Ghirlandaio Diary

HISTORIC COSTUME COURSE AND FABRIC FIND Okay so maybe I will get to work on this before the last trump. I just signed up to do a day-release City & Guilds course in constructing 'historic costume' and I'm hopeful they'll let me make THIS gown! I'll find out in September. I also got three odd metres of very wide (furniture) moire in a pretty intense ochre yellow. It's likely synthetic so I'm going to send it off to Dylon's lab in London and see which, if any, dye would render it a more wearable colour. Keep those finger's crossed. 8 September 2004 Good and bad news: Good news - it would be fine to use this project for my City & Guilds course. Bad news - there may not be enough people attending for the college to run the course. We won't know for a couple of weeks but I'm keeping everything crossed because I think I'll really enjoy it. Went to the local library today and got a few books which I will look at then review in my new 'Bibliography' page. 30 September 2004 Ahahahaha! Mad laughter because not only is the course running, but I am in the process of cutting and sewing out the camicia. I probably won't put it on a separate page because I'm using the method suggested by Kass McGann and based on an extant 17C example at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Yay!

27 October 2004 Things have been rather hectic, so the camicia has been pushed aside by my cassock making (temporarily). On the plus side, my research has been continuing and I have made contact with the V&A about the camicia which the Kass McGann model is based on. I have set up a separate page, so that you can see my progress and share in my research. I have also made an appointment at the V&A to be permitted access to the camicia 'in the flesh' on 10 December 2004. WOW!!! See the page for details. While the camicia takes on a life of its own, the dress will slowly take shape: mystery fabric is washable, ironable (at low temps). I am going to buy some calico at the weekend and piece things out next week.

5 January 2005 Okay this is serious: I've done nothing since the end of college, having been swamped by marking, sewing (for money) and generally life! I'm booked up til next Monday (I hope) and then I can spend a whole /day/ getting things organised before I go back to college... On the plus side, I packed in my other job so that means I'll be free to get some serious work done in quite a short space of time. In order of urgency: Re-set and sew the gussets and sleeves (for the THIRD time) then re-gather neck on the camicia - I'll update the page tomorrow but in the meantime, just follow Kass's guide while setting the gussets three inches lower, i.e. make the slits three inches longer than the gussets. It'll make sense, believe me. Gather the waist of the dress to fit onto the bodice, whose construction is almost entirely down to a lot of faffing and inspiration from the pages about a similar gown. The photos show a bit of how I did it, so I'll try and upload them next week. You should note, however, that I have not tried to be authentic in either materials or construction - that's the next one, not made from 'mystery' fabric and only once the Mac dress is done. Yikes, I've lost 14lbs since I started that one so it's going to be /very/ draped indeed :-) Sleeves: I've got the calico, I've got the fabric, I've got the cord and I've got the grommety things, so all I need is to work out a pattern. Wish me luck!

25 January 2005 Have finally turned the bodice the right way out and attached it to a gathered skirt, to which I added a mini-placket to strengthen it in anticipation of the eyelets. I will upload photographs VERY soon, both here and at my new photo album. I altered the front by removing the plastic boning so I could straighten out the edges and remove the 'peaks' at the corners - it looks much better but we'll have to see how it looks over the camicia, which is nearly completed. The Sleeves have also been drafted , based on two rough rectangles measured to be smaller than the length and circumference of upper and lower arm. I will be cutting them out in the next few days - my course finishes very soon and so this dress should too. Another recent bonus was the purchase of a cheap indian necklace of mystery metal, which will provide flowery eyelets to be sewn over the front opening for the decorative, rather than functional opening. One thing I hadn't considered was whether there was a straight gap between front edges of bodice at the point where bodice meets the skirt. In the end I joined it up, so we'll have to wait and see how that looks. In many ways this is a practice gown for the next one, which I will do properly, with handsewing and real fabric - this synthetic stuff gives me the heebie jeebies...

These images show the initial attempt at a bodice. The back was too high under the arms and the curved front was a bad idea. I also had to straighten up the bodice straps because they were coming off my shoulders (not appropriate for this style). Overall it was quite hard to draft without darts but we got there in the end!

2 March 2005 I completed the dress last Monday night and it took much longer than I thought. The front looked much better without boning and in fact doesn't require it, mainly down to the thick canvas lining. In future I would make a separate set of stays rather than reinforce the dress. Sewing the eyelets separated from the indian necklace took a while, since each one had to be attached at three points (through all layers) and doing the two-piece eyelets down the side was noisy and quite boring, although the single piece ones would be useless on anything more than a single layer of fabric. The lacing in both front and side was charmingly called 'rat-tail', both secured with brass aiglets from Annie the Pedlar. The front was in criss-cross style but this isn't a functional style, so the side is plain spiral lacing. I did make the bodice too narrow so the gap at the side is too big :-(

The sleeves weren't too difficult: I drafted a pattern to do upper and lower arm, tweaked it to allow a small gap for the camicia and then sewed lining and decorative outer fabric together, right sides in. I turned it out and then sewed up the small gap left. Eyelets were placed as shown in the photographs (to be taken soon) and again this was a long process, but well worth the results. Once the sleeves were finished, I took 5 metres of burgundy ribbon and for most of the eyelets which faced the other part of the sleeve, I simply sewed the ribbon in permanently, about an inch across. The wrist closure and two ties onto the shoulder I used 'real' ties, so that there are decorative and functional bows at these points, again finished with brass aiglets. Overall I used 10 pairs of aiglets, sewn onto the ribbon to be secure. I ran a basic handsewn hem around the whole skirt to keep it around floor level but allow easy movement since I hope this could be a nice dress to dance in. Once I get photos of the whole thing, I'll put them up, depending on how it looks!