Friday, October 12, 2012

My Kirtle Made Me Cry


OK, so let's just start by saying that maybe I'm a little perimenopausal right now and I have always been moved to tears rather easily.  But know too, that they were tears of happiness.  When you go from a hand drawn not exactly your size small scale pattern in a book to full size fabric pieces in cross-all-your-limbs approximately your size things can go badly.  In fact they can go very badly indeed.  So when the corset and farthingale went on and then the kirtle went on over top and it all worked exactly the way it was supposed to, I was over the moon.


I have not yet finished the shirt as I am still working on the embroidery for the cuffs and the neckline will come down to just peak out from under the edge of the kirtle.
 
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This shows the side lacing of the kirtle, which again I am not sure how I am going to do by myself.  You quickly realize that this level of dressing required the assistance of another person.  Another problem I have yet to address is that of going to the bathroom.  We'll see how it goes.

The trim around the neckline is some metallic trim with plastic pearls sewn over top.  Now the whole thing except the neckline, and front triangle of the skirt gets covered up with a black damask gown.  My husband is very confused.  Why would you cover that all up.  He sees a dress and yes it is a dress, but a noble lady would have worn a gown over it. 

Next Step: Gown.

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Tudor Underwear

I see London, I see France, but my dear lady, I see no underpants.  In Tudor England the thought is that women didn't wear underpants.  If they did, they made them at home, perhaps from scraps of linen left from making shirts, chemises, coifs and other small items.  We have no written record, of women's underpants and therefore we have no evidence as to what really happened beneath all those skirts.  Registers contain records of cloth bought for specific projects and letters contain instructions for items of clothing to be bought or reworked.  Everything we know about clothing in this period comes from those types of documents and is combined with what we can learn about clothing from portraits and other images we have from the period.  There are a few examples of garments, but these are exceedingly rare.


So my project is moving ahead and I am fully kitted in the Tudor equivalent of the underwear we know about.  Shirt, Farthingale, and Corset.  I debated a petticoat and decided against.  As it is, if Halloween is not about two degrees Celsius inside the house, I am worried that I will die of heat.  What it will be like to wear all this clothing in the subway and in class I don't know.  To sit in this without the gown is a challenge, but my word, there is no slouching, whether you like it or not!

From Karen's Sewing Corner.  Shows a single laced corset.  Notice no bows.
The corset of this period was typically single laced, meaning a single cord going back and forth from one side to the other.   I've done ear ties so that I can tie it myself.  It's also back closing so gaps are not nearly as vital to the function of the corset.  As Karen's corset demonstrates, a front opening corset needs to close.  Also, I can't see the back when I'm lacing so I have no idea how it's laced.  The other thing I ran into was that my 15 year old daughter is not as meticulous with fitting as I would be and a dress form just does not cut it when it comes to fitting a corset.

The other thing I think I am going to change is take some metal out of the top two rings of steel in the farthingale in order to get a better cone shape.  I have also seen some farthingale patterns where the steel supports are closer to the waist.  After sitting in this one, I think the first ring is in exactly the right place.

Next step: The kirtle.