Let us start at a good place....the beginning. I finished the first draft of 'Poison Most Royal' in the summer of 2013. One thing I do whenever I start a new idea is to imagine what my characters are wearing; this is probably a bit strange to some people but I always build on the character's clothes and looks. I am in no way interested in modern fashion, I wear what I like for better or worse, but I LOVE historical clothing. For some reason I decided to chose the 15th Century Italian fashion as my base for my character's costume in 'Poison Most Royal'. For the front cover of the novel I wanted to make the dress I imagined in my mind.
This involved many terrible drawings (I graduated University with a degree in the College of Science, the specific subject I will keep to myself for now, and have never excelled at anything artistic, which is where the concern for my poor novel sets me biting my nails), many orders of fabric samples and many, many jabs and prods with a sharp needle.
The Pattern I bought was 'Period Patterns, no. 41; Italian Renaissance gowns'. It took me ages finding a pattern that fitted the drawings I had.
To give some background knowledge by the time I began this project at the start of summer 2014 I had made a total of two cotton summer dresses and one chiffon tunic, so my experience was sparse. I did embroider for about a year or so a few years back, but my wish to make my own clothes had always been there, even as I stitched that multi-coloured song bird onto white fabric thinking which of my family members would have to look at it on their walls. I needed a pattern for this because I just didn't have enough experience to make my own (nor did I have the courage).
I ordered it from Patterns of Time on Etsy (check them out if you have a sudden urge to create a historical costume because I spend hours on there). For my character's dress none of these individual dresses were fulfilling my ideal so I had to cut out different pieces from the different numbers. The dress that I created was made from; the bodice of Figure II, the skirt from Figure IV and the top part of the sleeve from Figure V.
Having cut them out with lessening difficulty (there was a lot of pattern paper) it came the time of choosing fabric. I think it may be best at this point to just show you the finished product and work back from there because I never took pictures at each stage. Everything was hand sewn because I don't own a sewing machine (but believe me at times this project made me wish I did).
This was the finished product with full chemise/camicia, the pattern of which I got from a website; find link here:
How to Make an easy Italian Renaissance chemise
I think this was the only part of the entire thing that was actually historically accurate.....and then I ruined it by putting very modern black lace on the cuffs and neckline. It was made with white linen, weight light. I took a picture of me in just the chemise but you can see right through it (duh!) and I wished to keep my modesty and of course the reader's mind, undisturbed. It's also the reason why I've cropped my make-up-less face out.
Let's start at the top with the bodice. Cut from four pieces it is made of navy blue cotton velvet and lined with cobalt blue 100% cotton. The reason for this choice was that I had quite a lot of blue cotton left over from my first dress making project and 'waste not want not'. Unfortunately I didn't line it correctly because I didn't believe, or I couldn't figure out, that the proper way worked; so I sewed it on manually.
I wanted it to be front fastening and so the back is really just for show. Eyelets placed hopefully in the proper way and what I think to be spiral lacing (and if it is then another thing that's historically accurate). The gold braiding is very 21st Century and bound at the ends by cello-tape because I never bought agelets. There are eyes on the armholes to attach the sleeves. The trim is this very strange silver ribbon type stuff and definitely 21st Century but personally quite pretty.
The stomacher was made from this really nice grey satin-but-not-satin. I can't remember what it was actually called but it reminded me of tie material. It was also lined with the last remnants of the 100% blue cotton.
Sleeves were made with the not-quite-satin but this time lined in purple definitely-satin, also leftovers from my very first ever, ever project of a 13/14th Century sideless surcote (I know it was not historically accurate but it was cheap and I was experimenting). Three eyelets, one at the top and two at the sides to correspond with the bodice and tied with very modern navy blue satin ribbon. You can see on the right-hand side one that the seam isn't even, something went wrong when cutting out the pieces and so one side was longer than the other. The lining process was done right this time, i.e right sides together then turn inside out and sew (God, I hope that is the right way but it worked better.)
The finished project off me because I want to talk about the skirt. This by far took me the longest when it shouldn't have and it was because of the design I have on it. There was no pattern for this design and to be honest I think it looks very similar to Vanozza's dress in HBO's The Borgias (that programme was completely not a factor when designing this dress).It was actually this pattern on Vanozza's dress that gave me the idea for mine....thanks The Borgias.
First thing first, the skirt is made from navy blue Duchesse satin and the strange grey not-quite-satin. What I had to do was cut out the duchesse satin from the pattern and alter it a little so it didn't join up at the front. There were markings on the pattern piece, don't ask me what they were for though, and I ended up using them to decide how thick the front grey piece was going to be (think it's larger than I planned for actually).
When all strange pieces were cut I had to sew the grey not-quite-satin onto the navy satin and boy did that take ages. There are no seams between the grey and blue because I was frightened that if I altered the navy I wouldn't do it properly. If I got a close up of that bottom border you would see it popping out of the invisible stitch I did.
I got really lazy with this project towards the end because things just kept getting in the way of my finishing it and I also lost my zeal for it, so the seams are raw and not finished, but at least the hem is ok...ish.
So that was my Italian 15th Century fantasy replica dress. It was done for the front cover of my first novel Poison Most Royal, published under the name L Barnett. Available on Amazon Kindle if you wish to read it. WARNING: not set in 15th Century Italy, is is strictly fantasy and set in a fantasy Kingdom.
I am undecided what to do my next project on. I really want to try an 1880's bustle dress but that comes with a load of trimmings like petticoats, the actual cage bustle and possibly the corset so perhaps when I'm more experienced. It's a toss up between patterns I already have and buying a new one. The Contenders are:
Lord of the Rings Eowyn green gown reproduction (but not in green velvet) and with this pattern.
18th Century gown reproduction. The only bad thing about this is those horrible panniers, but if they're not too big then I accept. This is the pattern I already own.
Lastly the open-robe regency-ish gown and the actual empire waisted gown, like the one worn by the lovely Hattie Morahan (on the right) as Eleanor Dashwood from the BBC's 2008 version of Sense and Sensibility.
Hopefully will be adding new blogposts soon, including a link to my published book, some information about it and perhaps a post about my latest travels.
