Pouch

Here is a pouch I made for a friend. She sent me a picture of someone wearing it. I have never seen these kind of pouches before. I used the pattern to make a prototype. I'll post that later.

I left the top unfinished pending her input. The hole may be too big. It's sitting pretty much upright showing the actual size. More later....

2009 Medieval Sideless Surcotte and Cotehardie

Ah, I'm thinking of starting a new project for 2009. I have purchased the Burda 7977, surcotte/cotehardie pattern and some fabric and trim. I did some sewing for Christmas gifts. I noticed two people are following this blog, gee thanks, I like your blogs too. I LOVE DRESS DIARIES. What an excellent way to sew. Even tho' I'm here alone, I feel the strength and encouragement of all the women who write dress diaries. Thank you, all.
The greenish dress underneath the light colored fabric is a store bought dress given to me by a friend. It fits like the cotehardie, but the sleeves are flared.

BEGAN DRESS ON FEBRUARY 24

The layout didn't suit me, so I made one of my own. I have tweaked patterns before, but never completely disregarded the layouts. This fabric has NAP. After looking it up, I decided it was okay to have the nap going UP. I won't need to smooth this dress much and stuff doesn't stick to it easily SO, it's my preference, right?
I cut the lining pieces (which will be visible when the inside of the bottom edge shows) so the nap is upside down from the front. The wrong sides will be together in the finished dress.
Pattern pieces were laid out this way, on the straight grain, all facing the same direction to get the nap to match:
*dress front went right side up on the fold. Cut 1
*dress back went wrong side up next to it. Cut 2
*godet(gores?) went wrong side up on the fold. Cut it 2 X.

Today I begin sewing and the very first center back seam had to be torn out after just a few stitches. The two fabrics are shifting, like velvet because of the nap. so I'm looking up some tips and probably putting pins in parallel to the seam.
I found this at http://www.fashion-era.com/velvets/velvet_sewing_tips.htm#Stitching_the_Seam_

If you don't have a walking or roller foot or a dual feed machine, scour your wardrobe for some tissue paper and place long strips of tissue paper between the velvet pieces and sew the seams through the tissue. The tissue can be torn away once off the machine.

[Update August 2006 - A reader recently wrote to me ' Please let me offer an additional tool: I've decided that wax paper is my new best friend. I design on it, can affix it to the fabric in a variety of ways, including simply holding it since it does have some grittiness to it, sew right over it, see through it. And, it's easier to remove from the stitches than is tissue paper. It doesn't shred into such teeny pieces.'

So whilst I have not personally tried this method it may work well for you.]

It said to hold the fabric taunt and sew from top to bottom, as it easier to fix the hem if the fabric is uneven.

I tried to turn off the italics but it won't budge.

Ok, I tried the above velvet sewing tips and didn't like any of them. I sewed the seams with mostly NO pins at all, going slowly with a regular foot. Also, I think the WAX PAPER method meant to put the wax paper ON TOP OF the two fabrics, not in between as i did. oh well.

According to me-MISTAKE ON PATTERN?

This pattern has a mistake on it. It calls for 56-60" of trim for the Surcoat, but I used that on ONE side. Also, I didn't understand Fabric I and II, so I'm using the same for both.

Oh baby, this trim is hard to sew down. I'll have to wait and see how it looks after I get the

GODET'S on. I'm going to hand baste them after pinning first, THEN stitching, since it's a bias piece being attached to a straight-ish piece. OI!!

Result: basting first didn't keep it from sliding, the top layer still ended up 1/8" away from the edge.

Changes made to Blue/Green Gown

Needed more length in front, farthingale shows when I sit down. Took out Green front of forepart and found 1-2 inches of fabric folded in the seam. Yea!
Also, I needed a tutorial for sitting down whilst, and at the same time, wearing a hoop.
Most seats were fine, but when sitting between two other ladies wearing hoops, i needed to: LIFT THE HOOP CLOSEST TO MY FINGERTIPS ONE STEP BEFORE TAKING THE STEP BACK TO SIT. Got it? Somehow that made all the difference.

Need to make shoulder rolls, my partlet and camecia show too much. See photos of shoulder rolls on the 'partlet number 3' post. The pattern for a shoulder roll is an ELLIPSE! That surprised me. i found it on a PDF file somewhere with patterns for tunics.
Sleeves attachments were inefficient. Kept falling off or were too tight. Replaced stretchy hair ties with gold cord that unravels just looking at it. Used that for the 2 center loop2 and used green/gold ricrac from sleeve for the other 4. Total 6 loops.

Tomorrow is my debut in this dress as Sybille Frederick(of Cleves) at the MMRF.

Addtional changes: could put a GUARD of Blue along the bottom edge to protect it. I'm still not happy with the sleeve attachments. I re-did the shoulder rolls and they look better. But the sleeves still look saggy.

Partlet Number Three

These are three ways I can wear the partlet I made today. I won't go into the construction, because I used a man's Medium button down shirt pattern. With a few modifications and some lace....and 5 hours later....geez, I have a nice partlet. The fabric is light weight 100 % cotton. There is a wrinkle on the left side. I may put buttons or beads or trim on it later.

Underpants, Drawers, Bloomers!

I made some out of muslin I had laying around. I use a pants pattern from Nana's stash. I made them crotchless. Lady Gwendolyn gave me that idea. She said when you have a hand full of skirts and accessories, you don't have to pull your pants down to pee. AND the Drawers cover the dirty toilet seat a little and that's a plus. Now I have a pair for Saturday and for Sunday. Genius!

Chemise

I need a new chemise for the red/gold Venetian. The camecia sleeves are too bulky. I'm trying a SMOCK GENERATOR from Drea Leed, I presume. I found it here: http://www.elizabethancostume.net/index.html under 'underpinnings'. It says it will be a close fit. I had a big piece of linen from ??, 54" wide. I'm cutting it out directly, using the pattern and instructions.Okay, it's done and here are my comments.

I like the Generator. I enter my measurements and it gives me all the numbers I need. I cut it out with no problems. It sewed together just fine and fit like a cotehardie (my word for a fitted long sleeve gored dress). This will work well with the Venetian gown as the sleeves are tighter, not flared and the body is not bulky. I had to make the neckhole bigger to sit at the edge of my shoulder. This gown sits close to the edge.

One complaint is where the gores and gussets get sewn across each other. There is no way to cleanly finish that seam.

This smock is not suitable for the regular Ren Faire garb. It's not poofy at all.

A Hat for the Red/Gold Gown from 2008

I bought a sequined 1980's hat from a thrift store and covered it in the same gold as the kirtle. I made a bow out of the same curtain sheer fabric as the partlet and hotglued trim on the edge. I also made a caul of the same gold fabric.