The only kind of pattern drafting I enjoy is making sleeves. Not sure why, but it’s something I feel like I can handle. Maybe because the fit isn’t as weirdly tricky as going over the bust & around the waist. There’s only the armscye/sleeve head to deal with & then it’s done. The fit is
Finally got back to some sewing this weekend, admist putting up xmas decorations, dealing with a Very Bad Cat, & discovering that our house has termites. Good times! (Not.) I’m going with trim pattern #2 in the previous post, but may intersperse that with lines of the narrow trim — depends how much time I
Sarah & Kendra came over on Saturday, & we got shit done! There was draping & cutting, & we all have bodices for our 12th Night gowns under way. I sewed my together today, but now I’m stymied on trim. The Isabella portrait has no trim on the bodice, other than a few pearl clusters
Finished the smock. Seems like such a little thing — it’s just underwear! And, indeed, most of it went swimmingly. I used my pattern from ye olde smock generator from Drea Leed’s site. I remembered to add some width to the body, but not too much (I have a history of not trusting this pattern’s
Aka, finally a new 12th Night gown, aka Trystan wants a black dress, or more properly, a 1560s Medici-inspired Florentine gown. But the impetus for this gown is that one of my best friends in the whole world, Sarah Lorraine, was offered membership in the Order of the Laurel in the Society for Creative Anachronism.
I have an itch to revamp the Veronese overgown in time for Folsom Renaissance Faire, since it looks like the Chateau Rose will be attending in one form or another. And if I can’t have an actual new gown, the next best thing is to remake an old one. My idea is to make it
Last Saturday was Much Ado About Sebastapol (MAAS), where Sarah & I debuted Fockett & Cox. This was a different type of Renaissance faire, in that everyone was portraying one specific English village (Fenford, circa 1578), and the faire had an educational mission tied into local school’s curriculum. The artisan guilds (where we were stationed)
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that I don’t embroider (except recently by machine). But I sure can trace! So I drew out three sets of gauntlets to be embroidered by Mom (henceforth known as the Fockett & Cox Sweatshop ;-). Adorable Elizabethan designs based on two embroidery books I bought for her at Costume College
Buying clothing second-hand is very well-documented in the 16th century, and really, in most eras. Clothing and fabric were big investments before the post-World-War-II manufacturing boom that lead to our current state of disposable fast fashion. If a garment could be used again, it was. Best dresses became second-best or everyday dresses, garments were altered
In one of my insomniac moments last night, I fantasized about making a new black 1570s gown to wear to Much Ado About Sebastapol. *sigh* There are many things stacked against that happening, the biggest being I’m critically low on time, and second, I’d need a new pattern draft, ideally fitted by someone better than
At the San Jose Renaissance Faire this August, Sarah and I finally came up with a fantastic idea for what our renfaire personas and gig would be. This was the first renfaire either of us had worked in a million years, and the first one all of us were working together under the “guild” of
After the initial wearing of this gown, I added more trim (because really, everything in my world needs more trim). And then I wore it again, several times, and with different accessories. And when our household, the Chateau Rose, participated at the first-ever San Jose Renaissance Faire in August 2011, I wore the gown and
This article is an accompaniment to a lecture and demonstration class I taught at the SCA West Kingdom’s Collegium Occidentalis XLV in November 2010 and at Costume College in July 2011. It’s intended as a practical lesson in how to recreate the look of upper-class hair fashions of late 16th-century England. The first half of
Stayed up late sewing last night. What? On a weekday? Snowballs en l’enfer? Yeah. Added some freshwater pearls to the points in the cutout cross shape of the over-sleeves on my pink Florentine gown, plus at the corners of the collar. On Sunday, I’d sewn narrow gold trim along the collar & the cuffs of
I have a bee in my bonnet that I want to remake the black silk overgown of my Veronese outfit. I really love this piece, but it entirely doesn’t close anymore and likely never will. But I want to wear it, it’s so pretty! I think there’s a way to revamp the front to make