I finally got around to making a mock-up of the jacket pattern I scaled up last year. I thought it would be fun to see the jacket straight from the scaled up pattern on a body. I’m wearing it over my Elizabethan shirt, kirtle and red petticoat, it is just pinned and basted together in the photos. I’m a wee bit smaller than Margaret, so I will need to do some fitting along the side back seams and along the sleeves, she had much longer arms than I.
Since getting The Queen’s Servant’s I’ve been coveting the pointed hood with a sort of fiendish glee, it also might be an under layer to the strange headdress in Holbein the Younger’s drawing.
A month ago I scaled up the pattern and made a mock-up. It was huge, it devoured my head. I have a normal size head, but the hat made it look like a peanut.
Thinking perhaps I scaled it up wrong I set about slashing the pattern and scaling it down to no avail. I took in the mock-up 3 or 4 times before toss it in the corner.
It was Franken-hood. I don’t have any photos of the monstrosity.
Tonight I decided to try it again, I took 3 or 4 measurements and scaled the pattern up to my head depth and jaw level.
It wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t happy with the shape in the back, it didn’t look cute, it looked like I had a copernican attached to my bun.
Much cuter. But something niggled at the back of my mind. Why was the scaled up pattern from the book so big? I went back and looked at the scale ratio and reread the instructions, then I noticed the little line drawing on the side. The round hood had the front folded back. This wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the book, and it is hard to see from the photos when everything is black velvet on black velvet.
So I scaled up the original pattern again.
Another round of pinning and I have this when I fold back the front edge and let it form the frontlet.
Much much better. The simple version in the book doesn’t look like it is worn with a separate frontlet, so I am going to use the frontlet pattern as a facing for the turn back portion of the hood.
Write up and photos are here
From a recent Christie’s auction, Follower of Francesco Salviati del Rossi Portrait of a Lady.
This is a budget kirtle (total cost for materials maybe 30 bucks?) made for a friend who lives several states away.
I had a chance to do one unplanned fitting on her of a mock-up from old measurements, I pinned the heck out of it, scribbled a few notes, and took it away with me back to Florida to come up with this. This is a test kirtle because I now have some wool to make her another one, and would rather work out any other fitting issues before I cut into the good stuff.
It is a cranberry colored linen/rayon blend that my camera hates to photograph and I can’t seem to color correct to a shade near what it should be. It should look more like this:
Not hot pink or barbie pink. The skirt is one I finished some time ago, it laces to the bodice through eyelets on each side and has a hidden side pocket.
The bodice is interlined with cotton twill and lined with more cotton. There is no boning and hopefully it should keep her comfortable and supported.
I ended up piecing the bodice shoulder straps to allow for a bit of custom tweaking based on some fit issues we had, if the straps are a touch too long the squares are easy to unpick and the straps can be whip stitched back together. The sleeves are just pinned on in the photos, once the shoulder straps are finalized the eyelets can be put in.
All that I really have left to do is make more fingerloop braid for the sleeve lacing and the skirt to bodice lacing.
Here is a run down of all the layers.
Cotton/linen smock: Machine sewn with hand finished seams and hems.
Cuffs: Machine “blackwork” with silk thread, hand hemmed, they lace on to the smock cuffs with fingerloop braid so I can change them out as needed and wash them separately.
Rust red petticoat: Same one I wear with all my clothing.
