Renaissance, twice

 I wanted a new ranaissance dress :-)

I could say, I needed a new one, but I also wanted one. Yes, I had the blue one, that, as with most of my older historical stuff was done 1) rushed, 2) not properly thought troght, 3) done while I didn't really know what I was doing. Nevertheless I love that dress to pieces, I used it a lot. 

You might have seen this one back, when we went to the Venice Carnival, it made an appearance in Verone, at Juliet's balcony, and it was a returning guest to Visegrad as well. Anyhow, I am a woman, one that loves clothes and textiles and putting outfits together, also happened to loose some weight, which made this dress hang on me differently, and I kept stepping on its hem. NOT that I need reasons to make a new historical dress, but I had several ones.

I was looking for a suitable fabric for months, without much succes, when I found this tiny piece of light, mint green brocade in a small store. It was a leftover piece, barely enough for a "gamurra", without sleeves, but I took it anyway, thinking, I have a piece of dark green velvet, and I can make the two work together somehow, even if the thing is not blue...

By the time I got to actually start on the dress it was a bit late, I did rush with it, which shows in its first iteration.

No, its not bad, and I have tried to fit it, but fitting a bodice without help is really difficult.

I did wear and danced in it that event I originally intended..

But I was not satisfied, thus I did what I did with the blue dress back then... Took it completely apart, and tried to fix whatever I could on it.  I used Margot's Pattern's gamurra pattern to start with, and it seems (especially now that I have tried another pattern of hers too) it does have fitting issues. Yes, I know there is a fairly detailed giude in her manual about fitting, but still... Maybe my body is totally different than it was made for. 

The bodice was way to wide. Since it was lined with stiff canvas which was stitched down, I could not really open the middle of the back, and take out some fabric there, but I did cut off almost an inch from the side-back seam, and off the front.

Made the shoulder a lot narrower as well. 

As for the sleeves, I cannot blame the orignal pattern, though it was HUGE, but of course, I could not go with the simpler version, I wanted fancier ones, where "slashing" is more pronounced. I think I already mentioned this, I have a thing about renaissance slashed sleeves, I try to incorporate that even into later styles whenever I can, so it is kind of obvious, that when we talk about renaissance itself... even when the time is short, I would go for the most complicated sleeves, right? 

Though I did find that the velvet I had was a lighter, yellowish one, which clashed badly with the light brocade but my friend, Gizus helped me out, digging out a piece of petrol-ish green from her stash.

But then of course I was not satisfied with the sleeves either, they got taken apart and redone, with beads this time. Lots of beads.

I like the new version a lot better now, though I also know, what would I change, if I would have the fabric and the time to make yet another one. 

After all, I think there is no shame in doing something and learn.

Photos: Norbert Varga @ Bodeszphoto

Edwardian biker clothes, part two: Red biking sweater and a split skirt

  I don't like "retro" knitting patterns. There I said it. The truth is, I do not like "retro" clothing either, if we consider retro anything that comes after 1915 or so (with a VERY few exception, but that is another matter).

Anyhow, back to knitting. Retro patterns, those that came out in books and magazines between 1915 and 1970 feels off for me. I do see their appeal to those who generally like the fashion of that era, and knitters, but they are not for me. 

However, a couple of years ago, the bicycle sweaters of the 1890-ies took the costuming world by a storm. Everyone was making it.

 By then I had the plans to extend my "turn of the century" period into a bit backward, to the 1890-ies, and also, make a cycling outfit. Also, the year's end was coming, and I needed plans for my New Years good luck sweater.

Now, if you read this blog for a while, you know what it is, if you are new, then... We all know that for crafters (especially knitters) the months before Xmas is spent with gift making, but in January we can relax, and concentrate on other stuff and thus someone declared January the "month of selfish knitting" when we knit (make) stuff for ourselves. About the same time, my friend, Angela, started to knit a good-luck sweater for the new years... And also there is the saying, start as you mean to go on, in other words, do the things in the first (few) day(s) of the year, you would like to spend the rest of that year with. So combining these things, I came up with the idea of starting a new sweater at the first thing in january first, concentrate on knitting that... adding the fact that accoring to the chinese, red is a lucky color, MY new years good luck sweater IS red. Now, things got a bit watered down in the last couple of years. There have been times I really have not knitted anything else, until I finished the New Year's sweater, there were times I did knit that in three days. However, I was alone, only Chris for company, and only knitting (and maybe spinning) for a hobby. Nowadays, I am not alone anymore, I did turn back to my other hobbies too, and travel more, so I cannot always concentrate to knit only on that sweater (like in a car, I need to knit something that soes not need me to look at it), sometimes, it tooks me months (or even longer) to finish that sweater... and it also happened that I have not even finished it (at least not in the year I started it)... 

So what does that bicycle sweater and the new years sweater has to do with each other? You guessed it. In 2021, I decided to make that as my new year's good luck sweater. I had the Prior Attire book on victorian sportswear that has a pattern, and I've read it. I found other patterns on the net that is avaliable for free, I looked at those too. I also looked at quite a few of these sweaters, and made up my mind to knit it without those written patterns. 

Okay, now I needed yarn. I was planning to get DROPS's Soft Tweed for the project, but they do not have it in red. Also, my house is full of yarns. So I started to dig in my stash and came up with this.

It was about the right thickness and about the right amount. It only had one fault. It was orange. When I had my red hair, I loved the orange color, especially, in that rusty, burnt orange shade this yarn also has. I actually miss it from my wardrobe, however, it does make my hair look yellow, and me like a three day old corpse.  But I am a yarn dyer (among a bunch of other things), so I skeined the yarn and dunked it into a pot of red colored dye-solution. The result had two different color-variation, one that comes from the original orange/dark gray swirl effect and the other coming from the handying process.

So I started kitting...

Which was incredibly boring, and pretty long process. All that k1/p1 ribbing on the round. Not to mention, those giant sleeves these sweaters have: each took up as much knitting (and yarn) as the whole body did.

I know, it is probably not the most period appropriate way, but I've knitted the body on the round, only separated the front and the back underarms. The two sleeves were knit flat, but with a hindsight, I should have done those on the round as well.

So I've knitted up the pieces, and put the whole thing away in a drawer, in pieces. And it stayed there for months. No, actually for years. Sometimes, I had the notion, how fun it would be to appear a fall/winter, turn-of-the-century event in a bicycle outfit, but...ehh. Don't even know why. Because of the handsewing? Admitedly, lately, as many other knitter, I tend to knit stuff that needs little or no sewing, but I am also a dressmaker, I have nothing against sewing, in fact I have nothing against handsewing either. Maybe, because the yarn was bleeing a little? I must have been rushing the dying process, and not setting the color properly, but I know how to fix that too. So? Really do not know.

Until, a couple of months ago, American Duchess posted about a sweater like this on their page, and it also seemed I wason a finishing streak (finising off projects I abandoned), so I dug the pieces out of the  drawer, looked around for buttons in my boxes, and put the thing together. Arranging and sewing up the pleating on the shoulders were  abit tricky, there were places where I needed to sew SIX layers, but managed it. Then dunk the whole thing in hot water with a ton of vinegar, then rewashed it with my lavender shampoo, and layed it out to dry. 

Now, I was afraid that the neck would be too narrow, as I really hate high, thight necked stuff, but its better than I hoped, though, if I would make this again, I would make the neck just a tad wider.

Also, I would make the lower portion of the sleeves narrower, but that is about it.

As for the split skirt, they are once again, the result of the rational dress movement of the 1890-ies, when women wanted clothes that allowed them to move around easier. Like on horses, or, even more, on bicycles. 

There are many version of the split skirts, some have panels on the front that can be buttoned to one side, some only have a huge fold there that is sewn down to a point, some hide the split under big folds. There were a few samples we could see in television, Amelia True had one in The Nevers (that series started out so great, it is such a shame that got swallowed up by the Wheedon scandal and mee too, but thats another story). (If anyone knows, where can I find a fabric with that color and striping, do not hold back, LOL).

Also the lead actress were one in most episodes of the series titled 1899 (yet another series that was reat, but got reaped by netflix way before its time). 

Anyhow...

I made mine based on the pattern from Truly Victorian, withouth much modification (except taking off a couple of cm's from the waistline, and shortening it a bit). 

Actually, I started it in the last couple of months of 2023, thinking it would be great, if we did our usual skating event, but then, the event was cancelled and other stuff came into precedence and the poor split skirt was there for months without a waistband and hemming. Then we had that event, where I was about to talk about some sport-history, with special attention of bicycling and flying, and I thought since I finished the sweater, its high time I finish the split skirt as well.

My friend, Bob, also made a split skirt, to go with her horseriding ensemble, she also looks great in it. Maybe even better than I.

Split skirt pattern: Truly Victorian

Sweater pattern: I made up mine, but you can find one in the Victorian dressmaker book, or in Ravelry.

Modelled photos: Norbert Varga @Bodeszphoto.

Biker clothes

 No, of course, not modern ones, but from the late Victorian/ early Edwardian period.

Yes, the period, that is not my favorite. I have been talking about it, also working on it for years now. And while, even now, if you ask me if I would rather go/dress up to an 18th century event or a turn of the century (turn of the 19th/20th c), I would still choose the earlier period in a hearbeat, I think I am seeing the light at the tunnel for the latter one (though it could easily be the light of the oncoming train). Anyhow, I was much more satisfied with, and felt much better in the dark red/aubergine colored set, that is slightly (like a couple of years earlier than our appointed 1905-1906 era, but as even today we so wear clothes that are a few year, sometimes even decades old, It must have happened back then too. 

Also, while I was looking around for a topic to research I was irresistably drawn to the very beginning of flying. Of course that was kind of expected, I grew up with my father preparing lectures about the topic, names like Montgolfier brothers, Otto Lilienthal, the Wright brothers, Bleriot were as familiar as Rapunzel and Cinderella for many. However, when I started to look into it, and thinking about ways to make it presentable I bumped into another topic and a certain style of clothing that immediately felt like I am coming home, and that was bicycling and bicycle clothes of the 1890-ies. 

And of course it turns out that the two things do have some things to do with each other... In fact the development of flying (aircrafts) are closely tied to bicycles, as the Wright brothers, who produced the first real aircrafts, were in fact bicycle manufacturers. 

Add to this that I found the endlessly crazy looking, but cute as a button clothes that developed in order to let women move around on wheels, No wonder I was lost. 

I was planning to make a biking outfit since...I don't know, maybe 2019, but I am sure by 2020 I had the patterns and the fabric, but no time, as I was working like crazy trough the COVID years, and then something else (like the 18th century) always took precedence. 

However, last year's bathing suits were pretty succesful, and the decision was made that sports will take some spotlight this year, my slightly earlier, 1898 aubergine colored set was succesful, and as I am still struggling workwise, I needed something to hang on, there was no more acceptable excuse to put it aside anymore. 

I did start on a split skirt, and then it was stopped for other porject, only wanting a hem and a waistband. My handknitted red sweater was already knitted, but in pieces for years... So I decided not only to finish those, but also make the breeches and a waistcoat to make the sett full. 

For now, let's concentrate on the bloomers and waistcoat combo. 

The "Bloomers" the wide legged, balloon shaped pants first popped up in the 1850-ies, when Amelia Bloomer tried to popularized them as the part of the "rational dress movement" which was, true to its name, trying to make the clothes women wore more practical. 

However, after only a couple of years, they went out of fashion just as fast as they came. But then bicycles became more and more popular, women found occupations outside their home more and more, they started to move around more, and suddenly they were more incined to wear clothes more suitable to their "modern" life. 

For the bloomers, I started out with the Black Snail pattern, but first of all, I cut out an inch or two from its seat part, as even looking at the paper-pattern I saw that with my short waist (and dislike for high waisted pants), the thing would come up to my armpits. Then made its legs somewhat shorter, and then rearranged the folds: instead of two and two really big ones I made many smaller ones. Also added a decorative buttonband and buttons to the inseam pockets. 

I actually made this set as a wearable mock up, to figure out the ways and tricks of the spit skirt and the bloomers, and used fabric I picked up at I Love Textile for rather cheap, which was striped.... Horizontally. Now, being a learned dressmaler, who was trained in a factory that used to make things for labels like hugo boss, a few things are deeply ingrained, like the nicely finished insides, and the importance of grainline, and the difference beetween  warp and weft, and the how and why fabric behaves differently if cut this way or the other. In this case, if I wanted to have vertical stripes, I needed to cut things across the warp grainline, which does show. Or at least I see in the split skirt as well as in the bloomers, but otherwise it came together pretty well. 

I cut out the waistcoat from the fabric that was left over from the split skirt, and the same black snail pattern I used for the aubergine set, however, I used the other view the one with the high neck and one line of buttons. 

As I already mentioned, this is not even the second, but at least the third waistcoat I made from this pattern, and I did photographed the process once, and as soon as we get to photograph that set, I will bring it.

Also, of course, coming up the split skirt in the next post and then the sporting sweater.

Patterns: Black Snail Bloomers here and the waistcoat is here

Fabric: I Love Textil

Pictures: Bodeszphoto