Nearly there...

 Not the best photos, but the dress is coming along!  I think moving all the eyes will help with the gaping in the front, but I'm not sure.  Still to do: Make lacing cord, eyelets in the sleeves, move the blasted eyes or figure out lacing strips somehow, hem the dress, and shorten the sleeves on the hemd.

Collar didn't go too well...

I evidently cut the collar that I beaded on the wrong curve, and when I attached it to the bodice, it dug into my shoulders and neck uncomfortably, and curled in on itself.  So, since I have very little time left, the collar has been cut from the plan.

The bodice is now assembled, aside from hooks and eyes down the front.  Sunday is for Skirts!  I have less fabric for the skirt than I had hoped, but I hear Tim Gunn in the background telling me to "Make it Work" and that is what I'll do!

Left to do on the dress:
Figure out the skirt cutting layout
Attach the skirt
Hem the skirt
Sew on hooks and eyes
Make lacing eyelets for the sleeves
Possibly make lacing cord, depending on what I get from my friend
Sew on the neckline lacing findings.

I have until Wednesday to finish, but I also have to pack clothes for the trip somewhere in there too... And I have work on Tuesday... EEEK!

I finished patterning my Housebook Bodice...

And I'm about to go and cut out the pieces of the bodice now.

I'm so giddy.

Yesterday I had a tiny change of plans....

Which turned into a distraction that kept me up all night working on the new divergence.  Bettina's version of the dress points out that the lacing on the collarbone is actually attached to a separate collar piece on the dress.  Several of the Housebook images show women from behind where the collar is clearly made from more elaborate fabric.  I know it wouldn't require a lot of fancy fabric to make a collar, but I don't happen to have any pretty brocade fabric right now.  So instead I decided to cut the collar out of the same wool fabric as the dress, like Bettina did, but I wanted to embellish mine with beading, like the delicious dresses of the Babenberger family tree.  After 8 hours of work, ending just after 5AM, I ended with:

The color of the teal is way prettier in real life, but so far I've had an impossible time getting it to photograph  properly.

I believe the chips are amethyst and both they and the pearls were largess I received for A&S competitions in 2010.  The silver seed beads have been in my stash for ages.  I'm a little worried the spaces between the pearls might be too empty, but I think it will look better once I have the seam allowances turned under.  The beaded band is only an inch wide.

On other fronts, I've been running against a wall all day on the stupid sleeve pattern.  I keep thinking I'm so close, only to have it need tweaks here and there and not fit at all!  It's gone from too small around my fat upperarms to too big and back again!  The angles of everything are mostly working, but I'm having a harder time doing the Moy bog/Grand Asiette style sleeve than a normal fitted sleeve.

And on top of the trouble with patterning the sleeve, the linen I'm lining the bodice with is stretching out of all understanding.  So now I'm all angsty, and nothing seems to be getting accomplished today.  Hopefully working till like three am tonight will help get something accomplished.  I'm running out of time, I have to have this dress done by NEXT WEDNESDAY, and I'm STILL patterning!  ARGH!

Quickie update...

Just a quick update to show off the cuteness of my hemd, and a Paint sketch of my hemd pattern.  Tomorrow I work on patterning sleeves, and then it's time to cut out my dress!

Tag, I'm it!

As the loveliest BFF ever has explained in a previous post, 2,000 miles between us isn't enough to keep us from making costume plans together, and most especially not when SHE IS GOING TO BE HERE OMG!!!

Yes, I'm just a wee bit excited about time with my bestie, can you tell?

Anyway, the idea for my half of the red hat challenge was born before the red hats, at a class I attended at Gulf War XX on the subject of the "Greenland gown" or the "10 gore gown" or whatever name you may prefer. The class itsself was taught by a lovely woman who I recognized as having taken Petra's flame-test class at Gulf War 19, and was very informative and enjoyable. Well, apart from one unpleasant attendee who felt the need to "correct" every other statement out of the teacher's mouth, but that's another post.

I seem to have mislaid my handout, but a lovely explanation of the garment in question can be found here http://www.damehelen.com/cotes/index.html

I've long been fascinated by the variety of interpretations of the close-fitting somewhat-to-completely-supportive gowns seen so widely in western Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries, and while many people have made many lovely dresses, something about this method just feels more "right" to me than others. I mean, aside from the fact that this construction method is not conjecture at all, the gowns I have seen constructed this way just look and feel more correct. The differences can be tiny, but they're there, and they are often the differences between a strikingly pretty dress, and a strikingly period looking pretty dress.

While the originals were all, I believe, made in wool (of such a weight and weave that they would have clung and draped *marvelously*), my first attempt at this style is going to be linen, for a few reasons. One, this is Ansteorra, linen is wearable more often than wool. Two, I have a dress-length of butter-yellow linen that'll dye up nicely into the exact shade of green I want, and I'd rather not drop the cash for wool until I know I can do this style correctly ; )

Other than the gown, I'm mostly set. I'd love a new hemd, but that's going low on the priority list, since I have a shift that will work. I've got appropriate shoes, stockings, garters, braies and jewlery, I've got a pretty pair of sleeves if I choose to make the dress short sleeved, I've got an ossim frickin' hat, and in like 15 days, I'll have my BFF here to squee over our pretty new dresses with.

There's a funny story about how I'm going to pattern this thing, but that'll have to wait for another post, as I need to go tie up some loose ends and finish packing for BAM. Which, y'know, I was a little morose about, as it's my first BAM minus Lorien, but OH MY GOD SHES COMING HERE I CANT EVEN BE SAD!!!

My Hemd is hemmed...

It's late, 4:40 am late.  But my Hemd has gone from a pile of linen to a wearable garment in less than 12 hours.  The seam allowances need some kind of finishing treatment, but that can wait till I have more time.  Patterning/Dyeing/Sewing/etc on the main dress is more important than finishing the seams on the inside of the undergarments.

17 days left before the trip.

I'm motivated right now...

So last night I stayed up till 5 working on a bodice mockup for the Housebook dress.  I gotta say, good God, how do people fit themselves for anything?!  I've got some sore muscles from straining to pin my shoulder seams and to mark the cutting lines on my back.  But I've got the first mock up done.  I need to draft the initial pattern and do a secondary mock up.

In order to give myself a little break from the fitting of pain and torture, I'm working on my hemd today.  I've got a nice simple cutting layout figured out, and we'll see how it turns out, but I think it will work out just fine.  And because all the best bloggers include photos in their posts, here's a wonderful image of a woman in her underwear!

After making my hemd,  and doing a second round of fitting the bodice, the next step is to dye the wool I was gifted.  I think it will be time to visit the Eugene Textile Center.  As long as they provide all the equipment, it should be cheaper and easier than trying to dye at home on my stove.

Less than three weeks to finish this dress!

A sewing challenge has been laid down...

I am a very lucky lady, because my family is making sure I get to go down to Texas to visit them, (and also my friends).  I get to be there in time for the local group's Yule event.

I, of course, have nothing new to wear.  Despite it having been almost a year since I've seen people, I haven't really made anything new to wear aside from light weight Roman clothes.  So I was playing with the idea of a fancy new dress, whilst talking to my lovely best friend.

We were both trying to decide if we should make something new to wear for Yule, but couldn't really think of anything we would want to make aside from each of us having one particular dress in mind.  It so happened that the different dresses we were thinking of were both to be worn with the cute red fringed wool hats I made months ago.  And since we were thinking of different styles to go with said hats, I decided it wouldn't be too matchy-matchy to make up these dresses.

So now we are challenged.  We have just under three weeks to make these dresses.  I know we can get it done, we just have to keep motivated.  So we're supposed to be checking in with each other, and seeing how the dresses are coming along.

I'm planning on doing a Housebook dress based on the ladies with coats of arms sketches.  The main difference between these two and the dress I really want is the sleeves.  I found a couple images of women with a tight, 3/4 sleeve that is open up the back and laced across, usually with three points, and allows the hemd to be seen.  

I'm having trouble finding the sleeves and the hat on the same person, but I think if I'm persistent, I'll find the image I want.

I'm working on fitting the bodice, but I never realized just how hard it is to fit oneself!  Hopefully I can get the bodice pattern done by the end of the weekend, and can find the time to dye my fabric next week.

I'll tag Lauren, and see if I can't get her to post and update about her half of the challenge.