The White Partlet

White partlet for my Italian renaissance outfit is finally done. I finished it last night about 1 a.m. So now I am very tired and my shoulders are killing me but I am happy about that I don’t have to do anything else today than pack for the Cudgel War. Cudgel War starts tomorrow. I have almost reached my goals for this summer. I still don’t have hand made socks and drawers and I only have one chemise and I only have one renaissance outfit but I am slowly getting more and more non mundane things and I am slowly turning to the renaissance. I think that making renaissance outfits using only hands takes more time than making most of the other things I have made this far. And the best thing is I can wear my Italian outfit at winter times also when I make woollen sleeves to it.

So after Cudgel War I will start making those sleeves, socks, drawers and Flemish peasant outfit.  

6.7.

The Italian dress is done. When I have more time I will make sleeves to it. But now I need to make a white partlet. Also Cudgel War’s menu is almost done and the recipes are fixed. Some of the vegetarian alternatives are not yet decided but I have lots of ideas what we might do. I am not physically exhausted anymore like I was yesterday. But I admit that I am just a little bit mentally exhausted right now because it has been though weekend. Doing things at advance, not at last day, makes me enjoy the event more so having little mental exhaustion right now is worth it I am sure.

5.7.

Here are some photos about my Italian dress (all hand sewed). It is not done yet I need to sew the decorations to the hem. I am very tired after last night. We went to Ruis Rock festival to listen some heavy metal and my left foot is so sore now that I can’t put the shoe on the foot :). 

By the way the blue creyish fabric I bought to my Flemish peasant dress. It is not mine any more. I gave it to Sahra for her wedding dress (mainly because it is hard to find good wool). It is also a wedding gift from us. Instead of that I bought some nice dark blue wool for the Flemish dress. And I might found more that blue creyish wool from other stores. 

Problems with the bodice

Ok, so yesterday I realize that after all sewing and unsewing my bodice is still too big. And because I want to be completely happy about it I will unsew a little bit and make it smaller (doesn’t matter that I need to sew lots of lacing rings all over again). As I have told earlier it is my dream that one day I will have a renaissance outfit so it doesn’t matter if I make mistakes as long as I am happy with the result. Being happy or at least satisfied to the result is what counts. I try not to have too high expectations towards my skills. So I have lots of sewing to do and less than three weeks left. 

Sewing and unsewing

Ouch! I haven’t written here for a long time. Or it feels like that. It is also a common sentence at blogs. My reason is the same than most of the blog writers. I have been busy and my stress level has been too high too long so I needed a break. Two weeks before the Midsummer celebrations was very stressful and it was my fault, I made it stressful. I have to admit that I am not good handling stress and I need to start doing things differently or I will be very sick soon. That doesn’t mean that I can’t so as much as I want to. It means that if I want to do as much as I want to I need to find how to handle the stress also. So I try to stop and think every time I think that the stress is coming. Thinking and realizing that it is only stress and you don’t want that, has helped me last couple of days especially at work. The stress was so bad that I couldn’t do much at work or at home so I am behind my schedule (I am not going to stress about that). Hmm… I didn’t plan to write this here.. but maybe it is better to write it somewhere so I don’t forget it (that might happen still, but I hope not).

Back to the business. My bodice is still not finished. I thought that it was done and I tried to attach the hem to the bodice. Well I manage to do that but I didn’t like the way it looked (I made 1 cm pleats to it and there was simple too much fabric). I know that the dress should look full but too much is too much I say! So I will cut the hem smaller and make bigger pleats and I hope it will look better after that. After this episode I read from Tudor Tailor book

how I can attach the bodice and the hem together easier. Again it is very typical for me to do first and read after that how to. But anyway I need to shorten my bodice also.       

                     

There will be Medieval market at city of Turku next weekend. We will go there! I hope to see many friends there and I am looking for those delicious lamb sausages they usually sell at the market also. Maybe I’ll remember to take my camera with me :D. 

Lucet

The lucet is a very interesting gadget. Last Tuesday I went to city of Vantaa (near to Helsinki) because I had a job meeting there. I travelled by train and bus and it took all together abut eight hours going there and back. So I had plenty of time to read and for my crafts. I decided that this time I will bring my lucet with me because I need to make braids for my Italian ren. dress and for my black partlet also. For my Italian dress I need three braids because I am going to make three lacings for the bodice. Here are some links about the lucet and making braids with lucet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucet
http://kws.atlantia.sca.org/photos/lucet/

... and a picture about my lucet and the braid that I am making..

But anyway making something odd like crafts and reading an odd book about Medieval clothing or Medieval food makes other people in the same train or bus very interested. So I have learned now that if one want's to be alone one should not do anything odd like crafts (except knitting a sweater or something like that). Well, to be honest I don't mind people asking about what I am doing (but it is still little bit funny). I had a lovely conversation at the train with a woman (she is a high school Swedish teacher... I hope that you found my blog...) who sat next to me while travelling to Helsinki.

About the dress I am making.. I have fixed the pattern for my Italian dress bodice and I have started to cut the fabric. I have cut the lining for the bodice and today will cut some thick linen between the lining and the outer fabric. I think that I need to put a picture here about the progress also… I am making a dress similar than those in Vincenzo Campi’s beautiful paintings:
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/campi/vincenzo/index.html