I've been very busy sewing since I last blogged. After looking at various gowns, I decided to make a Medieval gown (think Lady Guinevere) instead of a Renaissance gown. And although I've been working without a pattern, I've made some progress. I started with the chemise first. The chemise is now finished and I can concentrate, worry and panic about sewing the over-gown (because unlike the chemise, that's what everyone is going to see).
I didn't want to make a simple chemise because what can I say? They're just too plain. I found an image online of a noble woman's chemise and, of course, that is the one I wanted. I printed the pictures, taped them to the wall and between scrutinizing the pictures, muttering to myself that I'm a nut job for adding more stuff to my plate, and re-watching the X-Files starting from Season One; I finally have something to show you.
Here it goes:
Luckily for me, I have a dress form that comes close to my measurements. I picked up the fabric, pinned it to the dress form and then tried to figure out how to begin cutting it.
Here, I'm trying to give the fabric some shape as I stare and stare at the pictures taped to my wall and try to duplicate the form with the fabric.
Aha! Now we're getting somewhere. By this point, I think I've developed a nervous tick and possibly Schizophrenia since I keep having these dialogues. Yes, I said dialogues not monologues because I keep answering myself. I suspect there's more than one personality inside of me. That's alright, it'll go away once this project is finished. At this point it's still mostly pinned and basted in some areas, but as the picture shows it's looking like a chemise - which is actually a dress used as underwear.
As you can see from the picture above, although the fabric isn't white it is quite sheer. So I will not be uploading a picture of myself wearing the chemise. I did take a picture and once I saw it, I was like "Oh No, I'm not uploading this picture. You can see my knickers!"
Here you can see the detail of the trim and button on the sleeves. I like it - hope you like it too!
In the end, I wanted to show you what the garment looks like worn, but didn't want you to see my cellulite. So I played with the camera trying different angles and finally settled on the picture below.
There I am wearing the chemise and you can see the trim at the hem. I like the end result and am pretty proud of it. Wish me luck with the over gown.