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