Brigitte needed a dress for a Yule event, and after much fishing around in the scrap upholstery bins of discount fabric stores (ah, having a Renaissance person when you have no money!) we stumbled on the dark green fabric with little gold leaves, which she liked. We also scored a gold brocade table runner at the Salvation Army, and used about a quarter of it here. (The rest went into the next dress.) The bronze satin was donated as scrap by friends cleaning out their closets. Because it would be worn in cold weather, I made a partlet for it – the square collar with the high neck which tied on under the arms.

Here’s the dress without the collar on. I found some flat bronze clasps shaped like leaves, and experimented with using them for lacing anchors.

This dress has been expanded and contracted a couple of times, and I think it’s time for a bit of a contraction again!

The little brustfleck is couched with half loops. This is a technique I figured out a fast-and-easy way to do, and now I teach classes on it. I put this into much more serious effect on the next dress…

Brigitte needed an easy and reasonably period-looking dress to wear around the campsite, cook food in, etc. The yellow and orange cotton we picked up cheaply at an SCA event, and they combined well. the sleeves are removable, of course, and can come on and off depending on what work she is doing.

The neck and elbow trim was a quick cheat I was shown by a long-ago SCAdian friend. Take two colors of rickrack (the same size) and wind them together, keeping the whole thing flat as you go. It makes a surprisingly period-looking trim, and does something positive with what would otherwise be an entirely useless trim as far as I am concerned.

I made this dress for Brigitte because the striped fabric reminded me of period paintings I’d seen. The smocking was an early attempt and I made an awful mistake with it, which I’ll talk about below. (I also made a very nice brustfleck to go with it, but that has gone missing, so I will have to make another one.)

I also made her a proper wulsthaube, the padded hat with the long wrapped veil. In period, it would have been “padded” with wrapped braids, but Brigitte has short hair, and it wasn’t unknown in period for women to use faux braids attached to the inside of the hat in order to augment their natural hair or lack thereof. The veil, which is wrapped over the padded hat, either hangs over the shoulder to show off fancy trim, or if it’s an ordinary day it gets wrapped around entirely and tucked in. Brigitte has lovely lace and tassels on hers, so it is showing.

As for the shift: I found some “rustic” fabric in a discount fabric store which was artificial, but linen-look at passed very well for that. I decided to make a shift with rows of smocking in the same red, green, and gold as the dress fabric, and I did, over the course of a couple of weeks. The original smocking came out very pretty, with a pattern making lines and triangles/diamonds. I smocked the cuffs with a honeycomb stitch, which stretches slightly.

However, I made one big mistake, which I’m reporting here so that you don’t make the same one! I had cut and sewn and smocked the dress pieces without pre-washing the fabric. When I washed it (because it was a little scratchy in places, and I wanted to make sure it would be completely soft for Brigitte, so I washed it with a fair amount of softener), it relaxed hugely. Like, I had never seen a piece of fabric go so loose so suddenly. It was certainly much softer, but it came out of the washer significantly larger in every direction (no, I didn’t put it in the dryer) and the smocking, which had been tight, was now very, very loose. The smocked neckline, which I’d thought I’d stitched quite tightly, was now enormously wide.

I salvaged the situation by sewing a band of tight cotton behind the neck smocking, gathering it up as I went. The nice pattern was rather ruined, but at least it worked as a shift again. The honeycomb smocking on the cuffs, whilst not looking nearly as neat, still functioned as it was supposed to, so I left it as it was. So yeah, wash the stuff. Even if you’re eager to dive into the good part. You never know what a fabric is going to do when it’s put into soap and water, especially weird artificial fabrics which could be made of anything.

Here is the scan of the German embroidery book I told you about:

HansHoferFormbuchlein

At the demo on colonial men’s clothing: I’m in the orange coat, Joshua is in the green one, Brandon is in blue. You can see the class differences between us – monied professional, lowly apprentice, even more lowly indentured servant. Bella’s outfit, as a constable, is between mine and Joshua’s – she has a frock coat like mine, but not as fancy. Colonial costume is still all about class – Brandon’s is a slightly poorer copy of Joshua’s, which is a slightly poorer copy of Bella’s, which is a slightly poorer copy of mine, which would be a poorer copy of that of someone like John Hancock or the Royal Governor, which would be a poorer copy of the English court, which would be a poorer copy of the French court, which set the opulence standard.

You can see how the boys’ hats aren’t cocked, and they have kerchiefs instead of a cravat, and no lace or ruffles. They are wearing “jackcoats”, the short coat of “every man jack”, which was later shortened to “jacoat” and, in the post-rev-war era, “jacket”. I’m wearing a frock coat, with fancy pockets and “lacing”, or narrow braided trim. To get trim of the right color and look, I hand-braided DMC embroidery floss, six strands of it. It’s narrow and probably won’t be noticed much, but I felt it definitely gave a “finished” look.

Some reenactment groups have a “ten-foot-rule”, meaning if it passes reasonably well at ten feet, that works OK. Some are much stricter and don’t allow beards (which would kill all of us except Bella), visible machine stitching, or any non-period fabrics. Luckily ours is a ten-foot-rule group, because even with all the hard work I did on these period outfits, they aren’t good enough for the Concord/Lexington people. That’s OK – we have fun anyway.