Saturday, August 18, 2007

Only 5 more minutes, I swear...

First things first, today I needed to fit the kirtle to M, check the shoulders, make sure the back kind of closed, etc. As you can see, at this point we were doing good. M fit the dress, it looked alright, and so forth. After work, I began the last "little bits and pieces" I needed to finish. First the finish work on the gown, I hemmed the bottom first, after leaving it to hang up over night. The shoulder straps were trimmed and then tucked between the brown and black layers, the layers were then folded over, ironed, and sewn shut. Then I ironed, and ironed, and ironed some more. Mmmm... ironing... This completed the gown. (Yay! [By the way, at this point it was about 6:30, an hour and a half after I got home]) Second, finishing work on the kirtle. On this, there were three things to get finished, the grommets, the shoulders, and cleaning the whole thing up a bit. The shoulders were quick; clip, fiddle, iron, fiddle, iron, stitch, pick, fiddle, iron, stitch, iron, pick, fiddle, iron, stitch. I really dislike sleeves, by the way. Grommets took a while, measure, clip, clip, clip, clip (etc.), hammer, hammer, hammer, hammer (etc.). Grommets are easy. To clean things up I put facing on the seam where the bodice meets the skirt and whip stitched the edges down. And that was it for the kirtle. (Yay, I'm feeling soooo accomplished. [Time check 9:30, grommets are fun, but realllllllly slow]) The last thing I needed to do to call this puppy done was make the accessories, the under dress, or chemise, and the partlet. Now, making a chemise is really easy, it's a t-tunic. No biggie, right? Right. Unfortunately every time I go to make a t-tunic I totally forget how much time it takes, especially when I fold and close the seams. So I made my measurements, cut, and set to sewing. When you close and fold the seams, you're basically sewing seams over three times, but it's great because it means your seams hold together really well. So we're back to sew, sew, sew. Four hours later I had a lovely, strong, well made t-tunic, such a nice feeling. (To the left you can see a lovely picture of the t-tunic laid out before being sewn together, notice the use of rectangular construction, there are no curves in the pattern, only straight lines [Time: 1:00 A]) The last thing that needed doing was the partlet, this is a fairly quick and easy process, a partlet is sort of a sleeveless bolero jacket so it doesn't take much fabric or time. For help making one of these go to Drea Leed's site @ http://www.elizabethancostume.net/lowerclass/makeflem.html#partlet. Very easy, very painless. (time: 1:45 A) And with that I am done, d-o-n-e, done! Yay! I'm so happy! See pictures below...
Things I did different than Drea Leed's directions: The lacing, I used loops of ribbon rather than metal rings, mostly because I didn't have any rings but did have a huge amount of thin white ribbon. I used less fabric in the skirts, only twice the measurement of M's waist rather than three times. I did not bone the front opening of the gown, there was no need. All in all I found the dress fairly easy to make, mostly straight lines and arm holes. As soon as I get some shots of M in the dress I'll post them.

2 comments:

Vanessa said...

One small comment, to lace the dress do spiral lacing rather than double lacing for the right look. Other than that it looks pretty darn good :)
Also if you want something more sturdy for the lacing loops try the eyes from larger hook and eye sets. Dirt cheap and plentiful. It gives more support if you are lacing at all tight...

Jenn said...

I like it! Its interesting to see another flemish dress like mine with the same colors too! Mine is posted up on facebook.com/JLHeaton under some photos under Gattalop.