Looking at rainbows

Still in the early stages of planning where anything can happen. Fia was telling me she was considering not being quite so literal and heraldic with her dress and might go blue rather then the red I was expecting. We both also love purple. I have my crazy adoration of oranges, coppers and rusts. I keep staring at the dye list at Dharma and dreaming. It could be any color. That's actually rather overwhelming. I'm not matching the portrait or dealing with the fabrics in my stash or the fabrics in stock. I'm creating my own fabric and depending on how much experimenting I want to do, I really could get about any color.

I don't have much depth in my closet. At present my only functional garb outfits are: a red and gold Norse-ish apron dress, the red and gold Camilla dress, a peacock and magenta Russian, 3 Persian camp ensembles in various crazy color combinations, and the orange and blue patchwork Italian. Green would be nice and I don't have any. Purple would be fun. I really do love both blue and copper though. Copper/oranges are not my best colors however. Red is the obvious choice for an Italian, but I do have a red velvet dress already. This one would be tons different though. Black and gold would be spectacular. I sort of have issues with black though. I love color. Also, as a big girl most of my mundane clothing options are black and I tend to think of it as depressing rather than elegant. I'm still drifting towards a deep sapphire blue. The Russianizing of the embroidery might change my mind though. Hmmm. Guess I get to keep staring at rainbows.

Drooling over fabric gives me crazy ideas

I was up late last night drooling over Fortuny style block printed velvets from Venice. Usually about $600, they're on sale for $119 a yard. I so terribly wish that that with the 15 yard minimum wasn't still in Wonderland for me. Never going to happen. BUT. I found this. A tutorial on stenciling your own Fortuny style velvet. I'm rather bouncy about it. Dharma has white cotton velveteen for $9-11. THAT is doable.
I could totally make that.

I'd already been thinking about doing some blockprinted fabric for my Russian and have done some research into primary sources on it. While the fabrics in the gowns I'm looking at were probably woven, painted and block printed fabrics were made and I think its a nice compromise. Hand printing or stenciling a fabric with a correct pattern seems a step up from buying whatever JoAnn's happens to have. Cennino Cennini wrote The Craftsman's Handbook or Il Libro dell' Arte in the early 14th Century. It has sections on painting banners, designing brocade patterns and block printing fabrics. Its a very fun book and gets all sorts of ideas fermenting. I have the Dover publication, but the previous link will take you to an online version.

Fiametta has been talking about doing "The Seashell Dress," otherwise known as Caliari's "Portrait of a Woman holding gloves." I have been drooling over her plans. The partlet in particular intrigues me with its three dimensional flowers and butterflies. I've been doing some research into ganutell and klosterbeiten as possible means of manufacture of them. They're both construction of artificial flowers using wire and silk threads.

There was some discussion of changing out the stomacher that stands behind the ladder laces for an embroidered one. I keep looking at those seashell tabs and seeing needlelace samplers. I'm drooling over her plans and am sorta thinking about pushing into the 1550's and making something like the Moroni portrait at the top. Maybe some ganutell flowers mixed in to the head piece and a gorgeous printed velvet. Maybe something like "Lady with heron" with an embroidered stomacher behind ladder laces. I think I could integrate the printed fabric into that one too.

Anyway, I'm considering another dress. This one with some super special flourishes in the dress rather than everything concentrated in the accessories. A very slow, rather extreme project. I plan to follow Laura Mellon's suggestions in her article "Extreme Costuming: or how do you make the "impossible" clothing you've always wanted." Lots of planning and all the fussy details. My reward, if I follow my own arbitrary rules and make it correctly is going to be a Savonorola style chair. Not sure yet if I'm buying it, commissioning it or building it myself, but that's the carrot.

How is it that I went from, "hey, I'll make a pretty dress" to planning my third major Italian ensemble?