I'm working out layout on the wool - after having decided to do fairly short sleeves, like this picture - I was thinking no, maybe I want long ones after all! And I can lay it out so I don't have to cut side godets, just front and back....but if I do long sleeves, I have to do two godets in the front (2 right triangles, rather than a single ( Read more... )

Waaaah, all the pics from the FD look great! So many wonderful dresses and so much awesome hair. Wow.

Also, I'm trying to find fabric to more-or-less recreate this dress (here it is again)  and the very few things I have found are way too expensive for my purposes. I've found good things (i.e. silk) at around $20/yd....I'd rather spend something ( Read more... )

So I'm pondering a medieval-ite dress for a pre-raphaelite shindig, and pondering which painting of the style I like most to use as my main inspiration, and which of my stash fabrics I might be able to use. I really like this 60" dark blue wool suiting but there are only 4 yards, and I have just spent a good chunk of time playing with graph paper ( Read more... )

Was alerted yesterday that my parents were going to be home (as they have not been at Easter for several years) and were welcoming me to dinner. So today, after getting up at a reasonably late hour, I finally had the urge to sew... I haven't felt like working on sewing for over a week, I think. Embroidery, yes, but I can't do that until I have a ( Read more... )

I was browsing the Ikea website and came across a mention of Midsummer, which made me think it would be fun to make something for Midsummer, just because. Something midsummer-related, of course - not just 'finish my Chemise à la Reine' or 'put trimming on my robe Anglaise à la Polonaise'; the only thing I can think of that is actually on my ( Read more... )

I'm pondering the lines in Lanval concerning the purple taffeta the handmaidens wear... Marie de France says they're wearing taffeta over their bare skin, more or less, and what I want to know is what that means, exactly. Is there an undergarment that is also taffeta, and it can be seen that it is taffeta? Or is there just a lack of any kind of ( Read more... )

A little bit ago Fabric.com sent me an email about a sale, and since I was bored I went and browsed a bit. In the course of that browsing, I discovered that their taffeta was on sale for 2.99/yd, and they had an eggplanty colour, and since I'd put roughly $25 worth of lawn in my cart I decided that there was no time like the present to get purple ( Read more... )

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Here is the trim I have that matches the trim on the bliaut (as you can see). HOWEVER it has no pink in it. Should there be pink? Is there a bit too much of that pattern, and it would be better to have a different one for variation or something? HONEST OPINIONS PLEASE. I am not attached to the white/gold, the only reason it's on there is that I ( Read more... )

Pink Smock is All Put Together! I added the gores after thinking how awful and so-not-going-to-happen it would be if later, after hemming the thing, I decided I needed to add them in, and then I would have to take out chunks of hem and insert the gores and redo the hem and it would just be Yucky. I clearly need practice at putting in centre gores, ( Read more... )