Waffling about some of the details,but the ruff is done

Trying something new this time. Rather than losing the camera, I've just misplaced the memory card and card reader, so new pictures will have to wait a bit. In the meantime, I realized I never posted this necklace here, although I did include it in an update.  Pearls and gold acorn beads that basically follow the pattern of Montemezzano's Lady with a squirrel. The central pendant is not part of the original, but I wanted to wear my Golden Maple Leaf (Artemisia's AoA level reward) and the jump ring kept separating when I wore it with my other set of pearls, so I decided to integrate it more fully into a necklace.

So, that's the old news. In new news, my big standing ruff is complete, just needs to be set.  This is my first try at doing a ruff according to authentic methods rather than theatrical and I was pleasantly surprised.  I'm in the midst of cartridge pleating the matching shoulder ruffs to complete the suit of ruffs. I finished the accompanying partlet yesterday. It has a bit of a neck ruffle itself and is made from embroidered organza and I attached little plaques/bezants down the front as in this and several other portraits. (Just to insert thanks in here, I've spent hours at Angela Bacci's site, Starlight Masquerade lately.  Her collection of late period inspiration portraits is wonderful. ) The ruffs are also organza, with linen neckbands.

Still far too much left to do, and yet I find myself not managing time well.  I'm having a hard time buckling down into the teeny finishing details, as evidenced by the fact that the cappotto STILL isn't complete.  Ah well, at least I have a wearable dress at this point. Hopefully, I'll finish the shoulder ruffs tomorrow and perhaps stitch the eyelets on the sleeves that are keeping me from declaring the dress done.  Or maybe I'll spend another day looking at hairstyles as I did today, trying to figure out how to adapt Victory Roll tutorials into Venetian horns.

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.

Giant jewel of sparkliness

This is another one of those "learning experience" projects. It did not turn out remotely like I wanted it to, but I think it might be a stepping stone to get there. Just probably not in the next 3 weeks.

The large jewel sort of stuffed into the front of Lucretia's dress is rather intriguing. It has pinky/red gems and blue ones with a drop pearl. It has foliage and figures and the center is a giant flower. All kinds of interesting stuff going on.

Wikipedia's zoom is loads better than the images at the National Gallery and allows you to see the spiky topped flower stems and the faces of the cupids/putti.

While I would like to make a reproduction of the portrait jewel (in Sculpy since that's as close as I'm going to get to gold) I'm not so sure about my ability to sculpt it. I started on it and the proportions were not very good. I was having a tough time with the total 3 dimensionality of the putti. The entire piece also didn't seem particularly stable. And then my son tried to eat it and I gave up once I wrestled it away from him. I figured I'd start with something a little easier after that. I found this simple pendant dated 1540-1560 at the V and A (museum number M.242-1975) It is that simple because it is more concerned with the efficacy of the stones and their value as talismans, but I love the lines of it. I bulked it up a bit, both because of my sculpting ability as well as needing something more monumental.

Here it is before it hit the oven.

You'll notice the green and red stones, which is what I wanted (mostly. At least as far as the confines of what acrylic stones I had to hand.) I sculpted it, pulled the stones out so they wouldn't melt and put it in the toaster oven. Then my children once again intervened. They ran off with the acrylic. I have no idea where. I had given them their own sparkly stones for "treasure" but that was apparently not sufficient. After several hours of looking I gave up and went back to the bag to see if there were other options. The only ones in the right sizes were blue and pink. I'm not against the blue, but I hate the pink. I think it makes it feel like its something you'd find in package with a tiara and plastic high heeled sandals in the kid's dress up aisle. Also, just to add to frustration, I thought I'd accounted for shrinkage, but not enough. I broke a bit of the setting on the bottom stone getting it in to place. Even after sanding it down it didn't go in smoothly. So I added the pearls to disguise the fix. Then I added some more so it wouldn't look like they'd been tacked on in the end. Every place where I had had little gold balls I removed them and replaced with pearls. Not sure I care for the effect. To make things not so visibly Sculpy, I used liquid gold leaf and then buffed it with a wax gold finish to try to pick up some of the detail. Loads of gold chain and a clasp finish it out.

As I said, learning experience. I thought the acrylic would look fine since they are table cut. The color is a huge issue, however. Some colors look fine and others do not. While the blue and pink is actually pretty close to those in the original jewel, using a semiprecious stone of some kind might be a better option, especially to counterbalance the fact that I'm using a polymer clay. Another few attempts at sculpting is going to improve things over all, and I might get crazy and try the figures in the portrait. I think a bad looking attempt at the portrait necklace is going to make me feel better than a marginally better attempt at something that is already a compromise.

So, making my own sculpted medallions/pendants is going to go in to the pile where comb making is. I'll try again another time. Its something that I certainly want to figure out at some point.

Colds stink, but at least I get to go shopping

I did not, in fact, get the mantellino done yesterday. Grumble, grumble, blargh! I didn't get much of anything done at all. Big kids stayed home from school sick and everyone was stuffed up and whiny. Especially me.

The mantellino was all bunchy and sat badly in the back, so I drafted Davey to help me re-mark the neck curve as well as help me figure the waist for the petticoat. He was kind enough to pick up leather for gloves for me and dropped it off, then I ambushed him for assistance. Poor guy gets caught up in a lot of my schemes.

The curve is MUCH lower in the back than I would ever have guessed. It makes sense, I suppose, since the entire point of the "baby mantle" is just to cover the cold spot made by a low cut front on the dress. I'm re-cutting it today and pushing forward with the last few pearls. I still need to decide if I'm going to add further embellishment. Maybe some gold trim along the edge. Deciding on closures for the front would help that decision a great deal. nothing has jumped out to be something I adore. Maybe I'll tie some frogs. I suppose I could do hooks and eyes and not have a decorative closure.

Looking for closures is on today's shopping agenda. As is buying Sculpy and some chain to do the necklace in the portrait. I stripped one of my belly dance pendants in an attempt to come up with another option for making the pendant and am going to fiddle with that as well. We'll see what develops. Cable ties for bodice boning are also on the list along with thread, possibly something for the partlet, and a few other notions. Why yes, it is payday.

I did another couple of inches of blackwork on the garters and Davey brought over buckles when he brought the leather. We're driving down to my mom's Christmas party Saturday and will be out of town all weekend, so I plan to get some serious work done on them in the next couple of days as they are the best traveling project I have.

So, in general, progress continues. I am a little worried that its going to have to stop again so I can work on my kids' Christmas presents, but we'll see how that goes.

Pearls

I spent most of yesterday pearling the mantellino. Just 4 motifs left to go. As pearls were the theme of the day, I thought I'd go back and show you the first girdle I made as it is pearls and gold.

I had the circle disks hanging around after purchasing them on clearance and had oodles of freshwater pearls that I'd picked up cheaply from the Gem Faire back in June. The pearls are sort of a problem as the have holes too small for any of my beading needles and won't take a second pass of string through them and are far too large for embroidering with. As a result, they really haven't been all that useful. However, as I said, I have a lot of them. Making a girdle for me takes a lot of whatever it is I use, so they seemed like a likely candidate. The gold disks are set up to sit on two strands and two strands of pearls seemed pretty. One of my favorite Venetian necklaces in portrait has two strands of pearls. (Albrecht Durer's 1505 Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman.)

I'm plotting a green dress this spring and it is on my "must make" list.

However, pretty pearl necklaces being documentable does not mean pretty pearl girdles are. In looking over the portraits in my little chunk of time, it seems that they are all pretty much exclusively gold. Most don't have any visible "drop" either. Thick links at the waist seem to be the most common. However, in the portrait I just finished working with, Camilla's girdle had two drops that were very definite, one to the zibellino and one that her son is playing with. Its still very gold, however. I did find one portrait with a pearl girdle on a Venetian dress. Its from a 1565 fresco by Giovanni Antollio Fasolo. It might still be gold backed, however, with the pearls simply mounted to the gold. (And have a look at the entire piece, its pretty cool. I love the colorful print skirt of her dress.

So, basically, I'm not sure if I'll wear the girdle with this dress. Its pretty, but it seems more English in style to me. My portrait doesn't have a girdle at all to be honest, and I'm not sure the pearls will look right with the crisp lines of the patchwork as the only decoration and the colors. I fretted about it for a couple of days and then went on to make a primarily gold girdle. I'll show you that soon, but I suppose I should wrap up telling you about the girdle itself.

These freshwater pearls, as I've said, did not want to be cooperative and let me do multiple passes of stringing material. I eventually just strung them straight on a 28 gauge wire. I'm rather nervous about how the whole thing will hold up with the weight that any girdle for me automatically is, but that's the largest gauge I could get through the holes. I put the clasp at the back of the waist so there would be as little fiddling as possible. After considering making a pomander, and even starting to carve one, I just chickened out of that and found the tassel on the end at Hobby Lobby. If I end up using this, its $5 more of my budget used.

While I was at it, I strung a simple pearl necklace and threw together a set of earrings. I'm pretty definite on wanting to wear the necklace, but I'm not so sure about the earrings. They might get put aside with the girdle for another project.

Finished the necklace

Can I be highfalutin and call it a caracanet?  It turned out so much better than I had hoped.  Its made of some clasps, bead frames and other bits and pieces I got on clearance and it somehow came together to be something I'm super proud of.   Not the necklace in the portrait, but I think its got some similarities.  Its got sparkle and filigree and the drop pearl.  Which, by the way, was the hardest part.  I cannibalized an earring I got in a bag of junk jewelry for the drop.  I still need to find two more for the earrings.  So far I haven't had any luck.  The center bit is a gold plated bead frame with a glass bead and two little gold seedbeads that were spacer beads on some other beads I'd bought.  The heart shaped leaves are clasps, so the necklace can open in 5 different spots.  I might have to epoxy them closed so that doesn't happen when I don't want it to, but they seem to be secure.  Just to make things difficult the clasp I'm actually using as a clasp in the back center broke when I was trying it on.  Thank goodness for wire and plumber's epoxy and the fact that its going to be hidden under the partlet or my hair.  I love plumber's epoxy.  I used it to hold the pins on my quicky Viking brooches made from a couple of large pendants.  You just knead it fora minute or two, squish it into where you want it and sculpt it to shape and then let it dry.  Voila!  A bond that just plain doesn't separate.  The brooches have heavy strings of beads hanging from them and got quite a workout since I wore my Viking dress while nursing twins and they were opened and closed a lot.  No fear at all the clasp will break again.

The veil is done and I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  Need to get a picture and I'll post it tomorrow.  I'm not working at all hard today, can't get motivated, but the pleating for the skirt is coming along.