Hello and welcome to my new costuming/SCA adventures blog! I'm Elizabeth and I began sewing when I was in the 4th grade. When I was 17, I was introduced to the SCA and attended several events in the most 'lovely' mock Italian Renaissance garb (not!). Over the past 15 years my mom and I have dabbled in the Society and have both become very interested in accurate historical garb. My goal with this blog is to have a place to keep all my research in one spot, as well as document my progress with my garb, and share about the events we attend. I'll just say now that I do not create my garb by hand sewing! I do the finishing touches by hand, but I'm a mom, a homeschooler, a homesteader, cook 95% from scratch, among other things, so I just don't have the time for that! I do have a goal of someday completing an entire outfit by hand, but who knows if that'll ever happen at this point!
I may have been sewing since I was in 4th grade, but lets be honest...I stopped sewing from 5th grade until I was about 22! So, it's not like I've been sewing ALL that time. I have several goals that I'm hoping to accomplish this year, but the main one is learning to drape/draft patterns! It is so hard to find good patterns for historical clothing, and many of them have terrible sewing instructions, so I end up making up a lot of it as I go. I might as well make up the whole thing and save money on the patterns!
Below is the gown I'm currently working on, a 1530's Florentine gown. I'm very interested in Italian garb between 1505-1560 or so. I love that Italian women clothing is grand, but not so stiff and formal, as is the case with most the rest of Europe at the time (i.e. I really REALLY don't want to wear stays/pair of bodies!).
This gown has really helped me step up my fitting/tailoring skills! Another goal of mine has been to take more time and give more attention to detail with my garb. In the past, I've had no problem with garb that didn't fit properly (and didn't flatter as a result...which is why I have no pictures of me wearing past outfits...they're truly terrible!), wasn't made out of period or even attempted period fabric, and basically sloppily made. Well, it's not that I didn't have a problem with any of that, it's just that I was lazy and didn't take the time to take seams apart that needed it, or I'd gather seams instead of the more period correct box/knife/cartridge pleats. Things like that. Taking the time to fit correctly, or use period correct construction methods most of the time, will give your outfit the right 'look', and that is what I'm going for! I have lost weight since making the bodice above, and so will be adding two small darts under the arms, which the sleeves will completely hide.
I am using the Reconstructing History pattern 512 for this Florentine gown, and the sewing instructions leave a lot to be desired for me. I've had to guess that the bodice construction in particular, and feel that at this point, it would have been easier and less time consuming to follow the period construction instructions. However, I've basically made it all up as I've gone along and while I've had to use my trusty seam ripper a lot more than usual, it's come together well, and I've written myself a LOT of notes for next time!
The next step in this gown is to make the two small darts, and then I'll be cartridge pleating the skirt on (by hand!). At the end of most of my posts I'll be adding several links to the research I've been doing.
http://aneafiles.webs.com/renaissancegallery/italian.html
http://www.elizabethancostume.net/cartpleat/
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