Italian renaiisance gown update - hemming metres of fabric

The project is coming to an end, on Sunday, in the 41oC heat, we sat and hemmed the under gown, the over gown and the lining, over 15 metres of hemming. It was a lovely day, doing a task that women have done for over a thousand years, hand stitching a gown to wear, dreaming of completion, looking forward to a new gown and the pleasure of wearing it.

Earlier posts on the creation of this gown at underpinnings, bodice, sleeves and under gown, cartridge pleats.

Here a few pictures we took on the day:






There will be one more post on the gown, with photos of its presentation at the event it has been created for.....

Cartridge pleats for the Italian Renaisance gown

We are on the final leg of making this gown, we are onto the outer skirt, creating the cartridge pleats and attaching it to the bodice. For those of you who have arrived via google you can find the rest of the posts on the gown creation at underpinnings, bodice, sleeves and under gown.

I hadn't made cartridge pleats before, my gowns so far have been much earlier in the period and only box pleats were required, so I went hunting for a good tutorials and found a number of them, but two stand out, Elizabethan Costume and Reconstructing History . I found them really easy to do, in fact, its the way I was taught to gather by my mum, two rows of gathering, three if you want a really good finish. The difference with cartridge pleats is that the gathering stitches are much wider, the width of my thumb.




































To stitch the skirt to the bodice I used a waxed linen thread that I found amongst my mother's old sewing notions, it's brand name is Barbour's, the packet says they have been making linen thread since 1784. I went and googled it and you can still buy it today, pretty amazing, that's 225 years of linen thread making for hand stitching.

Italian renaissance gown update - Underpinnings

Over the winter M and I have been creating her Italian renaissance gown, I posted the start of the project in May under 16th century corset and cheese toasties but haven't done an update since then. We made all the underpinnings first, camica, corset and farthingale:

We used Festive Attyre's Italian camica pattern (the corset M has on in the piccie is mine).

















We used the Elizabethan Costume corset generator and rope for boning technique as suggested on the site, it gives a softer line than cable ties.

















We made the farthingale using the Renaissance Tailor instructions and interpretation of Juan Alcega's Tailors Pattern Book











Haven't got a picture of the bum roll but you can get the sense of it under the farthingale in this photo:






Onto the making of the Bodice .....>