just when you thought the photography couldn't get worse...

Oh but it can. First, here's the picture of the surgery I did on the kirtle neckline to give it an arch (so I can ultimately use this as the foundation for a Tudor outfit too). Here's the old version. I've also sewn up the straps, added a pretty wide (maybe about 15 inches) band of patterned fabric around the bottom edge on the back half of the kirtle, made a set of very plain, slightly curved sleeves, and added attachment points to connect said sleeves with the kirtle. But none of that is worth getting dressed up to take a picture of, so you just get the neckline. Incidentally, how the heck did the Tudor women get their chemise necklines to line up so nicely with an arched kirtle? Did they have a special chemise for each dress? 'Cause I seem to be approaching that.

 

I also started work on the loose gown to go over this kirtle. Many thanks to Julie for a link to a full-length picture of the original, here. I started with the sleeves, since those are the tricky bit. I studied PoF, I studied TT, and then, you know, I decided to do whatever I wanted. Here's the top half of the sleeve. I decided that this would be stiffened with two widths of the ever-handy electrical ties. A half-inch cable tie runs through the long curved channel and 4 quarter-inch ties run perpendicular (more or less) to it. Oh - and can you believe I took a picture of grey fabric on a grey cutting board? Yes. Brilliant.

 

I arranged for intersecting channels so that the plastic ties could form a sort of skeleton, and tinkered with which to put on top for the smoothest effect. Here's what the basic shape of the sleeve will be, except that the top will be gathered down into the armscythe. The original actually achieved this by some cleverly curved pieces. I'm lazy.

 

Here's the inside of the proto-sleeve. It'll have a lining to hide all the ugliness. Also, you can kind of see here where I zig-zagged for the dagged edge. I decided not to cut that until I'm ready to bind it.

  

progress despite cluelessnesss

Apparently my bad camera karma continues. I believe I mentioned yesterday that I'd taken pictures of my kirtle-in-progress over the weekend. Well, last night I realized that I'd made the neckline square instead of arched, which would have been ok normally, but not so good for the planned Tudor costume. So I did some minor surgery on the bodice and gave it an arched neckline. I decided that it was worth lacing it up and snapping some replacement photos. Sadly, those photos were so similar that when I finally looked at what I'd saved, I realized that I'd managed to delete all the new ones, leaving only the old ones. Which I present below, since I'm not excited about dressing up again for the same pictures a third time! Just imagine that the neckline has an upward arch, as it now does. And, um, also imagine that the straps are sewn together and that it has a hem.

 

The kirtle is made primarily of a cotton fabric with a diamond/flower pattern woven in. I'm rather fond of this fabric, as I bought it with Julie on a day-long fabric expedition. I'm pretty sure it was meant to be made into something else at the time, but no matter.

 

The back of the skirt is made of a very heavy cheap grey cotton (the bodice is lined and interlined with the same stuff actually). The idea here is that the back of this will not be showing anyway, so why not be frugal. Very period that. I'll be adding a wide band of the patterned fabric to the back at the bottom in case the overgown pulls up, but I need to cut out the sleeves first to determine how much width I have left for that. This idea may be found in both Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion and also the new Tudor Tailor book.

The first outfit this kirtle is going to support will be a loose gown, based on a 1570's-80's black velvet gown out of Patterns of Fashion, like so:

 

I've wanted this gown for years. The original was worn over a loose kirtle, which was probably very handy if one was, say, breeding. As I'm not, I decided it could go over a fitted kirtle. Indeed, sometimes these were worn over full doublet-style gowns and whatnot, but that would be entirely too hot for Virginia!

This gown will be made of a lightweight dark grey wool flatlined with more of that ugly heavy grey cotton as in the kirtle above. The plan is to baste those two layers together, apply the decoration (bands of black velvet and satin cord), then stitch in a lining of fine grey linen. I hope it works! 

more sparklies and the next plan

 
Check out these additional goodies from Auntie Tina! The two baubles above are about two and a half inches long. The kite-shaped filigree cage is most likely going to swing on the end of a silk girdle for my next outfit. I think that'll be very cool. The round pin is going to go on my giant hat as soon as I replace the rhinestones with pearls and whatnot, along with one of the perfectly enormous ostrich plumes that Auntie sent as well. I didn't get a good picture of those (the dog wouldn't hold still!) but they are at least two feet long and amazingly full. Truly Lady Kytson worthy feathers! I need to tinker with the hatband to get those on there and then I'll post a new picture of the hat.

 
This item I love as well. Again, I'll replace the rhinestones with something else, but this item is a good five inches across and SO ornate. I am thinking it is going to be some sort of center item on the Spanish court gown that I'm planning. That's going to be a little ways down the road, as I have two other outfits I'm working on first, but I thought this was so cool that I wanted to show it now. There were other really cool jewelry items in the package as well, but I believe I'll save those pictures for when I'm ready to use them!

There was quite a bit of costuming this weekend, but as I forgot to load the pictures off the camera, that post will have to wait a bit. To summarize, I'm just about down with a kirtle that is going to multi-task as a fitted kirtle to go under a loose gown and also as the underlayer for a velvet Tudor gown. I don't have the velvet for the Tudor gown yet, so the middle-class loose gown is up first. For Julie and Anita - it's of the washed-out red and yellow diamond print we bought in Maryland. I'll have pictures tomorrow.

P.S. Thank you again Auntie Tina! You can't imagine how much fun I've had playing with the jewels. There's a surprise for you underway. It's going to take a little while, but I think you'll like it! 

adornment

 
This lovely pendant was in a box of antique jewelry and textiles my Auntie Tina sent as a lovely surprise. There were all sorts of lovely pearls as well that I'll be wearing next time I go out in period costume. This pendent though....oh how I love it. I've wanted a miniature of some sort to wear and this is gorgeous!