It's a long road to a Twelfth Night dress
My last court dress was made in 1998. After Amaryllis, Aleea and I completed the greatest Coronation clothes I ever worked on, I promised friends and family I would make my own dress before working on anyone else's.
This has been one of the most fun and silly experiences. First, I needed to remake my corset. This has been in the works for ages. I finally put the darn thing together, and wouldn't you know, it fit miserably! How could I have gained so much in the waist that it needed *5* inches!!!
I wasn't about to fit a bodice on top of an uncomfortable corset, so I got out the pattern bits to remake them. Wouldn't you know, I had sewn the front to the backs top-to-bottom, and was therefore wearing it partially upside-down! Somewhat humiliating for a costumer, but too funny to be upset about. I remade it promptly this time, and put a strip of trim on the top of the new corset so I know which end is up,
The dress is based on Titian's 'La Bella' and will be made out of a cherry-red cotton brocade with blue silk under-sleeves. I hadn't planned to decorate the bodice like the painting, but wouldn't you know Amaryllis has black fur piping to imitate the fur lining, so there was no reason to skip the slashes on the bodice and upper sleeves.
Amaryllis is such a sewing goddess - or an even higher entity, if there is one. Her sense of design is wonderful, and she has developed the resources to do anything. In addition to the black fur piping, she showed up on Saturday with a bagful of laces and piping and a piece of blue brocade for the lining. We spent two hours trying this lace and that, finishing with trim instead of gold lace around the neck, cherry red piping along the edges of the slashes with the black fur showing from beneath, more of the blue trim at the skirt hem with blue and gold piping surrounding it, and a different blue and gold piping to edge the slashes on the sleeves.
Needless to say, with these additions I'm not finishing it for Saturday, so now I'm aiming for the Twelfth Night on the 31st.
This is going to look so pretty!