Medieval – Hopefully Creative

Brown Dress – Now Finished!

Now the reason I finished the Brown Dress today, is that today is the last day of the Sew Weekly Reunion. While I hadn’t officially signed up, since I didn’t think I owned or any of those colours, I think this fits that weird brown colour ‘carafe’. (It’s close enough in my book anyway.)

So I present you my Sew Weekly Reunion piece: The Brown Dress (catchy name, right?)

The Facts
Fabric: Brown linen (? I don’t know my fabric types)
Notions: White and brown thread (does that count?)
Pantone Challenge colors: Carafe
Pattern: I cannot find the original pattern any more, but it was something like this:

With some alterations that I added, such as the neck treatment and the back eyelet panels.
Year: Old.
Time to complete: 5 years, in total maybe 30 hours? It is completely hand sewn.
First worn: For pictures, will be worn in the middle and end of September
Wear again? Yes!
Total Cost: I’m guessing maybe 4 Euro for fabric and thread? (I was really cheap back then, student budget)

So, I finally decided on a neck treatment for my brown dress (here). I had four different options to choose from and I eventually settled on B (see below). The reason for this is that it’s high, so it’s warm, and a slit is fairly easy to sew if you have 15 odd centimetres of fabric too much at the top of your dress.

(Yes, this is a really quick Paint sketch, gotta love Paint, people!)

This treatment is also easier to finish as I had an inbuilt facing piece already. Anyway, here is the finished dress!

Back

Front and back go first of course, with a detail of the neck slash opening.

I sewed this thing completely by hand, with only the use of an iron, a metal current meter and a paint brush. Those last two might seem a bit strange, but I had to use an awl for poking the eyelets, and I couldn’t find one. However, the combination of the metal stick and the paint brush to make the hole bigger worked fine. Here is a picture of my eyelets including the ends of the string that I bound so they go through the holes easier.

I also want to show you a picture of the insides, first top back and front:

The edges are the selvage of the fabric, so they don’t fray. I did tack them down, but somehow managed to make those stitches as close to invisible as you can get. I put this down to variegated fabric and matched tread. Below you see the bottom of the slit, clearly the facing had to have been tacked down somewhere there, but I couldn’t find my stitches.

Lastly, the hem. This is also near invisible, which I’m really proud of. Next to it is a shot of a bit of the insides, all painstakingly hand sewn.

So while it did take quite a while to finish this dress. I’m really happy with it. It fits well, I can dress myself and I have shape (some at least) in it. I’m so glad I managed to find a solution and put this puppy to sleep. Now, I need to finish some other projects!

Brown Dress

After I’d finished the red bag, I wanted a new project. Well, it turned out that ‘new’ is a relative term. The project that I am continuing on is actually my oldest work-in-progress that I’ve saved I think. It’s a brown dress I started 5 years ago. The plan was to completely hand sew a dress that would be larp appropriate. I managed to cut it out and sew in 1.5 of the godets. I basted the other 2.5 so I needed to finish those seams also.

The reason I decided to continue with this project was the fact that I’d found a solution. The problem was that I couldn’t figure out a way to make it fitted without adding a zipper or buttons. The dress is basically straight up and down with 4 triangular bits inserted, so there is no shape. Then I saw a picture were they used two inserts in the side seams which had eyelets in them, and a corset type closure by stringing something through the eyelets.

I found that I had basted a line where I wanted to cut of the bottom to make it straight-ish. I cut of the bottom and use some of the extra’s to make the inserts for the side seams. I also handworked eyelets and now I actually have shape! I have it finished from the boobs down. The problem is the top. I don’t know what to do with it.

I had it closed with a shoe lace, so that’ll be a better coordinating piece once I buy it.

Any ideas what to do with the top?

Medieval Dress

Whoops, it’s obviously been a while since I’ve been here. The last couple of months have been extremely busy and I’m still trying to get back on my feet. However, I have finally found the time (and motivation) to write about my new dress. A friend of mine celebrated her birthday the 10th of November with a party with a medieval dress code. The first deadline for this dress was September 6th (see here), I obviously failed at that, but I did finish it before the second one (the party)! I even have proof of me wearing it:

However, it takes a long time to put on thanks to this:

The back has a corset type closure, but there is no zipper and putting the cord through all those loops takes forever after. I have tried my best to match the pattern on the light coloured fabric. However, it was printed really off grain so that was not always possible. That’s why the browns are mostly matched up, although the centre back is a little off still. The same was true for the front, so although it doesn’t really show, the fabric is not sewn in symmetrically, in order to keep the pattern sort of similar.

Those sleeves are not very handy for.. anything, but they look really nice, and I’m very happy with them. I am really proud of myself for both thinking it all up (especially those sleeves) and for actually finishing it. I forgot to take pictures of the insides, but it’s fully lined and it looks really nice from the inside too. I’m so happy to have it finished!

On a random side note, tonight I have finally decided to eat the endive I’ve been growing in my garden. It was just enough to make me meal. I made “stamppot”, a Dutch recipe that’s really easy. Boil potatoes and mash them, add cut up endive and mash it all together, serve with bacon cubes. Done.

So now my patch is empty and I need to wait for spring again to start it all over. This year was not very productive, all in all I grew about 7 carrots and 1 plate worth of endive. I may have forgotten to fertilise last year. Anyways, I’m still busy, so I’m not very creatively productive nowadays. I’m trying though, I hope it will work, and good luck with your own creative outlets!

Busy

I’ve found myself a summer job. I clean the homes of old people who cannot do it themselves anymore. So for 4 weeks now, and one week more, I hop on my bike every morning and afternoon and work for 2-3.5 hours at a stretch. Vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms and toilets, making spider webs go away etcetera. It’s been quite a lot of fun actually. The cleaning itself is boring, but the conversations with the people are really nice.

I have found out that there are two things that connect practically all old people together.. They all have barometers and orchids, and are generally offended if you do not want a cookie with your tea/coffee (they also do not approve of drinking just water, it’s got to have flavour). If I’m not hungry I feel like I’ve upset their whole day by not wanting the food they offer. Still, I’ve enjoyed myself, some people I like better than others (and can hear me better).

With all that work (5-6 hours a day), I’ve felt quite busy. Although, really, I’m not very busy, I have all nights off so I should not complain. I’ve knitted a little, my sleeves now have 8 stripes, with the ninth being the next two lines, and I’m supposed to have 14 I think, so I’m at least halfway done now.

Well that was project 1. Project 2 is a medieval type dress for larp (inspiration) that I’m putting together using a light fabric with brown and silver swirls for the bodice and front, a dark brown for the skirt and top of the sleeves, and a lighter brown for the bottom of the sleeves (the fabrics were perfect, but there was only 3 and 2 meters left of them). I don’t have that pattern but I’m trying to make it work by adapting other patterns and some divine inspiration (or just normal inspiration really). It’s going quite well, although the light fabric is printed really really off grain, so I’m having to do some strange damage limitation. When it’s finished, I’ll try to show that. The personal deadline for this project is September 6th.

So it’s one more week of helping old people, then school again. That in combination with attempting to finish my projects, and all should be well. Now, further with the second project, since its deadline is closer. Enjoy the creatives too!

Tag: Medieval