The last several weeks have been spent helping a fellow SCAdian make a dress. She is making a Tudor period dress for her "Hand fasting". She was given 10 yards of a nice cream linen, so that is the base for the dress. Her finance is having an outfit made in purple. They have this purple with gold trim that will be on both outfits. Her dress is loosely based on an Princess Elizabeth dress from when she was 13 yrs old. The turn back sleeves are the same color as the dress, the under dress and under arms are of a beautiful gold fabric, and the dress is trimmed in that Purple/gold trim. Christine sewn before, but never something this hard. She is learning to do hand sewing, whip stitch and button hole stitch. Seeing how the pieces go together she has difficulty. So I do a lot of showing her this, but make sure she does the actual sewing. I have a problem not taking charge and just doing doing it, but that does not teach her. So I make sure it is her work, not mine. I don't think she truly understood the amount of work these dresses require. She has dreams of finishing the dress, making a French Hood to match, and making a Chemise for under it all before 9/22. At this point just getting the dress done on time will be an accomplishment.
The last few rainy days I started back on my dress. I have debated over to Pipe the edges or not. I have looked in Janet Arnold's books and piping seems to have been done in Period. You can see on the edges of many of the existing pieces what looks like edges. In a couple of pieces this was twisted pieces of silk, stitches to edges and slashed. Some look like cords. In Margo Anderson's documentation she clearly states that there is no clear evidence as to whether or not they did or did not use piping. I finally decided to Pipe for looks. I stitched the lining onto the edges with Piping and without the piping. I like the clean look of the edges with Piping. This has added an entire extra layer of sewing to the outfit, but the looks is outstanding. What I have found though is by adding the piping the piece is actually larger, as the piping sticks out. So have to adjust.
The top picture shows two pieces of the panned sleeve, left has piping the right does not. One of the things I learned was that the piping actually makes the piece wider. So I have to adjust. The bottom photo shows the pane sleeve top being assembled,. This is being made following Margo Anderson's pattern. In the Pisa dress you cannot see any padding. But in the dresses in Moda a Frienze you can clearly see padded shoulders. It could be theorized that the padding has disappeared through time, or never existed in the first place. I had decided to go with the first argument and this design. It looks good when held up to the Bodice, and with all the work/time I've invested, it's a go.
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