Diary of a Green Florentine Gown...

10/05/05 - I was sitting at fighter practice last week having a discussion with he local seamstress' about the plight of my wardrobe and the two events I had coming up.  Knowing that in the long run one new dress isn't going to be enough.   I asked our Shire's new costuming Willow Lady Antine Anderdottir if I might have any skills that she would find worth bartering for in exchange for sewing me a new gown.  Much to my joy she agreed and we began to discuss what I wanted.  Since I had already been checking out Florentine gowns while talking to Bekah I already knew exactly  what I wanted.  I want the gold & blue dress in Bacchiacca's: The Preaching of Saint John the Baptist (detail to the left, dress on the right), from 1520.

While I was out running errands this morning I stopped at Hanncock Fabrics and on the clearance table I found several bolts of cotton velvet.  I had gone to look at the $1 fabrics, but this green and brown velvet just seemed to me to be a really good buy at $5 a yard.  I didn't know how many yards I wanted, or needed so I stared at it for about 20 minutes then drove home and called Antine.  She and I decided to meet at the fabric store to discuss the fabric.  I brought along the costuming book that she had lent me and all of my print outs from the "A Festive Attyre" website. 

My first thought was that I could save money by using some tan fabric I already had for a bodice and add a brown velvet skirt with brown trim on the top.  But after looking more at the research I could only find one image of a period dress where the skirt fabric and the bodice fabric didn't match.  Though I don't mind wearing a gown that's an anomaly, I'd really rather have something that's more common in period.  I needed Antine to help figure out how much fabric I needed and I needed Geordon to tell me how much money I could or couldn't spend.    I ended up with hunter green for the main gown color, with some chocolate brown for trim.  If I'm lucky I'll be able to get green sleeves out of it too.  I also bought some paisley velveteen in complementing colors that was on the really cheap table to make an extra set of sleeves that I can change out on a whim.  The design isn't period at all, but it will look nice with the dress and once I get a few beads sewn to it, it will also add a little sparkle to the ensemble.  Tomorrow night is our weekly fighter practice, so Antine and I will get a chance to meet up again and get some good measurements on me.  We'll chat some more about the design and hopefully firm up some of the plans for moving forward with this gown.  I can see it in my head, I've just got to get it down on paper so that Antine can see it too. I'll try and get some fabric swatches up on the site to show as soon as I can.

10/07/05 - Antine and I met up at fighter practice last night and nailed out design plans for the Florentine gown.  By next week she should have a rough pattern to fit to me.  We discussed the trade and Geordon will be doing some book binding to pay for the dress, it will be similar to Mistress Ellen's Vigil Book.  I'm pretty tickled that this barter is going to get Geordon doing what he enjoys as well.  It's been a long time since he's done practiced his craft.   We also discussed a second dress to come later and refitting the dress Bekah gave me so it looks like it's mine and not a hand-me-down.  Bekah and I are pretty dern close size wise, we're just shaped differently, so that one just needs a couple of small nips and tucks a seam.

10/19/05 -  I warn you, the following pictures of me in my undies are NOT pretty.  But... I wanted to show the development of this dress, so it was inevitable that there would be some unpleasant shots of me "undresed".  When I got o Antine's house today she had me toss on a chemise (I HATE this chemise BTW) and the soft corset that I'll be wearing under the dress.  After that she folded a piece of cotton fabric in half and cut a head hole in it.  I pulled it on over my head and she began to cut away anything that didn't look like the gown in the Bacchiacca painting.  After the basic shape was cut out she then began to pin the fabric in to a more fitting form.  She cut and pinned and cut and pinned (right) each time taking away a bit more fabric and getting the shape needed for the basic pattern.   Once she was happy with how the fabric was sitting compared to the gown in the painting we took the cotton pattern off of me and spread it out onto a roll of patterning paper.  We traced around the edge of the cotton  and marked the paper pattern with the pertinent information so it would be available for future use.  She then took a couple of measurements and said that we should be ready to work on it tomorrow at fighter practice.  Hopefully she'll have the bodice cut out of the velvet and a skirt base, we'll do some more fitting and things should keep coming together!  I decided to live dangerously when it comes to the shoulders on this gown and we're going to cut them right on my shoulder line like in the painting.  It'll be interesting to wear sleeve cut there, and I'm praying that it doesn't drive me absolutely nuts, I'm only willing to go so far for authenticity.  If I'm not comfortable in my garb I'm pretty useless to everyone around me.

11/10/05 - Yay!  This dress is done and lovely.  It's light and comfortable, I'll get pictures up as soon as I can.