Now One Can Get Lost In the Wash

Woohoo, two socks! It was extremely close--I was left with a very meager pile of scraps. Made me feel very resourceful.

You can see my splotchy dye job if you look close. Renaissance tie-dye. Hrm. Still, I feel like pippi-longstocking when I wear them, and considering how I loved her as a girl, that's no bad thing. In fact, I'm getting ideas for halloween...


OOOh, and for those interested in stockings/hose, please check out Melanie Schuessler's excellent article.

In other news, I prewashed the fabrics for my corset, so hopefully I'll tackle that over the long weekend.

Stocking Number 1

These are pretty fussy things. I have to pin each one to fit my foot properly, since my two feet are diff. Anyway, that means I can finish one per day and retain my sanity. Here is my right foot's sock. ;-) Kinda got a vintage flapperesque pink and black thing going. Its not perfect, but its as good as I could get it with my inferior pattern. Super comfy, too!

Tootsie Tangents

Perhaps I should be working on my corset. Or my dress even. But I've become distracted.

I've become enamoured with the idea of little peasant stockings. Thanks to Melanie Schuessler. Aren't hers just adorable? I am still working on coming up with a pattern that fits my freakishly large calves and apparently mutant feet. ;) I will not go into too much detail about how I spent almost my entire sunday working on a pattern with no suitable result. Hubby came home to a very unhappy me. And of course tried to help. He did help a bit, actually. And today I went about trying to tweak the pattern more.

So far, I have been able to have it fit to my calve and tootsie fairly well. The problem is in the ankle. I"m getting funny baggy wrinkles. Must work on this....I actually think if i cut the slit in the pattern higher towards the top of my ankle that it will help immensely. That's my to-do for tonight. Oh, and isn't the sunflower muslin just loverly?





Oh, and since I'm doing socks, I thought, hey, wouldn't it be fun to dye some fabric for them? Even better, wouldn't it be cool to dye with natural stuff to be found around my apt?

My first foray into natural dyeing came this weekend when I realized we had 5 mulberry trees behind our apartment. A-berry-picking I went. Unfortunately, the trees are on a rather steep hill, and I'm short. Right when I was about to take my berry-booty inside, I slid down the hill on my own little (okay big) booty. Whoosh went the berries from my basket. Squish went the berries on the ground (and under my butt--the berry juice soaked all the way through and stained my cheeks purple;)

Never fear, I did recover most of my berries in the end. I put some swatches of white linen in to dye under different conditions just to see the outcomes. Left most is in acid (vinegar), and next one to the right is with soda ash fixer in the pot. I like the more muted soda ash version, myself. Kinda a grey-purply-blue.



The second round of swatches are a remnant of a linen blend i found in joanns in a hideous pinky coral. I thought I'd tone it down with a coffee/tea stain. That was too subtle for me (second orange swatch). Then I thought, hey, why not just throw in some black dye (admittedly not natural)? Which i liked (3rd "orange" swatch--kinda dusty rose). After it soaked longer it gave me the fourth look, which is what I ended on. Okay, actually, I ended on a rather splotchy version of that. Guess I should've stirred my dye better. So, I will have some splotchy stockings. I will fool myself that my crappy dye job is just like what a bonified peasant may have ended up with if they couldn't afford all the proper equipment. Did they have tie-dye in the renaissance? ;-)

My goal is to make two pair of stockings--one in the greyer mulberry , and one of the formerly coral linen stuff. Will these clash with my dress colors. Most likely. Isn't that part of the fun?

Smocks!!!!

If anyone has read my blogs, particularly the "thunderhosen" one, you know that my husband is a rather endearingly silly man. And it just so happens that "smock" is one of his favorite words to say for absolultey no reason at all. (that and "mukluk", which is some kind of alaskan footwear). Anyway, he was absolutely jumping with glee when he saw me google searching for the Elizabethan Costuming Page's SMOCK!!! Generator.

I generated my smock pattern. And then I deviated from it. I was trying to save fabric, since I only had 2 yards of hanky weight. I figured I'd need a pretty slim and short smock so as to have enough leftover later for caul and partlet. I made it slimmer (but still big enough to fit my hips, so not all THAT slim really. Heh) and rather short (knee length).
Here is what I ended up with for my pattern:


I had a minor panic attack when i cut out my sleeves and saw how much shorter than my arms they were. But no worries, as the body width accomodates. Yay math. Well, yay math except for when you measure your biceps wrong. I find that this chemise is a bit snug around my "guns," but not unbearably so, so I will leave it for now. And if it bothers me, I'll just add a little strip or gusset. No problemo.
Here is my slimmed down chemise for peasant wear. Its downright tiny compared to my other 3:

"That thing is so wrinkled it looks slept in," you say. Well, that is cuz I did, indeed, sleep in it. And am too lazy to iron for the pic. You can't see the bottom, but it ends right around my knees (and is nowhere near levelly hemmed, which doesn't bother me since its underwear). Unfortunately, my mirror isn't long enough to show all. I don't need to be posting my ugly knees on here anyway.

Oh, and a moment for the linen. YUM. I've actually never sewn with linen before. Its texture had me buzzing around the sewing room (okay, its really a dining room) in a glow. Yes, I'm clearly a novice costumer if I've never worked with linen. But allow me to just revel in its wonderfulness. I don't think I can ever go back when it comes to chemises/camicas/smocks.

A New Project Starts

After working on my fairly ornate and high class venetian courtesan, I decided I needed something completely different. A peasant. A flemish peasant, to be exact. Yes, there's been a rush of them online, and I'm following the crowd. "Baaaaa!" Yes, I'm a sheep "Baaaaaa." Or maybe I should be an alpaca instead. "MMMMMMMff." They're just so gosh-darn cute.

Anyway, back to topic. I really want a cool summer dress that I can run about in, not worry too much about getting dirty, and wash easily. This screams for a peasant dress in cool natural fibers. Linen, in fact. I bought 20 yards of the delicious stuff from fabric-store.com. Its white. I plan to play with dyeing it all sorts of fun colors. I figured 20 yards at the bulk price would save me money in the long run. It takes up space, yes, but it fits neatly under my bed, so no issue. And it will be used in this dress, hubby's new duds, and a few others, to be sure. Speaking of which, hubby's duds are on hold til I find the right fabric. Basically, that means I get to go ahead and make myself ANOTHER dress. Is three for me, one for him a selfish rule? Maybe, but its awful fun.

To the dyeing ends, I purchased three colors I liked well enough together--golden brown, fire red and peach. They're fiber reactives from dharma trading. I also bought a gigantic pot so i could dye on my stove top. 21 quarts it is. I have no idea where it will live in my tiny galley kitchen. Or in my entire apartment, come to think of it. Perhaps it will live on the porch in ghetto-deliciousness.



The plan of attack:
1)A comfy corded corset is in order. I've got some drab green fabric, some cream cotton duck, and some hemp cording, so this is ready to start.

Time for pattern drafting. I'm going to try a curved pattern a la semptress, but with a straighter across waistline. I've kindly let Beth pioneer this so I can copy her and ask for advice. ;-)

2) A new smock is needed. All mine are far to fabric-y for this sparse peasant look. I will be making a slim one out of hanky weight linen. Hopefully I've got enough. It might end up being REALLY slim. And REALLY short. ;-)

3) The kirtle will be the golden brown color, and I wanna do side lacing, so that I can dress myself easily. I don't know if this is a period-correct way to lace the flemish kirtles, but it seems to me a peasant girl would like to be able to dress herself. More importantly, I'm tired of asking hubby to lace up my back (I think he's tired of it too). Period or not, these lacings will be hidden by the overgown, so no biggie. I still haven't decided on gored vs. gathered vs. some mutant combo of the two--it will depend on what the corset necesitates. I'm quite inspired by this (completely nonflemish but thankfully generic) portrait for the kirtle:


kirtle

4) The over dress will be a reversible red/peach duo in the style of drea's dress. I'd like to incorporate the V in the back of the overdress seen in this Brueghel the Elder painting from Jen's site:



5) The partlet will come down my back in a "v" like in the breughal paintings (this pic is also from Jen's site). I still dont' know if I want black or white. they both appeal, so I might just make both.



6) The sleeves will be reversible( i just love variety). Undecided on color, but I'm tempted to do green for contrast (i *should* have leftovers from my corset), and maybe the golden brown on the other side for days when I'm feeling matchy.

7) I must make a caul (is this the right word?) or find a staw hat. Hopefully both.

Here's my concept so far. Pardon my sketching, its nowhere near as cool as my husbands, but Icouldn't ask him to do it, as he already revamped my whole blog world tonight: