| The Dress 6/23/05 Back from the Land of Nod... The latest on this project is new fabric and a corded corset! I started with a really lovely linen herringbone but it was a bit too heavy and stiff to pleat as small as the portraits. Then I found a buttery lightweight wool, but it was too creamy in color.; kinda like a manila folder. I tried lightening it with bleach (chlorine and animal fibers don't mix!) and an oxygen bleach (which didn't change the color at all). Then I found it! The perfect fabric. It's a silk twill. It's heavier and thicker than taffeta so I won't have to line it, but it's not quite as stiff as taffeta so I can pleat it very small and still (hopefully) get that lovely puddling like the painting. The sheen is about the same as taffeta but there's a little texture in the weave - no slubs like dupioni - just a nice grain instead of the plain weave  .  This isn't the actual fabric but it's close and these pics really show off the weave and the sheen... 9/2/05: pilgrim's progress Not much to report except that I'm having a devil of a time drafting the blackwork patterns. The blackwork has 4 distinct designs: the bust band, the upper arm band, the lower arm band, and the cuff. The 3 bands on the arms are all the same "lattice" structure with different blackwork elements between them. The big problem is that, in the painting, the lattice structure is not linear. It curves around each shape and I can't get the right curve to set the proper placement of the smaller elements. Grrrrrrr. The sketch has the lattice in straight lines, but if I do this I get a much too large space between the "links" where the lattice joins - the little knot the lattice makes between two elements. Did I say Grrrrrrr? I'm getting a lot of gggrrrrrr on this dress. That's a good thing - it's challenging me! I've also started to work on the skirt (the easy part, LOL). I'm basically making a big tube and will knife-pleat it to the bodice. The tube is about 8:1 ratio so I've got a good 200" in the skirt. *drooooool* 200" of silk twill *droooool* I have it lined with light cotton muslin. I just couldn't not line it but I didn't want the lining to substantially alter the weight or crispness of the twill. This seemed to fit the bill perfectly. It's still going to be a pretty weight dress, but that's cool with me. I fretted briefly about where the single skirt seam would be. The back seems logical but the bodice will open in the front. The easiest thing to do would be to put the seam in the front, but I can't stand having a seam there. Most period dresses seem to have their skirt seams at the sides but I only have one seam and I'd still need to have a front opening with a placket. Since I had to put in the placket anyway, I put the seam in the back and sewed my placket slightly off front center so it will be hidden in the pleats. May I take this moment just to wax poetic about this fabric? This stuff is amazing and I never want to work wit anything else! It flows in nice ripples but will give you a flat, crisp edge when you need it to. It is the most lovely fabric I have ever laid eyes on, and has such a wonderful sheen, texture, and hand to it that even silk taffeta looks like a cheap whore next to it. I love silk taffeta but it's just too light weight for my tastes. Silk twill is the fabric for me! Ok, I'm done. 9/20/05: Size does matter I got the skirt all pleated up, but with that much volume, pleat stacked on top of pleat stacked on top of pleat, the lining makes it too thick. I'd get an ugly ridge at my waistline. So, I get to rip it all out and re-pleat it without the lining. ggggrrrrrr 1/9/06: All Roads Lead to Germany My buddy Michaela believes that Germany is the center of the costume universe. I am beginning to believe her! LOL! Not much to report on The Anna Meyer dress other than I got the lining ripped out of the skirt. The important thing though is that I'm making a Pink German Dress and the pattern I've developed for it will also work for this dress, so that part is done! I have also improved my corded corset pattern for the Augsburg dress kirtle and I'll probably be ditching the corset I already made for this. I tried to add a gusset so it wouldn't squish me so much but it just looks bad. I'll start over and make a kirtle like the other one. Now I have to decide if I want to make it white as well or something more fun like apple green, bright pink, or dark red. Black might also be keen with all the blackwork on the dress. What say you? I am completely stalled on charting out the blackwork designs on this dress and am now begging for help. If anyone out there can do this or knows of any charts similar, PLEASE help me! 1/30/06: Ask and ye shall receive So, I've been struggling for months over charting the blackwork for the Anna Meyer dress when Michaela posts a really high-res scan for me. God bless her! Last night I got all 3 arm bands charted in about 2 hours. *whew* It's amazing to me how different it looks as lower res pics take pixels out of the design. I thought at first that her scan had been gone over in someone's interpretation of what they saw, but as I moved the pic in and out in Photoshop I could see it was exactly correct. Very odd. The dilemma that caused me is that I can't say I'm all that fond of the real designs... :-( Do I use designs I like better that aren't correct? The more I think about it, I'll probably go with the originals, and they are more appealing to me the more I look at them. That breast band just isn't my thang. And speaking of the breast band... in charting out the other 3 bands I've noticed that Holbein took a few liberties (as you might expect). Certain places don't have as many stitches as other repeats; there aren't enough stitches in the surrounding zigzags to cover the distance needed if you take the central motifs at face value; the "M" figures in the breast band are at an angle that doesn't translate when graphed out by stitch; and those circles! ARRRGGGHHHH the circles!!! It's just not possible to chart those circles with every edge zigzagged. SOME of those edges have to be on the straight grain/straight lines, but Holbein zigzagged every single one. Maybe he thought it looked weird to have some straight lines when most of the design is stepped. Weird. So now I have to make a decision and I'd love some opinions. I am going to embroider this onto the same silk as the dress, not on something which I can count threads. Do I do the circle motifs as straight & curved smooth lines or do I try and step every line regardless of whether it's on a true axis or not? The other mod to the breast band I'm considering is on the bottom of the upside-down "M" motif, Holbein squishes the angle of the lines but doesn't change the stitch length to correlate. I think I'm going to keep it on the same angle as the rest of the line and make it a true upside-down copy of the rightside-up motif. Thoughts? 2/19/07: The Long Dark of Meyer... So, I have gotten nothing done on this dress in, like, forever; however, I do have the prospect of a friend with an embroidery machine and the curiosity to figure out how to make this stuff work. I am happy at this prospect because I really don't have any extra fabric to send across the country to hope that it works by someone else. This way I'll get the kinks worked out in front of my eyes and not put it on the fabric itself until I am satisfied with it. :-) Happy me! My friend will not have time to work on this until August so I'll report back then. Oddly enough, once I have the bands, the dress should go rather quickly since I already worked out the pattern kinks on the Pink Augsburg gown. I'm looking forward to it! | 
