Drafting the pattern

9th May 2004

I started off by putting on my kirtle that best replicates the firm, supported shape that the portraits convey. This is a fairly heavily boned light-weight wool kirtle that, even at its tightest, won't do up all the way. It's the same pattern I modified to make the yellow kirtle, by the way, and the patterns are pretty similar. I've put the yellow kirtle pattern up to the left, and the new one to the right, so the changes between the two are apparent.

• First of all, I put on the kirtle and laced it as tight as it would go. I measured the size of the gap between the front edges. It's four centimetres at the waist and nine at the top edge. I put my old pattern on a piece of card, drew around it, then added a wedge the size of the space to the front edge.
• My pattern has a side back seam which runs very close to the centre back, rather like the one I used for the yellow diary. Like the yellow diary, there's a wedge shaped piece taken out of the top of that seam to conform the bodice to the curve of my back. I don't want that seam in the new bodice, but I don't want the thing to stand out from my back, either. So I shifted that wedge shaped chunk over to the centre back.
• I drew in the new side back seam. I used the bodice of Eleanora of Toledo in Patterns of Fashion to guide in positioning it. Before I cut out the pattern, I removed a strip an inch wide at that point. That means, when the bodice is as tight as the brown kirtle, there'll be an inch wide space at that seam, which I'll lace across. That should, I hope, compensate for the inevitable stretching that will happen when I wear the bodice.
• I straightened the top edge of the bodice.
• I added a point to the centre front.
• Finally, I decided I wouldn't use my usual method of tucking the shoulder strap into the bodice front but, instead, would try for a seam on the top of the shoulder. So I drew a strap coming out of the top of the bodice. I hope that won't be a mistake! I also narrowed the straps significantly, taking away card only from what will be the neck-side of the strap. I hope that'll help in creating the just-balanced on the shoulder look of the original garment.

The next stage is to cut the thing out of linen, start boning it, and see how it looks. That'll happen in the next few days.

25th May 2004

Apologies for the delay in updating this. There have been a combination of factors responsible for that. Exams have been eating into sewing time (so unfair!) plus a broke my last needle for the machine and it took me until yesterday to get a new one. But things are finally moving again

I started by cutting out my bodice pieces from heavy linen. The bodice sub-structure is made out of two layers of linen that I've sewn with vertical lines to make channels. Each channel contains a mutilated cable tie.

I'm not quite sure how many cable ties there are. Lots. The middle section is half a dozen or more vertical ties. These channels are longer than my cable ties, so there are two overlapping in each channel. Lateral to that the bones space slightly, and finish short of where the breasts will be, as in the corset of Dorothea Sabine von Neuberg shown to the right. Next, the bones start to angle out, and, finally, there's one bone at the edge of the front piece to support the lacing.

The back panels are unboned, except for a single strip at the lacing edge.

I've quicky tacked the seams together so I can try the thing on. Really, though, all that I can tell is that it's in the right ballpark, and I knew that already. On this photo it looks uneven; that's because it is. I've sewn one of the side-back openings together with the bones overlapping, and that's skewing the whole thing. But that'll sort itself. I think I'm going to go ahead with this and see how it ends up looking.

26th May 2004

My plans have changed. I was intending to make this garment out of linen, but I was really struggling to figure out how I'd make the pleats springy enough. I thought about padding them but it seemed like a lot of work, and I wasn't sure how the linen skirt would hang.

Lurking at the back of the fabric stash was some lightweight wool-ish cloth in a perfect dark brown. There's six or seven metres of the stuff, so plenty for this project. (Six or seven metres... lurking... ohhhh God! The fabric stash really is out of control!) The reason I say wool-ish is that it was bought as dirt cheap mystery fabric. It looks like wool, but it feels a little soft and stretchy for pure wool. Burning it suggests it's mostly wool, although there is a slight tang of burning plastic in there, too. So I'm reckoning it's a wool/synthetic, although I suspect the percentage of synthetic is low. Were this to be for Kentwell I wouldn't use it, because of the danger from fire. But it isn't, so I'm less concerned. And I think it'll look better than the linen.

The orange above it is some wonderful tangerine linen I recently acquired. I have two pieces: one that's around a metre long, and one that's nearer six. Again, plenty. I'm going to use it to line the kirtle. What Sofonisba lined hers with (or if it was lined at all) is unknown, so I'm going to have some fun with it.

I've started on constructing the bodice. It's construction is going to be very much the same as that I've walked through in the bodice section of the kirtle guide. I've plunked the three bodice sections down on the wool, pinned them into place, and cut out the wool with an inch margin. I've folded that margin over and sewn it down. The picture to the left shows the two back panels. I've treated the front panel in exactly the same manner. One advantage of the slightly stretchy mixed fibre fabric is that it's much easier to manipulate it round the curves on the bodice than a stiffer pure wool would be.

The next stage is to line these panels. That should happen tomorrow.

1st June 2004

I now have something resembling a bodice. I've fully lined the thing with the tangerine linen (the two colours look fab together) and have spent many hours sewing eyelets. One of the downsides of a side-back opening bodice is, of course, twice as many eyelets to sew. The hateful things have taken several hours to do.

But they're done, and the thing is wearable. It's actually feeling pretty good. It may be a little long at the back, but that's easily fixed. So I'm basically happy with it. Next step is to finish the shoulder straps and then start work on the skirt. The latter, however, may have to wait until after Kentwell.

1st September 2004

Apologies for the long delay in updating this. A few days after Kentwell I discovered that the cat, presumably in a fit of pique at having to go to my parents when I was playing, had pisssed all over the bodice. The thing was unwearable, at least if I wanted anyone to stand down-wind of me. In the bin it went.

It's back to square one. I've decided to change plans slightly. I found lacing myself into the sideback lacing bodice at the same time as manipulating the breasts into the right place to be an exercise in frustration. Not quite as bad as trying to lace up a back-opening bodice, but not far off. So I'm going to approach this project slighly differently.

First off, I'm going to make a front-opening corset. This will hold everything in the right position and, hopefully, make it that much easier to actually get the brown kirtle on whilst twisting myself into improbable positions to get at the lacing. Plus it might actually be useful at some time in the future.

It's back to the fabric stash to see what I have in stock...

13th October 2004

I spent a delightful hour or so rummaging through the fabric stash. At some point I really need to re-fold the fabric and put it back on the shelves. Hmmm. It'll wait.

Anyhow, I turned up some very lightweight, almost muslin-like wool cloth. I bought it from Dave Rushworth a while ago and it's colour matched to cloth which has been natural dyed with alder-bark. It's a very pretty mustard yellow and, for once, my digital camera seems to have accurately reproduced the colour.

The corset is made in much the same fashion as the bodice in the kirtle guide. It's two layers of calico, with cable ties sandwiched inbetween, and then a lining of linen. The eyelets are hand-sewn with linen thread in royal blue; that's probably not an authentic colour combination but it seemed like fun. The boning channels are sewn by machine but everything else is hand sewn, again with linen thread.

I'm very pleased with this corset. It's much more flattering than the photos would suggest - for some reason the camera is picking up horizontal lines across the front which aren't visible in real life - and it's very comfortable. The front opening doesn't bother me. Firstly it'll never be seen and, secondly, natural fibres tend to stretch with wear so I'm figureing that'll be self-correcting. Right now it's fastened with a couple of shoelaces, so I need to lucet up a cord to fasten it with before I'm done.