First project of IRCC II done!

After a full day of teaching at Collegium on Saturday, I didn't even try to start the Italian Renaissance Costuming Challenge on day 1. I also knew I needed to do something on Sunday that didn't involve barricading myself in my sewing room. I needed something small so I could spend the day with my kids. Conveniently, I even had a project on my list that involved my husband. We spent the day playing with rings and making chain maille. Holly pointed out these beautiful bracelets that look to be a half Persian weave in Bronzino's 1550 Portrait of a Lady. Like anything else, once you see something you keep seeing it. Here's a set painted by Veronese in the Portrait of Isabella Canossa. She's even wearing a ladder lacing. There are more here, here, here, and here. So, basically, they're everywhere. I decided I needed some.

I made another set with a different weave for the ACC with rings I made myself on my husband's mandril (which I actually made a few years ago for a Christmas present for Gandhi with the help of my dad.) The first set was just random wire I had hanging around so I could learn the technique. I wanted to do a shinier set with the more complex weave that were nicer. I used 16mm jump rings which I thought would be perfect. Gandhi informs me that it would be better if the wire was thicker and the ratio of the size of the ring to the gauge of the wire was smaller. The weave would be tighter in that case. I freely admit I probably wouldn't have managed to make these as painlessly as I did if my long suffering husband wasn't sitting right next to me keeping me in line and sorting out my mistakes. At one point I had put the bracelet down and picked it up in the wrong direction and completely confused myself.

I used a plain toggle for a clasp rather than the fancier pearl clasps I'd planned to use. The more ornate clasp was just too fiddly to open. I may keep looking for something fun, but right now the toggle is functional and unobtrusive and I'm happy with them.

Other than that, I cast on the stockings and started knitting. I'm a super duper slow knitter so getting started now seemed the best plan.

Gold Rosaries

After making my earlier rosary with its inaccurate but sweet smelling beads full of fun memories with my children I started seeing them in lots of Italian portraits. One I find most intriguing is Moretto de Brescia's Lady in White.

The dress is 1540's and such an interesting mix of things, but the two parts I am most enamored with are her giant gold rosary and the fact that her earrings aren't earrings. Instead, in a way very like Rus temple rings, they dangle from the hair ornament down in front of her ears. I'd really like to try doing a similar hair ornament, but right now lets look at the rosary. It hangs clear down the front of her dress, ending in a 3 bead tassel with a little white bow. Chris Laning over at Paternaster Row mentioned it on her blog but I haven't found much else. I had gold beads, but certainly not large enough ones to create something nearly that long. I went looking at other gold rosaries to see if anything further inspired me. I ran across the Langdale Rosary at the V&A (m.30-1934) It's one of the only surviving 16th century English rosaries.

I love the lozenge shaped beads that act as the gauds in this piece. The beads themselves are just amazing. Each is decorated with 2 saints. There are similar early 16th century gold Italian beads with "Ave" carved into them. They're currently held at the Cleavland Museum of Art. They also end in a little bow. I'm not sure if that is surviving or a product of later restringing, but the single decade rosary terminating in a pink ribbon is rather beautiful.

As I'm not a master goldsmith, beads like that are way out of the realms of possibility, but I did have some heavy gold beads with a bit of filigree on the surface. I'd used some of them for my IRCC hairpins, which was unfortunate since it meant that I no longer had the 50 required for a 5 decade rosary, which is what da Brescia's Lady was wearing. Additionally, even if I had 50, they just wouldn't give me the length required. I didn't necessarily want it to hang all the way down to the end of the bodice, but it needed to be longer than a standard necklace.

Then I ran across a gold rosary that had belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots. It had non-counted spacer beads between each of the beads in each decade.

So, I decided to go ahead with a combination of the things I liked about each rosary while working with what I had on hand. I used the heavy gold filigreed beads with a few similar gold beads added to fill up the number to 50. The size is similar, and since I had decided to do flat vaguely diamond shaped gauds the difference between the aves and gauds is significant enough I felt it wasn't an issue. I strung everything on black silk with small rice shaped gold filigree beads for spacers, leaving a little space for the beads to move freely. I had a filigree pendant found in the bottom of a bag of junk jewelry, and I threaded a bit of ribbon through it and tied it in a bow for the concluding tassel

I'm rather pleased with the results of the mash-up of the various rosaries and think its a pretty necklace in its own right. Once I don't have budget constraints I think I'll pick up some silk ribbon for the terminal, but that's all that I might change.

And I only broke 4 needles!

My darling Colin once again decided to wake up at 4 AM and refused to go back to sleep. After 2 cups of juice, a fried egg, banana bits and 2 clean diapers, along with a lot of cuddles, I gave up trying to get him back to sleep. I certainly wasn't going to get any more rest, so I started on today's projects. I'd already cut the leather for the slippers so just had to cut lining, applique, and trim.

Since the dress is patchwork I thought parti-color shoes would be fun. Davey gave me a scrap of deep blue leather he'd had kicking around and a couple of leather cushion covers that he had left from buying a giant stack of them to re-purpose. He refers to the sandy orange as "Hastings' colored" and made me a set of lightweight cuffs that I wore with my bellydance kit when I danced with Shawaza. You can't see them in the shot, but there I am in the back row right. Wearing blue and orange. It really is my favorite color combo. I'm using the same colors for my heavy fighting armor that Davey and I are working on right now. So now I have dainty slippers to batch my bazubands and lamellar klibanion (breast plate.) The thought makes me giggle rather a lot. The applique on the shoes are actually leather pieces that I had cut for embellishing the elbows of my bazubands. The soles are leather scraps from armor making. I also used some brass findings that I got to mount on the armor as parts of my girdle for the dress, so there's quite a bit of snitching of supplies going on.

Documentation on this is more than a little iffy, so I guess I really just get to say they're not obviously out of period. The shape is similar to a shoe found in the Mary Rose shipwreck. Its the pair of shoes to the far right.

The 1540's shipwreck is perfect timewise and the shape isn't too far off, but my construction methods are not correct by any stretch of the imagination. They're the skills I learned making leather and felt baby "soft shoes" rather than a period correct type of manufacture. They're sewn quickly on my sewing machine and then just turned right side out. Real shoes of this type would have a welt and an exterior sole. The weight of the leather I've used is off, being much lighter. The dual color and applique are pure fantasy. But, I have pretty,matchy slippers and they are fun to wear. One of these days I will get around to learning how to make real shoes. Its on the to-do list but my husband gets a little nervous about me adding even more new hobbies and the accompanying equipment and tools.

Turkey and button loops

I'm sure they go together somehow or another. I didn't get much else done today in between baking and cooking and feeding people turkey and potatoes and pie, but had a few minutes for handwork in between turns while playing Chinese checkers with my kids. I finished the button loops on my muff and tacked on a chain for fastening it to the girdle or skirt.

This is the same envelope style I made for my IRCC muff. While muffs may be a little later than my preferred 1540's gowns, with most references to them not coming until 30 or 40 years later, I love having warm hands and adore the Italian envelope style muff with the embellished outer, fur inner and fabulous buttons that allow the whole thing to be opened up into a mini lap blanket so I made one. I don't think its too outrageous or jarring. Furs were certainly being used as accessories in 1540's Italy as zibellinis, mantellinos and capelets, and similar stole type drapes. While the fashion craze didn't hit until 1570 I doubt the fashion police are going to arrest me for jumping the gun a little. I was going to type up my earlier notes on documentation from when I made my first muff in May, but honestly, Jaquelinne Serafina Katerina and Bella have it covered pretty darn well. I do make my button loops differently than any of them do, but that's about the only place I have anything useful to add to the discussion.

Regarding this particular muff, some of the same accent fabric I used for my tassel bag makes the outer. It's lined with a lovely vintage chinchilla. Buttons are made from glass pearls with a spacer bead below and a blue bead that matches my girdle sandwiched between two large copper seed beads. Contemporary descriptions of 16th century Venetian muffs mention the crystal buttons they were fastened with. I looked for some large clear glass beads to use but all I could find were cheesy plastic ones so I settled for the pearls. I actually much prefer the thread worked buttons that fasten my other muff to these for functionality, but the pearls are very pretty.

As I said, I do my button loops differently than the ladies I previously mentioned. Rather than doing loops of trim tacked in between layers or otherwise attached, I finish the muff and then do 3 or 4 loops of embroidery floss. Then I cover the loops in buttonhole stitches. Basically its this technique My reasoning is this: the technique is used to make edges in period needle laces so it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume they might have used it and it holds really well. Since its an integral loop rather than stitched in the chances of it pulling off are very small.

This time around I got to use my new set of buttonhole gauges. My friend Patience made me a set for my birthday. I'd never used anything like them before, just eyeballing things, but the gauges are nice and easy to use. Just wrap the thread over the gauge and pull tight. Once the threads are anchored you can pull the gauge out and each loop is the same size. I did mess up on one of my loops whn I gauged it and then had to go make whip cream for pumpkin pie. When I sat back down I didn't regauge it and it wasn't anchored so it pulled a little more open and is slightly larger than the others. I may still snip it off and redo it but haven't decided how much its going to bother me yet. I'm definitely looking forward to using my gauges for ding button loops on my camping Persian coats, though. I've got 4 or 5 coats all in need of a couple of dozen buttons and they're going to make the process SO much easier.

Sprinting to the end

I've changed my mind multiple times on my project for the Artemisian Costuming Challenge and hemmed and hawed about what I was doing. Back and forth between Russian and Italian and in the process time has run out on me. The deadline is in basically a month, so I'm going to have to buckle down and run to the end.

Since my IRCC dress would actually count for the ACC according to the rules of the challenge, I decided doing another Italian would be the best idea since I could fill in with pieces of the IRCC ensemble for things I don't get done. I'm going to do the Lotto gown, as I've got the hat pretty much done already, the mantellino in progress and a few other bits and pieces in process.

I also made the soccaccia, a couple of girdles and other bits of jewelry, and have the muff almost done. Since I'd like to get back to posting on a daily basis, I'm going to wait and show those one at a time and talk about sources and such separately rather than putting everything in a pile today.

So, today's project is a tassel bag. I wasn't really happy with the IRCC one, so I've been working on doing a better version this time around. I'm pretty happy with this one. The picture also gives a glimpse of the fabrics I'm using for this project. The dress will be orange and blue instead of the orange and green of the portrait. I'm using a smoky/frosty blue dupioni and the rosy orange dupioni silk that I used to line my red dress. Both are stash fabrics and, while not as nice as a taffeta, are a step up from the cotton brocades I'd originally thought to use. I splurged and spent $14 of my $100 budget on a half yard of upholstery fabric for the muff and this bag. Not that easy finding something to match my crazy fabric choices, so I was happy to find it.

The tassel bag is an attempt to make a tasseled round bottomed drawstring pouch worn on long strings over the dress. It hangs low on the skirt. There are two portraits in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion showing this. Illustration 40 is Parisian and 52 is Dutch and I've found a few in other portraits from a variety of countries. Here's a French example from 1581. This print by Jacques de Gheyn II is from slightly before 1600 (de Gheyn stopped engraving in 1600 and was active from the 1580's.) It is a lower class individual, but it has the flap top in addition to the rounded drawstring purse shape.

Album Amoricum of a German Soldier dated 1595 has a number of them pictured, including this lady and this one.

Bags and purses seem to be much like modern ones, with shape size and preference shifting a bit according to the whims of the wearer. I wanted something with a bit more structure after my plain unstructured tassel bag. Looking around, I took inspiration from this German bag made in 1596 and this French tasseled bag from 1595
Although this is later (17th century) I liked the tassels and feel of this Italian coin purse at LACMA

I knew I wanted some structure, lots of tassels, a covered opening, and to be able to use the nifty metal mount I had picked up at a garage sale awhile back attached to a really sad pouch with an elastic opening. I cut the flap to match the mount and then tried to figure out how to give it some structure as I didn't have a purse ring. What I ended up doing was cutting a thick piece of leather that stiffens the back section even with the width of the flap. It also helps the bag hang nicely rather than droop. Then I cut two wide tear drop shapes from my fabric and lined the bag and flap with a blue linen that I'll be using as the lining for the dress as well. I placed buttonhole slits around the top edge and inserted a drawstring. It's a plain piece of grosgrain ribbon with a sliding bead to tighten it. I finished the bag off with little tassels made from the fringe I'll be eventually edging my parasol with and beads left over from my girdle. At present I'm planning to attach a short length of chain to each side of the stiffened section and bring them up to a single attachment point that will attach to another longer piece of chain that attaches to either a pin or my girdle directly. I haven't sewn the chain on yet as I'm going to have to buy the long chain for this and it might not match my short pieces. Or I may change my mind as I dig in stash a bit further since I'd prefer not to spend any of my budget on that.

Anyway, I'm back working on this and determined to finish by the New Year's Eve deadline.

More stuff to put in the bag

Still slowly working on the ubrus and the "hat of doom" but I made some quick notions to go into my shoulder bag for fun. I did some thread winders in the krin motif. I had some little bits and pieces of rawhide scrap at the top of the crafting closet I ran across while I was cleaning last week and I've been trying to figure out a project so I could justify continuing to not just throw it out. I pulled them out the other night and ended up making thread winders. I'd made her a pocket and still had needlecases on the brain due to the fresco picture of the socaccia (one day I will figure out how to make one!) and the inspiration hit. The new owner of the pocket is an embroiderer so something to keep her threads in order seemed like a good idea. Her heraldry has owls and the thread winders turned out adorable if I do say so myself. I liked them so well I had to make myself some. The started out plain with just the silhouette, basically heart shaped. I added the spur shapes on the outside to make it a little more and then the drawn in fleur got cut out. Once I got them sanded I decided some paint would liven them up. Then, since I'm not known for restraint they got some gold. I didn't have quite enough rawhide for the dozen I'd planned, but I did get 10 done. One went missing as I took the picture. It's here. Somewhere. . .

I really do have a thing for hair toys

I keep finding more pretties. Here's another beautiful ivory Italian comb from the 1600's. Not as flashy as the painting and gilding of my current favorite but beautiful. If you have anything like my weakness you should go have a look at where this comb lives. It is part of the collection of The Creative Museum. An entire museum of nothing but hair accessories. Dreamy! I've been randomly wandering through the collection by geographical area. I stumbled on to some to die for painted ivory combs with Persian miniatures and some lovely Etruscan inspired ones in the Italian section. Its a fabulous mix of stuff from up and down the timeline.

I think I'm going to dig out my own vintage collection of kanzashi from the 1940's and wear some silly, happy, over the top beautiful hair tomorrow.

Some days I just need to have someone apply the brakes

I do not have delicate hands. That fact was once again made clear to me as I drafted a pattern for mittens. Dainty fingers are not among my graces. I am excited about the mittens, however, which is good since that was the point of making them.

I started the day with progress. The shoulder bag body is coming along nicely. I'm not so sure about the strap however. The applique stiffened the suede I was using enough that it may not need the lining i was planning, but it isn't heavy enough to make a good strap. I'm trying to decide if I should line it all in wool felt anyway and use 2 layers of suede for the strap with an interlining of the felt or try something else. Maybe do the strap out of a heavier leather, but that would introduce a 3rd color and type of leather to it and I'm not sure I want that. The whole thing gets further and further away from my extant inspiration. So, I put that aside and started working on a simple leather drawstring bag. It's a kalita or moneybag and should have been a nobrainer. There's one in Novgorod and its just a plain drawstring bag with a leather drawstring. But, I had the leather out for the applique and I started thinking how cool it would be to make it match the shoulder bag and I drew a nifty krin motif and cut a couple out. While I was at it I thought how these colors just so happen to be perfectly matched to the silk bodice laces I braided for the Italian dress that don't fit into the eyelets. And it snowballed and my plain pouch now had an applique and silk drawstrings and in no way resembled my nicely documented kalita.

So then I thought, "I should use the applique from the bag to do a comb case, because that would be something I could document and it would still be nifty and be another cool thing to put in my bag." Did I mention this decision was made at 4 AM? That information might be important. . . So, then I spent the better part of the day looking at combs. I found everything but what I wanted, which was a nice single sided wooden comb. I wanted that because I already HAVE on of those. No go. I can find single sided combs into the Viking age, but they're really not what mine is. I also found a GORGEOUS Lombard one decorated with sapphires and it would have been cool to attach some beads and baubles to my comb, but its 7th century. So, no go. There is also a beautiful 16th-17th century Turkish comb in ivory, gold, precious stones and rock crystal that is pretty identical to one in the Hermitage that has an embroidered goldwork case. There are Chinese and India examples as well and I might be able to make a case, especially as the Chinese is from a Mongol connected area. But honestly, a few bits of bling attached to a wood comb don't come anywhere near truly evoking any of these pieces. So, I figured I'd just carve a double sided comb. Then I found this ivory one with painting and gilding and fell for it. Unfortunately, the material to carve it isn't an easy thing. Ivory substitutes are basically plastic and I don't want to put all that work in to making a plastic comb. Especially when I could basically buy a plastic lice comb for $2 and have something similar. It just seems lame to go out of my way to do an historical item but have it be plastic. I had similar issues with the zibi, but it was the very best option and its not in contact with things like my hair. So, natural materials. I can't find bone blanks large enough (the width is the issue) and I'm not familiar with working with horn. So wood. I can make a wood comb. The issue with that is that, while wood combs are very, very common, wood combs are common. If you could afford the painting and gilding you wouldn't have had a wood comb.

That was my day. Fussing over the silly idea that was supposed to be easy yet let me use silly appliques and fit into my bag. The bag that seems to be getting further and further away from documentation. I'm still worrying it but am trying to move to a different project. I figured the appliques would look cute on mittens. I have pictures of a set of children's leather mittens and adults wore similar ones. I'm doing what are called "cold mittens." They are not fur lined. That goes back to the fact that I do not have dainty hands and mittens for me would use up a lot more fur than I want to invest in this. They'll be red leather lined in wool felt so they should still be toasty. Yes, my pattern mock up is Batman fabric. I'm working on placemats for my 4 year old son and its what I had out and in scraps. I started with this how to on leather "chopper mittens" and adapted it to have a period style thumb Seems like its going to work, we'll have to see tomorrow when I will hopefully have a clearer head.
My project just keeps getting sillier and sillier and more all over the place. Sigh. I guess at least mittens might be functional for other uses.

Leather applique is cut

I'd hoped to do the cutwork out of red and put it on a buttery orange leather I had, but the scrap wasn't nearly as large as I thought. So, I'm doing it the other way. Unfortunately the red leather is very, very lightweight. I'm thinking I need to interline it for structural stability so that the applique is visible rather than just sagging together. Doing that really steps away from the original pieces and I'd much rather buy a thicker leather, but I don't have room in my budget, either the $100 ACC one or my actual budget. So, I'm going to have a pretty shoulder bag with wool felt interlining and silk lining. Sumptuous, but not particularly accurate. I'm sort of bummed by that, but the result should be gorgeous.

Sorry, I got distracted

I was hoping to have good progress pictures of the mantellino by now.  I spent much of last night sewing together the lining and its really yummy.  My partner in craft/crime Davey came over with lunch yesterday and brought the most beautiful chocolatey brown shearling hide.  He'd bought it for vague projects.  I instantly stole it and decided I should use it to line my muff and make a Russian hat.  After a few more thinks I decided to line the mantellino in it too.  I cut out the mantellino lining right then which took most of the hide so now I need another for the muff.  He's been sent back to the leather store (not that he wouldn't have gone anyway.)   Its just buttery soft and lovely and a pleasure to work with.  I'd never seen such a pretty color of brown either, being more used to the goldish and white that is usually seen.  I now want to line a silk caftan in it.  Yum, yum, yummy!  Not to mention, with his wholesaler's discount, its actually cheaper than many fabrics.

Anyway, the new lining had me re-think the embellishment on the mantellino.  I decided to not do the flowers and do some cutwork instead.  So, the silk is becoming an intermediate layer between the shearling and the velveteen in both the cape and muff.  I'm shaping the cutwork to be basically the krin symbol.  I've seen some cutwork that is basically floral and stylizing the heart and fleur motif wasn't too difficult   I'm just doing it as a border around the edge rather than over the whole cloak.  I got the shearling sewn and attached to the silk and 8 of the cutwork motifs cut.  20 more to go around the bottom edge. 

Today's plan was to finish cutting and start the hand sewing of the shell to the lining and silk.  Instead, I lost my cell phone and got distracted by pockets.  I wear skirts by preference and rarely have pockets in them and thus have a tendency to hold my cell phone in my hand and put it down on random surfaces.  Then, my 16 month old son has a tendency to pick it up.  That's when the trouble begins.  So, I've been thinking about making some tie on pockets to wear with my everyday clothes.  Goofy, I know, but practical.  Then, I found this giant database of hundreds and hundreds of pockets of the 17-19th centuries.  So that has been what I've been doing instead of cutting and sewing.  I've been drooling over embroidery and patchwork and applique and all sorts of beautiful and plain pockets. I'm a total patchwork addict and many of my skirts are patchy so those are my favorites.

I'd say I'll get the mantellino done tomorrow but I'm eventing over the weekend, so who knows.  It is a handwork project, however, so I'll at least pack it with the very best of intentions of working on it.

The new mini-challenge is up!

Bella just put up the new mini-challenge at Realm of Venus that will run next month. The theme is "Idle Hands." You have the month of October to make an item that would be held in or worn on the hands. The winner will be the prettiest and most period. I love the concept, its so very different from the "do as much as you can in 4 months" marathon that is the IRCC. Is it sad that I already know exactly what I want to make?

I really like the last set of pictures we took when doing my dress where I am holding my rosary and the little book of selections from The Hastings Book of Hours.  It made me wish I had a better book.  So many of the period portraits have the sitter holding a book in their hands.  So, I've decided to make a book of hours.

I was lucky enough to get to look at Randy Asplund's 3" high illuminated book of the life of Jeanne d'Arc made using entirely period techniques at Southern Regional Collegium a couple of years ago and have wanted to do something similar ever since.  I am NOWHERE even in the realm of his awe inspiring talent and dedication, but hope I can make something nice as a first attempt.  I've had a couple of classes in bookbinding and have made a few journals, but nothing of this magnitude.

I'm going to concentrate on the bookbinding itself and decorative binding primarily.  I found a really interesting article examining fifteenth-century bookbinding structure and comparing the differences (or lack thereof) of printed books and hand copied ones.  I need to work through this bibliography as well.  I'm really intrigued by the cartolai, Florentine workshops of booksellers.  There was a significant amount of decoration of printed texts coming out of their workshops (Randy's Joan is actually printed text as well.)  I'm totally on board with illuminating printed books.  To be honest, my calligraphy is atrocious but I really enjoy painting.  There's also the question of time.  I want to make sure I have the time to really do what I want.  I'm deeply in love with this Italian tooled leather cameo binding from around 1529 and want to do something similar.   I'd almost decided to just bind a blank journal, but I think I'd like some text.  That's still provisional since I know trying to do illumination to already bound pages is not going to be much fun.  There also might be a book curse, even though they had fallen a bit by the wayside by this time.  They're just so full of awesome.  Also, I'm teaching a class on "How to keep track of your stuff: book curses, book plates, and decorative bindings" at kingdom collegium in November so it will be nice to have a visual aid.

Starting the mantellino

Went playing in my stash to find something to wear over the dress. With something as bright as my orange and blue that's a bit harder than it sounds. I found a lovely thick dupioni that I've had for years in a really nice copper penny color that I decided would make a good lining since I just don't have large enough pieces of fur to line with that. Then there was the issue of what to use as the outside that wouldn't fight with the oranges. I finally settled on 3 cotton velveteens; a charcoal, a deep brown, and a black. The black was discarded as being too "Halloweeny" as much as I liked it. The charcoal just didn't pop, so my mantellino has become sort of harvesty in brown and copper. After this search and seeing what I have in textured bottomweights, I think the muff is going to be in the brown as well. As much as I wanted blue, all I've got is a fine wale cord with a rather blah color, the fabric I'm using in the dress, and a navy silk that's got a gold and green open plaid. Nothing suitable at all. I guess this way I get something that goes with more things however.

Now I've just to to settle on the decoration. I know I want to tie some frogs for the fastenings but am not sure on the color. I'm thinking about using some of the flowers and lotus buds from the salvage operation and maybe couching a pattern around them in gold cord. The other option is to do some cutwork or pinking and show off the lining. Lining is cut and the collar is on, but its just sitting here until I decide what I want to do. Guess I'll sleep on it.

One more for the road

I'm sitting here waiting to go get pictures and I can't seem to stop.  I'm done though.  Really.   I'm not going to make anything else.  Probably.

As I was putting together props for the pictures; an embroidery frame, my copy of the Hastings Book of Hours (get it!  Yeah, I'm not really funny.  I just think I am.) and the pile of stuff, I decided to do one more quick thing.  A nosegay.

I included a variety of herbs in it. It has three leafed clover and strawberry leaf and flower. In Christian art they're both fertility symbols and by extension symbols of marital love. It also has flowering oregano. In ancient Greece bridal couples were crowned with wreaths of oregano. There's also a bit of raspberry leaf in there. Its another herb believed to bring good luck in marriage according to a variety of folk traditions. You might be seeing a theme here. I wanted to put a little thank you out there to my long suffering husband who has supported me through this. Especially the total unexplained crazy of the last week as I've gotten really anxious and nutty. I love you sweetheart.

More tassels

I'm really glad my time dancing American Tribal Style bellydancing gave me loads of practice tying tassels.  You never know when skills will come in handy.  So, 5 more fluffy red tassels to go along with the ones on the tips of my toes (chopines) and the edges of my veil.

The lucet cords I made back a month or so ago finally got used too.  This isn't the original bag I had planned after making them, but I think I'll be happier with the mix of wool and leather than I would have been with the embroidered silk bag I had planned at that time.  I used the last of the green leather scrap from my shoes as the edging and 2 other random leather scraps had enough in them to make the bag and gusset.  I stitched cross-cross for some interest.  It seems rather jaunty and flippy.  Nothing makes me want to dance more than tassels and having them swinging near the hem of the dress should be fun.

Fluffy, frilly gathers of doom

The puffy white monstrosity is done.  It took me two days to gather the fabric and only about an hour to actually sew and assemble the thing.  It looks sort of wrong in the picture, but the shape should be just right with the support the dress gives.  I looked and looked at the portrait for some sort of fastening, like the ties on other partlets. but didn't see one.  It didn't seem to have an underarm seam either.  That just doesn't work with the pointed look of this particular shape.  All I can figure is that it is pinned into place.  It sits fine now, but could easily be twisted if it isn't anchored in some way.  I might starch the collar just a little to give me more the look that is in the portrait. 

Chopines are finally finished

Loads of trim and 180 upholstery tacks later, the silly platforms are done.  At least I think they're done.  How do you determine at what point a pair of bright red tasseled 8 inch platform sandals with giant bows and filigreed gold trim goes over the edge of good taste and into too much?  They look especially crazy when worn with my green linen stockings.  I'll have to try for a picture of that later, but it doesn't work very well to take a picture of your own feet.

  I had planned to wear them with the red and gold cutwork leather slippers, but those may have to wait until after the contest is over.  Makes me really glad I decided to do a split vamp so they can be adjust to be worn with shoes or without.  The tassels are made from rayon embroidery floss.  I'm not as thrilled with them as I'd like.  I'm sort of considering making a pair of gold tassels instead, but I'm not going to worry about it until the contest is over since I need to move on to other things.

I had planned to braid silk for the bodice laces as my next project but now I'm waffling.  I even have the silk.  I did a pair for Serafina's Elevation dress.  I might skip it at this point since they're not exactly a big bang for your buck project.  They took me days to do and are strong and nice, but really subtle.  Same sort of thing as the petticoat lace.  Its nice, but not really obvious.  Another option is working on the tablet woven garters.  Again, its a time suck that perhaps I should wait on.

The only thing left on the dress itself is the sleeves.  I'm making slow progress on them, but they're coming along.  I'm couching trim.  That should keep me busy for a few days.

Chopine progress

Getting closer!  Unfortunately I ran out of tacks.  I need to pick up a lot more this evening.  But, they are covered finally and that makes me very happy.  I made my husband (who is 6'4") stand next to me while I balanced on them.  I'm a good 3 inches taller than him and get to look down on him.  That thrills me for no particular reason.  Between the shoes and the hat I should be approaching 7 feet tall.  BWAHAHAHAHAH!  I get to be the tallest person in the room.

Trying to decide if I should use more of the narrow gold cord to lace the vamps, or be silly and use fluffy ribbon and aiglets.  Big bows might be fun, but I'm worried they'd take away from the giant tassels I have planned for the toes.  Are they over the top yet?  Gee, I hope so.

A few more beads and we have a balzo

Putting the last few beads on the balzo, but I had someone available to take a picture so here it is.  Super comfortable with the wool base, and it fits perfectly when I have my hair braided around my head (which it is not in the quicky picture, but is how I plan to wear it normally.)  Even with no pins or anything it stays in place nicely.

I cut the mock-up for the partlet this morning and am playing with just how much fullness I want to the gathering.  This is one of those occasions when I wish I had more decorative stitches to my no frills sewing machine.  There just isn't time in my schedule to do hand work on the partlet, so I need to stitch the gathers in place.  Not sure how happy its going to make me to do it this way,   Only 40 days to go in the challenge and I want to leave at least 10 for getting good pictures since I'm going to need a lot of help with that.  I'm rather proud of most of my projects, but they just don't look all that great in photos.  I'm an unusual size and not photogenic so I need all the help I can get.

Still have some final tweaking with the skirt, but the dress is getting closer to being finished.  Hoping to cut the sleeves tomorrow, but I still haven't finalized if I'm going to do a two piece sleeve and do the upper puff separately.  My friend Davey brought over a soldering gun so we're going to make the girdle a little stronger today.  I STILL need to figure out the earrings.  The Venetians should just take about a day.  Chopines still need a lot of sanding and then a couple of days of work to cover them and add some bling.  The leather slippers are up in the air as to I will even get to start them.  Time has totally gotten away from me. 

Girdle is basically finished

I just need a hook so its easier to take on and off and its done.  To make it completely complete, it would be nice to find a pomander or a tassel or something for the end, but I can wait until I run across the perfect thing.  So I guess its mostly done.  

Actually, there's one more step I would like to do, but I'm not sure I'm up to it..  I am a little worried the jump rings will gap because the girdle is pretty heavy and I'm considering soldering them closed.  I have a multi-tool that I use for pyrography that can be used as a soldering iron but I've never tried it.  I'm a little nervous about it.  But, I really don't want to have to constantly reassemble the girdle when something decides to fall apart.  I'd much rather have it super sturdy so I don't have to worry.  Guess I'm going to let that brew a little bit.  I've been working on this pretty solidly for a couple of days since there was a lot to assemble and I'm ready to put it aside and declare  another wearable item,  Technically done is something. right?

Fussing with the girdle

I've been plying around with the various bits and pieces I got for the girdle, trying to make them look like they belong together.  The portrait piece is made of really large components and its pretty much entirely gold.  I haven't been able to find pieces of the right scale, nor enough of them.  Maybe it would be easier if it was closer to Christmas and I could go ornament shopping.  So, I decided to do as I'd done with the necklace and abandon the idea of doing something that looked like the portrait and go for something that wouldn't look out of place.  I started by putting a pearl in the center of the filigree buttons and adding some of the red glass jewels I used in the necklace to the large oval bits with metal and jewelry glue..  It unified things a bit, but the shapes didn't transition well, Luckily, I found a really interesting bracelet with a great shaped plaque.  The original pieces looked like the one on the far left, with the 4 half round  cream dots.  I pried those off, as well as the crystal in the center.  Then I put a button pearl in the center and red beads in the place of the cream.  The smaller size of the red beads shows more of the gold base piece which I like a lot.  There were three of the bracelet, so I ended up with 15 plaques  Between the red cabachons and some pearls as well as some smaller gold bits, I think I'm going to end up with enough length.  Its actually a pretty long girdle, since there is an extension for the zibellino.  The glue should cure tonight and I can try assembling everything tomorrow and see how close it comes.