Okay, so I admit it... I am a horrible diary person. I can't believe it has really been 3 months since I updated this thing! But it is now summer vacation and I am relatively stress-free for the first time in... well... about 3 months! I'm really excited about dragging this project out again, and I am hoping to make some good progress in the next month or two.
But first, let me recap a bit to get us all up to speed. The undies are virtually finished at this point. I'm using an older linen smock, my corded corset, and a new blackworked partlet. The blackwork collar was finished months ago, and I had so much fun making it! It is an Italian design taken from Bronwen's fabulous blackwork library. You probably won't see the embroidery often, but I thought it would be a fun little touch if I ever got hot and wanted to wear the doublet collar open. I still need to make the neck and wrist ruffs, but I should be able to whip those out in an afternoon .
So now I'm trying to work on the surface embellishment for the doublet. I need to do the pinking first so I don't cut the interlining. Janet Arnold suggests that the pinking was usually done after assembly, but I have no earthly idea how to do that without cutting through both layers. I have cut the silk satin into more manageable sections and I am marking off the pinking pattern on the back of the fabric with tailor's chalk (here's a pic. Looks like a nice little brick wall, doesn't it?). The scale is tiny, and it is incredibly tedious! If I was a 16th century tailor, I'm quite positive my poor apprentice would be doing this step! I might try making a paper template for the other pieces, but I'm a bit worried about it slipping around on the silk and causing the pattern to get off. Maybe I could stick the template to the back of the fabric with some temporary spray adhesive (like the stuff they use with stencils). Hmmm... I'll have to work on this. But anyway, that's where I am now. I'm gonna get out my chisel and start pinking as soon as I can work up the courage!
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I finished pinking the first section of fabric, and oy! are my muscles sore! I actually ended up pinking way more than necessary because a lot of this will be trimmed off once I trace my pattern pieces. I'm not sure how much the trapunto cording will make the fabric shrink up, so I just decided to pink the whole thing for practice. I thought about cording it first so I could be sure of the size, but I realized that it would be much harder to use a template on a bumpy corded piece of fabric. But once I get an idea of how much "shrink" will be involved, it should be easier to guestimate appropriate shapes for the next pieces.
I did make a template to use for the cuts, and stuck it down with some light stencil adhesive which worked great. The template was made from some frosted acetate that I dug out of my paper stash... but any sturdy paper or plastic sheeting would probably work fine. The slashes are 3/4 of an inch apart and are made with a 1/4 inch wood carving chisel. You can see my template and tools here. I roughed up the edges of each cut with my thumbnail so you get that cool little "fluff" to the cuts... which is exactly what you see in the surviving pinked garments from the 16th century. It gives it a nice surface texture that shows up well against the smooth satin. And no, I didn't have to do anything to prevent raveling or seal the edges. Because of the satin weave, it is very stable and cuts don't budge a bit. I made my cuts across the grain of the top fibers because that's what looked the best in my tests. Bias cuts and those made with the grain didn't "fluff" as well and there was more raveling. My satin is pretty thin though, so I'm guessing that it would work even more like the period examples if I could get my hands on a heavier silk satin.
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| My pinked satin (in black and white) | 16th century pinked satin from Patterns of Fashion |
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Well, another day has passed and I have now finished the trapunto cording on my first piece of fabric... and double oy! my hands are killing me! Note to self: wear leather gloves the next time you cord something (you think I would have learned this by now). But WOW! I love the way this stuff is looking! Here's another picture of it wrapped around my arm to give you a rough idea of how the sleeves will look.
So here's the details for those of you who are interested. The channels were sewn with silk thread using a 1/8 inch twin needle. This double needle was a real lifesaver, and it was very easy to use. Luckily, there just happened to be an article about using twin needles in the June issue of Threads, so this was quite helpful as well. The satin is backed with some lightweight plum cotton sheeting. After all of the channels were sewn, I corded it with cotton crochet thread using the same wire threading tool that I use for cord boning.
Now I just have to do this whole process on 3 more sections of fabric before I can start putting the
doublet together.
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This isn't much of an update, but I'm frustrated with the fact that I can't seem to finish anything on this project, so maybe this will be better than nothing. I ran out of silk thread while trying to finish up the trapunto quilting last week, so the doublet has come grinding to a halt yet again. Does anybody know a place that sells Tire silk sewing thread in Dallas? I've already looked at every fabric store that I know of. If I can't find any this week, I'll either have to order more online or beg my mom to buy me a few more spools and mail it to me. This is really annoying.
So to keep myself occupied in the meantime, I decided to finish up the partlet and ruffs. The ruff was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be... mainly because I couldn't figure out how to make it as small and dense as the one in the original painting. I think mine may be a bit larger than Angelica's, but I guess it's close enough. My ruffles are 1" deep and made with 1/2" double box pleats. I want to do a little more blackwork down the front opening of the partlet before I attach the collar, but I should be able to whip that out in a few days. (knock on wood!)
This project is taking FOREVER!
I finished my partlet today and added some pics to my undies gallery. It's not really a major part of this diary, but I'm just excited to finish something!
In other news, my mom found one spool of the evil silk thread in Tyler, and the shop is going to order me some more. I guess I'll just switch gears and work on my brocade underskirt until it comes in.
I didn't realize how close I was cutting it when I only ordered 1 meter of the gold brocade for my forepart! I spent the evening carefully piecing together every last scrap to fill out the sides and the top 6 inches of the forpart. It took 8 small scraps to fill in the blank areas, but at least I was able to match up the pattern everywhere except for the very top corners, which really should always be hidden beneath the overskirt. Here's a picture. The back of the underskirt will be made from cotton twill, but I still need to dye it first. I bought purple because it was on sale for $1.99 a yard, but I'm going to dye it with some black to make it less conspicuous in case the overskirt gets flipped back at some point.
I also ordered some lovely plum merino wool from fabric.com for an alternate skirt that I can wear with the doublet alone when it is too hot for the whole outfit. That's such an amazing price for wool! I can't wait to get it in!
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I did some more work on the brocade underskirt this past week. The skirt is made from the Alcega kirtle for a fat woman pattern. This version adds an extra 10" to the waistline vs. the regular kirtle, which doesn't really amount to a huge difference when you figure in pleating. My current waist measurement is well over 10" bigger than what you find in some of the surviving 16th century garments, so I think this is an appropriate pattern for my size... the term "fat" in this case seems to imply something closer to the modern idea of "plump". I am quite pleased with the fullness of this skirt, and it's refreshing to know that you can make a historically correct skirt from less than 3 yards of 60" inch fabric. The back of the skirt is pleated with double box pleats, and the brocade forepart is flatlined with a layer of twill to give it a smooth drape. The women in Bergamesque portraits from this period don't appear to be wearing farthingales, but I definitely need something to fluff out my skirt a bit more. It is likely that these northern Italian women would be wearing multiple petticoats beneath their outfits for warmth, but I'll probably make a smallish corded petticoat to keep the number of layers on my costume as few as possible. I still need to bind the bottom edge with a guard to protect the hem, but I think I'll make the corded petticoat first so I can be sure of the length.
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I have an obscene dislike for farthingales, and they seem to dislike me too... but I think I accidentally made one! I meant to make a corded petticoat. I wanted something small and lightweight, so my first thought was to cord it with cotton cord, like Melissa's petticoat. But even though she assured me that it was really quite sturdy, I got cold feet because my outfit is going to be so heavy and decided to find a stiffer cord. I really wanted to use seagrass rope, but couldn't find any locally and didn't want to wait for mailorder. So yesterday I ended up in Home Depot and picked up a few packages of manilla rope. But on my way out, I passed something called wire rope, which is made from a bunch of tiny twisted wires and has a nice plastic coating. It was much lighter and less bulky than the manilla rope but had a similar stiffness, so I caved in and bought the wire rope instead. Okay, to be honest, I have some pretty fierce guilt for using such non-period materials, and I'm not even sure that I can call this a corded petticoat anymore since my "cord" is made from metal! But it is a good bit more flexible than your average wire farthingale, so I dunno. I guess it is a bit of a hybrid. But anyway, it is really lightweight, and you don't ever see hoop ridges or feel the cord when sitting, so I'm really quite pleased with how it turned out.
So here are to details for those of you who are interested. It is made from a linen tablecloth that I've dyed numerous times over the past 2 years (the first dyeing was this color). It took quite a bit of blood, sweat and tears to figure out a good size that I could be happy with, but it is now 84" around the hem, and 54" at the waist. There are rectangular panels for the front and back, and a small triangular gore on each side. The channels are made from thick wool felt that I dug out of my stash, and I chose it solely because I wouldn't have to worry about finishing the edges. The guards run up the skirt in one continuous spiral, and I did an extremely sloppy job of sewing them on... but that's the good thing about underwear - nobody will ever see my messy construction!
Here's one more side view picture of the petticoat, and shot of how it looks with the underskirt. Not too shabby! It's subtle, but I think the skirt looks much better now vs. the picture from last week taken without it.
I finally got my silk thread in last week, so I've been busy finishing up the surface embellishment for the satin lately. I think I'm finally ready to start putting things together, but I'm sortof nervous about cutting the fabric so I'm taking it pretty slow. I decided to start with the interlining first so I could do one last fitting to make sure I hadn't changed sizes over the past few months. The interlining is made of some heavy coarse linen, which is the typical fabric used to interline the surviving doublets in Patterns of Fashion. There is a single layer of linen for the back, and a double thickness for the front. I wanted to lightly bone the front of the body similarly to the woman's doublet on page 107 of PoF, but I wasn't sure what type of boning material would work best. I am reluctant to use reeds or broomstraw because I'd like for this garment to be washable if necessary, and I wanted something more sturdy than cord. I've never actually used cable ties for boning in a project, so I bought some just to try out for fun. Goodness that stuff is sturdy! I tried running the boning up over the curve of the breast like you see in the original, but that looked horrible... probably because I am quite a bit more busty than the woman who wore the original doublet. But it seems to do the trick just fine if I stop the boning right below the neckline of my corset. The cable ties are stiffer than I expected, but I'm pretty happy with the results. They do a great job of preventing wrinkles across the torso, and you can compare how it looks with and without boning in this picture. I had to make some minor adjustments to the placement of the neckline and the curve of the front edges, but I think I'm feeling confident enough to move on to the silk now. Wish me luck! *gulp*
Oh yeah... one more thing. I'm still collecting pictures of Italian outfits that have similar qualities to this costume - specifically, a striped under-doublet, a petticoat made from fabric that is solid or entirely different from the doublet, and a overgown that is that is only closed at the waist. I found another real beauty, although there was no info about the artist or date. Check this out! What a stunner!
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I spent the entire day yesterday putting together the body of the doublet. It took three tries because I kept making stupid mistakes, but it fits on my dress form and looks decent so far, so I'm pretty darn happy! For the most part, I put it together like my last doublet, but this time I did more of it by hand... not because I particularly wanted to, but because the snipped edging just refused to look decent any other way. I also changed the way I do the shoulder and collar seams. Now I am completely finishing the edges first, then butting the pieces up together and whip-stitching the seams. This method is something that Teddy suggested after I made my last doublet, and it really does a much better job of preventing bulky seams.
I think I'll make the buttons next so I can really be sure the fit is exactly right before moving on. The front edge looks a little wonky in this picture, but that's because it is really hard to pin it closed right now. I think it will smooth out once the buttons are in place. I also might run a strip of hemp cord along the edge to make it a little bit stiffer.
Hooray for buttons! Wow... it's really, really starting to look like a doublet now! I've never done proper buttonholes before, so the past few days have been quite traumatic. But they finally started looking fairly unoffensive after experimenting with 6 different types of thread and doing more practice buttonholes than I can even count. In the final version, I bound them with boring ol' cotton/polyester topstitching thread, and I used fray-check to keep the cuts from raveling too badly. I also used those little commercial metal buttons that you cover yourself. This chapter of the dress diary saga wasn't my finest moment as far as historical accuracy goes, but it looks pretty much like the original, so I think it'll be good enough.
So now that I've been able to wear it around a bit, I've noticed a few things. First of all, the
edges weren't stiff enough, so I added a row of hemp cord to them, and that helped a ton. It also makes
the neck flare out much better when I wear it open at the top. Unfortunately, you can see the
boning ridges through the fabric, so I think I might take apart the side seams and add a layer of padding
between the interlining and the outer fabric on the lower torso. But the good news is that I can wear the
doublet without a corset and it looks exactly the same either way. That's a nice little perk!
9/7/03
Obsessive Jen strikes again!:
My job has slowed down enough that I can actually sew on the weekends again, so I've made a bit of progress... but not much. I think I've taken apart more then I've put together! Last weekend, I went back and added a single layer of cotton batting to the lower torso to try to disguise the boning ridges a bit more. I also had to re-do one of the shoulder seams because it was throwing off the fit of my collar. I've heard people talking about "building" a doublet, and boy is that the truth! It practically takes a degree in engineering to make a perfectly fitted period doublet!
I also made a collar, but then took it apart and re-sewed it because I didn't like the way the cording channels were working with the seams. I'm using a shaped, four part collar, and the first time around, I corded the fabric before assembly. Teddy mentioned that it would have been more logical to assemble the pieces and then do the cording... and of course he was right. It was a pain to un-pick all of the quilting lines, but results are much better now. The collar is interlined with a double layer of linen which is pad stitched to the fabric to prevent bulk at the seams. The edges of the neck and collar were finished separately, and then the two pieces were joined by hand.
Next, I made 26 little shoulder tabs and then sewed them on twice before getting it all lined up right. But when I tried on the doublet, I hated the way they looked, I so ripped them off again. I think I have decided to just permanently attach the sleeves to the body and not have any shoulder decoration at all. That's actually the more authentic method anyway, but it means that I won't be able to go sleeveless in hot weather. *shrug* Oh well. I guess I'll just hope for the best and pray for some timely cold-fronts.
And since I'm being super-obsessive right now, I also decided to re-do all of the jagged edging because the cuts are raveling a bit more than I would like. I'm currently in the process of making a few hundred individual tabs to use instead of a single snipped strip. I know I'm quite crazy for getting hung up on such minor details, but I really want this thing to be something that I am proud of in the end. I've kindof come to peace with the fact that I'm not a speedy seamstress, so I might as well take my time and get everything right!
The doublet is driving me insane, so I putting it on hold for awhile so I can work on other things
and clear my head a bit. Skip ahead to gown page for now, and I'll be back
to finish up doublet in a few weeks.
10/5/03
Adventures in ADD costuming:
Well, I couldn't stand to leave it alone, so now I'm back working on the doublet again. And the good news is that it is finally almost completely done! I fixed the edging this weekend and made the sleeves. The sleeves went on like a dream and it is one of the most comfortable costumes I've ever made. I was expecting to loose some movement in my arms, but that hasn't been a problem at all. I've been wearing the doublet for the past hour to give it a little test drive, and I have no complaints about fit. The waist seems a little too big, but I think I might leave it that way for now. Since I used period assembly techniques, altering the size through the waist is one of the easiest things to do. All that I have left is to bind the cuffs and add a few more buttons and eyelets and maybe a bit of cord to cover the seams. Here's a little teaser to hold you over until I take some better pictures when all of the finishing touches are done
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