Italian renaissance gown: the sleeves and under gown

The next installment in M's renaissance gown has been the creation of the sleeves and the under gown/skirt over winter. Both of us have been extremely busy and so its taken us a while to find time to work on our project.

For the creation of the underpinnings and bodice just use the links.

The sleeves were based on a set of mine that I had drafted and constructed last year for a gown of my own, you can see the 'how to' in Sleeves for the Gown. These sleeves are still a work in progress, more beading and embroidery will be added by M who is a first class embroiderer.



The under gown has been created from a lovely piece of silk gold damask, the top skirt will be split to expose this lovely fabric. We didn't have enough to make the whole skirt so we used a lovely yellow linen found in a second hand shop, it had just the right hand for the tiny pleating at the back and the heavy damask took the box pleating well. We had enough damask to put around the back so if the top skirt lifts, the gold will show, not the yellow linen. The gown has side plackets and fabric ties for fastening. The skirt has a lovely structure over the farthingale. You can see these details in the following images.







Onto the cartridge pleats post --->

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 !