16th century corset making & cheese toasties

M and I are working on her Florentine outfit based loosely around Vincenzo Catena's Portrait of the Unknown Lady.

We were inspired by La Signora Onorata Katerin da Brescia's post on making a similar outfit. We aren't going to follow the painting's gown exactly, rather we'll use it as a model for the style as this outfit isn't for the SCA or other re-creation event, so we're happy to create a generic gown of the time, using the painting as a style guideline.

So far we have made her camica using Festive Attyre's excellent instructions. This happened last year, but in-between work, a long trip to France, summer holidays and then work once again intervened and so we have just commenced on her corset.

We used the online corset generator on Elizabethan Costume to draft our pattern, another fabulous resource for costume and recreation dress makers. To bone the corset we are going back to Festive Attyre to use the Boning with hemp cord instructions. I have already made myself a camica and corset using the above methods, so it was all pretty smooth sailing the second time through and I have a photo of them as my Twitter background.

So here it is ready to be threaded with twine, can't get hemp rope so we are using a natural twine, its a tad hairy but it worked fine in mine. . We have used four layers, two inner layers of moleskin for stability and the outer layers are a lovely golden tapestry and a black moleskin so it can be reversible. When she's finished threading it, I'll put a piccie up.

To see the rest of the gown's development visit this blog entry for the next installment.

We finished our winter avo of sewing with cheese toasties, no-one probably needs a recipe for these, but just in case, here's our vegetarian version:

To make one cheese toastie:

2 slices organic bread, we used sourdough spelt and rye
Thin slices of a good tasty cheese, enough to fill your sandwich
Thin slices of organic red onion, as above
Thin slices of organic tomatoes (straight from your garden is the best)

I don't use butter, the cheese has enough fat, but use if you like it. Make the sandwich, put into your sandwich grill and cook until cheese is melted and bread is toasted brown. Serve hot, we serve it with home made dill pickles and fefferoni. Scrumptious!

We ate them so quickly, I didn't get a chance to take a photo, corset making is exhausting work !