5/18/04: I Wore it Yesterday! Ok, let's see. Maybe if I break it up by piece... My complete outfit consists of: Shoes I have a pair of satin dye-able shoes in vaguely this shape and I had bleached them out from the burgundy they were, intending to dye them red for this dress. I ran out of time.  So I wore a pair of red leather shoes from Native Soles, with tear drop pinks around the top. I added a button at the center that is a slightly larger version of the buttons I used on my sleeve heads. back to top Stockings Your standard faire-issue stretch cotton socks, for sale by Guy and Frieda at the costume trailer. I plan on making some period bias socks but haven't yet. I have many pairs of these and find them comfortable and indispensable in keeping cool - just wet 'em up and be on your way! The pair I wore were a light, warm yellow. back to top Drawers I covered these in my 3/1/04 entry. Nothing changed on them, but I did find a lovely red/crème/olive floral woven trim that I'll get around to pleating a ruffle into. Here's a pic of how they turned out. Oooohhh, comfy... back to top Camica I left the camica to do last because I wanted to get the neck to fit perfectly within the bodice opening. I didn't really mean for "last" to mean "last minute" but... I spent weeks looking for a really lightweight and sheer 100% linen and couldn't find anything. The whole time I thought if I didn't find anything I'd order the 3.5 oz. linen from fabrics-store.com. Less than a week before it had to be done I hadn't found anything nor had I ordered anything, so I panicked. I found a lovely linen/cotton blend, very sheer, with a 1/2" check pattern in it. It's very lightweight and comfortable and works very well. I cut the camica based on Jen Thompson's camica from her Florentine dress. I used some cotton lace I had to make a neck "window" by putting on my bodice and pinning the lace on it so it peeks out at the neck edge. The linen/cotton was then sewn up and gathered to the lace edge. It gathered very nicely but sewing that close to the edge made it a bit sloppy. Hopefully I'll get the chance to rip it apart and re-pleat it cleanly by hand. back to top Petticoat This item was covered thoroughly in my entries on Venetian Pg. 2. Interestingly enough, this was the one thing the judges asked me the most about. Each one examined it thoroughly and asked me many questions about it. I almost didn't wear it because I was running so late getting ready but I'm sure glad I did, HA! back to top Overdress: Bodice Let's see if I can pick this up from where I left off on 4/5/04... When last we met, I had gotten the bodice edges turned under and the straps sewn on. I whip stitched the join of the fashion fabric on the straps. It doesn't look as good as I'd hoped but the straps are set so wide the join is almost under my armpit so it's not really visible. Now, all I had to do was sew on lacing rings, for which I used the "eye" parts of large hook & eye sets. God knows what I can do with the leftover hooks! There were 11 on each side with a complete hook & eye at the very bottom for stability. I spaced them evenly for ladder lacing. back to top Skirt: Well, the skirt was relatively simple. NOT! Ok, I went through trauma cutting it but the seams matched up beautifully and I ended up with a tube of about 150" circumference. AT this point I had to decide how I was going to handle the front opening. I wanted to pleat the skirt directly to the bodice as one dress but that still means I have to have a way to get in and out of it. I first thought I would match up a piece of brocade and face a slit in the fabric. I was never comfortable with this idea because I had no way of knowing before I cut into the skirt if that slit would show in the front. So I decided to leave the fabric intact and just leave a gap un-pleated. I eyeballed the waistband curve and got pretty lucky matching it up. I cut and sewed a matching size tube in a cheap linen I had for lining. It's actually 3 parts tan one part white since I ran out of the tan, but no one will see it anyway. I sewed the silk and the lining together at the waist, turned it, and cartridge pleated it up, leaving a 10" gap in the front. After stitching the skirt to the waist of the bodice I was able to wriggle into it and test lace it up. It worked perfectly! The gap in the front let me get into it, and when I was laced up it just tucked under the bodice point in a large box pleat, blending into the folds. I secured it with a hook and eye so it wouldn't droop and trip me during dance sets. The last thing to do was to let it hang for a few days, then add a velvet guard around the bottom. I used the same 100% linen velvet I used to guard the bottom of the petticoat. The Vicellio woodcuts show thin guards at the bottom of dresses and I probably should have made mine narrower, but it looked too out of place narrow. If I had been able to find a good red to match it might have worked but the dark gold color was such a contrast that it had to be more substantial to look balanced. back to top Sleeves: I drafted the pattern back in the 3/10/04 entry. I've never had much luck drafting my own sleeve patterns by measurement. They always come out too small for some reason. So, this time I tried the trace-your-own-arm method and it worked beautifully. I'm using a slightly curved design with two seams front & back. I extended the upper curve a little to get a good puff from it, then marked where the slashes will go on the pattern. I drafted it to have 5 panels in the top half of the sleeve that are slashed to just above the meat of the upper arm. For the lining I used the same sand silk used for the petticoat. I sewed the lining in along the slashes and under the armseye, then sewed the front & back seams on the fashion fabric and the lining. I left it open at the cuff and about 4" up the back seam from the wrist. I also left the front and back seams open from the armseye to use as "slashes." All of these seams were very close to the fabric edge and with many corners etc. so I did it all by hand except the long top and bottom seams on the fashion fabric. At this point I sewed on a couple of pieces of antique lace I had onto the cuffs. It's lightly tacked down so it almost looks like it could be turned back from the camica, but secure enough on not to catch on everything that passes by. I love this lace and I wish I had many yards of it! Another find I had in my stash was a weird upholstery trim of red velvet balls on a braid.  They look like covered buttons but like two halves, both covered and popped together. I thought these would make really great wrist closures like the wrist buttons on the Vecellio woodcuts. I sewed on some citrine and gold beads to tie them into everything else, tacked them into the sleeve at the wrist, made loops for the other side, then I whip stitched the lining closed at the wrist and wrist opening. I love the way it all came together. The next task was finding the right buttons or jewels or closures for the sleeve heads to join the bodice. Not easy. I must have bought 4 or 5 sets of buttons because none of them were perfect but I didn't think I'd find anything better. Then I'd find something better, but not perfect... *sigh* Well, it came down to two buttons, both by Drill, a German company. They're both cast metal, plated in gold, with enameled centers. The round one has a bright red, transparent enamel with the sunburst pattern underneath it. I originally favored this one because I have a thing for Faberge style enamel. But when I put these on the fabric, the red looked too bright, the buttons too round, they just looked wrong. So I went with option two: a slightly squared round button with a solid burgundy enamel center. The gold areas of these buttons has a bit more texture to it, too, so they don't look like big round blobs. What do you think? Close up, I like the brighter ones better, but on the dress the darker ones fit in perfectly. So, on went the sleeves, tacked to the bodice straps only at the slash joins, then tacked once under the arm. The fabrics have a lot of body on their own but they don't have enough to hold up the wide set straps on my shoulders without adding layers of interlining. Tacking the sleeve, with just a couple of stitches with heavy thread, to the bodice arm hole under the arm pit made sure the sleeves a) would never pull down on the bodice, b) would help keep the straps on my shoulders, and c) would always keep them high enough to give good "pouf" in the slashes. Since the straps are set so wide I already didn't have a lot of upward arm mobility, the extra securing did nothing to hinder me further. I added the buttons over the stitches at the straps and I was off & running. back to top Partlet Boy, this was fun! I was thinking in the planning stages that I really didn't need or want a partlet. Then I saw portrait after portrait with partlet and saw that pretty much they always wore one in one form or another so I thought I'd need one if I was going to have a complete outfit. I perused Jen Thompson's site again for her thoughts on her partlet for her 1480's Florentine gown, and then searched through my stash for anything that might work. The fabric had to be very sheer but reasonably sturdy. I could stitch or couch some kind of trim or gold cord onto it in the diamond pattern, which would keep it from stretching so much on the bias, and add to it's strength so it wouldn't get destroyed from the stresses of the dress. Oh yeah, from the portraits I saw, it looks like most of them wore their partlets over the camica but under the bodice edge. Pinned to the corset? Tied under the arms? stitched into the dress? We have no concrete evidence for any of these, but I decided to stitch mine into the neckline. It would keep it from shifting during dance sets and would help keep the shoulder straps up. I found a very sheer 100% silk organza that was perfect. It's stiffer than a chiffon yet still very sheer. Then I found a gold braid with white dots embroidered in that worked perfectly. It's decorative enough on its own but I can still add pearls etc. at the junctions later. I put on a sacrificial shirt under my bodice and traced out the neckline. From this I made my pattern and drew it onto the organza, then penciled on the trim guide lines. I was puzzling over how to stitch the gold trim to it without it stretching on the bias. An embroidery loom would have been ideal but I didn't have one and I was broke. So I went to the basement, found a large box, cut a hole in it and pinned the organza to it. If it had been a hair larger I wouldn't have had to shift it at all to get the trim on, but as it was, it worked surprisingly well. While drawing the trim guides I found that I could either curve them to keep a diamond pattern in back and in front, or I could keep the lines straight and get a diamond in back and the front trim would be parallel to the bodice edge. I liked how clean this was, and the painting by Giorgio Vasari (on my portraits page) showed a partlet with this same parallel design. I finished it up with a sturdy bias tape around the 3 edges that don't show - this is what I'll stitch through to the bodice - and then one last trim piece all around the neck edge, with all the other trim ends tucked up under the trim edge. I tacked it into the bodice edge and it fit perfectly and worked really well to secure the shoulder straps and keep everything in place. back to top Accessories Along with the main components of the outfit above, I also had my accessories: flag fan, girdle, necklace, earrings, rings, and hair piece. Fan I found Tammie L. Dupuis Fan demo on her site, The Renaissance Tailor, to be indispensable for making my flag fan. I looked online and lifted a picture of a period textile design. I printed two color copies onto parchment paper for both sides of the fan. I got a 1/4" dowel with two acorn end caps and painted them all gold, and I also found a thin piece of wood for the "flag" portion. Unfortunately, the eye bolts that were large enough to fit around the dowel were too large to screw into the thin wood flag. ugh.  So, after pasting the parchment paper designs to the wood piece with white glue and using tacky glue to add the gold lace scrap I had to the edge, I used a small nail to make a hole through it at the top and bottom of one side. Then I used my large wire cutters to carefully cut a groove into the dowel where the flag would attach. Then I used two pieves of red coated wire knotted through the flag and around the dowel. I know this was a good idea in essence but the wire could not withstand the stress of the waving and it broke. :-( So, eventually I'll have to figure out how to get those eyebolt attached to that thin wood. Girdle My girdle was strung on red silk and was made of a whole mess of Venetian glass beads. I've had these beads for a long time, mostly of various colored glass with gold stripes around them. They are small and large round, tear drop, square, and in red, blue, green, and purple. Between these I used faceted and round garnets and some brass spacing beads. All of these I had in my stash so I didn't have to buy anything. I intended to find a nice bead tassel to use on the end but never came across the right one. I ended up using a massive drop pearl (fake) with an odd spacer of gold and pearls to finish it off. The pic is a little dark so you can't really see the color of the garnets and beads, and I hadn't finished off the ends yet, but it gives you the general idea. I tacked it to the bodice point in back and hooked it together in front after dressing. Then I pinned a large amethyst brooch of my Grandmother's over the hook and that finished it off. I like the way it looks but it gets lost in the folds of my skirt. No fix on that yet... Jewelry For jewelry, I wore the prerequisite pearl necklace. I had this already but I added a pendant made from an earring I had and a gold bow to tie it off an cover the modern clasp. Since I would be dancing in it and didn't want to lose it I kept the safety clasp rather than restring them, but it didn't show under the little gold bow. Also in this pic are the amethyst brooch I wore to cap of the girdle, and the earrings, which are antique, enameled, French, gold, pear-shaped hoops with small drop pearls. For rings, I dug out all my red ones and had to decide mostly based on what I wouldn't kill myself over if I lost - so no real rubies. I ended up wearing the bottom 3 rings, the large garnet ring (second from the bottom) on my wedding ring finger and the fake ruby and carnelian intaglio on my right hand, first & third. Hair: What a tangled web we weave... Well, hair was interesting. As my own hair is only long enough to be annoying, and Italians generally didn't wear hats, I needed a hair piece. Theatrically, I've worked with full wigs and men's hair pieces but I really didn't want to wear something that covered my whole head. My hair is long enough to pull back and cover so I thought I'd make a braided piece to cover the back. Then I could also have my own natural hairline and also keep a little bit cooler. All along Wilshire Blvd. near my home are many wig stores and hair suppliers. They sell to the studios and salons for weaving and braiding and you can get anything in real or synthetic hair. I searched for weeks for a half wig that I could just braid up and pop on but I couldn't find one I liked for less than $79 and I wasn't willing to spend that much on it. I also looked at pre-braided wiglets but they were too small and would just sit like a bun on the back of my head. Too bad, I found them for $5. So I went to His & Her Hair Goods and bought some wig base netting, a long metal flex comb, and 3 packs of silky straight synthetic hair in an auburn color I liked. I took the hair to my hair dresser, since I was badly in need of a cut & color anyway, and had her dye me to match. It's awfully tame for me but the color came out PERFECTLY! I took out an old foam wig head I had, placed the netting over it, wrapped a piece of elastic around the perimeter and started stitching the base to it. Despite careful measuring, the first base came out too small. I had just enough netting to try again but I was discouraged so I put it down for a few days. Well, the night before the contest arrived and everything was done but this stupid wig! UGH! This is so typical of me... Out came the head and I tried again. This time it worked - it was large and deep enough to fit comfortably on the whole back of my head. I took out the first pack of synthetic hair, braided it, and started applying it to the base. I just basically wrapped it in loops and stitched it down, then started the next piece over the raw ends of the last piece. I ended up just barely having enough hair to cover the piece and leave two clean braids wrapped around the outside edge with a little twist at the top on each side. I got my little horns after all! LOL. I also added some sheer white & gold edged ribbon with hair taping, which I picked up from this wonderful article. This made all the braid much more secure on the base and added a lovely design to the piece. Then I just added the comb inside the base edge, which was long enough to wrap about 2/3 of the way around.  To wear it, I parted my hair in the middle and pulled it back into a pony tail. Lots and lots of hairspray was required to keep stray hairs down and keep me sane. Then the piece popped onto the back of may head, resting about how a head band does. I tucked my ponytail underneath, shoved in a hundred bobby pins, added a couple of jewelry pieces to cover some exposed rubber bands, and more hairspray. I also had two large hat pins with pearl ends that I stuck in at the tip of each horn. What do you think? At 2:00 am, I went to bed and the whole damn thing was FINISHED!!! Check out the Venetian Gallery to see what it ended up looking like! | 
