Hem Finishing - Brown Dress

I have been working on the final stages of a brown tourney dress that I made early last year. I didn't finish it at the time I made it because I made an error with my Frixion marker that stained the bodice and I have been trying to find a way to fix it. The dress needed hemming, trim and tucks at the hem and some internal finishing and sleeve ties.

                                                                Sewing the seams flat

The hem tucks are tacked and then stitched down by hand

Applying trim at the hem

This is a project that I am working on amongst other things. I would like to add some shoulder puffs too, if I can find the leftover scraps from cutting out the bodice.

A Child's Renaissance Dress in the Italian Style

Gosh this is an old one from 2014, and I honestly can't remember if I blogged it or not. I am notoriously bad at blogging dress diaries; it seems to be almost like reliving the trauma of sewing! This one was made for a five year old and was made from purple and red cotton (Mummy's favourite colours!) The bodice is lined in calico but there is no interlining or stiffening. The skirt is cartridge pleated. The alternating colours continue on the back of the dress. Hand sewn eyelets are laced with lucet cord made by Heather (thank you!) I put a few tucks in the hem to allow for the wearer's rapid growth. Thank you for your help with the tucks Lady Sorcha.

I must admit that little girl's dresses are much less traumatic to make than "big girl's" dresses. This dress looks lovely on the recipient and she seems to like it. Her Mummy certainly likes the colours. The tucks stiffen the hem and make it stand out beautifully.

Italian Padded Roll with Seed Beads

I really enjoy making garb-related accessories, because they provide such impact for an outfit, and are usually relatively fast to make (well, compared to gowns, anyway!) So when the Italian Renaissance headwear mini-challenge a few months ago was announced, I was very pleased. I decided to make a padded roll style hat to go with my earlier Italian gowns. I have a balzo, but it is quite big and heavy, so I thought a padded roll would be better for warmer weather.

I found this image on Pinterest. Unfortunately, I couldn't trace the source of the image. The hat is blue with white beads.

These images are from an unreferenced Italian painting (pages 110-11 in  'What Life Was Like At The Rebirth of Genius", Time Life Books. ISBN: 0-7835-5461-3.) A similar style of padded roll can be seen in some Spanish paintings at around 1500 C.E.

I found a damask table runner on special for $2, and decided that this would be the basis of my hat. 

I trimmed it to a rectangle in a size to fit my head, and sewed it into a tube. I then turned the fabric right side out and stuffed it with polyfill. In period, stufffing options would probably have included down, bombast, sawdust, wool or rags/fabric offcuts. I like the polyfill because it is light, cheap and easy to obtain.

I joined the ends of the tube together, adjusting the polyfill inside as I went, and adding a little more near the end. (A big knitting needle is a great tool for this step.)

When the roll was sewn up, it needed to be rolled around and adjusted to improve the shape.

I found that I hadn't made it quite big enough for my head, so I stretched it for a few days on a bucket.

I roughly measured and chalked where I wanted the lines of beads to go, and then started stringing. I used 4mm glass seed beads in white on a double strand of strong thread. I anchored one end of the thread, put all the beads on my string, and then sewed the other end into place. Then I came back through the centres of the beads with my thread again, anchoring it down with a stitch where I started. Then I went through and secured the main thread down between all the beads with a small stitch. I didn't extend the lines of beads all the way around because I find that my hair tends to catch and pull on beads.

The next step was to add the beads in the centre of the lines. I decided on three lots in each space, and three beads in each motif. I sewed each bead into place individually.

Checking the hat against the inspiration!

The finished product!

And views of the inside of the roll.

It is a very comfortable hat!

Lacing Holes and Boning

I am currently working on a purple Italian style gown. When it came time to bone the back (where the lacing is,) I found that I only had quite wide steel bones (approx. 11mm wide.) I used what I had, but was not very happy with how the lacing looked.

I think the wider bones make the lacing holes look too far apart and too wide.

So I took a chance and ordered thin flat steel and sprung steel bones from an ebay seller. They arrived today, and I am quite delighted!