Well, things are not going the way I had planned at all. I got the skirt sewed together, knife pleated into place and sewn to the bodice and discovered that I HATED the way it looked. Not even a "this will do until I get back" job its was a "rip this out immediatly and start over" situation with that skirt. Everything else looks great. So I decided that I'm going to cartridge pleat the skirt and attach to the bodice. This is going to take longer than I have before I am supposed to leave for Texas. So no new dress for me this year, the good news is that I will have longer to finish the outfit and can get the overdress completed before Fighters Collegium in December. I also may be making a new dress for our Queen. A little nervous, but she is early period Viking/Norse so it won't be too complicated construction wise, however I may have to tablet weave some new trim for her. And weaving is not the most natural craft for me, it takes lots of concentration. Kind of in the same catagory as knitting. I can do it....eventually, with lots of tears and cursing. Well I'm getting random, so I better go to bed. I'm still going to try and finish the dress, but it just does not look promising.

I'll update when I get back from TX.
Alliessa

This is a quicky update, cause I need to keep track of how this all happened.
OK, no corset involved after all, I boned (and I mean BONED) the bodice of the underdress. And then underlined it with dead dinosaur I had lying around so that the boning doesn't show through the silk. And low, for the first time EVER, the bodice fit on the first go round. Even with using POF to pattern I was so excited that I could have flown. Normally it takes me at least 2 toiles to get the fit right. I actually KEPT the toile to use as a future pattern. So I've assembled the bodice and am attatching the skirt which has padded pleats and is knife pleated into the bodice. And it seems to be actually working. So I'm going to go and finish the dress and cut the sleeves if possible tonight. I think I'll get the underdress completed, but the green overdress might not get done until I return from TX. But I'm going to finish this all by December 5th. And then, since I finally got the pattern right, I'm going to do the red velvet Eleanor di Toledo dress, including the pair of bodies, but not the stocking. I'm not that talented yet.

Later,
Alliessa

OK, so keeping up with the postings has been a little more time consuming than I thought. Bad bunny, no cookie for you. But I got the embroidered chemise completed in time and also completed my husbands gold doublet! Good bunny, go to the fabric store and see what you can find as a reward. Yes, I know I'm supposed to be in fabric jail, but it has been a really rotten day (I had to go to the DMV, this took two hours and I had to reduce the office manager to tears before they would give me my car tags, but it's not my fault that they can't send the dratted things to the correct address, I only moved here 7 YEARS ago) and then I had to work late to make up for it, ugh it was a Monday for sure So there I am in Hancocks (who is having a huge sale here in LR) and there it is, this sagey/olivey green brocade fabric that just screams HELLO!! I'm on the 50% off table, I'm even pretty period and you really want to take me home. Well I picked it up and carried it around and then decided that, if there was enough to make a whole Elizabethan than it could come home with me, so I go to the table and measure and there are 7 yards of this stuff. So I decide to go look for a contrasting color, and there it is, a rust silk under woven with green silk that matches (and yet contrasts at the same time) the brocade perfectly(and 50% off as well), plus a whitish green colored taffeta to line things with (at $1.45 a yard). And since it was all marvelously on sale, I could also afford the matching thread for both colors, some new sewing needles, the ribbon to match the brocade and 31/2 yards of off white cotton lace for trim and still pay all of the bills and eat this week. So instead of all of the projects I mentioned in the last post, I am going with something completely different.

And on that note, I'm going say that Jen Thompson at Festive Attyre and Melissa at Sempstress have truly inspired me to make a completely different dress than any of the ones I had planned. These two ladies are the ones that got me addicted to this in the first place, I am doing a rust silk underdress/kirtle type thing with the green brocade overdress with hanging sleeves. I have POF by Janet Arnold (goddess!!) so I'm going to use the sleeves and skirt from Pfalzgrafin Dorthea Maria von Sulzbach gown in POF and make a kirtle with tight sleeves to go under it. I am going to have to think really hard about the bodice and collar, I'm not sure that style is going to look good on me, so I may have to research a bit more for alternatives. I already have the Elizabethan corset and a corded petticoat cut out. So I'm going to go sew now and throw fabric in the washer. If anyone is actually reading this, I'm hoping to give updates tomorrow on progress. And Jen, if you ever see this, I'm HOOKED on the TRF too and I think we may have actually seen part of your wedding:>)) If it wasn't you, than it was someone who looked just like you. I am hoping that we can meet sometime in the future, we are not getting to go until the last weekend this year due to work and hubby's traveling schedule grrrrr.

And for my own sanity, this is the next dress I'm doing, hopefully for Kingdom A&S in January. Let's all hold our breath because I also have to finish tiling a bathroom before Thanksgiving. Sorry that I'm using link instead of pictures, but I want to go sew rather than figure that out right now.

Later,
Alliessa

OK, so I have decided to take the plunge and venture out into the blog-o-sphere. I am a member of the SCA and have just become addicted to reading everyone's costuming diaries over the past year, so I thought "Why not?" besides, it might be good for me to actually write down some of my research and documentation plus get feed back from people who do this too. This might be something of a bonus since I seem to be the only person in my local area who is interested in late period English/Venetian clothing. And by late period I mean after 1450. Everyone around here seems to be focused on Viking, and I look horrible in an apron dress. Besides, in my real life, I am the only female in a bunch of male engineers. Older male engineers. Men who seem to think that wearing pink in the office means your brain doesn't work that day. One of my best friends has now stated that I only wear black and brown with the occasional grey thrown in for a change. So I want to be GIRLY when I go play. I want to wear colors other than the above listed. I want to show more than two inches of skin between my eyebrows and toenails. I other words, I want to look and act like a girl. This is new development in life for me, so we'll see how long it lasts.
Anyway, I have been uber-inspired by the work of several online folks who are out here and I have some VERY serious deadlines to meet, so I am hoping this record will keep me on track and inspired to complete my projects.

So my SCA persona is named Allessia Wallace. She is married to a "Maritime entrepreneur" named Ravenswar Brachae (who is conveniently played by my own husband) Her father is a minor nobleman on the English side of the Scottish border and her mother is an ex-courtesan from Venice. Of course, no one knows that here in England, but her daughters are very educated and slightly risque. And I actually rejected my father first choice of husband for me, so Mother found me one more to my liking. And we did get Father's blessing....Eventually.

So I have been making a chemise. And embroidering the wrists and neckline. I used the custom smock generator from the Elizabethan costuming Page, and I found a pattern in my wanderings online that claimed to be a blackwork pattern from an Italian Sampler from 1600, I don't know how accurate that is but I liked it and it looks similar to some of the chemise embroidery that you see on Eleanor of Toledo (with whom I am quickly becoming obsessed) So I am about 3/4 of the way there. Did I mention that the deadline was this weekend? Yup, I'm a crazy embroidering fool. I've gotten the sleeve cuffs done and 1/2 the neckline, so I'm hoping to get the rest of the neck finished by Wednesday and assemble and hem on Thursday.
So that's deadline and project number one. Finish chemise by Thursday.

And Ravenswar and I are going to the Texas renaissance Festival on it's final weekend, November 19-20, and I want a new dress. A new Venetian dress (or Elizabethan, I can't decide which to do first) This is an annual event for us, almost an anniversary type thing. We normally go on the first or second weekend, but this year didn't work out that way, so we are going much later. I am hoping this means I can wear a real dress and not die of heat exhaustion. I am taking lighter clothing just in case, but I'm really hoping to get something new and pretty completed. That's project number 2, decide on dress, pattern and finish by 11/18.

Did I mention that I'm crazy? But, maybe it can be done? The chemise was only started last week, and I didn't really start hard and heavy until Friday. And like every other costumer I've read about, I have hoarded fabric and trim, just waiting for the right time to complete the project. I have a whole sewing room just STUFFED. I am already in the fabric purchasing penalty box. No more new fabric until I complete some of the existing projects that are still in the idea stages.

So here is the list of possible future projects in no particular order:
1. Red velvet dress with gold couching based on a patriot of Eleanor of Toledo. I have all the materials for this except the thread and the guts to start.
2. A Tudor gown with the wide furlined sleeves.
3. A Venetian Courtesan Dress with ladder lacing in the front. I have some gold brocade that is just screaming to be this dress, but it means that husband and I will match. With lots and lots of gold brocade. Gleaming in the sun, blinding casual passers by. I don't know, I may have to think about that one again. This fabric was originally to be the Tudor dress above and I bought mink fur to link the sleeves. Real mink, real expensive mink, (rereading sentence) yup, I'm officially crazy. I just realized that I have 10 yards of gold brocade, 3 pretty good mink coats, lining fabric, thread, real pearls for accents and jewelry and I'm rethinking my design. This is why I need to actually start and finish the projects, not just collect bits. I think it's called ferret shock. Continuing on...
4. White brocade doublet with pearl embroidered black velvet cape and slops based on a Sir Francis Drake painting (picture to come) I have all of the fabric and notions for this one too...
5. Some peasanty type clothing for camping and grungy work.
6. Choli and underskirt for my Gold Sari for VERY HOT events. Most of my events actually fall in this category due to where I live. Those of you in the MS, LA, TX, AR area understand that it can be 102 degrees with 99 percent humidity and not be raining.
7. Hubby fighting gear.
8. Finish Cohair's Charles de Blois coat (only button holes left, but DANG there are a bunch of the little buggers)
9. Finish Mistress Julian's dress (refitting necessary, and I want to put tippets and she wants a white band on the bottom.)
10. My new fighting tunic and pants.

Holy COW. That's a bunch of projects. And those are the ones I've thought through and have bought stuff for. OK, so that's a list to make one focus a little tighter. Well, embroidered smock first. And then we'll see were this goes.

Hoping to post some serious achievements tomorrow and maybe pictures if I can get the camera to work. However, I have just discovered that I am too tired/inexperienced with this whole blogging thing to figure out how to make the pictures go where I want the to. What am I doing wrong? They are only posting at the top of the page, not in the text where I want them. I'll try to figure that out later.....