So what's next?

This week is actually more than a little crazy with my son's 5th birthday tomorrow and back-to-school shopping this weekend.  He's going to kindergarten and my oldest daughter will be in 3rd grade.  I'll have a couple of hours every day where it is just me and the twins. I'm looking forward to that.  I've also got to get us ready for Coronation Labor Day weekend since none of my kids have garb that fits.

I'm hoping to finally get around to making a version of the dress in this Titian portrait of Clarice Strozzi for my older daughter so she can wear her zibaby from Sable Greyhound.  I'll probably do one for my youngest as well.  Seems pretty straightforward and comfortable.  Probably too young for my 8 year old, but I don't think she'll care.  I need to make the boys something as well.  With the extreme heat, I don't think I'm going to worry too much about accuracy and just do them shirts, Venetians, and jerkins rather than full doublets.

I'm being lazy today, but should at least get the fabric in the wash tonight so I can cut something out tomorrow after the 5th birthday party.

And it is done!

I 

The "Cliff's Notes" of the outfit

Layers
A) Linen camicia with lace insertion. Handsewn insertions, handpleated
B) Orange silk and red canvas full petticoat bodies. Machine stitched boning channels hand bound in red pigskin with handworked eyelets. Machine sewn lined petticoat with handworked eyelets and cartridge pleated waist and hand applied ribbon trim.
C) Open bodiced Venetian dress of gold cotton brocade.  Machine sewn long seams with hand applied ribbon trim.and padded cartridge pleats. Sleeves with beaded rosettes.
D) Cappotto and matching bonnet with feathers.  Handbraided frogs and threadworked buttons. Hand couched gold cord along hand applied bias trim.  Cartridge pleated wool lined hat.

Extra accessories

Papier mache tourney shield. Hand sculpted and painted.
Gold cotton windowpane veil with handmade tassels.
Fur lined muff with leather cutwork applique and threadworked buttons
Paper flag fan with drawn and painted pear with calligraphy poem
Sculpted feather fan
Painted parasol with sculpted apres finial and handsewn tassels
Zibellino with sculpted head and beaded girdle drop
2 sets of hairpins, filed, assembled, and painted
Strung blue jasper and gold necklace
Strung pearl necklace with acorns and maple leaf pendant
Assembled chandelier pearl earrings with silk bows
Signet ring with carved intaglio gem
Set of bracelets in half-Persian weave
Beaded girdle belt
Sash with interlaced herringbone embroidery, tassels, and beading
Beaded rosary with hand tied tassel
Lace sweetbag sewing set with buttonhole tassels, interlocked braid and threadworked buttons. Scissor keep, needle case, needlebook, stiletto sheath and pincushion
Handkerchief with pearled needlelace edging
Lace stomacher
Lace cuffs
Linen apron with handsewn insertions of lace and pleated top
Machine sewn cotton undercamicia
Machine sewn silk garters with handsewn applique of lace
Handsewn linen stockings with hand applied purchased lace and trim
Cutwork lachet shoes
Blockprinted machine sewn drawers with hand done eyelets
Suit of silk organza and lace shoulder and neck ruffs. Cartridge pleated into linen bands
Handsewn organza ruffled partlet with beading
Blockprinted and painted machine sewn soccaccia
Braided and beaded hairpieces

Venetian horns and hairpieces

Remember when I said I was trying to figure out how to adapt Victory roll retro hair into the Venetian style?  Well, my friend Tabitha (Hare de Luna) was willing to give it a go.  She's a fabulous hair braider and our local seneschal so she definitely "gets" what I was going for.  She's also recently become fascinated with retro hair, so I was in good hands.

I hit the beauty supply and picked up some sponge forms used for buns to use as rats for front height as well as some kankelon braid to make the back bun.  My hair is waist length.  It is even relatively thick, but it just isn't enough to pull off the big height in front and large bun in back.

 
Construction is pretty basic.  I just cut a piece of buckram or net into a large circle and then cut a slit into the circle so I could shape it into a conelike shape that would curve over my regular bun. Then I braided the hair and coiled it, tacking it into place.  For the pearls, the pearls were twisted around the braid before it was stitched into place.  The gold cord in the other one was stitched in later.

I've got some toupe clips stitched to the big bun cover, but the smaller one is stitched on a large scale net and bobby pins into place so far.  I might add clips later.

Tabitha did a part at about the middle of my ear pulling the back into a bun and putting the bun cover on.  We decided to use the larger hair piece (that I made for the ACC) which has a center bun as well as additional loose braids that I usually wear over the top of my head. In this case she just pinned them around the center bun making a gigantic braided bun.

She sectioned the front into 3 sections, ratting the sides and then smoothing them back over the purchased rats.  The center front was curled under into a roll and pinned into place. She teased and poked the rolls into a sort of pointy shape and smoothed out the transitions between sections.  I poked a few of my new hairpins into place and it was done.  I'm more than thrilled.  It really made the entire outfit come together and look "right."  Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to bribe her with in order to get her to do it again for Solstice in December.


Edit.  Just adding a couple of links to the portraits used for inspiration. (At Angela Bacci's sitem which seems so ofter the case. :) )
I think we came pretty close to this one http://starlightmasquerade.com/PortraitGallery/Ladder-Laced-Venetian/inspiration-pages/openbodice68.htm

 That same Montemezzano that keeps popping up with a double roll http://starlightmasquerade.com/PortraitGallery/Ladder-Laced-Venetian/inspiration-pages/openbodice18.htm 

3 different women with the same arched roll http://starlightmasquerade.com/PortraitGallery/Ladder-Laced-Venetian/inspiration-pages/openbodice110.htm

Tabby rolled the middle down and the sides back since rolling the center back gave me more of an English look and lost the definition of the arches on either side. 

Grand plans don't come to fruition, but I still have stockings and a sash.

 I know I talked about doing a sprang poste back at the beginning of this endeavor.  It still is on my list of things to try but I never settled into it and got going with the experiment.  The dress still needed the option of that splash of color at the waist to tie together the color in the sleeves and trim.  I still wanted to make something pretty and not just a strip of silk.  I considered doing pewter mounts like I'd done on my last poste/sash.  I didn't want to just pour more of my heart mold though and never came up with something nifty to carve a new mold of so it kept getting delayed.  I figured I'd better make something before time completely ran out.  So, here it is. Rather boring, but I did learn a new stitch.  The sash is actually 3 lengths of silk held together by an interlaced herringbone insertion stitch.  It's done in a blue bamboo rayon thread that matches the dupioni silk of the sash.  The tassels are the same thread.  The herringbone is interlaced in gold cord.  It is a bit too heavy to work properly so next time I will use a lighter contrasting thread.  I stitched on a few pearl and gold beads and ta-da.  Not my grand planned piece, but it does the job and the tassels and beads weigh down the bottom nicely.

These are quite obviously not my blue knitted Eleonora stockings.  I WILL get those made.  Eventually.  I'm going to give it another go in January I think.  I hope.  In the meantime, I made these since you can never have enough socks.  I just used the same pattern I draped last year for linen hose and cut and stitched them.  There's a bit of lace trim and a blue and orange woven ribbon to top it off and firm up the upper edge.

Partlet and ruffs

Ruffs didn't cooperate as much as I would have hoped, but they still totally finish off the outfit. 

I decided I really loved the metal bezants that were along the edge of many of the late Venetian partlets and I needed some.  I had a bunch of little gold findings that are a 5 lobed flowers made of hearts that I decided fit the bill, and I topped each with a glass pearl.

The partlet itself is just a basic mostly rectangular shape cut off my body block.  I used an embroidered organza that already had a shaped edge and cut the front to use that for the inside edge.  I gathered a simple ruffle into the neck and finished it off with ribbon ties under the arms.

The ruffs are organza as well, which may have been a mistake.  I wanted to do an authentic construction, cartridge pleating the edge into the linen neckband and then setting it with starch later.  I used Noel Geileghem's excellent tutorial  The organza didn't want to cooperate, however, even when I used hair spray rather than starch as was recommended.  I went back in an put a thin line of 32 gauge wire in in order to shape them, but it still doesn't give the look I want.  I'm going to need to play a bit more with the main ruff before Solstice in December when I want to wear these.  A rubatto or suportasse may be needed. I certainly need to practice my settes.  I totally understand why a good laundress was prized in the 16th century.

Playing catch up so I can do my wrap-up

I just realized how much stuff I don't have reported to Bella, in addition to all the items I haven't shown pictures of here.  So much for keeping on top of things. . .

So, I guess we'll start with the most recent thing (because I'm most excited by it) and work backwards.  My sweetbag!  I have wanted a 16th century sweetbag for a very long time, but the time commitment required for the embroidery has continually put it on the backburner. Then I found this!  The Metropolitan Museum has several Italian drawstring bags with the unique style of tassels that get them grouped with sweetbags.  The other two are embroidered, and they are all listed as 17th century, but the first one that caught my eye is listed as macrame or punto a groppo.  Knotted lace is much more my style, not to mention more easily done with materials I had to hand.  I was lucky enough to snag 3 yards of a beautiful thick reticella border/trim on ebay a while back, and wanted a way to display it, since it seemed too lovely to just use it on the edge of a random clothing item. 

There are a couple of extant sweetbag sets with a knife sheath and pincushion all matching the main piece.  I was particularly interested in the one in the Manchester Gallery. (I'm having some trouble with their site right now and it doesn't want to link.)  I decided to go for a full blown sewing kit with some pieces based on the extant ones and a few more modern takes on the theme.  I decided to adapt the knife sheath into a holder for my stiletto, go ahead with the pincushion and main bag, add a needlecase with sliding cap sort of based on the Italian one I talked about here, do an additional more modern needlebook, and a modern style scissor keep.  I've also got some gold shell threadwinders I intend to add to the set.  When it hangs the pincushion, the needlecase, the stiletto case and the bag will show, and the more modern pieces will be hidden inside the sweetbag.

I tacked the reticella into place on a gold wool fabric, and lined things in a peacock color silk.  The pincushion is stuffed with wool stuffing, the needlebook has wool felt pages. I rubbed a little gold enamel paint onto the pewter badge I got for completing the Artemisian Costuming Challenge so that it would blend with the gold of the set, but still show the amazing detail Mistress Giliana Attewatyr included on the pewter piece. The part that was both most time consuming and the most fun was doing the tassels and beads and all the buttonhole rings to attach everything.  I hope to eventually find smaller wooden core beads and do the tiny beads/buttons in silk more in keeping with the extant types, but I wanted to at least do the right shape and style of tassel since that seems to be the identifying factor for sweetbags.   Thirty-three buttons, thirty-one tassels, fifty-two loops, and a couple of yards of interlooped trim later, it is done.

That was surprisingly easy

And there is the pear.  I'm afraid I didn't get crazy and carve a wood block and print it.  Just a pencil sketch I inked in and a bit of color.  Lace is leftover from my ruffs and the ribbon is the vintage silk one I'm using on the dress.  I had bigger more exciting plans for this, but then the boys shredded my painted filigree fan I made for the ACC earlier this week and I decided I didn't want to give them something I poured blood and sweat into to destroy.  As I posted last time, these were often sort of a disposable thing on occasion as opposed to the investment of a feather fan.

What I'm pretty thrilled by and want to brag about is my clever handle.  It is a cafe curtain rod I bought for under $3.  They slide into two pieces and each end has a finial.  There is also a slit where the metal is rolled.  I took out the bottom section of the rod and kept it for a second fan.  This one has a little ridge on the bottom of the rod that sort of finishes it off, but I will need to figure out something to finish the second one.  I could have just epoxied the second part of the rod into place and had finials on both ends, but I didn't want the weight.  I drew and painted my pear and poem on a thick piece of watercolor paper, glued on the lace, and then pulled off the finial and pried the opening of the curled metal open a bit and slid it into place.  Then I popped the finial back on, crimped the metal back closed with a pair of pliers, and ta-da. Instant and inexpensive handle.  At under $3 is was cheaper than a dowel and a couple of wood finials and I didn't have to paint it.  And this way, when my boys inevitably destroy it, I have an extra handle waiting and plenty of paper to draw something else.  You just have to love a project where the research and decision of what to do take three times as long as the execution.