9/18/12 Going for the bling factor

It’s been an exciting few weeks with Foxes, Coronation and Red Tower! The black linen gammura is essentially finished and the pattern has proven to be very comfortable and look pretty good. This is my first attempt at front lace bodices and boy did I have a steep learning curve.

The pic on the right is version 1.0 from Red Tower last year with the curved front design (ignore the yellow sleeves, they have been retired!). This failed spectacularly and I learned that while curved front designs work well for non-structured bodices, they don’t for structured ones. Learn from my pain.

You can see that the black & gold overdress got tweaked as well. The front didn’t lay flat so I added a number of hook & eyes to the lower bodice.

I also added a 2″ tall strip of felted wool to the hem of the black gammura and tacked in place at several heights. I did this with the black/gold overdress last year. Wow, what a difference! This gives volume to the skirt without the need of farthingales! I got the idea from the Eleanora of Toledo burial gown, as described in Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion.

I’ve also figured out a cool way to do the lacings so they don’t come undone.Put the lacing through each hole twice. The friction keeps it from moving so you don’t have to crank down so hard to keep everything in place! The lacing is lucet, something else I started doing this year. Pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Thanks to Alessandra for answering my newbie questions ;)

 On the left is the result from this year’s Red Tower. Yeah, it’s a year later than I wanted. The most awesome thing is how comfortable it is. My previous two side lace gammuras had to be cranked down so tight to keep the girls from slipping (right picture), and it still didn’t give me quite the right look. The new design allows me to tighten below to give support, but loosen above to give some breathing room. And it looks right!

I was really afraid that the camicia would be see-through with the front lace, but with all the pleats (arrangement of pleats seems to be a major theme of italian fashion) there’s too much fabric to be see-through. Awesome!

Notice how tall I look. 

I’m wearing my chopines I finished in time for Saltare (June) this year. They were a bit of a pain to do, but certainly bring on the bling factor. I’ve been learning how to walk in them. Basically I walk really slow and take tiny up and down steps, no rolling the heel-toe thing.

With the sleeves I made at the beginning of the year, I have actually made myself a whole outfit!!!! Yahoo! And when I wear it I feel completely useless. I can carry a mug and fan and that’s about it. If I change into shorter chopines I could dance. But in essence this is my “stand around and look pretty outfit”. Oh, and I am now putting pockets in all my outfits. They are so friggin’ handy I can’t believe I didn’t do this years ago. No more lugging around a bag just to carry a car key and some cash. The overdress even hides my phone!