Let me start out by saying that I tried my darndest not to make this diary! I wanted to re-do the bases I made for my husband last fall, but I was hoping to not spend a lot of time on this project, and I kept thinking that a diary would just slow me down. But then everyone else started posting new diaries, and I just couldn't stand it anymore! Diaries are as addictive to write as they are to read, and I can't stand to miss out on the fun. So here I am in a moment of weakness... typing away on the computer instead of sewing. But I'll have lots of time to sew in the near future because I get all of next week off work for spring break, so you can expect this to be a very short diary. Hopefully this whole thing will be finished in a week or less.
First of all, I spent a lot of time looking at pictures and thinking about how I wanted to improve this outfit. There were two main issues that needed to be addressed: 1. it was pretty boring and 2. it wasn't really authentic enough to make me happy. I came up with a number of ideas for improving both of these problems, then I spent about a week trying out various ideas using Photoshop. This is my favorite design at the moment. That'll be a pretty huge improvement, don't you think?
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The final look is still a bit of a hodge-podge of different styles, but the main inspiration comes from German and Northern European fashions from the early 16th century. For now on I'll be referring to this garment as a "waffenrock" instead of "bases" since I've given up on any pretense of it being Italian. I used a couple of German prints for guidance on the new skirt and sleeves, and my favorite is this print from 1538. I especially liked it because the guy is shown wearing tall boots, which made Mike very happy! I have actually finished the hat, necklace, and most of the skirt already, but I'm going to be good and go sew now instead of wasting any more time on the diary tonight. I'll try to add more tomorrow.
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It is made out of coat-weight wool felt that was originally bright magenta. I toned down the color by dyeing it with half a box of dark green Rit dye. The inside is lined with linen in a similar color. I didn't have a pattern or instructions for making a hat like this, so I just made a circle for the crown and used two trapezoidal pieces for the sides. The tops of the trapezoids are about 10", the bottoms are about 13", and the height is about 7" (not counting selvage). This gives it a nice little flare when you turn up the flaps. I'm not sure I would make it exactly this way again, but the results are still pretty nice for a first try. The sides are held in place by a ribbon that passes through small slits in each flap and then ties on top of the head. And last but not least, it is decorated with an odd little pin that we found in an antique store a few years ago. I've never seen a brooch like that in any paintings, buy we think it looks pretty cool anyway!
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When I first made this outfit, I really didn't know what to do with the skirt, and it totally didn't come out the way I wanted. I originally tried to make rolled or knife pleats, but the wool guard at the bottom was so stiff that it stuck out in a weird way and looked very girly. I finally gave up and just did 2 large pleats in the front and 2 in the back to get rid of as much fullness as possible. It looked really nice from the sides and back, but the front didn't drape right at all. But this time around, I decided to take the plunge and make organ pleats like you see on many German waffenrocks. To do this, I first had to take the entire skirt apart and re-shape it to have more of a curve. This has been the most time-consuming part of the project, but I finally got it all put back together so that it makes three-quarters of a circle. Here's a picture of it all laid out flat. Whew! That's a lot of skirt! I may discover that it doesn't need to be quite that full once I start putting it together, but it's much easier to remove some than to have to go back and add more.
Since I had to take the guards off anyway, I decided to re-dye them to see if I could make a more pleasing color. They were originally kindof an army green, which was okay, but not my favorite. I really wanted to give the wool some more color, so I dyed it with a mixture of green and navy Rit. All this did was make the color a deep charcoal. I was disappointed at first, and I even tried using some green velveteen for the guards instead of the wool. But when we looked at it in the light, we both decided that the charcoal color was really nice and looked much better than the brighter green. heh... whadda you know? I guess I lucked out with the dyeing again.
Now it's on to the pleats. Wish me luck! It's been really hard finding information of how to make these this sort of thing, but Ben passed along some advice from another costumer who has made skirts like this before, so hopefully I'm on the right track now.
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Unfortunately, things have not gone very well since my last update. My cold got worse, and my sewing abilities got worse as well. It took me three days to get the skirt sew on right (put a few pleats in, take one out... put another pleat in, take them all out... put another in, throw it across the room and cry... etc. etc.). Then when the blasted thing was finally attached and I thought I was home free, I got Mike to try it on, and I hate it. Absolutely hate it. I think this costume is cursed. *sigh* Here's a picture as proof. Yuck! It just looks like a frumpy woman's dress to me. When waffenrocks work the way they are supposed to, you don't think "dress", you think, "wow! Look at that sexy man!" All I'm thinking is right now is "dress". (sorry honey! I didn't mean to make you look bad!) I dunno, maybe I'm overreacting because I'm so frustrated, but I'm definitely going to take the skirt off and make some changes. For one, I think the waistline is still too low (and the skirt is too long as well). Julie Adams from the wonderful Landsknecht site suggested that I move the waist up to his natural waistline instead of his "jeans" waistline. I don't think Mike is too happy about that, but he said he would wear it however I made it. It is actually a little above his belly button already, but he is really long waisted, and I think it needs to go up another 3 inches to really get it in the right spot. I know it's going to feel really weird for him, but I think it will help the proportions. I'm also going to re-do the pleats. I meant to do fewer, larger pleats, (like my source image) but I somehow ended up with a bunch of small ones. I'm wanting to convert it from 24 pleats to 16 pleats, which hopefully will make it look a little less fussy. So anyway, I'll give it one more shot, and if it still looks bad, I'm tossing the stupid thing in the scrap bin! grrrrrr...
Well, I took a week off from sewing to recuperate from the trauma this costume has been causing me lately. Thanks for all of the words of encouragement and virtual hugs that many of you sent me last week! I really needed it! The general consensus from people who wrote seemed to agree with idea of moving the waistline up a bit. I finally got brave this weekend and gave it another go. Since I was taking it all apart anyway, I added a canvas interlining from the top of the guards to the waist. I don't think it made a lot of difference, but it did give the pleats a little more shape... but it also made the costume even heavier, which is not a good thing! It weighs a ton already! So I re-pleated the skirt and reattached it to the body with the waist raised 3 inches. Mike tried it on today, and I'm still not completely happy with it. Here's the latest picture. We threw on some of the accessories to get a better feel for it all. I think the waist is in a more correct place if you compare it with period sources, but I'm just not sure that the full pleated skirt is really a good look for a man Mike's size. I'm starting to think that you need to be a fairly slender guy to pull something like that off. I keep looking a pictures of Henry VII, because lord knows he wasn't skinny, but I think the secret to his look comes from the huge surcoats he usually wore, which covers a world of flaws and accentuates the shoulders. Unfortunately, it's hot as blazes here in Texas, and I don't want to subject Mike to another heavy layer of clothing in 90 degree heat. So anyway, we decided to change the skirt yet again! I have now removed the pleats on the sides, just keeping 4 peats on the center front and 4 on the back. This is a variation of the waffenrock that shows up in some German images, like the man on the left of this Holbein drawing, and also in a few Flemish examples, like this Brueghel painting. *sigh* I hope this one works. I'm getting really tired of this outfit, but I still want it to look good for him. It may not ever be wonderful, but I want it to at least be wearable. Oh well... I'm learning a lot in the process at least.
Okay, so now a month has gown by without any major progress. Sorry 'bout that! I really wasn't having fun with this project any more, so I took some time off to work on some other things; paint a little, do a little needlework, work on some graphics for an internship I'm doing. It was a nice break, and I think I'm finally ready to sew again. So back where I left off... I removed two sections from the sides of the skirt to make it less full. It is now 38" smaller at the hem, and it will only have 4 pleats in the front and 4 in the back, and they will probably be attached at the waist with simple knife pleats instead of the fancy way I way trying before (which was basically like large cartridge pleats). But the pleats are still constructed like organ pleats other than that. The fold is still sewn in place, and they are held with stay tapes on the inside. I'm not sure how that will turn out when worn, but I thought I would give it a try. I just finished taking the gores out of the skirt today, a try to attach it to the doublet whenever Mike gets home and I can do one more fitting to get the length right. I think this will be the sixth time I have attached the skirt, and I would reeeeeeaaally like to make sure that I get it right this time!
The Waffenrock-from-hell™ is finally finished! It's actually been finished for 2 weeks now, but today was the first day I've been able to get Mike to try it on to make sure everything was okay. And hallelujah! We both actually like it!
Okay, but let me recap a bit to finish up the diary. I decided to push on through and finish this costume one Saturday, and it actually wasn't that bad once I quit fiddling with the skirt. The sleeves are just cut with the same arc as the bottom of the skirt, and I sortof just guessed as to the shape of the sleeve head. They ended up looking like this before I attached them. Since the waffenrock laces up the sides, I just left the sleeves hanging open at the bottom, so it's just like a loose wing at the shoulder. I think it'll work pretty good like that, but if it starts hanging weird or something, I can always add a hook and eye under the arm to make the sleeve into a closed tube. The final version of the skirt pleats were made by using a box pleat for the center 2 pleats, and a knife pleat for the outside pleats, so it looked kindof like this in cross-section at the top. I ironed a crease all the way down each pleat since I had given up on the rounded organ pleat look, but I still left the sewn ditch and stay tapes on the inside. I wasn't sure that this was really necessary at first, so I removed the tapes and sewn crease on one side to see how that looked. It was okay, but the pleats didn't stay in place nearly as well and it looked a lot more sloppy. Regular box pleats or rolled pleats would probably work just as well without the stay tapes, but this version will be fine for our purposes. Oh yeah... I also lowered the waist back down a little and shortened the skirt by a few inches. It may be a tiny bit below his natural waist where it is now, but it is still way above his "jeans waistline", and this just looked better to my eyes.
Anyway, I think that's about it. I'm going to make him a pair of simple tights to wear with it (I'm gonna cheat and use knit cotton), and I also need to make him a sash of his own to wear with it. He's wearing one of my sashes for these pictures, but his won't have the hanging ends in the back. I haven't seen many pictures of Western Europeans wearing a wide sash with this sort of outfit, but he really likes that "swashbuckler" look, and I think this looks pretty nice even if it's not completely period. Unfortunately, I lollygagged around on this project for so long that he didn't get to wear it to faire this spring, but I'll try to take some more decent pictures of the outfit when we go to the Texas Renaissance Festival in the fall.
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So anyway... here's the final product. Not too shabby! Now what on earth was so hard about that?
hehehehe!
