Doublet Progress

I've been putting off working on the doublet because I did not feel like making the lacing strips.  Once the Shoulder seams of doublet had been stitched, I laid it on pattern paper and made a one piece armhole facing pattern, and a pattern for lacing strips.  At the top of the photo below is a lacing strip, then the side front/back of the doublet from the right side with the armhole facing stitched down and cut with pinking shears in preparation for turning.  At the bottom of the photo is the other side front/back doublet piece from the inside showing the armhole facing turned in and the lacing strip attached.  To allow for changes in size in the doublet, I made the side seam 1.5" in case it needs to be altered in the future.  The lacing strips stop at the actual seam line.

I cut the armhole facing out of one layer of taffeta and one layer of red canvas.  If you look at the photo, the vertical sides were finished and then the facing was stitched to the armhole and flipped to the wrong side.  I cut 8 lacing strips - 4 out of the taffeta and 4 out of cotton. For the strips that were going to be attached to the doublet, I pressed under the seam allowance of one short end and then stitched the long side closest to the armhole at 1/2" seam allowance, the short end at the standard 5/8" seam allowance, and the long side closest to the armhole at 1" seam allowance, and turned inside out.  I topstitched the remaining short side closed and spaced out small buttonholes at roughly 1" intervals all along the strip.  You have to have a left and a right!  Then I pinned the lacing strip onto the armhole facing slightly offset from the finished armhole edge and edgestitched the long side furthest from the armhole.  The lacing strip that will be attached to the sleeve top was stitched at 5/8" seam allowance on the two short edges and the long edge furthest from the armhole, turned right side out, pressed, and matching button holes were stitched into these as well.  After the lacing strip was attached to the armhole facing, the facing was basted to the fashion fabric raw edges at the princess seams and that seam was covered with a strip of bias taffeta machine stitched to the right side, flipped to the back and stitched down by hand.  At piece of trim was hand stitched to the side and front/back doublet sections next to the bias bound princess seams.  The finished edges of the armhole facing were also stitched down by hand.
I searched all over for appropriate buttons - and finally found what I was looking for in an unlikely place....
My friend Jennifer owns an antiques and gift shop called Past and Presents and had a two strand necklace of sturdy gold filigree beads.  On a Saturday afternoon I remembered it and called her and asked her to count the beads for me because I couldn't remember if there were enough!  She has helped me with several jewelery pieces for my costumes and I have also gotten lots of help and beads from another friend in town, Kathleen, who owns and is The Bead Lady.  But I digress....

Here is a flat view of the doublet with the necklace bead "buttons" down the center front.  I used the gold spacer beads from the necklace as my button shank, sewed through the large filigree bead and topped it off with a tiny golden seed bead.  To join the sides to the front/back portion, I am using much smaller filigree beads to cover where I tack the bias sections together.  I am stitching a bead at each stripe in the front/ back portion - there are 28 per side.  My fingers are sore!  Here is another view of the doublet with center front buttoned and one princess seam joined with small filigree beads.

Just finished putting on the rest of the beads - now to sew the side seams and try it on!!!!
The way I have made the lacing strips to attach the sleeves to the doublet, it will look like the sleeves are actually set in.  At some time in the future (translation - after IRCC is over) I hope to make another set of short puffed sleeves as an alternate.  Because I want this costume to be versatile, it is more complicated to make.  Stitching the hanging sleeves to the doublet would have been much easier!

Next are the hanging sleeves.

Skirt for Clarice IRCC Gown

The skirt for the Clarice IRCC gown is in progress. Since the portrait is from slightly above the waist and up - I decided to make a split front skirt based on the Eleonora di Toledo de Medici burial gown but without a train.

These are the pieces of the skirt - the distance between the columns is about 12'.  I have assembled the back and side back pieces and have started applying the trim to the front sections.

Since I  ran out of the trim  and it is not on sale this week - I hope it will go on sale at Hobby Lobby in tomorrow's ad.  So Monday I can continue with the skirt.

Doublet Baragoni Braided Mockup - First Attempt

So, I have been working on a doublet for  the IRCC and I want to make baragoni that look like one of these Allesandro Allori portraits - but I am not sure how it is done.  Is it braided or woven over a shoulder roll with a loose covering of sheer fabric.  I mocked up a couple of braid styles and am not entirely happy with the results.

Before cutting into my fashion fabric, I wanted to do a mock up.  I cut 3" wide strips of polar fleece 20" long sewed them into tubes and made a 3-part and a 4-part braid to see how it looked.  Here they are pinned to a previous doublet.  I used different colors to help me visualize the weave of the braid.

 Here are the instructions I used to make the four part braid:

Both of the portraits appear to have a puffs of a sheer fabric pulled through. I can't quite tell if the sheer portion is actually one of the braid strands or if it is hidden under the braid and pulled through at intervals to make puffs.  Maybe I will make a tube of the sheer fabric my chemise is made of and try pushing that through the braids a random intervals.

Spiral Sleeve Disaster Averted

For my IRCC project, I wanted a set of sleeves slashed and trimmed in a spiral.  Originally I had intended to make the woolen pinked Clarice sleeves reverse to this planned spiral slashed sleeve.  But now I am re-considering that concept.  Here is a woodcut showing a spiral sleeve:

I re-traced the Clarice sleeve pattern onto blank paper and then drew a series of parallel lines 4" from each other starting at the wrists.  Then I sketched in the 5/8" side seam allowance and drew sloped lines from one parallel line to the line two beneath it through where the parallel lines and seam allowance lines intersected.  I went back and forth on trim ideas and finally settled on cutting strips of the pin-tucked burgundy taffeta and pressing under the raw edges - basting that to the sleeve and basting down.  I cut the sleeve out of the plain burgundy taffeta, placed one over the pattern showing the trim layout, placed the trim and hand basted.  Then I placed the sleeve without trim on the bottom, sleeve with trim on top and eyeballed a slashing pattern similar to the sleeve of the Neoplitan woman above cut.

Since the June Taylor fray block worked so well on the woolen Clarice sleeves, I used it without doing a test on the taffeta - BIG MISTAKE!  The taffeta wicked up the liquid and it looked like puddles around each slash.  That looks odd I thought, but surely it will dry unnoticeable. But just in case, I stopped after doing one row of slashes closest to the shoulder.  Well it was a DISASTER - it dried just as it looked wet - like puddles around each slash.

That row of slashes had to go but I didn't want to have to cut a new sleeve.  Inspiration struck.  I took out the basting stitches for the trim below the fray guard disaster and added another piece of fabric using two rows of straight stitching that will be hidden by the trim.  Then I re-cut the slashes through the damaged part and into the patched piece and cut the shape of the sleeve top before cutting away the damaged section with pinking shears.  In this photo, I slid pattern paper between the damaged and patched section to show the layers before I cut the sleeve top shape.

The trim is shown folded back and the patch stitching lines are now safely hidden under the trim.  First disaster averted!  Now how was I going to seal the edges of the cuts?  I remembered that synthetic fabrics melt when exposed to heat - ruined a bodice back lining with an iron that was too hot.  This time I tried the technique on a scrap of fabric before trying it on the sleeve.  I folded the cut edges together and quickly passed them by the side of a candle flame.  It worked wonderfully - disaster #2 also averted.

After sealing the raw edges of each slash with the candle flame, I placed the white cotton peek-through fabric under the sleeve and machine basted the pin-tucked bands through all layers. I had picked up a braid with gold edges and a burgundy center for next to nothing at Ledford Fabrics and decided to stitch that down on either side of the pin-tucked strips.  I also decided that if the strips did not quite meet properly at the seam this defect could be lessened by applying the braid in the round after the sleeve seam was stitched.  It was a good idea that was hard to execute.  Because of the spiral, I had to start at the sleeve head on one sleeve and sew towards the wrist on one sleeve and stitch in the opposite direction on the other sleeve.  Thank goodness the free arm on my machine is not any larger.  As it is, I had to perform sewing machine gymnastics to get the braid on.  For the sleeve where I started at the wrist I had to slide the entire sleeve onto the free arm before starting and unwind it off of the free arm as I stitched the trim down.  I'm glad applying the braid is done!

  Sleeves one with the braid attached and the other before applying the braid.

To prepare my sleeves for lining, I run a row of basting stitches at the wrist stitching line and press under at the stitching.  When I sew the side seam I put basting stitches in the 4" at the wrist opening and press the whole seam open.  I fold the intersecting press marks together at both corners of each sleeve opening and miter that corner.  The lining is treated in the same way.  Then, I turn the lining inside out, put right sides together with the sleeve and stitch together at the armhole seam, grade the seam with pinking shears, turn the lining into the sleeve, press well,  and hand stitch the lining to the sleeve at the wrist edge and opening.  I prefer hand sewing on straight the straight edges of the wrist rather than at the curved shoulder of the sleeve.

Compass Cloak

I thought that I had plenty of the burgundy wool to make the Clarice bodice, sleeves, split front skirt and a cloak.  Well.....as, I discovered when I cut out the skirt...I was so wrong!  And since I bought the fabric several years ago on clearance getting more was not an option.  Time for a new plan.  I decided to use a compass rose design with spokes to designate the 4 cardinal directions - North, South, East, West - and 4 more spokes to designate the NE, ....I cut the pattern out of an a piece of moth eaten wool as a base that will not be seen when the cloak is complete.  Then I basted eight wedges of the burgundy wool around the hem of the base fabric.

For the spokes I used a burgundy taffeta that also came with pin tucks. Each spoke is lined so that there is a finished edge to stitch down.  For the four smallest spoke pieces indicating NE, SW... I ran the pin tucks vertically.  Here is the cloak with the with the four smallest spokes being pinned in place.

The center front will have its spoke split.

All spokes are pinned on covering my moth-eaten wool.  The spokes are stitched down and I am contemplating trim options.  The lining will be burgundy taffeta without pin tucks that I am contemplating pinking in a simple geometric pattern. The collar is cut out but not yet stitched.  I re-cut the neckline opening after applying the spokes.

Sleeves for Clarice IRCC gown

So, I've been chugging away at the IRCC challenge http://renaissanceitaly.net/TempFiles/ItalRenCostumingChallenge-Entrants.htm  and have made great progress on my sleeves.

 This is all the sleeve visible in the Clarice portrait.  Based on this, I decided to make four "rows" of the pinking design that I tapered towards the wrist.  Note the little bead embellishments.  I plan to add beads to all but the underarm because I think beads along the under arm will catch on things and be uncomfortable as I move my arms.

Tapered cutting pattern for sleeves.  Cut with exacto knives, hand cut long slashes wider, then applied fray guard to all cut edges.  Basted peek through lining outside edges and along the lines where the trim will go. I steamed the trim to pre-shrink it (not sure it worked very well) and stitched it on by machine with a double needle.

Now I am stitching beads on while the sleeves are still flat.  I still need to make the sleeve top treatment.

Adventures in Pinking - Renaissance Style

Clarice Ridolfi Altoviti 1550-1555 by Cristofano dell'Altissimo in the Galleria Palatina in Florence.  Her bodice and sleeves are pinked in an interesting pattern that I am trying to re-create.  After fitting myself for a bodice, I traced a cutting design on my pattern piece.  For the first draft, I made each column of cuts shown between the trim the same size.  It just did not look right!  So the second time around I made the columns taper from the top of the bodice towards the waist.  After zooming in on the portrait, I concluded that the small group of 4 cuts were made like a plus sign (+) a horizontal and a vertical and the fabric curled out.  On my sample, my fabric did not curl at all!  So, to approximate the look, I cut a square shape on the diagonal.  I used several different sizes of exacto knives though my paper pattern, the fabric, onto the back of my cutting mat.

I discovered that to make the long diagonal cuts look more like the portrait, I needed to do a little hand cutting.  First I folded the cut edges of long slashes together lengthwise, then folded it again so all cut edges met and starting at the center trimmed a little off starting at the center tapering to nothing at the ends of the slash.

The composite shows steps to cutting the slashes into "football" shapes - fold, fold, cut.  there are two rows shown - one with only the slashing and the bottom most with the additional hand cutting.  Every cut is then treated with a fray guard.