Tudor: Fun with sleeves, Part 2
Oct. 16th, 2009 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mandie_rwFirst, I would just like to say that, after trying the gown on to do sleeve-futzing, I'm pretty sure I'm just going to roast at Faire this year, unless the weather continues to be about 50 degrees! If everyone else there is walking around and complaining about how cold it is, I'll be comfortable. Also, I really want to weigh this thing...with both sleeves sewn on, it really does weigh a ton!
Let us proceed with more less-than-thrilling pictures. I always forget how much I love Mabel until she's not around. A dress dummy really is a helpful thing!
I bought this fabric for something else originally (no idea what), but when I decided to make a Tudor outfit, I decided this black velveteen was pretty much perfect. I only had 5 yards, though, and couldn't get any more of the same dye lot of fabric. And really, those sleeves take quite a bit of fabric. This is where the shameless cheating comes in.
I made the sleeves in two parts, first of all, to do what I could to save fabric. (As it turned out, the stomacher bit on the front could stand to be a millimeter or two longer, but there was absolutely no more fabric big enough for another stomacher! And I barely squeaked out the paste for the French hood.) The upper sleeve is based vaguely on my 18thc sleeve pattern, because I do know how to do those, and the lower, with the fur, is a big old rectangle. And, of course, as I didn't have enough fabric for those, either, I put a strip of grey fabric from the Stash in to make them wide enough. It's in the middle, and you can't see it when the sleeves are folded over, so it doesn't matter, happily.
So today I finished the right sleeve, and it's all sewn on. I seriously hate sleeves; they're so tedious! You can see how , with the sleeve that's folded up, I can say, Cheap grey cotton? What cotton? *looks innocent*
Then I figured that I might as well tack in the lower sleeves if I could; one less thing to shift around on me while I'm wearing it is always a good thing. So, tack in the lower sleeves I did. That was even more boring than sewing the fur to the sleeves -- and that's pretty bad. Of course I sewed the right one too far down, so that the cuff was all the way down over my knuckles and looked incredibly stupid. Had to rip that out and sew it back in the right spot, cursing it the entire time. *subversive muttering*
I wanted to take a picture of it hanging up (the lower sleeves stuck out in a particularly creepy manner, as if there were arms in them), but the hanger I had the gown on had other ideas, and as soon as I turned my back on it, committed a spectacular kamikaze stunt and gave up the ghost, dumping the gown on the floor and scaring the crap out of me with the noise it made. So we're going to have to settle for an on-the-bed picture. (I've got the gown on another hanger now, and I'm not going to be surprised if that one breaks in the middle of the night with the express purpose of frightening me awake.)
With the sleeves on, it's technically wearable now (a whole week before the event! Wow!), though I want to put a hook and eye on the back to hold up the train -- I don't care whether They Did That Back Then or not, I'm not dragging a black velveteen train through the dust all day at that faire. Plus I need to finish the sash and the pearls on the French hood (I got all OCD that the pearls on my paste are smaller than the ones in the portrait for some reason, and so took them all off, and bought the 8mm ones instead. If I still need more, I'm going to be annoyed), and I'd like to put some pearls and embroidery (hm, that oughta be interesting) around the neck of the gown.
Other than that, though, it's done!
And on a completely unrelated note, my extremely irritating floormates are apparently attempting to breed tiny flying things in their trash cans. So far, they are succeeding, and their advance guard is coming to colonize my room. *swats small bug*
Let us proceed with more less-than-thrilling pictures. I always forget how much I love Mabel until she's not around. A dress dummy really is a helpful thing!
I bought this fabric for something else originally (no idea what), but when I decided to make a Tudor outfit, I decided this black velveteen was pretty much perfect. I only had 5 yards, though, and couldn't get any more of the same dye lot of fabric. And really, those sleeves take quite a bit of fabric. This is where the shameless cheating comes in.
I made the sleeves in two parts, first of all, to do what I could to save fabric. (As it turned out, the stomacher bit on the front could stand to be a millimeter or two longer, but there was absolutely no more fabric big enough for another stomacher! And I barely squeaked out the paste for the French hood.) The upper sleeve is based vaguely on my 18thc sleeve pattern, because I do know how to do those, and the lower, with the fur, is a big old rectangle. And, of course, as I didn't have enough fabric for those, either, I put a strip of grey fabric from the Stash in to make them wide enough. It's in the middle, and you can't see it when the sleeves are folded over, so it doesn't matter, happily.
So today I finished the right sleeve, and it's all sewn on. I seriously hate sleeves; they're so tedious! You can see how , with the sleeve that's folded up, I can say, Cheap grey cotton? What cotton? *looks innocent*
Then I figured that I might as well tack in the lower sleeves if I could; one less thing to shift around on me while I'm wearing it is always a good thing. So, tack in the lower sleeves I did. That was even more boring than sewing the fur to the sleeves -- and that's pretty bad. Of course I sewed the right one too far down, so that the cuff was all the way down over my knuckles and looked incredibly stupid. Had to rip that out and sew it back in the right spot, cursing it the entire time. *subversive muttering*
I wanted to take a picture of it hanging up (the lower sleeves stuck out in a particularly creepy manner, as if there were arms in them), but the hanger I had the gown on had other ideas, and as soon as I turned my back on it, committed a spectacular kamikaze stunt and gave up the ghost, dumping the gown on the floor and scaring the crap out of me with the noise it made. So we're going to have to settle for an on-the-bed picture. (I've got the gown on another hanger now, and I'm not going to be surprised if that one breaks in the middle of the night with the express purpose of frightening me awake.)
With the sleeves on, it's technically wearable now (a whole week before the event! Wow!), though I want to put a hook and eye on the back to hold up the train -- I don't care whether They Did That Back Then or not, I'm not dragging a black velveteen train through the dust all day at that faire. Plus I need to finish the sash and the pearls on the French hood (I got all OCD that the pearls on my paste are smaller than the ones in the portrait for some reason, and so took them all off, and bought the 8mm ones instead. If I still need more, I'm going to be annoyed), and I'd like to put some pearls and embroidery (hm, that oughta be interesting) around the neck of the gown.
Other than that, though, it's done!
And on a completely unrelated note, my extremely irritating floormates are apparently attempting to breed tiny flying things in their trash cans. So far, they are succeeding, and their advance guard is coming to colonize my room. *swats small bug*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-10-20 05:07 am (UTC)http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/95/9695-004-B3A828A2.jpg
and likely the two ladies on the right. There are others, but they escape me at the moment. Just re-formatted my computer and still restoring backups.
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Date: 2009-10-20 06:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-21 05:48 pm (UTC)