#fantasybounding

[thesingersews]

Some of these photos are quite blurry...

[thesingersews]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Naomi McMahon (@real_naonu) on May 3, 2020 at 6:22pm PDT

[thesingersews]

Preview of my #sewcialdistancing. 16th century Flemish Hobbit historybound.

[thesingersews]

Front and back embroidery of the birthday kirtle.

[thesingersews]

Constructing a 16th century kirtle for the 21st century

This is the construction post for my birthday dress, finished a couple of weeks ago! This is a long post, so buckle down. Hope you enjoy it! My last post left off with my final mockup for the bodice:

Once I had my final mockup, I could use it as my interlining/support layer. I decided to use two layers of duck canvas for my base layer, because I wanted extra support. Since I am trying to be less wasteful and more historically inspired, I used my larger first mockup as fabric for my second layer. I had to piece in new shoulder straps on the front piece of this second layer of lining, but piecing is period and it’s in the lining so I don’t mind. Apparently I got zero pictures of my pieced lining, though...

Once I had this trimmed down, I machine basted along my seam allowance line so that I would still be able to see it if I needed to iron the heat-sensitive ink out

I layered my bodice pieces and machine-stitched them down the center line. Because bodies are curved, I decided to pad-stitch my layers into a curve before machine-quilting them together, so I marked guide lines with my Frixion pen.

More after the cut!

And set to the long, arduous task of pad-stitching. I pinned my work to a large pillow to stabilize it and to help me maintain my curved shape.

All that pad-stitching took the length of my watching Hot Rod, along with several episodes of Detectorists, and since this was my first time padstitching anything into a curve, some sections worked better than others.

When I finished, I then quilted the layers together with my machine and ironed the pieces into their curve, again using the pillow to help. I figure if I ever get tired of the crease under my bust, I can open up my edges, take out the pad-stitching, and insert reed boning into the channels.

Now the fun part! I traced my final pattern pieces onto my wool (technically it’s 10% nylon), a lightweight, buttery-colored twill suiting.

In attempting to be thrifty I didn’t quite give myself enough seam allowance at the underarm, but I was able to handle it as I finished the edges.

I also drew my own embroidery pattern, heavily inspired by this pillowcase kit (giving credit so no one accuses me of plagiarism) I saw at JoAnn in the correct colors to suggest Rosie Cotton’s bodice. The back bodice got my own design using the same shapes from the front. I ended up making my biggest leaves into Lórien leaves for a little subtle LOTR flair.

I basted the outer fabric with the completed embroidery over my quilted interlining along the seam lines, then trimmed the seam allowance of the duck cloth very close to the stitching line, and felled the outer fabric down by hand in a quarter(ish) inch hem. The side edges were finished with one layer of interlining folded over an inch for extra strength by the eyelets.

At this point, I left the shoulder straps unfinished because I was nervous that they would be too short. Before I finished the straps, I made all the eyelets by hand, so that I could test the fit one last time.

Still looks good though! I think I did actually let out the straps by about 1/2 inch. This worked because I had left extra seam allowance at the shoulder seams just in case. I can’t remember.

Anyway! I finished the straps and neckline and moved on to the skirt. Full disclosure, I did wait a week before working on the skirt because the pleats were stressing me out. the shoulder seam was the only seam in the bodice I actually sewed together with the machine. In the next photo you see how I flat-felled the seam allowance out. My order of operations was a little wonky, though, so the armhole and neck edge were... interesting. If you’re going to finish your seams this way, you should make sure to trim your armhole/neck seam allowances BEFORE you stitch the seam, so you don’t have the interlining getting in the way of your edge felling.

Finally we get to the skirt! Surprise! It’s rectangles.

I used the width of the wool fabric, since it was pretty much exactly three times wider than my bodice, and cut two rectangles about 31 inches long. I also cut matching lining pieces from some medium-weight linen I had on hand (a whole bolt I had purchased from JoAnn on Black Friday). I sewed the skirt together in a way that would completely enclose the raw edges in a single seam. Well, two seams. I’m not sure where I found the tutorial for this, but you put the outer fabric right sides together and the lining fabric right sides together and then put the two stacks on top of each other and stitch all four layers at once.

You can then turn the tube so that all of the raw edges are encased on one side of the seam. Pros: no finishing required! Cons: If you’re using heavy fabric, the seam is a little bulky.

I made sure to leave a gap at the top unstitched so I can fit through the waist line. I finished this gap by clipping the seam and turning the seam allowance of each section in on itself and stab-stitching close to the edge. A stab stitch is like a backstitch through all your layers that is super tiny on the right side.

Closeups of stab stitching:

I also stab stitched along the seam on the side with the encased raw edges, to flatten the seam.

When the side seams were finished, I folded up a one inch hem and herringbone-stitched it down.

I whipped down two rows of one-inch polyester satin ribbon as a decorative guard on the hem. You can see more of the stab stitching as well.

It’s time to pleat! I marked the center front and back of the skirt and then every 5/8 inch from there to the edge. The back panel was easy, as I just put it in straight across the top.

The front had a “point” to deal with (the curve down on the bodice front), and I had to balance the skirt so that the hem would hang straight. I did this by pleating down the top five inches of skirt and then pinning the skirt to the bodice in front of a mirror. I didn’t get any pictures of that process, though.

Here’s the skirt after I balanced it.

I didn’t get any pictures of attaching the skirt to the bodice, but I used buttonhole thread in a combination whipstitch and backstitch, then I finished the raw edge of the skirt with a closely placed whipstitch. Here’s what it looks like on the inside of the waist. It’s not the prettiest thing ever, but it’ll work. Maybe I’ll bind it with a tape later.

And that’s the end! I love the result, and I’m planning on making a green flemish-style overdress soon.

[thesingersews]

Creating a Flemish-style overdress for the Rosie Cotton ensemble

The finished Flemish Rosie Cotton! Layers pictured here: cotton tunic, thrifted; birthday kirtle of 90/10 wool/nylon twill suiting; overdress of 90/10 wool/nylon flannel.

The pattern for this overdress was taken from the draft I made for the birthday kirtle bodice. I’m not quite used to taking pictures of every single step of my projects yet, so I have no photos of my draping process. The gist is, I traced the back bodice piece and the shoulder seams, armscye, and side seams of the front onto my linen lining, cutting the front bodice pieces with room to play at the center front. I stitched these pieces together and tried the mock-up on over my kirtle. I then pinned the excess fabric on the front bodice pieces to my kirtle, and drew a line on myself to mark where I wanted the center front edge of the overdress to land. When I took the mock-up off and evened out the lines, I ended up with something like this

I used these pieces as my pattern and a lining. Since there wasn’t a wrong side to my wool, I opted for a hyper-efficient, tessellated cutting layout.

I made sure to true the seam allowances to approximately 1 cm, with a 3 cm allowance along the front center edge, and machine-basted my lining to each pattern piece along the open edges of the bodice.

After I machine-stitched my flat-lined pieces together, I spent a long time hand-felling the seam allowances down, both in the interior seams, and along the edge. I made a half-inch, double-turned boning channel along the center front edge.

More under the cut!

For structure at the center front edge, I inserted two “heavy-duty” zip ties into each channel. These were advertised as heavy-duty on Amazon, but they were rather flimsy when they arrived. Do better research than I did! I actually had to back-stitch the boning channel smaller. I did this by hand so the stitching wouldn’t show on the right side of the fabric.

I enclosed the zip ties by felling down the waist edge of the bodice. This is OK because cartridge pleating!

It took me a while to decide what to do for a lacing strip, since I had no grommets, nor any lacing rings, so I improvised using a fingerloop braid made of cotton button thread, secured every half-inch or so along the boning channels. I can lace this closer or farther apart depending on how I want to wear the overdress.

Here is the bodice, spiral laced over the kirtle.

The skirt is two full widths of my 58 inch wool, stitched together selvage to selvage. I left this unfinished to save time and reduce bulk

I did double turn and hand-fell the selvage edge at the center front opening of the skirt, so the skirt would look cleaner. This was accompanied by a 1 inch hand-felled hem.

I was a bit nervous about the cartridge pleating, so I took my 8-inch swatch, which I purchased before buying yardage, and made a couple of mock-ups

I ended up going with two rows of 1/4 inch stitches.

Before I could mark the stitching guide, though, I had to balance the hem. I did this by dressing up my duct-tape double, which I hung in a doorway. I struggled to get the hem even because of the front points, but I got there eventually. My un-gathered hem was about one inch longer than the kirtle hem when hanging on the body double.

After dividing the waist edge of the bodice and skirt into equal sections I folded the top edge of the skirt over, matching the depth of the point at each marking. Jennifer of Wasted Weeds explains it better in this post. I pinked the turned under edge of the wool to avoid hand-finishing anything else. After this, I marked the fabric for even stitching.

Two rows of basting stitches, gathered up evenly in sections. It took about 8 inches of skirt fabric to fill 2 inches of bodice waist when gathered up. I secured the skirt to the bodice by whip-stitching through each and every pleat twice.

Final thoughts: If (WHEN) I make another dress like this, I will make sure my overdress straps are wider than my kirtle straps, so the under dress won’t show as much. I will also use better boning and actual lacing rings. I’m really happy with the overall silhouette of this ensemble, and I can’t wait to make a historical version!

[thesingersews]

Overdress bodice done. Awaiting a cartridge pleated skirt. I do really like it as a vest though!

[thesingersews]

A photoset of my second bodice mockup for the 16th century historybound dress I'm making