1880s ballgown of embroidered silk

This is kind of a "Scarlet"-dress in three ways: firstly, the main fabric actually was a curtain that, secondly, is Irish because I bought it in a little second-hand store near Dublin, and is, thirdly, scarlet ;) Not that I'd particularly like that pigheaded priss, so it'll rather be my Ireland-gown.

I miraculously found matching fabric for underskirt, lining and decoration immediately - that's good because a week ago I was given the date of our upcoming victorian ball, which is not far into January. So I hastily put aside the umpteen-thousand marguerites for February baroque and whisked that dress through the sewing machine. This is what the internet offered as inspiration:

As an option I even found perfectly matching trim in my neverending store!

Dark blue 1630s dress

Actually it was the second one I ever made, right after the red one. Dunno why I never mentioned it here. It's already served its purpose very well several times.

Here I went from the original design (that I wasn't too content with) to the design that's closer to the actual look of 1630s dresses. I altered the pattern to this trusty one that closes with hooks and eyes below the bust and has the typical flaps round the high waist. Only here I hadn't discovered yet that actually the skirt should be attached to the bodice beneath said flaps, so the skirt is still separate which has the disadvantage that if the flaps happen to move in a gust of wind or so, one can see the white chemise beneath. Plus worn as a winter version (as the skirt doesn't drag too much) with long gloves and a high-necked blouse, this area around the waist still becomes the least insulated part.

The sleeves are a little longer and fuller this time, and I found really nice, broad lace that has the perfect look. Ignore the limp curls - it was raining when we arrived at the park for our picknick, and curls don't go well with rain :P

© Iam NOther

And here the winter version with longer undersleeves, gloves, and hat. You can't see much of the costume here but I'm so proud of this pic because at last there's one in which I look really good! :D

Baroque jewelry

Thankfully they used a lot of pearls back then, which are cheap and easy to come by if you content yourself with fake ones. And as I also tend to randomly buy all things that look baroque, I have a nice selection of jewelry parts that I can choose from when I design something. Here's an overview of pieces I put together either for my baroque jewelry-case or for sale in my webshop. Maybe you'll find something inspiring for your projects ;)

This is a design you often see in baroque pictures - those short necklaces made of large pearls with a medallion.

The white crystal set was made for the silver-grey renaissance dress (aka "winter dress"). I admit that I'm not 100% sure of this design's authenticity, but it certainly looked good ;) A similar set was made in blue with a medallion and matching earrings.

Cabochon jewelry

Pretty simple once you've gathered all the ingredients, like frame, glass, glue, and pictures. The glass covers come in flat and convex. If you're using convex covers, only choose landscapes, flowers or anything neutral as your motif. Portraits only go well (i.e. undistorted) with flat glass, and you don't want your fiancé at twice his breadth on your necklace ;)

The trickiest thing is to avoid bubbles of air when you glue the images to the glass. I find it easiest to put a generous dollop of glue on the flat side of the cabochon, press the picture onto the glue and wiggle it very gently until it has spread the glue all over the glass and lies down flat. Dry on a flat surface (some hours will be enough, I just leave mine overnight), cut away the excess paper and glue to the metal frame.

The simplest way of wearing them would be to attach them to a piece of satin ribbon or a slender metal chain, or you can attach them to any pearl or bead necklace, lace ruff (expecially for rococo), or whatever you fancy.
 

 For a rose quartz version I also added a matching pendant, the beads are rose quartz and crystal.

A very nice thing is a two-faced version. Take two pieces of the same foundation style and very diligently glue them back to back with some jewellery glue so they're absolutely apposite. For the front picture, proceed as above, with a rounded cabochon and a nice picture. For the reverse side that is to remain hidden when worn, use a flat cabochon so the pendant won't turn but remain nice and tidy with the flat side down and the convex side up and you can keep your secret lover's picture nicely hidden ;) If you're in a hurry and there are no flat cabochons at hand, it also works well with a piece of clear plastic cut into shape to cover the picture.

Baroque spring dress

My baroque character's name is Marguerite. And the motto of the upcoming ball is spring. So what else is there to do than plan a dress decorated with marguerites! Lots of them! From small to big, strewn all over the dress like a shower of spring-blossoms. It definitely helped that my preferred fabric store suddenly had plenty of lace-marguerites on sale. Finding the right fabric was a more difficult story and involved driving an hour to another fabric store. Well, things you do for your art when you can't spent fortunes on the silk you'd like to buy...

The pattern is, once again, the 1660s-gown from Janet Arnold. No train this time, I don't want to drag the white flowers through the dust. Cleaning the hem will be tedious enough. Funnily the design looked better in my mind than it did once I laid out the flower design on the hemmed skirt. I already feared I'd have to ditch the whole idea. But as it's meant to be more of a show-off costume, I decided I can just as well go a little over the top. Mixing the big flowers with smaller ones also helped greatly to improve the overall impression. Btw the grey satin behind the green taffetta is the grey 1630s in the making. I worked on two dresses simultaneously.

The resulting 117 big and about thrice as many small flowers were carefully pinned to the fabric in a regular pattern, dense at the bottom and lighter the higher up it gets, to create the impression of a shower of blossoms over the whole skirt. They were sewn on during my bus journey to my favourite flea market, but the nice useless things I bought there are a different story. Let me just mention that I ended up carrying home two antique chairs. Among other things. By bus. After having carried them through the city doing more shopping. Fabric shopping...

As always with my costumes there was a not-completely-finished-yet beta-version that I rushed through the machine until five minutes before dashing off for the ball, unkempt, swearing, and with luggage for three. The flowers on the bodice are still missing, as are the ones along the edges of the sleeves, and though after three dresses I've finally figured out the best way of sewing on the hook and eye bands the cover fabric still has to be attached to the front closing by hand. And I ditched the idea of a new chemise completely. Marguerite lace next time... But the overall outcome was good enough so far, and nothing to be ashamed of ;)

The bodice is now decorated with small flowers along all the edges, plus little bouquets of bigger marguerites at the waist. Given the hoopskirt and the petticoat, gaining a little circumfence still won't harm the silhouette.

The chemise is the same pattern as all that go with my 1660s, the lace now taking up the flower motif of the skirt.

I even made a petticoat. Having this very fancy, almost stage-like dress I felt a light-green petticoat would round the whole thing off. Decorated with the remainders of the marguerites, as I bought too many of them, as always ;) The overskirt can now be taken up to reveal a bit of the light green petticoat that mirrors the sleeve lining. I'll have to re-use the colour combination for a victorian dress, with more of the light green, it's really nice but sadly doesn't fit me at all if worn on its own.

And the decorations... Of course there's plenty of artificial marguerites to put into my hairdo, I even found metal ones to adorn the hairpins with. And I remembered I had some bits of lace from my earlier sewing days, and the piece in the shape of a chain of little flowers fittet around my neck perfectly as a choker. Together with plenty of other jewelry for baroque opulence, of course, like the marguerite ring I bought in Paris (in these modern days a girl has to treat herself to some jewelry...) for, umm, well, not solely for this outfit but to a great degree. I fear now I've finally reached the point where I buy not only everything with a fleur-de-lys on it but also all things with marguerites! :D

Early baroque dress of grey satin

I have four dresses I need for certain plays next year. So it's no wonder I start working on a fifth that I don't really need...

Again it's gonna be a 1630s gown, this time extra-long as you see in the paintings. No lace this time but the typical english ruff for the sleeves and a very fine but plain white collar. The truth is that I was unable to find perfectly matching lace despite my considerable collection. So I'm planning something like this only in a warm grey.

In the meantime I also decided that I would wear this dress to a small historic ball come week. Self-motivation and all... The skirt turned out a little much too long, at least for a ball, and only while putting the bodice together I realized that I had forgotten to make the required changes to the pattern after I had discovered a couple of small faults in it already while making the last 1630s dress. So no new underdress for the upcoming ball, only for the one in spring where I'm planning to wear the same dress only with different decoration. So many balls this season, the comtesse's seamstress is a little stressed! :D

Compared to the light-blue 1630s, I shortened the flaps and the stomacher a bit. Next time I'll try one without any flaps at all and a laced front closing, like in this picture. But this will involve some more research, so the grey one just has my trusty hook-and-eye closing over a stomach piece. Plus a couple of ribbons for later, maybe, whatever I'll find in my boxes. As it was actually meant as a day dress, not as a ball gown, there's not much decoration. The motto of the ball was "cabinet of wonder" and we were asked to have some interesting decoration, so I took some inspiration from the palaces I visited this summer. Due to time's fast pace (damn, I'll never get used to that!) I threw all plans overboard to make some shell decoration in mute colour for the first (small) ball and some bright red-coral decoration for the next, bigger one. (And there's people who say I wear my dresses just once, tsktsktsk... ;) ) Anyhow, I was unable to find my collection of shells so I decided to do some pearl decoration. The irregularly shaped ones for the tiara were surprisingly expensive so I switched to faux corals already for the small ball (which was good because I realized I'm already tied up for the grand one anyway) and had a splendid micture of red and white corals with shell jewelry borrowed from my flatmate. Sometimes it's great not to live alone, against my usual disposition :D

Despite me looking surprisingly great that evening the camera didn't like me and the pics turned out horrid, so I'll add decent pictures later that I don't have to be ashamed of...

Red ball-dress

After so many heavy dresses for historic balls, I wanted one for regular balls in which I can dance the whole night through without restrictions. What else to use but a high-waisted regency shape? I merged my own ideas with a dress I saw in a shop window and used up some fabric I already had.

The dress consists of two layers, the under-layer of red rayon (or cotton-lycra mix for the bust part) and the outer layer of transparent red polyester chiffon. And yes, this dress at last can go straight into the washing machine, despite the bead embroidery along the neckline.

The bust part is self-supporting and optimizes the bust size, so I needn't wear a push-up. The six parts of the skirt follow - as so often - my old princess-seam dress. Cut straight from bust to waist, the dress doesn't get too bulky and I retain my slender shape. From the waist downwards, the parts are cut as wide as possible. At the back is a zipper hidden under a fake sash.

Millefiori summer-skirt

Last summer I decided I need more summer skirts and dresses. Shopped. Bought. And then there wasn't much of a summer and hence not much motivation. I finished the skirt this year. It's made from just 1 metre of black cotton with a white millefiori-print.

Tear off two pieces that are approximately knee-length plus some allowance for the hem and join them into a tube at the short sides, leaving one side about 10 cm open for the zipper. Hem one of the long sides and pleat or draw the other side to fit your waist. Cut a strip of the remaining fabric, fold it lengthwise and iron some fusing web on one side. Sew the pleated skirt to this side of the strip (right on right),  sew the other edge to the inside of the skirt and iron the waistband flat. Insert a zipper and, if you like, a hook and eye for extra security - and voilá, there's your new summer skirt! :)

 And because it was done so quickly and I found such a lovely piece of fabric which I couldn't resist - yet another skirt of exactly the same making with an extra-cute pattern of little hearts.

Regency ball gown

Well, I know, I already have one... But does that really matter if you find some nice fabric? Unfortunately it's only polyester, and the gold embroidery is just machine-made - but considering that it looks nice enough from average distance and will go into the washing machine after the ball it perfectly serves the purpose of a good-look-easy-care ballgown. Although I'm already toying with the idea of improving the embroidery with a few golden beads and putting some golden lace around the neckline, which would totally defy the idea of putting it into the washing machine...

The whole pattern follows exactly my previously made white regency ball-gown, and I can even use the supporting chemise, which I remember was the toughest piece of work when I designed the other dress. And while the latter was decorated with pearls, this one is going to get golden decoration.

As the seam is embroidered I wasn't able to make length adjustments here. But a train was essential, so I had to adjust the length by curving the underbust seam. It pushes more fabric to the front, but with some adjustments in the folding it's ok.

..........

And to add to the splendour, I intend to make a velvet manteau to go with both my gowns, not so much for the cold evenings but for a splendid entrée ;)

Elven ranger's outfit

Strange feeling, to stick to those typical fantasy character-classes from long time ago when your current characters tend to be mostly historic... Anyway, as the first and second fighter's outfit for my elven ranger were either inacceptably horrid (means not creative at all, apart from some embroidery) or torn, I felt kind of forced to come up with a new outfit. Quickly. Veeery quickly.

I went for a range of matching browns and greens for an under-tunic, a jacket and trousers. And to distance the elven style from normal medieval or other garments, I decided to make all the parts leaf-shaped to some degree - apart from the elvish embroidery that is to follow. My mistake with the first elven outfits was to stick too closely with average patterns and shapes. But to design garments for a completely different culture deserves some thought of the background and ideas for new shapes.

The under-tunic is from lightweight cotton in a warm, reddish brown. Front and back are roughly leaf-shaped, the point will show beneath the leaf-shaped side panels of the jacket. The sleeves are slightly overlong and cut straight. To fit them under the tighter sleeves of the jacket I sewed in narrow tucks up to the elbow which add to the extravagant appearance I want to create.

The jacket is based on leaf-shapes in general. The basis aren't front and back pieces, but two leaf-shaped side-pieces that overlap at the back where they are sewn together, and at the front where they close with braid fastenings. I even managed to make a cut-on standing collar just so. Amazing what I'm capable of once I'm stressed and can't afford time for thinking! :D

The sleeves are split into an upper and lower part. The lower part is cut in leaf-shape (surprise...) and rolled around the arm to be sewn together by hand. The pattern is my own design. Here it is, as well as one finished sleeve and the second one in the process of growing.

The upper sleeve part is just there to connect it with the body part and is therefore nothing special, just a short sleeve matched to fit the leaf component.

The embroidery of this jacket is a bramble-blackberry-design, as my elf once got caught in a bramble thicket (wearing her court robe; that happens if you put a ranger into a court gown and let her romp off into the woods, drunk!), so now it's a running gag between her and her companion that she has a special fondness for brambles... ^^

Briefcase/wallet turned into notebook

Let's face it: LARPs are usually just one huge mystery/secret/crime/scheme to be uncovered and solved. And as we don't have the trained short-term memory our illiterate ancestors long ago tended to have, we need to jot down the odd name or idea lest we forget it when it might come in handy to solve the plot. In style, of course - no plastic pens and spiral-bound notebooks. So here's a short tutorial on how to turn a leather briefcase into a very pretty notebook in almost no time.

On a flea market I bought three (I know, one would have been enough, but I found them SO pretty and practical!) of those very nice leather wallets (rather large specimens) that even have a little pouch worked into one of the sections. Cut away the gruesome plastic in one section where I intended to put the booklet.

Measure the size of your briefcase you want to use, and cut the paper according to it. If you use thick paper, 12 layers will suffice, if you use something like normal printing paper, you could go up to 24 layers or so. Fold the stack of paper neatly in half and punch four holes in the fold with an awl or a thick needle. Now sew the sheets together with yarn: beginning from the outside, go in, out the next hole, in the following and out again the last one. To bring the ends of the yearn closer together and strengthen the whole binding, go in once again and out through the two centre holes. Tighten the thread and knot it at the back of the booklet.

Put the booklet in the place where you want it to be in the briefcase. Mark the place of the holes with your awl or needle and punch them.

Take a double length of yarn now for additional strength and sew the paper into the wallet the same way you bound the booklet. Knot and draw the ends through and behind the paper.

That's it!

On starching fabric

I never knew it would be that practical! But after trying every theatre-trick from heavy fabric and wired seams to iron-on interfacing to get nicely shaped collars and all, I decided to use old-fashioned starch. My only experience so far has been with potato-starch, but it worked nicely and I didn't discover any disadvantages so I guess I'll stick with it. The starch-water-ratio may vary, depending on the size of your spoons and the thickness of the starch you want to produce, but all in all it has proven best to make some heavy starch basis that can be diluted to get the desired mixture.

1 litre of water
4 teaspoons (!) of starch (NOT tablespoons; you'll end up with a bowl of goo)

Mix the starch with some cold water. You'll get a whiteish puree. Pour in the cooking water and stir well to avoid the forming of lumps which you won't want to sit on your fabric. The white starch will turn into a rather clear liquid. If it's still too gooey you can add water until you've reached the desired consistency. If there are too many lumps in it you can put it through a fine sieve before putting in the clothes.

Put the damp fabric into the starch for a moment, squeeze the excess water out gently (you don't want to end up with wrinkles in your collar) and lay the piece flat, allowing excess water to drip off. Dry it quickly, either in the sun or on the heating, and when it's only damp, iron it into the desired shape.

PS: It even worked very well to get the crispness back into tulle that I had had to wash, as well as into dupion silk that had turned a little limp after washing. And if you use too much starch, you'll be able to design an origami dress... ;)

Baroque rosary

You start doing weird things once you decide to really equip your character with all things necessary for that time! In my case I used the newly acquired skills in jewelry-making to produce a rosary made of red crystal beads and golden filigree beads. I happened to buy a couple of cross-featuring jewellery when wearing crosses for no particular reason was en vogue, so I have a decent stock for making pompous baroque stuff. Most of the time required went into bending the wires that carry the beads. Joining them together went so quickly that I decided to make another one from the pre-wired filigree beads and large pearls. Always good to have things to lend out at a roleplay. I really have to switch to making necklaces now, or I'll end up with half a tonne of mere decoration with all the material I bought last week!

Material was bought at various stores and bead shops whenever I found something nice, additional elements (like wire, hooks, tools, more beads) are also available online in case you don't have any craft stores around.

Two victorian aprons

After so many costumes sewn for nobility and so many high-class characters played, one of my latest characters is a victorian housemaid on her way to becoming a lady's maid. That means plain costumes - and frilly aprons. The important thing with this kind of aprons is that they usually come with a bib, not just the skirt-part, and that they usually aren't pinafores anymore but are tied.

The first apron I made is a very plain one, for cooking or gardening or other dirty work, made from unbleached cotton . The skirt part is plain with two pockets to be tied at the back and has three buttonholes at the front for the bib which can be buttoned on. The straps cross at the back and are buttoned to the apron strings. And as I saw this in many pictures and documentaries I made a pair of protective sleeves from the same fabric, they seem to have been very popular in those days to save your clothes from stains.

The second apron is decorative, made entirely from light, machine-embroidered cotton fabric. The bib is attached to the apron, again the straps cross at the back and are buttoned to the strings. For decoration the straps are completely lined with ruffles.

Period films for inspirational purposes ;)

If you simply can't watch TV without stitching, knitting, doing something you will appreciate a collection of films fitting the era of your recent costume-in-progress. There's a few hidden gems especially for the baroque era, as I recently discovered. I'll just list them here without much further ado, maybe a word or two on their quality of dress and plot, or a warning if they're too gruesome to watch :D Some of them are truly inspiring in their quality of costumes, others are just nice fillers for a sewing evening. The whole list to be completed, as all of my projects...

Antique

Medieval

Renaissance

La Reine Margot (1994)
Dangerous Beauty (1998)
The Merchant of Venice (2004)
Elizabeth I. (2005)
Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)
La Princesa de Éboli (2010)
Isabel, la Reina (2011)


Baroque

By the Sword Divided (BBC-series, 1983-85)
Cyrano de Bergerac (1990)
Black Robe (1991)
The Three Musketeers (1993)
La Fille de d'Artagnan (1994)
Le Bossu (1997)
Le Roi Danse (2000)
Vatel (2000)
Saint-Cyr (2000)
Alatriste (2006)
Snapphanar (2006)
Molière (2007)
Sluga Gosudarev (The Souvereign's Servant, Слуга государев, 2007)
The Devil's Whore (2008)
The Three Musketeers (2011) - Plot is horrid, the king's outfits nice. Forget the rest...
The Three Musketeers (Tri Mushketera, miniseries, 2013)
Las aventuras del capitán Alatriste (TV-series, 2013)
Definitely NOT recommending the 2014 BBC-Musketeers, as plot AND costumes are crap...
Tale of Tales (2015)
The Girl King (2015) - forget it unless you're keen on Alice's Red Queen...

 Rococo

Barry Lyndon (1975) - Perfect costumes despite dating from 1975!
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Rob Roy (1995)
Catherine the Great (1995)
Ridicule (1996)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (BBC-series, 1999-2000)
Le Pacte des Loups (2001)
The Lady and the Duke (2001)
Fanfan la Tulipe (2003)
Jeanne Poisson Marquise de Pompadour (2006)
The Duchess (2008)
Belle (2013)
Outlander (TV-series, 2014- )

Regency

Sharpe's Regiment (TV-series, 1993-2008)
Sense and Sensibility (1995)
Persuasion (1995)
Pride and Prejudice (1995)
Emma (1996)
Emma (British version, 1996)
Hornblower (1998-2003)
Mansfield Park (1999)
Pride and Prejudice (2005)
Persuasion (2007)
Northanger Abbey (2007)
Mansfield Park (2007)
Becoming Jane (2007)
Miss Austen Regrets (2008)
Sense and Sensibility (2008)
Lost in Austen (2008)
Emma (2009)
Love and Friendship (2016)
Mary Shelley (2017)

later 1800s

The Age of Innocence (1993)
Cranford (BBC-series, 2007)
Lark Rise to Candleford (TV-series, 2008)
Return to Cranford (2009)
The Invisible Woman (2013)
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (miniseries, 2013-2014)
Ripper Street (TV-series, 2013-2017)
In Secret (2014)
Penny Dreadful (TV-series, 2014)

early 1900s

A Promise International (2013)
Summer in February (2013)
Winter's Tale (2014)

Fantasy

The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003)

Silver-green elven robe

I decided that I need a decent elvish outfit. Well, actually it was decided for me, and my "partner in crime" and I left the fabric store shouldering a huge roll of pale green, silvery velvet, 18 metres of it, to be made into two elven robes and a dress. I decided to go for a waterlily-design on my robe, as the colour reminded me of a pond and corresponds perfectly with silver and pale greens.

The pattern of the gown itself is, once again, based on my all-time-favourite princess dress pattern that I slit at the front, added about an ell of train and almost floor-lenght sleeves. All parts are lined with very light green fabric. The robe got a hood because someone was of the opinion that a decent elven robe needs a hood. I haven't needed it yet, but it does look good - and it's one piece more to put embroidery on!

Embroidery was, to be honest, the main reason for this design. I'm working with six-threaded cotton yarn and slender metallic silver trim. All the water lines and waves are done in silver, the water-lilies in white and off-white, their leaves in pale green and light green. I use two colours aside each other and entwine them a bit to get a lively, natural mixture. The silver trim is sewn on in simple running stitch, the yarn runs along only at the surface and is whip-stitched to the fabric. The ends are pulled through and secured with a knot on the left side of the fabric.

Light-blue 1630s gown

Inspired by the costumes from the series "By the Sword Divided" (and by the fact that actually I should finish the ballgown, but another new dress for the meeting before the ball would be just too nice...) I was highly motivated to make some more 1630s-style dresses. I ended up with six new fabrics and decided to use one that had been sitting at the back of my wardrobe for the past dunnohowmany years. The lovely light-blue jacquard (cotton-rayon-mix, for a change) told me it wanted to become my next gown. Now. Before the ballgown. I did lots of research to get an authentic pattern and to discover how on earth the skirt was attached to the high-waisted bodice without adding too much bulk, for clearly those dresses weren't two-pieced. The internet knows everything, but it doesn't know this. And the books may know it but I found none that would tell me. In the end I decided to use my fitted semi-authentic pattern and toy with the skirt until it worked. And it worked. Rather quickly. So now I hope also the six new fabrics will soon be made into more gowns for my vain countess! ;)

The chemise this time is made the original way, with separate starched collar and cuffs to pin or sew on before wearing and take off again before washing. The lace was bought approximately at the same time as the fabric and takes up the palmette-pattern. And this time the shape of the collar is not cut but made by sewing tucks into a long rectangle that give it a round shape to follow the neckline.

The bodice follows exactly the pattern I used for my dark-blue baroque dress, except I shortened the tabs. As I was planning to sew the skirt to the bodice I wouldn't need the long tabs to hide the white chemise underneath. The skirt is sewn right into the seam above the tabs, and the closure corresponds nicely with the little slit in the skirt's side seam. A satin ribbon decorates the high waist, the bowtie hides hook and eye. Great thing to have a box full of ribbons in all colours of the rainbow (and some more) to choose the matching colour from! ^^

The sleeves were the part I wanted to improve this time. The sleeves of my previous two early-baroque gowns were still not full enough, to my linking, so I added more volume and, as I have already two dresses with closed sleeves, slit these at the front. Also a very popular variation in those days. The edges are embroidered with little pearls, satin bow-ties decorate the upper end of the slit. Avoid flimsy art-silk lining. But the colour matched so nicely, and I liked the shimmer...

The skirt of this dress is not just a long rectangle sewn into a tube and then gathered, but has its seams cut a little on the bias so the waist is narrower than the seam - and hence less fabric has to be pleated into the waistline, which otherwise might make it look plump. Also there's no slit at the back, but a slit in the side-seam so skirt and bodice both close at the front.

And the very best thing: this gown can be put on in no time! Perfect for someone who wants to change three times a day at a roleplay :D

In this two pictures there's no matching chemise yet, I was in a hurry finishing the dress itself.

Silver-grey renaissance dress

The upcoming baroque ball's motto is winter, which leaves only a small range of colours to choose from. Luckily I have some metres of grey jacquard (actually enough for two dresses - and a justaucorps, as we discovered) on stock that I decided to use for this project, together with some very nice silvery fabric for the petticoat. And pearls for decoration.

The chemise or shift is an authentic pattern from around 1600, made of very light cotton batiste. The long sleeves are cut very wide to allow them to puff out between the gown's slit sleeves and decorated with white tulle lace. Not absolutely period because they would rather have used reticella, guipure or bobbin lace (at least to my knowledge), but hey, neither is the polyester jacquard ;) At least I'll be able to put everything into the washing mach... no wait, again I won't, because of the pearl embroidery I'm planning. Anyway... The neckline is very wide and can be adjusted with a drawstring. No frills or lace here because the standing collar will be put on separately.

The bodice consists, again, of two layers of sturdy fabric with sandwiched-in boning. Heavy boning at the front to achieve the typical flat renaissance chest, only a few bones at the sides and at the back to keep the shape. The tabs are half-ovals, pearl-rimmed, as is the neckline and the sleeves. The sleeves are long and narrow, showing the lace of the chemise. The slits at the shoulder are lined with pearls and let the chemise peep through. I hope the sleeves are long enough to provide enough fabric... The shoulders are additionally decorated with fake bows, just to add some more stuff.

The jacquard overskirt and the petticoat are sewn together and close at the front, hidden under the stomacher. The thus two-layered skirt is tied to the bodice with satin ribbon and shows the front of the petticoat. The petticoat is made of two different fabrics. One plain light-grey for the parts that won't be seen, and one shiny silvery fabric at the front that is embroidered with pearls. To keep the overskirt from slipping back and showing the plain fabric part, it's tied to the seam of the petticoat with two satin bows.

The standing ruff is a long, heavily starched piece of tulle lace, cut to match the shape of the neckline and supported by a wire supportasse. Both are carried by a piece of brocade filling in the back neckline. The whole construction thus is detachable and the dress can be worn with or without the ruff.

A venetian flag fan completes the whole ensemble. The handle is aluminium, the flag part is cardboard covered in the matching grey brocade, rimmed with pearls, topped with a pearl ornament and I had a single silver tassle left that also went onto it. One homeless piece less in my overflowing collection of might-need-it-for-something-one-day-stuff ;)

And to round the whole thing off I made matching jewelry: five rows of white crystal beads with a snowflake-pendant for the necklace, a matching bracelet (that will hardly be seen because of the long sleeves, hadn't thought about that!), and earrings with little crystal drops.

The tiara was the mad idea of one evening too many spent sewing. The thought was that a fluffy skirt like this and that huge ruff can do with something that would otherwise be too top-heavy: a tiara resembling icicles. So off to buy chandelier crystals and make myself the ice queen of the ball! :D

As always, good pics still to come... ;)