For years I've gone to the Renn Faire and worn whatever late period SCA garb I have, most of which is not appropriate for an Elizabethan timeperiod. This year I have decided it will be different. I was originally going to make a gown with blackwork sleeves patterned after the portrait of an Unknown Girl dress that is in Hunnisett. I wasn't going to do any sort of blackwork myself, there is still that pesky thesis to be done, but had bought some machine embroidered cotton at Joann's last year when it was on sale. Anyway, the more I thought about it the more I knew I wouldn't have the time to do all the embellishment i wanted for my ideal Elizabethan gown although I still wanted blackworked sleeves. Then I found this wonderful site In Prayse of the Needle, and saw all the wonderful doublet gowns with blackwork sleeves. The floral style of these sleeves fit the style of the embroidered cotton. However, the more I thought about it the more I really wanted an Italian doublet dress, without the stiff ruff and angular style of the English dress. So now I have decided that I will make an Italian doublet dress and just wear it with the blackworked sleeves for the Faire and make another, more Italian pair of sleeves, for general use
I intend to finish this gown (to a wearable but not necessarily perfect stage) by the Tahoe Faire, 1st weekend in June. If we factor in all the stuff I need to finish for my sister's wedding, plus the wedding itself, and of course the ever-present thesis, that should give me about a week of sewing time!
My main inspirations for this dress are:
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| Maria de Medici | Bianca Capello attributed to Allori | Isabelle de Medici |
The gown will be patterned on Pfalzgrafin Dorothea Maria von Sulback gown from Patterns of Fashion. My reasoning was that the measurements of this gown are closer to my own than the tiny doublet and other assorted small patterns in PoF and that Janet Arnold supposes that the style was out of date by the time Dorothea Maria was buried because she was an older woman and would have worn styles she was comfortable with from her younger days. So far I have cut the pattern out but not fitted it
Here is a sketch of the intended dress
It encorporates the diagonal trim lines from the portrait of Bianca Capello and the puffy shoulder tabs that seem to be common on these Italian doublets.
Fabric...you may notice that the sketch of the dress is in red. This was because i had intended to dye some fancy corduroy I've had for a while with cochineal. I went to Dharma Trading Co. and picked up the mordants and dye. Threw the mordants and fabric in the bath tub and let it soak overnight. The came the problem of dyeing the fabric. I don't have a large enough dye pot for 6 yrds of heavy fabric so I decided I would make a really concentrated solution of cochineal and then throw everything into the washing machine like i would with Rit dye. As you can probably guess by now it was quite a failure, the fabric was barely tinged with pink instead of the rich red I was hoping for. In a fit of despair (and procrastination) I put the fabric back in with a couple of bottles of Rit intending to make it black. Instead it is a dark grey. My dilemma now is whether or not to use the grey fabric. While I still think the color and weight are appropriate there is always the question of whether or not various forms of corduroy approximate period velvets or other fabrics.
I skipped work yesterday to work on the doublet part of the gown. I decided to use the corduroy and am awaiting an ILL copy of Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd in order to justify my fabric choice. I think the doublet went together decently for my first time making one. I've finished everything up until adding a lining, which might just be one of those things that gets done after being worn. Here are some pictures:
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| The fashion fabric with all the trim attached |
Front of the Doublet | Back of the doublet |
I decided to bone the front and point with 7 rows of cable ties. I'm not sure whether or not it can be worn without a corset but thought I'd try anyway. I piped the edges with homemade black velveteen piping and my spiffy zipper foot. It worked really well except for the odd curves on the shoulders. I do intend to finish the shoulders with some nice fluffy tabs but figured I'd finish the edge in case I don't get that far.
As far as fitting goes the main changes I would make would be to have the neckline of the doublet a little higher in the front and make the collar a little more closely fitting.
The dress was finished in time for the Renn Faire on Saturday! There was no last minute sewing. In fact once we drive up to Tahoe on Friday we went hiking and caught the last tour at Vikingsholm. The whole thing fit well and was very comfortable in the cool and sunny weather. I think that maybe the shoulder tabs are a bit on the big side and I'm still debating about whether or not to redo them. The skirt was 3 rectangular panels that were padded with a layer of wool felt and 2 layers of cotton flannel. I cheated on the whole cartridge pleating thing by using the drapery pleating tape - it worked really well! On the whole I am happy with how the whole thing came together - the most frightening part is that all materials were things I already had on hand - it might be time to stop buying stuff when you have enough for an entire outfit in your stash
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| CLoser view of the front | Full Front | Full Back |
As in mentioned in the planning part, I really wanted some blackworked sleeves, but without all the work of embroidering it myself. I settled on using some machine embroidered cotton but have decide to spiff it up a bit by adding real and plastic pearls. The pearling is mostly done, I'm planning on finishing up the second sleeve on the flight to my sister's wedding in May
I finished pearling the sleeves on the plane but have decided not to use them. I just think that they really don't look correct for this type of doublet. I think I'll just keep them around for when I might get a chance to make one of those Elizabethan gowns with the matching sleeves and partlet and big shoulder rolls. Anyway, here's a picture:
From the portraits I've collected it seems as though a lot of these Italian doublets had tightly fitting white silk (satin) sleeves either pinked, slashed or decorated with some sort of embroidery or trim. I think I will make some that are either decorated with gold trim, like Maria di Medici's or pinked and or slashed. I have some white habatoi hanging around so they are probably just going to be made out of that and about 15 yrds of some gold bobbin lace type trim (It was a really good price!).
I made up the sleeves from the sleeve sloper I drafted a few months ago. I copied this onto a brown paper bag with the slashes and lines of trim, which I then used as a template for slashing the sleeves with an exacto knife. The sleeves are made of 2 layers of white silk habatoi, the top layer is the one that is slashed. I attached small ruffles of synthetic organza ribbon at the bottom of each sleeve. It seems as if my sleeve sloper might be a bit short and I think that even with the ruffles on the bottom I might add a couple inches to each sleeve.
I would also like to make a small black velvet Italian bonnet to go with the dress. I recently made one for Steve for his wedding and it only took an hour or two for the whole thing, and it might also be a good project for the plane ride. And, since I am planning on wearing the dress to the Renn Faire I'd like to make a small, fairly simple, ruff, probably white and edged in bobbin lace. If for some reason after all these I have time left over then I'm planning on making some wrist ruffs to go with that!
I tried to cheat on the whole ruff thing by glueing some gold painted bobbin lace to organza ribbon. Actually the lace ended up being brown and I didn't like the way the organza looked. I also couldn't figure out how to pleat the ruff. I think I might just make a silk organza parlet with a box pleated lace edge.
The partlet was made of white linen and edged with cotton lace. I got the idea from this portrait of an italian lady in the late 16th c. (maybe a medici?)
From what little research I did I could not find any women in this style of dress with cute little bonnets. Most seemed to have their hair parted in the middle with kind of 30s/40s hair waves and gathered up with an ornamented hair band or pearls across the top of the head. I also found this interesting picture where the lady is wearing a veil in addition to the hair band.
My veil was made of silk organza (purchased from Dharma Trading Co.) and the hair ornaments were made of some gold plastic buttons and plastic pearls that I attached to a fake braid.
© Sahrye Cohen, 2005
Updated on June 6, 2005.
