A Campi for Camping

After laying low for a few days with a pulled muscle in my back I was itching to get started on my camping dresses. (I needed a break from Tom's tunics.) I decided to make a front closing dress inspired by the Italian working women depicted in the works of Vincenzo Campi. I started by making a mockup in cotton twill using my Margo Anderson bodice pattern. The only adjustment I made was to raise the waistline to my natural waist (which I found by tying a piece of elastic around my waist and wiggling around until it settled at the smallest part). I then used the twill as the interlining between the two layers of linen. It went together pretty easily. For the bodice fronts I stacked the twill on top of the two layers of linen and stitched around the edges leaving the side seam unstitched (I kept the side seam to make it easier to alter the bodice as I lose weight) then trimmed the seam allowances and turned it so that the twill was between the linen layers. For the remainder I needed to sew the sidebacks and straps to the back first then I stacked, stitched, trimmed, and flipped as I did for the front. Then I sewed the side seams and will need to finish those raw edges. I used some black single-fold bias tape for the trim and sewed on brass lacing rings.
Now I need to catch up on the laundry and cleaning that I've let go this week before I start on the skirt which will be three rectangular panels with cartridge pleats.
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It's a Girl!

Stephanie had an ultrasound earlier this week and found out that Jelly Bean is a girl. Now I can go into full on Grandma shopping mode. :giggle:

Shopping fun!

I scored a fantastic deal on a Savonarola chair on ebay over the weekend. My winning bid was only $31! It is costing another $38 for shipping but $69 total is still a great deal!

Today while I was wasting time online searchig for some afforable pewter bowls (that aren't Queen Anne style) to add to our feast gear I came across these skull beads and purchased them with the idea of making a strand of prayer beads similar to this 16th century Spanish paternoster.

The Bed

While I was sewing yesterday Tom built my rope bed. This one was our practice run to get the measurements down and see how it was going to work so it is made out of $20 worth of pine 2x6's. It still needs to be sanded and stained and have the headboard added but we were eager to put it together and try it out. I am happy to report that it was quite comfortable! I am really looking forward to our first SCA camping event at the end of May now.

Sewin' sewin' sewin'...

Keep those fingers sewin'! (Sung to the tune of "Rawhide" :giggle:)
Saturday was such a beautiful spring day that I sat outside and worked on sewing hems on Tom's tunics. That tune just kept running through my head as I was sewing. I've finished the brown with green and green with navy tunics but this project is soooo boring that I haven't been eager to work on them. The two finished linen tunics along with the two wool ones will get him through the upcoming weekend campouts. He won't need the rest of them until Pennsic in August so I think I'll set them aside and work on something else for awhile.

Birthday

I had a nice low-key birthday celebration. We had to work around everyone's school and work schedules. Kim couldn't miss class because she had a test and Jason had an errand after work so we had a late dinner with cake and ice cream. Kim and Lou gave me cash with instructions to spend it on books(they didn't know if I wanted to buy from the local book store or order from Amazon or B&N)so I ordered two medieval cookbooks from Amazon this morning. Jason and Stephanie gave me a gift card for JoAnn's which I used today along with a coupon for an additional 20% off my purchase including sale prices :) to buy 7 yards of linen at $6/yd along with some other sewing and scrapbooking supplies. My gift from Tom is my rope bed that he bought the wood for yesterday and started working on today (that and the money to pay for my trip to Georgia next month).

My Playhouse

:giggle: Since my childhood wasn't much fun I look at the SCA as my opportunity to fulfill my need for fantasy and playing dress up just as much as it fits into my love of learning. So, anyway, after returning our first tent because of a hole in the roof the replacement arrived and Tom set it up in the back yard a couple of days ago. FYI- We chose a modern canvas tent (10'x14' Kodiak Flexbow)for three reasons: So that Tom can put it up quickly without any help, so it can be used for mundane camping yet blend in with the period tents a bit better than a nylon dome tent, and we just aren't ready to make the investment in a period pavillion (either the money to purchase one or the effort to make one). I had been too busy with other things to check it out until this morning. I set up the bed and a couple of chairs to get an idea of the space we will have to live in for eight days this summer and I think we will be comfortable. The mattress is just sitting up on bins of fabric and garb right now but the plan is for Tom to make a rope bed that sits up high enough to slide six bins under it. The nice looking trunks will go on either side of the bed. Once I aquire some rugs the tapestry curtain panels you see on the floor and bed will be hung behind the chairs and/or the bed.

Prom Shopping

Since Kacie is on spring break this week we've taken some time to go shopping for her junior prom. We went dress shopping at the Rivertown Crossings mall on Monday and found her dress at Younkers. While many of the dresses were way more than I had expected to pay this one was a bit under and we both knew it was "the dress" as soon as she put it on. Kim thinks the back is a little too bare but *I* think it looks elegant. You all will just have to wait a few weeks for pics of Kacie in it and decide for yourselves. lol We headed to the DSW on the other end of town yesterday and found some pretty shoes to go with it. As for jewelry I don't think the dress needs a necklace and Kacie hasn't decided if she wants to just wear the pink tourmaline earrings that she wears every day or if she will borrow some of my sparkly dangly earrings.

Assembly Line Tunics

I've started on the linen tunics for Tom's summer camping garb. I measured and cut all five on Saturday then pinned all the gussets and gores on Tuesday and started sewing the first one. When it came time to cut the neck and figure out the facing/trim I pulled out my circle template from The Crafter's Workshop and the rotarty cutter I got free when I purchased my paper trimmer. I love it when I can use my scrapbooking supplies on my sewing projects! LOL Today I got the first one done except for the hemming (I'm still undecided whether or not to do the contrasting fabric at the hem) and the gussets and gores sewn on the second one. They will be brown trimmed with green, green trimmed with navy, navy trimmed with rust, rust trimmed with teal, and teal trimmed with brown.

Mmmm...Fabric!

JoAnn's has been redeemed in my eyes! I know I have complained several times about the half-aisle of crappy scrap supplies and the limited selection of fabrics at my local store. The new humongous Superstore just opened so I headed there this morning with my coupon to 20% off my entire purchase and LOVED the place! The scrapbooking section was a big as the entire store near me and looked to have a better selection of desirable products but I resisted the urge to browse that area because I was there for fabric. Most fabric stores around here much of what they offer as "linen" is poly-rayon linen weave crap with a few bolts of linen blends mixed in. Well this new store had at least 15 different colors of REAL 100% LINEN!!! After some internal debate I did opt for the linen rayon blends at half the price since I have a lot of garb to make before camping SCA season but I will defintely be going back for my next 100% linen purchase. Anyway, I bought enough fabric, matching thread, and misc. to make five tunics for Tom and a dress for me for under $90!
I read recently that just about any color can be achieved with natural dyes so there is no reason to restrict yourself to muddy earth tones to appear "period". Taking that to heart I chose olive, teal, navy, rust, and brown for Tom's tunics and intend to trim each with one of the contrasting colors. I have the fabrics all prewashed and ironed so I'll be starting soon! (These are the strips I tore off to even up the cut ends.)

I purchased a reddish purple for my dress shown below with the navy and seafoam green I already had planned for camping dresses.

Warm Garb for Tom

After finishing my coat I took Thursday off from sewing to go shopping including buying wool to make a coat for Tom. I found some chocolate brown 100% wool suiting at Joann's (the only wool they had) then decided to check Field's where I found some dark navy wool melton cloth. Since Tom hasn't shown an interest in any specific time or place I had no idea what kind of coat to make so I just made a t-tunic and opened it down the front. I then bound the edges with burgundy bias tape and used the same to create loops for the pewter buttons. Making the coat took up most of my day Friday but late Friday night I decided to use the brown wool to make him another tunic. It took me about two hours to measure and cut all of the pieces then sew the gussets and gores, when I got to the point of needing to cut the neck opening I realized I was too tired to do anything that couldn't easily be redone if I goofed so I went to bed. I woke up early Saturday morning to do the neck, sew up the side seams, and hem the tunic before getting myself dressed for the event.

The coat is done!

Well, not really. I want to do couched gold cord similar to the portrait. But you know what I mean: I can wear it this weekend!

More Progress

Livia's zimarra is finally looking like something. This afternoon I sewed the collar on and measured, trimmed, and pinned the hem. I'm debating calling it a day or putting in a movie and stiching the hem. Odds are good the movie and hem will win. lol

Progress

I hit a snag with my sewing project yesterday. Yesterday morning I sewed the satin shell for the coat including the nifty pleats in the sleeves (as seen in the Countess Livia portrait) only to get to the collar and find that things just weren't lining up right. I discovered that I had sewn the shoulder seams with too wide of a seam allowance. Redoing the shoulder seams meant removing the sleeves. I got the shoulder issue taken care of then decided to do the sleeves properly as I should have done in the first place. I removed the sleeves from the faux fur lining then finished the sleeves seperately. While I was at it I enlarged the armscyes a little to more easily fit over the sleeves of my gown so I ended up not having pleats in the sleeves after all as I whipstitched them into place. Now that I have the shoulder seams lining up as they should it is on to the collar.

Note to self

I'm mostly posting this so I'll be able to remember what I did when it's time to cut and sew the outer fabric for this coat. First I cut the collar with the nap of the fur running the same as the rest of the lining as it would have been had I cut the collar all in one with the fronts (which wasn't possible with a full lining cut from narrow fabric). The good part was that the seam blended well. The bad part was that having the nap of the fur run up when the collar was turned down looked just plain weird to me. I went back to my scrap and cut another collar with the fur running up as it is sewn to the body of the coat but running down when the collar is folded down. The seam is more noticible but I can live with that. The part I really need to remember so I can do the outside the same is that I ended up altering the seam so that the collar would lay smooth with the coat hanging open. When sewn along the original seam line the collar wanted to ripple instead of laying flat. I pinned the neck seam in a straight rather than curved line from about the center point between the shoulder seam and the front edge and that eliminated most of the rippling. ***The new seam started about 1 1/4" below the original seam line at the front connecting to the original seam line midway between the front and the shoulder. Now this change caused the center front edge and the collar edge to not meet in a smooth line so I tapered the center front edge from the edge of the collar to a point about 6" below the seam line.*** (I'll add pics later.) Now that it is past noon I really need to pee, have some breakfast, vacuum up all the fuzzies from the faux fur, and get dressed before I do any more with this project! LOL

alterations to collar


altered collar open


altered collar closed

Stupid Mistake!

So I finally dove into the Livia's zimarra project last night. I already had the front and back patterns drawn out from the black and pink zimarra and drew out a pattern for a long full sleeve. I had to do a bit of fiddling and cut the seam allowances narrower than I would have liked in order to fit the sleeves next to the body pieces on the 30" wide fabric but I made it work and got them all cut out. Then it dawned on me that I hadn't cut out a collar. :headwall: I did a narrow standing collar on the other zimarra but this time I wanted a full turn back collar and had forgotten to draw out the pattern. None of the pieces of fur I have left are quite wide enough so it looks like I'm going to have to have a seam at the center back of the collar. Oh, well, life goes on. :sigh:

One scrappy weekend!

The design team at ScrapFreak posted some great challenges for the Birthday Bash cyber crop this past weekend. I got more pages done that I have in a long time completing 13 of the 14 challenges and am really pleased with how they came out, too. I'm sharing a few favorites here but you can see all of them in my ScrapFreak gallery.

Lookie what I got.

Okay, So I had been scrapping since Friday morning doing challenges for the ScrapFreak cyber crop when about noon today Tom suggested that we go for a drive. First I said no, that I was busy and had plans to scrap all day, but then I felt guilty for ignoring him. I asked where he thought we might go and he said we could drive along the lake and do some antiques shopping. Well then I knew the poor man was deperate for attention and I couldn't pass up the chance to go antiquing. LOL
I had seen a beautiful "X" chair last summer when we were on the way home from Bristol and had already spent too much so I wrote the info down on a card and saved it. While I was in the shower Tom called to see if the chair was still there and it was. When we got there we discovered that they actually had a pair (they weren't displayed together so we hadn't noticed the second one last summer.) We bought the one we intended to buy but now I have to figure out how to get the other one! Isn't it purty???

Scrapping Time!

I'll be taking a break from sewing this weekend and putting my energy into scrapping. Why don't you join me?

Two down!

Lots to go! I've started working on the list of garb we need for SCA camping. Tuesday and Wednesday were spent making two shifts using the Elizabethan Smock Pattern Generator Somehow I goofed on the length and made the first one shorter than intended. I like my smocks just below the knee but that one ended up just above. I corrected the length on smock #2, opted not to taper the sleeves, and added some black and silver lace trim. These were machine sewn with french seams. The neck facing and lace were hand stitched. I plan to make one more to get me through a week at Pennsic (I already have four long and two hip length smocks/camicie) but haven't decided which style to make. I haven't tried a high-necked shirt style smock yet so that might be the one.