Pink

I've been scrambling to finish up a basic red sottana with yellow guards for camping this weekend, and consequently have been doing lots of thinking about my next project but not much doing.  I'm planning to participate Bella's next Italian Renaissance Costuming Mini-challenge "Perfectly Period Pink."  It starts in 2 days, but I won't get started until after the weekend is over.

I will be up front with the fact that I don't wear pink.  Ever. I don't really care for pastels to be honest.  I did think about making something for my youngest daughter as she does look adorable in pink and there are some absolutely beautiful pink striped little girl's dresses in some portraits.  The problem is that if I made something for one child I would have to sew something for all four.  They just got some functional garb (I need to get pictures of the girls in their dresses and smocks and the boys in shirts, doublets, and Venetians.  They turned out rather cute, even if it was a rush job with a great deal of compromise.)  I also considered doing a fun fashion doll, possibly dressed in the black strapwork gown with pink underlayer like the one in this portrait of Margherita Paleologo.  I had far too much fun, in general, hunting for pink, as evidenced by the Pinterest board I created for it.

I then went digging in my sewing room.  So close to IRCC II, this absolutely had to be a stash project since I blew my crafting allowance.  Since I don't wear pink, I also don't really buy it.  I have a couple of things I picked up for the girls, but they're modern fabrics.  I did, however, have about 6 yards of a shocking pink linen I bought a couple of years ago on ridiculous clearance.  I think it was 97 cents a yard.  You don't leave linen at that price so I came home with about 20 yards.  I've used it as linings and interlinings and mockups for things and I'm down to just enough for a dress.  That basically settled me on doing a dress.  Not a a winning strategy for a mini-challenge where handwork is huge, but I have an event in November I can wear it to and deadlines are great things to have.

I also found a really fun silk with pansies that I thought would make a nice version of the Venetian take on the Ottoman coat.  I thought it had a bit of pink in it too, but on further inspection it is more mauve.  Especially up next to the eyepopping color of the linen.  So I kept looking, but kept the idea as a fall back plan.

Then I kept finding portraits of pink with green and realized I had some of the green textured linen I used for my stockings for IRCC I, and the drawers I made for that were this same pink linen.  The combo is pretty fun.  It certainly is not pastel.  And I started to think maybe I could like pink.  I'm going with the Moretto da Brescia portrait up top. I'm rather looking forward to it.