Uh….if I told you aliens abducted me, so that’s why I haven’t posted, would you believe me?

What?  No?
Oh.
Um…..well, life has been capital C     C-R-A-Z-Y.
And then there’s getting ready for Barons War.  Which is only a few short weeks away.  Yikes!  Good news is, there is more or less only the whites for hubby and I to go (plus some other nit-picky things as far as the clothes go….I’ll get into one of those things in just a few paragraphs.)
But I should update on what I’ve been sewing on!  Although there has been silence on my end, and my steam is certainly running out, I’ve still managed to be somewhat productive.
Here’s me with tiredface and wild hair.  But look at my hair – not really the hair, but the pearls and bows!  Since all of my hairpieces match my old hair color, I also need to make more braids; I have two different shades waiting for me to test out and make up some hair pieces.  (The ribbons are gold….kind of hard to see in this shot, but are trying to mimic the pink ribbons in the portrait below….)



I didn’t have enough gold findings to do pearl-and-gold as I was originally thinking of, but I think plain pearl suits me better anyway.  I’m really mostly a plain-jane kinda gal.  Here’s one of the portraits that has the hair action I’m kinda going for:

Portrait of Isotta Bermbati Grumelli 1550-1555
Giovan Battista Moroni

Here’s one later than my target date, but is plain pearl, sans bows:

Portrait of Isabella de Medici - ???
(via Aneafiles)

And here’s the ‘big’ update……the Turkish coat is nearly done!  (I’ll explain the ‘nearly’ part in a minute…..)

Portrait of a Lady 1555
Titan

Over all, I’m pretty happy with it!*  It’s a bit shorter than I had originally planned, but what with limited fabric and somewhat wonky hem action, there wasn’t much I could do about it.
What is really bugging me, however, is the skipped space in the trim.  Of course it didn’t happen, yanno, on the hem in the back or something.  No.  Right.  Smack.  In.  The. Front.  See it?



Of course I didn’t notice it until all the trim was sewn on and I put it on for the first time and looked in the mirror.  I saw it and about had a breakdown. 
Anyway, so my options thus far are as follows:

• defensively walk around with my hand firmly placed like the portrait and cover up the mistake.  (Not too practical, I admit)
• try and forget about it, (Yeah.  Right.) and tell myself that no one will notice.  (See above)
• Re-do the trim from that spot down.  (Time consuming and especially difficult as it’s sewn down now.)
• Use that empty space for buttons.  (Most likely scenario)

I was going to put massive pearl buttons on the  edge like on the portrait, but because now of my epic fail, I may cut off the crystal spacers for 8” or so and pretend that I meant to put the buttons on the trim instead of next to it.  This seems like the least time-intensive option, though not perfect.  My ARness wants me to rip the trim off completely and re-do it all, but that is just not gonna happen.
Below is a detail of the trim on the portrait…..see how the buttons are on the edge of the trim?

Detail of:
Portrait of a Lady 1555
Titan

So, opinions please:  Just how dorktacular would it be to move the ‘buttons’ over to the center of the trim to hide my boo-boo?  Like so:



Ok, enough angsting about that for a minute.  Here is a close-up of both the neckline and the sleeve:



ETA:  I should mention that the reason I’ve not listed re-spacing the beading as an option is because the trim has little spaces for each of the elements, so I’m not sure if I’d like putting the crystal in the ‘X’ of the undulation rather than in the center as the rest of them are.  Dunno.  Does that change anyone’s opinion?  (Um, yeah, it is much more obvious IRL than it is in this crappy pic.)



Also of note, whether I end up using the partlet I’m not-quite-in-love-with-for-this-outfit is done, thanks is large part to my momma and Elizabeth!  I do like this partlet, but maybe just not for this dress.  I’m still undecided!



Also of note, I picked up the blackwork for my camacia (potentially new/4th partlet) from the ever-fabulous Jaquelinne this past weekend.  It is smashingly awesome.  Seriously, you have no idea!  My goal is to get that piece into a finished garment by the end of the week!
I also dropped off linen with my Apprentice sister at fighter practice yesterday and she posted last night about her blackwork progress for my hubby’s shirt.  Holy cow can that woman embroider!!!



*It’s short, the sleeves are much wider than I had intended (but look less crazy big when my arms are in there), the bust/waist are not as fitted, but hey, that means it’s more comfy? 

Green and Gold–Finished

I’m kind of *meh* about the sleeves.  I thought I would like the buttoned sleeves, but I’m starting to think they will be a PITA.  Time will tell, I suppose. 

On the other hand, I’m pretty stoked about the dress itself.  It fits pretty good, though the straps will need dressing pins to keep the shoulders from sliding off.

I’m planning on wearing this with my square-necked camacia and my organza partlet. 

Yet another thing to add to the pile of “Completely Finished” (even if I’m less than ecstatic about it.)

Oh yeah, I forgot to list my gold and green petticoat on the “Completely Finished” post a while back…..that one’s done too!

Next up is the red gown tuck!

Quick Update…..

I had a quick fitting of my two gowns just now, and I am much relieved.

Bertha was, in fact, messing with my head, and the green and gold gown fit just fine. In fact, this gown may replace my lavender gown as my “go to” outfit! (I just need to find my danged sleeve pattern!)

I finally tried on the red velvet gown with petticoats and chopines. I’m seriously torn about hemming. Right now the hem hits right about halfway down the chopines….which means that I have to wear the chopines with this outfit. I could take the time to re-cut the hem to normal walking length, but really, do I want to? Argh. I was going to start on the tuck right now, but since I’m wiffling, I may just go ahead and keep searching for my sleeves.

Sorry, no pics…..apparently every mirror in the house has decided to be woefully dirty today, and I couldn’t bring myself to clean them while wearing pretties.

UPDATE: I finally found my sleeves. *que big sigh of relief* There are two patterns that have taken ages to get just so......I'm seriously thinking of making a copy of them and storing them elsewhere.

Green gown–(mostly) finished!

I don’t have a lot to say on the construction of this gown, it’s my standard side-back lacing pattern, with the exception of a slightly narrower shoulder strap, and the felt padded hem….my new love!

The pictures of the gown look much more gold than it is IRL. (I’m also slightly worried that I messed up on my math and the back is too short, but I’ll put it all on tomorrow and find out for sure….it could just be that poor Bertha is not a very good approximation of my body!)

Here’s a close-up of the fabric, which more closely approximates the ‘real’ color of the dress.

And just for giggles, here’s the silk for the Turkish robe draped over the shoulders:

There was drama with the rest of the fabric going missing (which I eventually found, obviously)….and now the next drama is my trusty curved sleeve pattern is now AWOL too! I’m very sad about this because I spend countless hours tweaking it just so. I’m really, really hoping I can find it, I will be lost without it!

On the docket tomorrow is to search thoroughly for the sleeve pattern (and make the sleeves if it shows up), and finally figure out what I’m going to do for a partlet. No really, I’ve been putting it off for long enough, it’s time.

More dress stuff….

There are so many comments recently about the dress for Barons War that it would take a load of time I don’t have right now to answer them all, and it’s mostly all the same info.  But please know, I read and appreciate every comment!
I’ve decided on red for the ceremony dress.  (I very much appreciate everyone’s offers of fabric assistance!)  I have a ton of that fabric, and as it is in my stash, I obviously already like it!  I need to get the wedding dress busted out, then I can start on MY dress.  (p.s.  I’ll be posting about the wedding dress commission over the next few days)
Because I love purple, I will be doing a purple Turkoid (what I’m calling the Turkish coat worn by Venetian women in a state of undress)  I’ll be doing silk taffeta, hopefully beaded and/or embroidered/couched all to hell (Holly, Jaquelinne…….you both offered hand work help, I’m hoping that includes beading!)  I’ll be making a simple kirtle to wear underneath for some support, and I have a person in mind to ask for assistance in a camacia.


……I’m feeling really weird that the most help I EVER received on an outfit is for this!

In the spirit of getting back into the swing of sewing posts.....

 

Here's the gown I'm attempting for Solstice (12th Night if I can't get it done in time...)

I've made up the bodice, and I'm finishing up the last of the eyelets TONIGHT.  (No really, I am!)  I'm using this fabric from one of the German gown options (I'm keeping the other choice for the German gown, and that works out perfectly, since this fabric works better for the Italian, and the other works better for the German, so........ WOOHOO.)

 

Apologies for my excessively poor photography skillz - the  fabric is actually a higher contrast green/gold than it shows in the picture.  Honest.

I've also made up 36 teeneh-tineh tassels for the sleeves. (Of which I will take pictures of and update this entry tomorrow.)  I have the best hubby in the world!  He braved my sewing room and took a pic for y'all!  I used sorta-kinda the same method I outlined in this post, but wrapped the 'head' super-duper tight and long to mimic the look of the shank on the tassels as seen in the gown.

I ordered some Austrian velvet ribbon to create the scallops around the neckline and sleeve slashes.....

But when it arrived, it was ever-so-slightly too bright to work.  (Especially since with my eyelets and tassels, I've gone the more 'olive' route than the 'apple' route.)

So, I've up and ordered some Italian (heh) double-faced velvet ribbon.  (Which hopefully, will be here tomorrow) I'm really hoping that this color works out better, because the double-face is probably going to be easier to work with to get the scallop look.

If all else fails, I know I've seen velvet ric-rac (I know, I KNOW) in some of the boutique-ish type shops around here.  Hopefully I won't have to go that route, but it's a last ditch.

OK - On to the PARTLET!

As much as I'd love to do something closer to the portrait and be all smashing and completely fabulous.........I don't have the time nor energy to devote that much time to a silly partlet.  As much as I want THIS:

Ahem.  Back to what I was saying.......I have a pattern that I used for the partlet for my black gown & purple gown - it's pretty much exactly right what I need, down to the ruffle at the edge.  (Although the portrait hints at a separate collar piece - look at the right side of her neck...is that a seam between the collar front edge, and another running at an right angle around the neck?)  Anyway, point being - I can get the look without having to draft something completely new.  To get the chock-full-of-stuff 'look' without putting in the (wo)man hours to embroider, I'm going to use some fabric that has some stuff already onnit.  Like:

  or 
.....then all I'd have to do is add tassels and whatnot to make it *pop* just a bit.

If all goes well, I'll finish the eyelets and be able to try on the bodice tonight to make sure it is going to work the way it's supposed to work.  (I'm a bit terrified it's going to be too small.)
Ok, well if that isn't a big enough post!  ;)