. It is a dark mauvy pink, and may find itselft cut into strips of trim for the dress...




So, the cloak I currently have is the pink on the top with the black finishing stitches. While I love the cape's fit and style, I often complain that I do not want the pink cape (I made it in highschool). I am faced with a dilemma. It matches pretty well. Do I kill my pink cape to make fabric strips for guard trims on my red velvet dress? Or do I keep the pink cloak intact because, hey, it does match my dress....?

Also, since I got new thread I was able to work on my camica more. I hemmed all the edges (top, sleeve and bottom). One of my thread purchases was a silky rayon thread in a golden tone. With this I bound the edges of the sleeves and neckline to produce the "frill" effect I have previously referred to:

Palma Vecchio: La Violante

I think my edges turned out very well. I've got a closeup of the curling edge in gold, and a whole pic of the camica as it is now.


I think this is as far as I will go on the camica until the dress is finished. I have quickly gathered the neckline for this pic just to see how the effect worked. But i do not want to permanently gather the neckline until I know what the shape and size of the dress's neckline will be. Basically, I want my camica top to *just* peek over the dress. So, finishing the camica will be put on hold until much later. I also plan on gathering my camica sleeves. This will be done at the same time as the neckline so I don't screw up and end up doing them somehow differently....

gown construction blueprint

Besides the gown itself and camica, which I think I pretty much covered in my previous posts, the rest of my ideas are as follows:

Corset:
I plan on making a corset to go under the gown. For this I will most likely use the Corset Generator and Sewing Instructions on the Elizabethan Costuming page. I have purchased a heavy white denim for this purpose. It seems quite sturdy, was on ridiculous sale, and is white so it won’t bleed onto anything in the wash. I am considering doing steel spiral boning in the corset for extra support (I lie a bit on the busty side) and “cinch”--I lie on the mushy side, too ;-). There are some boning retailers suggested on the aforementioned pattern site, and I will have to peruse those to find the best deals. I am still deciding if I want to do the outer layer of my corset in decorative fabric. But most likely, I will decide “yes.” If so, the decorative fabric will be some tan curtains I picked up in goodwill at the insistence of an accomplice. You can see it here, in the underskirt. Its leafy.


corset fabric is the underskirt

I also saw another corset idea I quite liked. On Festive Attyre, there was a picture of a corset that was laced in the back ,b ut had hook and eye closures in the front to make dressing (and undressing) yourself easier. I might experiment with this….

Underskirt:
We’ve already touched on this, it will be the red brocade from my previous post. The major thing I wanted to add to this info was that I am thinking about making it a “corded” underskirt. Which to my understanding means I sew channels containing rope around the bottom and up the inside of the skirt to provide a loose support for skirt poofiness. My thought is it would allow air circulation “down there” on warm days, as well as add to the aesthetics. I will experiment with this, as well… The references I have found thus far in on the Semptress page, and on the Festive Attyre site in the diary for the Bergamesque Noblewoman's Gown.

Depending on the cording used, this could be fairly rigid or much less so. I still am not sure if I’m doing this, but its at least fun to consider…

Partlet:
Oh, how I love the braided/woven Venetian partlets. A great example is from a Veronese fresco:

Veronese: Detail from a fresco (off of Realm of Venus)

And a delish detail shot (though Florentine, not Venetian) is found in an Eleanora de Toledo portrait:

See Partlet, above . Also for anyone interested, there are even better detail shots of this painting on the Raveness dress diary. She was able to see the painting in person, and got some excellent photos...

I have found various people who made these types of partlets and explained it on their websites. Some actually weaving them, like Briana on Realm of Venus, and others assembling crisscrossing trims on sheer fabric, like Alyxx. Both methods are very effective, and I will do the weaving if I’ve got time (and if I can manage to figure it out), but the sheer fabric option is also spectacular if I save my partlet til last minute!

Girdle:
I want to do a beaded girdle as seen in many Venetian portriats. One good example of a courtesan and her girdle is this:

Unknown Artist: Courtesan

Keeping in mind that the above example has a larger bottom piece for accent, I looked around WalMart to see what I could find to approximate it. I came up with a beaded tassle sold for window dressings. It was $2.50, so I figured it was worth the expense to save me from trying to make the thing…I also checked the beading section to make sure matching beads to this tassle are fairly common, and they are. So, my girdle will look like an extended version of this:


beadies for girdle (middlish left)

FlagFan:
I absolutely NEED a flag fan to complete the ensemble. First, they were in Dangerous Beauty,
and they appear in Venetian/Italian portraiture:

Titian: Portrait Of A Lady In White

I think the only details left after all the above are jewelry, hair and perhaps a veil. I will definitely hit thrift stores/goodwill/antique stores for the jewelry. I love that kinda stuff!

Hair, eh, i'll have to experiment. And if my hair sucks (its currently a bit short for braiding), that's what the veil is for! ;-)

Until next time (most likely after I go buy camica thread...)

Design Concepts #2

Hrmm…what else can I bore you with? Some of my inspirations, I guess….
Well, besides the Dangerous Beauty movie (which was the greatest impetus for this project), my second most important influence has been reading through the creation of the Seresina gown by Jwlhyferdewinter . It was the first venetian courtesan link I found, and had a great effect on what I saw in my future. Mainly my future being “yes, I could try this….” ANd her dress is so lovely, it is definitely inspiration to try my own!

I wanted to show some portraits of elements I’d like to include in my ensemble. This also serves as notes for me to remind myself of things later! So bear with me….

I want my dress to have the general Venetian silohuette seen in numerous paintings from 1550-1600. A perfect and simple example is this:

Veronese: Portrait of a Woman

Note: Besides the excellent silohuette, I chose this because I interpret the dress to be made from reddish velvet. Sound familiar? However, remember that I do not want the front ladder lacing in my dress, just this general shape. I may shorten the waist, as I am shortwaisted, and I want it to be comfortable and flattering to my figure. Afterall, what girl doesn’t?

Below, we have proof that the Venetians did, indeed, have non-front-closure dresses and also featured split skirts with fun underskirts. This is part of my design concept as well. Again, a portrait of a velvet dress. Excellent. I am also interested in the method of trim on this dress, particularly the sleeves. I could entertain the idea of something like this….

Titian: Portrait of Titian's daughter Lavinia

New topic:
I would love to have my gown puddling on the floor. Or have a nice little train. I do not know how reasonable this is, as I plan to be walking around the Faire in it. Many of the historical portraits and sketches do show the dresses to be longer than floor length, or featuring a train.

Vecellio Sketch

One thought I'm toying with is that I could do JUST the train, but have the dress be to the floor (and no longer) in front. Then, for walking around the Faire, I could bustle it in the back. I have not found historical reference that this was done, but it does seem very practical, and I could imagine them doing it back then. I’m also inspired to do this by (you guessed it!) Dangerous Beauty! She has several dresses that she bustles (more excessively than I would, but you get an idea). I apologize for the crappy picture, but I took it of my TV, and those never turn out well.

DB ScreenCapture

Additionally, referring back to the Vecellio Sketch above, I want the back of my dress to have the “V” back at the waist and the low square neckline in the back, as seen on so many gowns of the time.

Last Item on my list for today. Trims. I love this portrait. It is part of the reason I bought the pink taffeta. ;-) Though I am not making this dress (perhaps I could later), I am a big fan of the guard trims used, and hope to incoportate something like this in my design (like my mulberry ribbons--see sketch, previous post). I just love this pink and green combo. But I'll just have to remember that for next time...


Moretto da Brescia: Portrait Of A Lady

Design Concepts

Okay, so we know I’m making a courtesan dress. We know I’ve already started the camica. But what of the dress? What will it look like? What is this red cotton velveteen I’ve spoken of? Here we go:

Courtesan in Venice.
I’m thinking red. Okay, I’m "slightly" biased by the costumes in Dangerous Beauty, but they do wear an awful lot of red and I like it. The DB character also has an orange dress I love, but the orange in my local fabric stores are limited, and I can’t bear to buy fabric sight unseen from online. Besides, one of my courtesan-to-be accomplices is doing an amber/orangey dress. So I’ll stick to red. Anyway, based on Oonagh's Own website, red was a pretty dominant color. Sounds good.

Flashback to months ago. I visit the fabric store. I buy a red brocade-y cotton/poly fabric. $25 for 6-7 yards. Not too bad. In the store it looks red with purple-y red details. I’m excited. I can do all my accents in some deep purple reds. Sounds regal. Nope—at home the purple is lost. This is my first clash with in-store-lighting. Oh, then I find on Oonagh's site that there’s not evidence of purple being used in Venice during that period. So perhaps the evil store lighting saved me from myself…. End flashback. I have a costuming hiatus to decide if I like this fabric or not. Maybe I’ll use it for curtains if I don’t use it for a dress….

On to the recent past (a few days ago):
I find info online for a local fabric store “selling way below cost” “too low to put online”. I go. OH MY GOD! Delicious fabrics. Scrumptious. Exactly what I’d like to have as a courtesan. I get some swatches (the store was closing when I got there) to think about it. My choices range from $25/yd-$40/yd.

LUSH SWATCHES
I love them. (mental note to make a dress with that blue and gold...someday). I think if I do the diamond burgundy fabric as an accent and a cheaper fabric for the rest I can afford it. That night I go back to the local fabric store and find THE red cotton velveteen. It matches my diamond swatch almost perfectly. I get 6 yards of the red velvet. I take it home. I pull it out to admire it. STUPID STORE LIGHTING! Sigh…velvet no longer matches my pretty little diamond swatch.
Another accomplice counsels me on my non-matching fabric dilemma. Okay, so my red velvet doesn’t match the diamonds. But I haven’t bought the diamonds. And they’re expensive. So, the velvet (and yes, the evil in-store-lighting) saves me from the insanity of dropping possibly hundreds on fancy fabric that is best reserved for when I’m a more accomplished seamstress. I admit defeat. And yet, I’m very excited about the red velvet potential…

Serendipity:
I put the red velvet on top of the red brocade from several months back. The “red” brocade now looks deliciously mauve, and wonderful next the velvet. I think we have a winning combination…


My *final* fabric selection. The bottom is the red cotton/poly brocade. The middle is the red cotton velveteen, and the top is my fru fru pink acetate taffeta. Isn't is a sexy combo?

The pink is something I picked up at the local store for $1/yd. It’s pink taffeta (acetate, not silk). Totally not a “me” purchase. But courtesan demons in my head started talking about how cute it’d be to line the skirt in pink taffeta. I’ll get a rustle and a flirty pink flash whenever I lift my skirts…. Oh, the rapture.

This is my concept sketch thus far:

concept design

I decided not to do front ladder lacing, despite what most of the portraiture of the time tells me. Why you ask? Because I’m obstinate. And because I think my two accomplices are both doing ladder lacing, and I like variety. Probably I’ll end up with side back lacing, since I’ve seen that in an Arnold sketch of the burial gown of Eleanora of Toledo (c. 1562 ).


The trim in my colored sketch is not necessarily my final choice, but its good in the drawing for now…

I’m not sure which sleeve style on the concept sketch I like best. I’ve seen ones sorta like the one on the left. But basically, that one is from Dangerous Beauty, and I think not period accurate. But it is awful cute. We’ll see. I have a few other sleeve ideas I might sketch out before making my final decision…As the sleeves are removable I won't feel so bad if I don't go completely historically accurate on them. I can always add an accurate sleeve later on....

More Camica Fun

Well, I was "sick" again today. I just couldn’t bear to get outta bed. And what do you think happened?! Well, I sewed, of course. This dress is gonna get me fired. ;-)

I finished sewing the bulk of the camica together. Then I played with possible neckline treatments on some scrap fabric I had. I think I will end up doing a tight clean finish (think appliqué look) on the very edge. Besides looking nice, I think it’ll cause a curly frill, and should look much like the painting below. Next to it is my swatch of experimentation. When I really do this, i'll most likely use a gold thread for the edging, instead of garish purple-pink.

Palma Vecchio: La Violante

Besides the frill, I’d like to include a solid band over the gathering stitches, perhaps a band with some decorative stitching like this portrait:

Jacopo Robusti - Il Tintoretto: Flora

Whether I’ll do the decorative stitching by hand or cheat and use one of my fast and easy machine stitches is yet to be seen. I do have 9 months, so I could afford the handwork. We’ll see…

Other than that, I decided to go back to my chemise to hem all appropriate edges. But before that I decided to REALLY finish the seams off good. That meant ironing the seams open and then folding over and ironing again to hide the clean-finished edges. I’m still paranoid about gauze fray, so I decided to stitch on the edges. What a difference this made! (see below, left seam super-seamed, right seam unfinished).



Unfortunately, my extra credit seam sewing meant I ran out of white thread and didn’t get to do any hemming. Oh well. I hate hemming anyway. I’ll do it later. Here’s a picture of my camica so far. Its not gathered anywhere, or hemmed. But you can get an idea, and you can see how fun and transparent it is.

More later. As I’ll be taking a hiatus on sewing until I have more thread, maybe I’ll post some concept/design posts for the next few days…
I know, "thread is cheap." But if I wait til Friday its 50% CHEAPER! ;-)

Camica Adventures

Last night I decided to work on something. ANYTHING! I am just SO excited that I’m busting to start, even though I know I’m not ready for the real dress yet (besides needing some sewing practice, I also need to lose the 10 lbs I gained over Thanksgiving/Christmas). So, I decided to start the camica.

I will confess that I skipped work today because I am "sick", and (even though this wasn’t my plan) I ended up fabric shopping. I scoured the fabric store for a suitable camica fabric. Their linen was far too coarse for my liking, and the straight up cotton muslin was boring (i.e. a lot like my pre-existing chemise). I also had a preconceived notion that I’d get something translucent for my camica. That seems deliciously naughty and courtesan-like. Unfortunately, most translucent materials I found were some sort of polyester or poly blend. Which means Hot. And since my dress is gonna be velvet (its red cotton velveteen --more on this later), I want to keep other things to natural fibers and lighter weights to make it more bearable to wear if its warmish. And the Maryland RenFest (where I get the most use out of my costumes) can be unbearably warm. This will most likely end up being my autumn dress. ;-)

I was losing hope on my natural fiber translucent fabric dream (couldn’t afford silk). But then, in the home decorating section, I happened upon 100% cotton decorator’s gauze. Yes, it’s gauzy. It’s pretty friggin' see-through. And I love it. It’s like very thin linen, since you can see all the weave details. 4 1/8 yards came home with me for camica goodness. $2/yard.

So, Monday night I started cutting camica bits out. I used the pattern on The Realm of Venus website, altered a bit for my preferences and cut out in a different order. I made the body 38 inches long (falls somewhere between my knees and ankles--i'm short) and the sleeves an excessive 40 long inches from the shoulder. I wanted sleeve length for poof. And to approximate a cool “tuck-chemise-under-the-shoulder-strap” effect I saw in a painting for when I don’t wear my detachable dress sleeves. See below:

Marietta Robusti (La Tintoretta):
Venetian Woman

I clean finished all the edges of my cuts with my awesome new sewing machine (Christmas present from hubby Janome 3500), using techniques I learned in my beginners’ sewing class. Very proud of myself. I felt the clean finishing was necessary, as it is gauze. And gauze is, afterall, prone to fraying.


fraying gauze vs. clean finish

I started sewing bits together, but really only managed to attach sleeves to gussets before it was bed time. More later.


*since originally posting this, I've found a painting that supports the translucent camica idea. Go me! See below:

Giovanni Antonio Fasolo: Fresco:
Detail from "Games" (from The Realm of Venus)
translucent camica sleeves

In the Beginning

Here goes....

I have been in love with the Renaissance Festival since high school. I have very fond memories of making my first costume with two dear highschool friends in my grandmother's chaotic sewing room. Looking back on it I remember how fun it was to be making uber-girly clothing that we normally can't wear in the 21st century (at least not without getting some very strange looks). I also think about my poor grandmother putting up with the three of us. She should be sainted.

In college, I had the pleasure of watching Dangerous Beauty for the first time. Besides educating me on how empowering it is to be a respectable whore whom occasionally deepthroats bananas, it piqued my interest in the clothing of the Italian Renaissance. Basically, I wanted one of those dresses. Really really badly....

And I still do. As I do not have funds to pay for a fancy seamstress, and I do have a bit of sewing experience, I've decided to try to make one. We will see how this turns out. Or if its any cheaper than just getting the friggin seamstress. My initial forays to the fabric store have cast doubt on the affordability of this project. Apparently I have expensive tastes...

First project will be the camica...Second, corset, I guess.