Lucrezia Borgia - sleeves

So, when main part of the dress was done,  the next step were the sleeves. When I started the project, the sleeves were the one thing I was most excited about but it was nightmare to make in the end. Any other kind of sleeves during Renaissance area would have been easier to make, I think.

First, I started with the bottom part of the sleeves that is solid and reminds common sleeves. I used pattern from another dress to make this. Then, i modified them slightly to facilitate the buffs at the sides. I tried the pattern on and it looked fine. I made first version of the sleeves, sew (by hand) the ribbons and silver thread on them, added lining and strips and tried it on to realize that the wrist area is way too small when trying it on with underdress and huge sleeves on it. So - REDOING!

I made the wrist area much larger and I was afraid it is too large (no, I should have made it slightly larger). I had limited supply of the green ribbon (I was so lucky I found ribbon with such a matching color), so I undo it from the first run of sleeve and sew it again on the second run. Silver thread took a lot of time, again.

For the lining I used the base fabric I used for printing (lightly yellowish) and I added adhesive fabric to it to make it stronger and keep the shape. I went to fabric shop and got myself the strongest adhesive fabric I could but that was way too strong and it did not stuck to fabric. I tried it on some other more natural fabrics and it worked very well there. But it was almost like a board. Very stiff. So, I used slightly stiffer adhesive than I normally do but not the super strong version I thought I will use.

So, the main parts of the sleeves consist of three layers - printed fabric, adhesive fabric and lining. It was still lightweight but nicely keeping its form.

Most of the time I worked with flat sleeves but in the end, I needed to sew together the some of the sides and make sure that the ribbon (using pattern to make sure it is straight was really good) and the pattern match on both sides was slightly tricky. I am just not good at all doing things very precisely. Again, basting.

The top part of the sleeves, around wrist, I sewed by hand - it was easier to control the hole situation that was slightly tricky.

Then, when the bottoms were done, I started working with the ribbons. As the main sleeve was lined, so were going to be the ribbons. I considered cutting the lining from the yellowish fabric I used for the printing but I was not sure it is stiff enough and could I be sure that all the ribbons are going to be exactly the same size. So, instead of using the yellow fabric and adhesive fabric for stiffening, I bough right color ribbon from the fabric shop. I had to visit few of those to get ribbon with right color and width. Again, I needed a lot of it. 12 stripes per sleeve. So, that made sure that all the stripes are going to have exactly the same width. Then, I cut out the main stripes from the fabric. Using the patterned fabric, it was easy to make sure they are straight. With mint green, it was trickier. In the end, I had lot of strips. Again - hand sewing! I needed to apply silver cord to all the sides. That was 24 meters and more I think. I managed to ping-watch another show while doing it (was in Narcos?). Then, I basted the main stripes over it and used machine to sew those together.

 

And when the cords were done, the silver thread came. It is visible from the reference images that the patterned fabric on the sleeves is covered with silver thread following the pattern. For one stripe it meant two silver threads that have to follow the shape - (not many straight lines). At one point, the both threads follow single line. I first tried to come up with a solution where there is only single thread on those places and two on others. But due to the material trying to unwind as soon as I cut and using knots was the only way to keep it in form, I decided to go with two stripes and trying to hide that there are double cords on the areas where only single line is visible.

Finished stripes with silver cord and silver thread

So, 12 stripes with 2 threads per stripe. Another show ping watched (I think it was Underground?).

Then, when the stripes were finished (I would say the stripes took longer than tiles on the skirt), I needed to make sure I have them in right length. Because I had no pattern for it, I did some research and the way people seemed to do those were that they used usual pattern for sleeve and just enlarged it (mostly to the height). So, it was just gathering the stripes, basting then to the ribbon and testing to make sure I have normal looking sleeve. I realized that most of my stripes were too long. Even now, when I cut them, I think I could have cut them slightly more.

Preparing the sleeves. Gathering at the connections points and sewing them all to single line

When I had perfected one sleeve, it was easy - just undoing the basting and copying it to the second set of stripes. To keep the ribbons on place, I used machine to sew the gathered stripes to the green ribbon. I got those kind of flat sleeve looking things. Then I needed to connect them - at first, again, I did not thought about the underdress. They were fine on their own but the underdress and its sleeves actually add a lot of volume. I only discovered it when I already had some pearls added (I needed a break from the sleeves at one point so I went on adding the pearls. It was more fun than dealing with those nightmarish sleeves)  - so it was not very comfortable to redo it. Luckily I had enough ribbon at this point.

The second problem, again, me not thinking, was that the sleeves were sewn to the main part of the dress and did not used ribbons to connect as I first had assumed. So, I had to undo the armpits of the main dress and sew the ribbons to the lining and then, carefully, handsew the green fabric to its place. The result was nice :)

Sleeves connected to the dress but they are not holding the shape

One problem arose - the sleeves were losing their shape when I put it on. I did some research and It seemed most people sew the undergarment sleeves onto the main dress and connected it to the sleeve to keep the shape. I wanted to have the fluffy feeling so I had two options - have three layers of fabric (stripped sleeve, fluffy undergarment and base sleeve) or have two layers and use stripes to keep the sleeve shape. I went with the second. But that mean that I was going to redo the underdress (as the itchy fabric was horrible to wear, it sounded like good prospect). I removed the sleeves, sew them by hand to the main part of the dress, fixed the fluffiness by basting it to the ribbons connecting the stripes on the sleeves. Then I added to ribbons per sleeve to (one at the top, another at the bottom) to keep the sleeve in the pace. It was lot of inventing but it worked.

The final step of the sleeves were to hand sew the bottom part of the stripes with bottom sleeves. I made the undergarment sleeves slightly narrower at the end so that they would fit into the bottom sleeves. I loved the volume they added to the stripes but it was too much extra volume for the bottom.

• Start
• Main dress
• Sleeves
• Decorations: Wig, jewelry and pearls
• On convention 

Civil war era dress - the jacket

I started this civil war area dress with the jacket.

As always with me and simplicity patterns, I cannot understand the instructions. I cut all the pieces from the main fabric and then I used quite strong linen I have tons off for the lining of the jacket. When I tried to combine together main back piece and the back side pieces they just would not. I tried to read the instructions and figure it out again but no help. So I just used my own imagination and aligned the pieces so that the arm wholes and the bottom part of the back fit and there is some overlap in the middle. I still think there was some clever trick how to give wearer a better mobility but I was not able to see it. Also, the pattern did not seemed to care too much about the lining and all the seams were left visible from the wrong side. Correct me if I am wrong but I honestly think the point of lining is to make the gown look gorgeous also from the inside. Therefore I again took some liberties from the pattern and combined pieces together so that all the seams are hidden.

Trying to figure out the back

I also had some great time adding the boning. This time, in contrast to my Robe ala Francais, I knew what I was doing and I made some nice tunnels for the boning plus I made sure that the sides are all well supported by tucktape (I haven't figured out any other easy way).

Back starts to come together

The next major thing were the sleeves. At this point I tried to follow the instructions and make the ruffles from the same fabric as the dress. I spent whole evening with that mess. The fabric was too stiff and too hard for that and I wasted many hours.

Next day I was off to a fabric shop again and my plan was to get similar color really light fabric that I could use to make ruffles. I was still really mad about all the edges that took hours. So, I decided to go with easy way out and buy quite expensive lace that I used for the sleeves. They had it on very limited amount so I did not managed to save anything for later part of the dress - all the lace I got when to the sleeves.

I also got the black ribbon and I started to like where this is going. It looked gorgeous and lace was easy to gather - no worrying about the edges.

When I used the white linen as lining for the bodice to keep it strong, I used that nice black lining fabric for lining on the sleeves.

The next step was the collar. I planned to use the organza with embroidery as the top layer of the collar. The middle layer or the main layer was the purple fabric and it had black lining on the other side. 

The main trouble with the collar was that the pattern had really small opening for the head. I was not sure if it was my sewing margin do I have larger neck that the pattern assumed.. I had to do a lot of fixing and I was really scared to cut too much or cut from the wrong place.

I first planned to have a purple ribbon with the same style as the black I used on the sleeves over the collar but I could not figure where it would be best - on the side of the collar or little bit inside and in the end I really started to love my collar without it. So, the ribbon was left out in the end.

Those pads were very funny. I have no idea what were their point. I just followed the instructions and sewed them in, being really worried that they will make the dress look weird. I am not sure if they made it better or if they had any effect at all. I think that they probably should have helped to compensate that at the front the top part of the jacket had a lot of space. If I had needed to fill those pads so that there is no space left, I would have needed much more than three layers of cotton batting inside.

Sleeves added to the jacket

Trying the jacket on the mannequin

When I had sewed the bodice and the sleeves together I tried it on the mannequin and tried it on myself and realized that I had not done it before and ofcourse, it did not fit. The waist was too small and I mean - I have very small waist. Because all of those waist seams had tunnels and boning it was horrible to undo it. I left it like that currently and hoped that when I wear the corset and I add the snap fasteners and buttons maybe it will be fine.

Next step: the bottom part of the jacket and uncharted territory as I had no guide nor no patter. I just improvised and at first it looked like I can pull it off. The front two panels were the ones I did twice. The bodice at the front has those really nice seams in the middle and I had hard time figuring out how to match them at the bottom part. At first try, I did not take them to account and I think it looked off without those seams. So, I remade the first panel so that it has those seams and it was much better. I used the black fabric for lining.

Next step was to sew bottom and top together and to make that "overlap" at the front to match was a trouble. It looked lovely (and I am confused why I do not have any photos of that on its own.

So, I left the jacket for a while and went to deal with the skirt.. and horrible meters of ruffles.
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Robe à la Française - the dress

Previous:Robe a la francaise - petticoat&panier

Making this dress was a new kind of challenge for me. First of all - the amount of fabric I cut out. So, as I had that great simplicity pattern, I was quite confident that I will follow the instructions and it cannot go wrong. I was wrong - sadly I found the instructions to be hard to understand and they seemed to skip steps that were important. 

I started with making the bodice part. For the lining inside I used again that really strong linen I have. The trick for me was to deal with the rivets and applying them. I had never done that before (or.. more precisely, I have never succeeded on applying them) but I did managed it after getting myself a different kind of applier (the one where you put the rivet and fabric between some kind of plastic thing and hit it with the hammer). The only problem was that in order to get the rivets applied, I had to apply a lot of force and it hurt the plastic applier and rivets started to move inside it. Therefore, i had to get a new one before this project was done.

Anyway, the bodice. It also contained the most interesting part of the dress: draping. The pattern had it's own guide but it felt not draped enough. Also, I put much more fabric into the draping part than the pattern suggested. I sewed together two widths of the fabric (so, in the end, the width of drapes should be 3 meters) and used much nicer guide I found online. That method gave me really nice result. (even thought I spent hours on the floor, trying to pin it..)

But having so many layers of the fabric over itself was hard for the sewing machine. I broke one needle I think and then poor machine needed to go to repair shop (and I borrowed my mom's machine meanwhile to finish) as it started to make horrible sounds :S

Also, I got some weird mismatch with the pattern at this point. The part of the dress coming over the shoulder and connecting front and back did not fit and I was totally confused. I did some hocus-bocus and made it fit but it hurt me later.

I actually think that draping part was the hardest on technical side. Rest was just sewing really long lines.

bodice on the mannequin

So, next part was the skirt part of the dress. The hardest part of this was making the jags at the top to fit. I do not think it came out perfect and I had to take into account that I made the dress narrower than the pattern. Anyway, I managed to attach the skirt part and make the front stitch (even thought something weird was still going on there with extra fabric that I did not understand why it was there)

Dress is starting to look like dress :D (and the hat makes a first appearance, more of it later)

And the back..

So, next step were the sleeves and when after finishing the bodice, process was fast, the sleeves hurt me. First, I tried to follow the pattern and make sleeves have two sides and gather it all together but it felt so stiff and really robust and the gathering did not looked nice (also, it was hell trying to sew it)

adding sleaves (and my necklace arrived.. it was little wrong color but it looks gorgeous)

Anyway, I realized this is not going to work and as I was running out of fabric, I had to unstitch the sleeves. A lot of work hours. I decided to take a break from the sleeves and work on the stomacher. I was running quite on the time, so I had no time to take huge embroidering project as I started to like the idea of using the same green fabric for stomacher and have silver embroilment (floral deco) on it. I tried to find stitching machine but apparently there was none among my acquaintances. I thought going to the shop where they offered embroilment service but it was so so expensive that I decided to drop the idea and make stomacher simply from the silver fabric I also used for the petticoat. It was more simple than I first thought but it was fine and I always have the idea that I will make the green embroiled one later (one year later, it hadn't happened).

Stomacher took many long hours, adding silver atlas ribbon at the sides, having strong linen at the back with glue fabric. And then I added huge black snaps (small ones, i was afraid, are not going to hold it) to hold the stomacher at place. That process took many tries as the mannequin (even if carefully calibrated) was not suitable for fitting those in place. So, it was adding one snap at the time, making one side fit and then making the other side. I think it was two nights, watching tv and sewing snaps.

Stomacher is added

So, I was still trying to avoid the sleeves and I went to make the under-dress from really nice and thin linen fabric. I googeled about under-dressed of that time and decided to go with really simple method. It was supposed to be rectangle and then triangles at the side but I was lazy again and combined them together so I would have less stitching.

(oh no... horrible drawings again)

Under-dress being made

Also, I started to work more on the details on the dress. I found really nice ribbon from the shop that was almost has wide as the stitch at the front of the dress. I combined it with cordon ribbon I had planned to use before.

And I got some really nice lace for the underdress side of the sleeves.

So, making that ribbon and sewing the underdress - it all took me less than a day (it was one very successful Saturday)

So, results so far:

Underdress and corset alone

Panier and petticoat are added

Dress with ribbon and stomacher has got some frill-ribbon to make it little more sophisticated

So, then, it was back to the sleeves as everything else was mostly done.I did some googeling and found amazing blog about really fancy robe a la francaise and she had made brilliant looking sleeves:

http://starlightmasquerade.com/taupe-robe-a-la-francaise-sleeves-done/

So, I decided to go with something similar. I sadly did not had any better way to work the hard egdes of the fabric rather than introduce fabric to some heat (candle) - I tried using small zic-zac from sewing machine but it looked horrible. It made the fabric (yup, reminding me that most of the fabrics we wear are plastic) melt nicely and made sure there is not going to be spliting. 

 This time it worked much better. I did the gathering manually (instead of using machine like on my first try) and made it worked. And that actually was it. I sadly have no pictures of the finished dress before the larp (nor actually from the larp - except big group photo where the dress can hardly be seen).

And I am actually glad I had so much time to make the dress. I was able to work on it with normal schedule and I finished just before leaving to the larp. It took me 2.5 months but I still think it was all worth it.

(there is going to be another post.. about the hat)