Blue Linen Dress Re-Do: Trim Found!

So today I took my DS to have lunch with daddy during daddy's lunch hour. There's a great fabric store right around the corner from my DH's workplace so naturally I had to stop. This place is extensive and stocks everything from apparel fabric to whole hides of leather. I had two things on my "to buy"  list. The first I was disappointed in: faux fur for my son's bear Halloween outfit. The second and successful find was trim for the blue dress. I found a short remenant in the colors I have as well as two larger pieces and I've pretty much decided to go with the lighter themed of the two. I've posted the picture below.


I don't like to buy much commercial trim (but do due to time constraints) because of the mostly glaringly obvious non-period materials and patterns. There's a great picture from a class that was presented and I use it as a good visual aid. I'm trying to find it now. Basically staying away from all of the super shiny metallic silver and gold stuff and sticking with trims that you usually find in the upholstery section is a good bet. That's actually where I found all three of my finds today. The trim pictured above is fairly simple being two twists of blue and gold laid side by side and stitched to the beige backing with light blue scalloped edges. It's just enough color and simple enough to go with the dress. Everything else I had was too modern or not in the right colors to be used. I'm hoping that with the 8 yards that I purchased I'll have enough. I was silly and forgot to measure the hem so I had to guess-timate. The thing is, I don't get out to that store often and the reel had the original sticker ripped off. So I couldn't tell you where to get this if I wanted to. I'll be keeping a swatch of course for future reference but I'm not sure what I'll do if I don't have enough to complete the dress...I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I was planning on doing more work on the dress this evening but my DS decided not to nap today which meant that keeping him on track for bed time took two parents, not just the one. We also tried to move a bit of our stuff from the garage into our new shed in preparation for the winter delivery of wood pellets that keeps our home toasty warm  during the winter. Perhaps I'll get some work done tomorrow! I have ironed out the muslin to cut the mock ups out of and I am really looking forward to pining them onto the dress to see if my patterning skills have rusted at all! That's all for now, hopefully I'll have more news after the weekend!

Blue Linen Dress Re-Do Update

So after some mild hiccups in delivery I have a new bias tape maker arriving today! YAY! I'll be able to move on after making all this bias tape. I'm hoping today to try out by drafted pattern for the side piece as well.

This is the pattern piece to the left that I've drafted onto some plain brown wrapping paper. (My preference for my own drafted patterns because of it's sturdiness.) I did not do this freehand, I'm not that talented. I did use my french curve tool a.k.a. Dritz's Styling Design Ruler. (It's something that all costumers should have!) I'll talk about that tool at another time though. The next step is to cut it out of some muslin and try it on the dress to see if I need to make any adjustments before cutting it out of the dark blue linen. I'm hoping I can get at least this much done today before I have to go pick up my little man at daycare at 3:30.


The hem will have to be addressed next and maybe I can get that done tomorrow or Friday night. I'm hoping to have the major components of the dress put together (or fixed) no later than next week. By that I mean the added side pieces, hem piece, and shoulders. I'm thinking that there may need to be a facing put on the neck as well but I'll see when I take the shoulders apart.

The bad news is that the lovely gold fabric in the swatch that I had planned to use for bias tape to cover the joining of the dark blue and light blue material refuses to be turned into bias tape. Even after several tries with the bias tape machine and doing it manually. GRR. Now I will have to revert to more commercial sources. I happen to have a fair stash of commercial trims of varying historical "period-ness." Meaning, some are more period looking than others. I'm sure that I will spend a significant amount of time trying to decide what route to take but so far I'm leaning towards a plain bias tape trim or something equally plain in my designed trim. I will NOT be doing a blue trim though. I'm looking for something with higher contrast. Yellow, gold, or possibly orange are colors that I think would be ideal.

Blue Linen Dress Re-Do Swatches

So as promised I finally took a picture of the materials that will be going along with the light blue dress. I haven't been able to do much work on recently but I'm hoping that will change next week. This week I've been in a super cleaning mode. "Nesting" is what my husband calls it. I'm just short of rearranging the whole house.

So here's the picture of the materials. The lighting I think may have cause the colors to be slightly off in the picture but you can get the idea. The light blue is a piece of what I've already removed from the sides. The gold is a strip of to be formed bias tape that will cover the seam between the light blue and dark blue pieces. The dark blue will be the added border and lacing tabs to make it a laced surcoat. Come to think of it, I should post a picture of the pattern piece that I've drafted out to complete the sides as well. There's not much to see really and the dark blue looks almost black but there it is.

Blue Linen Dress Re-Do

So I've begun taking apart the light blue linen t-tunic type dress that was given me. I didn't take picture of it while assembled but it was the basic pattern that many people use when they start out, located here.

The front of the dress.

I have so far removed the sleeves and widened the arm opening so now it somewhat resembles the final product: a sideless surcoat. The picture to the left is the front of this troublesome garment. Right off the bat you can see that the shoulders are odd and the hem is funk to say the least.


Below and to the right you can see the back of dress and the right shoulder seam pointing off into space. This problem is because the shoulder seams were an attempt at a flat felled seam. The previous owner didn't have a serger and so tried to make the garment last longer by using this seam method. It didn't work out so well... Part of the reason is that it wasn't a true flat fell seam, just an attempt at one. There's a lot of extra material in that shoulder seam that shouldn't be there. It's one of the things I'm going to have to re-do before the dress is wearable.

The back of the dress with shoulder points.

The other thing that is going to have to go is the hem. From these two images if the odd hem isn't evident I have a better picture below. The hem is longer on the sides than front and back and the only way I see to fix it is to chop it evenly and add a border. Over all I think it will all work out rather well and I may even be able to wear it while pregnant, provided that I don't get any bigger!

The exceedingly uneven hem.

My goal for this dress is to turn it into a side laced "sideless" surcoat. I've seen it worn at a couple of events and in an old pattern book of mine for theater costumes. I'm not sure how period it is but I like how it looks and will allow for my expanding waistline without making it hang oddly which is a problem I'm experiencing with one of my earlier surcoats. I have a dark blue linen that's approximately the same weight which I will use to border the hem and add to the sides. I'm planning on spiffing up the seams where the new material meets the old with a custom made bias tape of a cotton gold upholstery fabric that I picked up from JoAnn's a while back.

I wish I had the time to make my own trim for this but I only have a nine foot inkle loom and I would have to warp the same pattern twice to make enough for this dress. I also simply don't have the time. Not with a three year old and a baby due in November! I try to go for non-metallic store-bought trim when I want to add something with more "oomph" than just some bias tape or piping. I play in the SCA for fun not a period perfection headache. Would I like to be more period? Sure! I'm not going to let authenticity or lack thereof make me miss out on something I love to do. Okay, enough ranting now!

I've drafted the side piece that I want to add and I have the bias tape mostly made up. I'm hoping that tomorrow I can take pictures of both and add them to the post. It all depends on how much I get done on the daily to-do list around the house!

Ack! Current Projects

So I haven't posted to this, my SCA clothing journal, in two years. I do have a somewhat valid excuse. In two years we've moved, my business is getting re-started, I'm working part time, and we have just finished the basement (sewing room). It's been a crazy couple of years.

Beyond that I am pregnant again and now I actually have to worry about maternity and garb. *Sigh* There are a number of ways to approach it and there are some handy articles out there on how to modify current garb and what type of garb is best for the pregnant modern day medievalist. I've collected the pages that I plan on using on my current project: a rework on a light blue linen tunic dress that was pretty badly put together. I'm planning on turning it into a surcoat that I can wear to Fall Crown here in the E.K. Not sure how it's going to turn out but I do have a lot of work to do on it.

The good news is that with the sewing room put together I can now work and not have to worry about cleaning up every evening. I also have added a dress form to my collection of sewing stuff which makes fitting myself much easier!

For now that's pretty much it. I'll post pictures of my work in progress in a little bit...after I figure out what to do with it! medievalist.