The Red Dress and a Viking Funeral

I completed the red dress this morning. The hem and hand-sewn trim and even the Order of the Opal badge lined in Atlantia blue.

The Viking Funeral went well, I think. Lord Rycharde made a viking longboat (I'll post pictures when I get them) and we all went down to the Pamlico Sound at sunset and everyone got floating candles. Lord Richard lit the boat as the Order of the Blue Scarf (a Rapier Academy) presented arms. The boat was pushed into the water. Lord Con presented Saffiya Sayyida with a plaque, read Lord Mark Dene's awards and affiliations, then everyone lit their candles and put them in the water as milady Daci played her recorder. A DVD will be made, and I will post it on the Cathanar website, as I am the new Webminister for the Shire of Cathanar.

Red Dress

So for coronation, I have decided I want to make the "Red Dress". The pattern is from a commercial pattern I bought, and with the help of Lady Masina, I have moved the seam on the sleeves from the bottom to the back (period) and removed some of the "curviness" of the cut and made it more straight (period).

I'm still not sure what I'm doing to do with the neckline. Probably face it in the same linen as the dress, which will hide anything shown due to "see through", or perhaps face it with some of the black fabric I have left over from Jerot's t-tunic.

Anyway, with Lady Masina's help, I traced out the pattern on to painter's drop plastic, then adjusted it to fit me (size 26 from a size 24 pattern), then adjusted the cut and design of the sleeves to be more period.

Once the pattern was on the plastic, I cut the plastic out, and laid it on the $1 cotton mock-up fabric from WalMart. I sewed that together for fit, and Lady Masina again helped me make the little tweak adjustments (to make the bust tighter and more self supporting) make sure the waist cut is in the right place, and that the gore matched up with the new cut of the dress.

I got the linen (red) and sewed the ends together (to make sure the linen wouldn't fray). I washed the cloth in HOT water, on the rinse cycle, then dried it on HOT timed dry. (It filled up the lint filter.)

I bought an ironing board while I was out grocery shopping this weekend, and I will be ironing the fabric and cutting the pieces out from the pattern over the next two days.

There's a front, a back, two sleeves, and two gores. (A gore is a triangular shaped piece of fabric that is sewn in to add fullness to the skirt.) I will take pictures as I go.

Garb Patterns

Well, I've finally created my first pattern, with the help of the very knowledgeable Lady Masina. That woman is a treasure trove of information!

I had bought the Burda 7977 pattern but I've never worked with patterns before. So I followed Lady M's instructions and brought .4 mil painter's tarp, magic markers, my pattern, cloth measuring tape, and Lady Katherine graciously supplied the see through ruler. We laid the pattern out and took all my measurements and then drew the pattern onto the plastic, then drew it again with my measurements. We even made the modern armhole into a period armhole with the seam in the back, instead of the bottom.

I've bought some $1.00/yd Wally fabric for a mock up and I think I'm going to get started on that Wed/Thurs night. Amanda and Kim have a "sewing circle" on Friday nights, so I'm fully planning on going to that on a regular.

Once the mockup is done, I'll put it on, and see where I need to tweak, then take it apart and retrace the pattern on the plastic from the actual material pieces. This will give me yardage measurements and actual fit/hem/seam allowances for the red dress that I want to build. (I want to find silky wool, but I'm terribly afraid it's going to be $14/yd and I think I'm going to need quite a few yards. *sigh*

I'll try to keep up with my sewing work here. Lable: red dress.