This garment was a labor of stubbornness. I saw this brown fabric years ago, and it’s shimmer reminded me of some lovely paintings I have seen of women in this layer, and I wanted to recreate that effect. The fabric is very thin, however, so it was a bear to work with. The bodice took forever, for I tried different methods of pad stitching to stabilize the fancy stuff. I first tried to pad stitch it with wide stitches (invisible as much as I could on the front) to felt, but that was silly. Then I took more of a tack-stitching approach, working from the front of the fabric to have tiny stitches, while pulling the top fabric and keeping the thread basically in a straight line from one stitch to another. To help stabilize the front bottom of the bodice I did more traditional pad stitching there with felt in place. It’s still not as flat as I’d like, but I’ve decided to get over it.
basting process - see that on the left?
that's just pad stitched to the felt. not good.
then i forgot to take pics of the next process. sorry.
The bodice is layered as such: fancy fabric, canvas, felt, fabric hardened with hide glue, felt and canvas. Hide glue you might ask? Yes. I had heard of the use of cardboard on period dresses and got to wondering. I did experiments (blog documents these), and ended up with a 1 to 10 ratio of glue to water ending up in a rather ligth-weight cardboard effect. It’s surprisingly stiff. And if it bubbles oddly, it is possible to iron the piece which beats the glued fabric into submission. I’d use it again for sure. It took some getting used to, but I think it could allow me a boning-free existence which would be quite nice and much cheeper.
Oh, and skirt is flat in the very front, knife pleated on the sides, and cartridge pleated in the back. I bagged out the skirt with a heavier fabric to get some weight on the skirt which was a mess to put together (hello mobeus skirt?) for a bit, but I figured it out in the end. I stitched the skirt onto a ribbon which I then tacked onto the bodice since the main fabric was so thin and stitching through the hide glue fabric would be a beast.
I have the straps attached on the front due to these dress. It was hard to find proof of seems for this stuff, and that dress was quite similar and close to the time.
by orazio gentileschi (1563-1639) date unknown
same artist dated 1609
I did rather side back lacings because I can wrap them around my waist and tie them behind my back under the skirt which takes a bit of practice. I have intentionally left openings there for ability to change size, but also maybe because I’m always hoping I’ll lose weight. Oh, well. But I needed this base layer off of which to to build my veste!
And if you couldn’t tell from my expression, the photo shoot was shot by my beloved. I don’t know how to model or pose for anything, but I love him to bits which shows and provides a glowing effect. I tried to get his german shepherd mix to pose with me, but she was too busy eating grass.
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