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!!!