map projections of me
Feb. 17th, 2007 07:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thanateSo, after meaning to get around to it for about 11 months now, I've finally pulled out the fitted dress mock-up from Mathilde's workshop. I have fought with cutting layouts, made semi-arbitrary decisions about gussets, and basted the body of the dress proper together. And am seriously considering hand-finishing all the seams so that I can tuck up the skirt without worrying about what it looks like on the inside. Shocking. Next I'll start worrying about the perfect fiber content, or wanting to hand sew all the seams entire, and someone will have to hit me over the head to make me stop... (Not that there's anything wrong with handsewing stuff; I just don't want that to become one of my priorities)
Anyway, aside from the rather odd shape I appear to be when flattened out in 4 pieces matching my surface area, I am still dithering about sleeves. I am making the quintesential blue peasant dress. (I know there are links to pictures of it out there, but they went the way of all my old-HD links, and I'm too lazy to seek them out again just now...) You've probably seen it; there are several different medieval illustrations of peasant women, usually at work in the fields, wearing a simple, short-sleeved blue dress, often slightly unlaced, over a white shift. Scandellous-- no respectable woman would show off her shift sleeves (or have them pushed up to expose her arms!) like that... but I'm looking for peasant. And there are a couple other things I've seen which have more peasants in short sleeved dresses over just a shift.
So after reading Tasha McGann's paper on layering (How I stopped worrying and learned to love layers), and skimming what Mathilde had to say about sleeves (although her focus is why not to do pin-on ones) I'm wondering... are there depictions of "the" blue dress with long sleeves? Because I haven't seen any, or at least not on peasants... And I also want to do a dress like the one in the tapestry from the National Gallery of Art (whose website is broken...):
("the raising of tabitha" c 1460, netherlands) the woman in the center, with the short sleeves and the patches. (there are a couple more women in the background with effectively the same style of dress in different colors, right down to the "unlaced" look... perhaps peasant dresses don't fit as well because they've shrunk over the years? or are these women just a little less respectable by virtue of being lower class?)
Anyway, logically it would make sense to do the patch dress in short sleeves, and the blue one with long sleeves so that I can layer them in colder weather. Heck, if I lined the sleeves of the patch dress and came up with a secure way of keeping the skirts out from underfoot, I could add a hood and fence in them. How odd would that be.
But... "the" blue dress (at least in my head) is short sleeved. And if I do it with long sleeves that'll decrease it's summer suitability-- the upper class might have worn their fancy too-hot-for-the-season stuff in the summer, but the peasantry wouldn't have, any more than I'd wear an extra layer of sleeves in the field when it's hot out.
So theoretically I could make two sets of sleeves, one short and one long, and switch them out, seasonally. But, um, I'd never actually *do* that...
See me obssess over things of absolutely no importance whatsoever. Instead of getting out my sewing machine and actually working on the dress. La, la, la...
Anyway, aside from the rather odd shape I appear to be when flattened out in 4 pieces matching my surface area, I am still dithering about sleeves. I am making the quintesential blue peasant dress. (I know there are links to pictures of it out there, but they went the way of all my old-HD links, and I'm too lazy to seek them out again just now...) You've probably seen it; there are several different medieval illustrations of peasant women, usually at work in the fields, wearing a simple, short-sleeved blue dress, often slightly unlaced, over a white shift. Scandellous-- no respectable woman would show off her shift sleeves (or have them pushed up to expose her arms!) like that... but I'm looking for peasant. And there are a couple other things I've seen which have more peasants in short sleeved dresses over just a shift.
So after reading Tasha McGann's paper on layering (How I stopped worrying and learned to love layers), and skimming what Mathilde had to say about sleeves (although her focus is why not to do pin-on ones) I'm wondering... are there depictions of "the" blue dress with long sleeves? Because I haven't seen any, or at least not on peasants... And I also want to do a dress like the one in the tapestry from the National Gallery of Art (whose website is broken...):
("the raising of tabitha" c 1460, netherlands) the woman in the center, with the short sleeves and the patches. (there are a couple more women in the background with effectively the same style of dress in different colors, right down to the "unlaced" look... perhaps peasant dresses don't fit as well because they've shrunk over the years? or are these women just a little less respectable by virtue of being lower class?)
Anyway, logically it would make sense to do the patch dress in short sleeves, and the blue one with long sleeves so that I can layer them in colder weather. Heck, if I lined the sleeves of the patch dress and came up with a secure way of keeping the skirts out from underfoot, I could add a hood and fence in them. How odd would that be.
But... "the" blue dress (at least in my head) is short sleeved. And if I do it with long sleeves that'll decrease it's summer suitability-- the upper class might have worn their fancy too-hot-for-the-season stuff in the summer, but the peasantry wouldn't have, any more than I'd wear an extra layer of sleeves in the field when it's hot out.
So theoretically I could make two sets of sleeves, one short and one long, and switch them out, seasonally. But, um, I'd never actually *do* that...
See me obssess over things of absolutely no importance whatsoever. Instead of getting out my sewing machine and actually working on the dress. La, la, la...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-02-18 03:03 pm (UTC)If you go to February (http://humanities.uchicago.edu/images/heures/february.jpg), you will see the peasant woman in winter wearing long sleeves. If you go to June (http://humanities.uchicago.edu/images/heures/june.jpg), they are wearing short sleeves.
15th Century is not my period of research, but I love it. Consult with people like Mathilde, who know more about it to see what they have to say. My impression is that there are short sleeved, and long sleeved garments. Just like today.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-18 04:03 pm (UTC)There are short and long sleeved garments, of course; I'm just going for the very specific look of the short sleeves with shift which is entirely a peasant or behind the scenes informal sort of thing.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-18 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-18 08:50 pm (UTC)Did you want to do a fitting for the lace-up support top part? I have this vague recollection of your thinking this sounded like a good idea at one point... (you could theoretically do it reading off the link at the top here, but it does more or less need a second pair of hands at least)
no subject
Date: 2007-02-19 02:54 am (UTC)ps:
no subject
Date: 2007-02-19 04:49 am (UTC)dress / sewing circle
Date: 2007-02-20 10:57 pm (UTC)THis is accually very fortuitous. I wanted to find out how to fit the bodice of one of those; I was going to sak you next time I was home and thinking about it.
Re: dress / sewing circle
Date: 2007-02-20 11:43 pm (UTC)the link at the top of the entry ("workshop") is the basic premise. But it is kind of good to work with someone else who's done the whole thing before, too, and I can certainly offer what limited expertise I've got. you know, assuming we both have something resembling time, and all that...