Another lace camicia

I really did intend to make a different sort of camicia this year.  Honest.  I just truly love wearing the one I made last year with the lace inserts. I made a plain one this winter and I never wear it, opting instead for the lace. I was really impressed with all of the embroidery and such on so many of  the other competitor's camicie but nothing spoke to me as much as crazy amounts of lace (I used about 50 yards.) I did do an integrated ruffle and cuffs on this one rather than using the twill tape and mounting lace on that. It also has a more tightly pleated neckline so it is smaller and doesn't have the problem of going down my arms like last year's was doing in the pictures of the corset and petticoat. Those are about the only differences other than my use of a different lace pattern.  Oh, and this one is linen/cotton blend rather than the cotton batiste of last year's/

Reticella reticence

I've been staring at vintage lace all day trying to make myself cut into it. I bought a table runner with some staining and broken brides with the intention of upcycling it and now I'm having second thoughts. I know that the linen is only from the 1930-50's but cutting into something someone spent so much time making is rather agonizing. I was actually disappointed that it was in better shape than the auction described.

I also have about 6 yards of edging that is going to be soaked and sunned to see if it will approach white again. Then I can agonize over whether it will be part of the camicia, the apron, or if I have enough for the ruff. And I can feel guilty about plans to cut it too.

But, back to my table runner. The plan for it is to turn it into a stomacher (for lack of a better word.) In looking at several of the open front Venetian gowns, there is something going on in the V that looks either like lace or embroidery. It is especially evident in this Montemezzano.

There's no denying that that is a lace overlay covering either a red undergarment, possibly a stomach band, or a red insert. There are several others that are not as visibly lace but certainly have the same look.  Veronese's "Lady with a Heron" and the super yummy seashell ultimate extreme dress, Veronese's "Woman Holding Gloves," both have something that sure looks lacey-ish. While these don't have the falling ruff and shoulder ruffs I want for my dress, there are some woodcuts that seem to have something other than plain white camicia happening in the open front, so I'm hoping I'm not mixing up decades too much.

The other plan for the table runner is to make some cuffs. This is probably my Russian persona showing, but the thought of just taking lace on to the bottom of the sleeves, as I've seen many recreations of dresses do, has never set well with me. Cuffs and collars are ornate, removable, interchangable and very much separate in my world. Therefore, I was beyond thrilled when I came across this pair of 16th century Italian lace cuffs at the Met. (Thanks to Ashan Ekins and her Pinterest board.)

In looking at a variety of portraits, many of the straight sleeves for the open front gowns have buttons along the lower arm. I rather like the idea of delicate buttons on sleeves and on lace cuffs. We'll see how they go and if they're more bother than they are worth. I'm certainly going to be doing buttonhole stitches for the next little while as a fix brides, create new edges for old lace, and make little button loops. Should be fun.

Just to prove that I actually have gotten a few things done, here's a look at my new necklace. It's just a strung selection of goldtone beads and a rather interesting blue jasper with gold veining. Many of the open front Venetian gowns have 2 or three graduated necklaces. There is the ever present pearl choker, sometimes a medium one and then a longer one with a large pendant either free hanging or pinned to the open lacing (or closed bodice depending.) The majority are either pearls or gold chain, but there were a couple of woodcuts and a few paintings that seem to show something other than that. This is sort of loosely based on Moroni's Portrait of Isotta Brembati.   Hers has the colored stones and rice shaped gold. I had the seashelly flourishes that I substituted for plain rounds. The pendant isn't as large as I would have preferred, but it matched. I've got some silk ribbon I'm going to use for bows on some earrings and I am considering making a little bow brooch for use to pin the necklace onto the bodice like Isotta's.

Nothing much to see, but I'm still working.

My house has become a disaster so I've been cleaning rather than sewing.  The back of the bodice is almost done though.  I would probably have it done already, but I've got a migraine on its way, so I'm cancelling the rest of the day and will get back at it tomorrow.


Other than that, I have been working on an edging for a big black veil.  It will look better once I block it and attach it, I swear.  Might add a bit of gold to it as well.  Or maybe some beads on the picots.  Not sure yet.  I'm making 11 yards and have about 4 yards to this point.

More later, but I need to go find a dark room and ride out this headache.

Lacey stockings

I'm very pleased with the stockings so far. The bias diamonds look really great on. I have no idea why since they are thick green linen with baggy ankles, but somehow or another they feel really sexy. My husband remarked the same thing, so I'm not completely up in the night.

The gold lace worked up really fast because I decided to crochet it in the interest of time. Crochet was popularized as a way to make "fake" Venice lace so it was interesting to be using it for that. The lace is sufficiently drippy and pointy and I didn't have to go on a shopping quest to find it. I had exactly enough of the crochet thread (7 inches left) so hooray for stash! The cotton and crochet also make for a soft lace even with the metallic, so no random scratching on the legs is a happy thought.

I still need to finish hand sewing the ends of the gores and then I want to embroider the clocks with a little krin/heart. I'm going to decide on the pattern and start the couching for the welts today. I might add a bit of color, haven't decided yet.

The other thing I need to decide on is garters. That is going to require some research. While I know they were cloth or possibly woven ribbon, I really don't know much about it. At this point all I've really done is glance at the picture of Eleanora's stockings and garters in Patterns of Fashion 4. Should be a nice way to while away a rainy day. Wish it would stop raining though. We're on our third very wet day with at least one more forecast. I really want some sun.

Frosting

There's snow on my front lawn. Not a lot, but it stormed pretty badly yesterday. While it made for a pretty image with the lace and the snow on the grass (even if I can't take a decent picture so you don't get to see the great image,) I am done with snow.

Trying to think of something summery to do in protest of the weather. I'm considering making another fan. The one I made seems a bit sad. Not sure if its the handle or the the feathers, but it just doesn't seem as nifty as I'd hoped. Maybe real ostrich plumes would help, I'm not sure. I'm thinking I might try a flag fan style to see if I like that better. If not, I guess I need to buy some ostrich plumes and fuss with the handle a bit more and see if I can get it to something I like.

Lacemaking continues. Slowly. The hand sewing I did for the hankie sort of derailed my handwork time. I'll work on it more today.

My Great-Granny would have something to say.

I'm not sure if it would be positive or not, but my great-grandmother would most certainly have something to say about my attempt at a hankie. My mother is a fabulous seamstress, but it was my great-granny who started me sewing. We would go out to her house pretty much every spring. She lived on main street in a tiny town. There wasn't much to do, but I remember everything we did. We went asparagus gathering by the railroad tracks with my grandpa. He showed us the boat he was building. He taught us to play pool. Grandma taught us how to play poker. She taught me to crochet and started me making interminable hot pads. Most importantly, she taught me how to sew. It was on handkerchiefs. The year I was five she taught me how to iron on hankies and then she handed me a needle and thread and showed me how to make a tiny hem. Her little hidden stitches were absolutely amazing. My hems will never be that neat and precise and beautiful. So, as I said; my granny would have something to say.


It still isn't finished yet, so you'll be seeing this again tomorrow when I actually get the reticella looking squares inserted and the fabric cut away. Right now they are just sitting on the linen to show you the proposed layout. I was going for something sort of like this hankie in the V&A (288-1906) dated around 1600. I really love this one too with its frothy lacy and this one all embroidered in red. The first one won out because a) its Italian and b) I had lace that would work. If I did the reticella by hand I'd still be here in a year or so, so my hankie isn't going to be that spectacular. I had some bits and pieces of lace I got in a grab bag from a local manufacturer of children's heirloom clothing about 2 years ago. They've just been simmering in my stash and this was the perfect place for them. I wish there had been 2 different motifs, but having something that looks sort of vaguely at all like old Italian lace is a stroke of luck, so I suppose I can't complain. I just hemmed the edge and whip stitched the lace to the edge. I had sort of planned to do a drawn work edge and thus do some handwork of my own, but since it took a day to get the hem done with all the interruptions at my house, I'm just going to do the insertion and call it good. Not nearly as delicate as I would like, but it does at least reference the extant piece. Its just infinitely, infinitely cruder. That's the frustration, isn't it? Wanting to have more skill than possible and wishing I could make all the pieces when no one actually did that themselves.

But, I almost have a hankie. Should finish it later today and then either move on to the hat or take a detour and start the underskirt just to work on something other than accessories. I'm starting to get a little worried about how slow the lace is going, especially since this is just the insertion for the sleeves and I still need to make different patterns for the hem, neckline and insertions between the gores. Its only a week in, how am I this far behind?

And we're off! I am apparently going in a diagonal.

This weekend is a bit crazy with my twins first birthday also happening to be Easter. We'll be driving down to my mom's and spending the weekend there. If I'm going to get anything done over the next week done its going to need to be portable. I thought about starting the embroidery for the breeches, but I really want to do that on my big floor frame rather than messing around with it in a hoop. So that left the chemise. As I said, I wasn't all that gung-ho about doing blackwork. For that matter, there wasn't any visible blackwork in Camilla's portrait. So, I went cruising through portraits and such again.

I'm really thrilled with all I'm learning about late Italian stuff. It's not my primary period of interest and research, but its really beautiful to look at and a big change from the Slavic things I normally dig into. It's nice to actually have resources and oodles and oodles of paintings to pick from. Looking at the extant camisias again finally made something click. No blackwork. Lace. The chevron insertions/cutwork are AMAZING on this. Just so pretty. It also sort of made me happy that the diagonal design in both the chemise lace and the breeches embroidery will unify them. I'm sold.

I spent early this morning fussing with a possible lace pattern and came up with the test piece pictured up in the corner. Its not quite right, but I think it has some of the same feel of the lace in the sleeves. I'll finish the edges of the camisia in sort of a scallop and then add the lace and do a bit of embroidery to make it all mesh together. Hopefully it'll give the effect of the punto tagliato while being infinitely faster. I need to get a smaller thread and work it more tightly, but I'm optimistic that once blocked and finished it'll look nice.

So, now I'm all ready with a mindless and mobile project for my long weekend. Hooray!