...and the challenge continues... HSF #10: Literature

So... the "flora and fauna" challenge was engaging enough that I'm going to try my hand at another.  And, yes, I have 10 days in which to do it. :-)  Again.  Hopefully this is just coincidence and not the beginning of a trend... (well, I will prolly have to bow out for a lot of the challenges this summer due to work and class, so guess I'd better get the sewing in now while I can.)

The next challenge in the Historical Sew Fortnightly is:
#10: Literature – due May 20. The written word has commemorated and immortalised fashions for centuries, from the ‘gleaming’ clothes that Trojans wore before the war, to Desdemona’s handkerchief, ‘spotted with strawberries’, to Meg in Belle Moffat’s borrowed ballgown, and Anne’s longed for puffed sleeves.In this challenge make something inspired by literature: whether you recreate a garment or accessory mentioned in a book, poem or play, or dress your favourite historical literary character as you imagine them.

The intent of this one is for it to be a literary (read: historical/period) source and/or inspired garment or accessory.  And, being me, I gravitate toward garments... So, after wracking my brain for something that I would love to do (one of Christine's dresses from Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux - because now I can't read it without seeing the costumes of the movie; an Edwardian outfit from a favorite *fantasy* historical fiction novel; or a Regency dress like something Eleanor would wear) but can't due to time and learning curve...

I finally settled on something similar enough to what I've done before that doesn't require learning a new silhouette/pattern/style and therefore can be finished relatively quickly, and is something I have wanted to do but hadn't had a solid concept for exactly what it would look like before, AND (takes the cake) incorporates the use of (finishes) a UFO (UnFinished Object).  Tri-fecta.

And it is...



Goldberry.  From LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkein.

Yes, fantasy.  Yes, LOTR was published in the '50s... BUT... if the garment is reinterpreted through a medieval lens using medieval style and technique, it becomes medieval, right? (Bit of a stretch, but it fits well enough.)

So, I'll be making a cotehardie and (re-making) a surcoat (aka, underdress and overdress).  Whenever I have read in FOTR where Goldberry bids Frodo et al good bye and looks "like a sunlit flower on the hill" from afar (paraphrasing there), I picture her as wearing a light yellow.  I know in the book her first dress is a leafy green shot-with-silver, and the other dress is silver, but I don't recall any color given for the final dress, aside from it being light colored so it would stand out like that... so yellow it will be.

The yellow cotehardie will actually be part of another HSF (#11, squares and triangles, since you use those shapes to make the dress if you're following extant patterns - at least, the patterns and paintings I've seen), so I'll save the "making of" that for then.

The focus for this HSF will be the green surcoat, a dress that has already gone through two iterations (and failed, miserably, both times) and is still unfinished.

Here's a photo of it:

Long tippets (the huge drapey sleeve rectangles; the sleeve itself actually ends at the elbow, which in this picture is about where the patterned rug meets the other rug), narrow skirt, weird neckline I couldn't seem to get right, tight and loose in the wrong places, four gores instead of eight or ten (as it should, accurately, have).  I had originally made it as an underdress for a ren faire, but then the fit was so horrible (and I was running out of time so couldn't fix it) that I just stopped and finished something else instead.  Of course, I know now that with those sleeves it would not have been an accurate UNDERdress, but at the time I thought it would be cool looking...

So far this evening, I've cut the non-gore rectangles in half and pinned (or sewn) four new gores in.  That helped a bit for the hem, but the waist was once again too tight.  So, instead of turning the seams under, I'll be sewing as close to the edge of each set of edges as I can... which means I'll have to line the skirt because this fabric (a somewhat thin cotton-poly blend) frays its edges as bad as silk.  I'm also going to be unpicking the existing seams and resewing those the same way to get as much volume out of the fabric as I can.  I have perhaps 2/3yd (half width of the fabric) left, so can't re-do anything.

I've also made a slit in the bodice to turn it into a laced-up bodice as several 14th century paintings and effigies seem to be.  We'll see how that goes, and whether it ends up as a back-laced or front-laced gown.  I hope to have the tippets completed and the gores sewn (or re-sewn) tomorrow or the next day...  The yellow cotehardie will be for this weekend and/or next week.  Still need to check the fabric stash for how much of that I have - I think a lot (3-5 yards maybe?  It was another 'attic find' from mom's upholstery/fabric stash that she said she didn't want, so I never actually measured it).