2005-01-21 - 1:56 p.m.

It all started yesterday with my wonderful plans for my new Italian Ren gown.

In the morning, I dug out the pattern that Giuliana had made for me, and proceeded to iron the cotton twill for interlining as well gobs and gobs of green linen, copy said pattern to brown paper, and managed to do some house cleaning and fix some lunch.

At about 2 p.m. Seamus showed up since he needed help making a new doublet pattern (I am getting a lot better at drafting those suckers), and also needed to make a pattern for a pair of new cuisses that he will be making for me.

Seamus also brought over his new black and gold cassock so I could teach him how to make the shanks of the cloth buttons that he had made for it, and gave me a couple of large pieces of leftover fabric from said cassock. (About 1 yard overall.)

You may be able to make a muff out of it Bel.

Hmmm . . . I may be able to make several, actually. Or maybe a pair of sleeves . . .

Mind you, the fabric is really good quality, period design, and the right colors -- black velvet with a gold motif.

It is also the gaudiest thing you have ever seen, the kind of stuff that can stop traffic.

(No, wait! It has actually brought an entire fencing practice to a halt at its very sight!)

It would definitely make a terrific pair of sleeves.

So far, so good.

Still with me?

Well, after Seamus left I started dinner, after which I dedicated myself to the task of cutting a new mock-up and trying it on. After much toil and trouble I decided that I needed to change the neck from round to square.

Enter Marcellus.

I still don't know how my long suffering husband has not thrown me out the window after last Saturday's karaoke adventure and last night's Italian Ren series of unfortunate events.

It goes like this. After about 40 minutes of fiddling around with the pattern, and his helping me fit it, we finally got a neck that I was happy with.

So I go and cut the actual inside shell, and give a good look at the fabric that I was planning on using for the dress and the tabard.

It didn't work.

By it doesn't work I mean that I had two pieces of green linen (one light green, handkerchief weight, and one dark, heavy weight), as well as one piece of green brocade. Those pieces would have been the outer shell, the lining, and the tabard.

Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time, when I had taken three small swatches and put them together. However, when you bring all the large pieces into one pile, that's when you can see the real effect of the different textures and shades.

The combination of green shades was awful.

Not only that, the lighter green, which might have looked good by itself with the green brocade, was too sheer to use by itself, and my camicia, which I purchased from Black Swan is too short to make up for that.

The solution would have been lining it with the darker green as originally planned, except that the dark green was too heavy for lining the skirt.

The other option would have been using the heavy green linen for the dress and combine it with the green brocade tabard, but it looked awful as the shades of green didn't go very well.

Back to the sewing room.

Because we have a room full of fabric, which we have been carefully weeding out through the past 6 months, most of the fabric we have is really nice and I want to use it before purchasing anything else. So I dug up a beautiful dark rose linen, period color and all, and put it next to the black and gold velvet.

It was amazing. It was as if the two pieces lighted each other up.

I had my combo, and the linen had even been washed and pressed in one of those days that I had felt motivated.

Talk about luck.

Happy with my find, I went on and cut the bodice from the aforementioned dark rose linen. Once I finished, I picked up the rest of the fabric to see how much I had left for the skirt.

There was not enough fabric left for the skirt.

I am a fool.

You see, when I purchased the green linen, I also purchased the rose one. Because I purchased them together so long ago, I had assumed that I had bought the same quantity.

No such luck.

(Note to self, never assume anything, especially when it comes to fabric.)

At that point it is 10 in the evening. All I want to do is to set fire to the whole damned thing.

I would probably have jumped out the window, but it was too damned cold.

Sigh.

So, how about getting a contrasting color for the skirt? Rose bodice and black skirt?

Nice, but no. I have not found any indication that such a thing was done. All the paintings show one-colored dresses with contrasting sleeves.

Yeah, they have contrasting trim and guards but the actual dresses are a single color.

Damn.

Of course, I am sure that once I am done with this project someone will be sending me a copy of a painting with a dress in two colors. Such is my luck.

In the end, I discovered 5 yards of light black wool buried in one of my baskets. I also discovered what might be enough black velvet. Either of those will do for a dress with the black and gold sleeves.

However, at this point I do not have any patience left to deal with velvet, so wool it is.

And now I know what I will be doing during snow weekend.

Stay tuned.

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