The Pink Italian has been progressing, despite spending all my weekend on work (Mary Kay party!) and helping Dad make a game pie. The pie - featuring rabbit, duck and venison - turned out very tasty indeed, although it was a lot of work. Definitely not how I had planned to spend my major sewing day last week. Still it was nice to spend some good father-daughter time in the kitchen (so important these days since Dad has a crazy work assignment uptown and is never home these days).

But back to the costuming...


So the bodice has been taken apart, the shoulder-strap lengthened, the neckline cut down, the twill interlining put back in, everything sewn back together, the trim hand-stitched on.


The one thing I managed to get to this weekend was the sewing on of the lacing rings. My original plan was hand-stitched eyelets, like the extent garments, but after freaking out about messing up on the unfamiliar spiral-lacing-on-a-curve idea I decided to go with lacing rings instead. They are easily moved, unlike eyelets! Using Festive Attyre's excellent Zen of Spiral Lacing I managed to get a good lacing ring layout - yay!


I'll probably go back and do eyelets at some point since I like the look of the lacing showing but for now I'm fine with the lacing rings.




Work has been started on the skirt as well. I'm using the pattern in Janet Arnold as my guide and a very rough guide it is. I'm trying to get the shapes and proportions right , which is a challenge considering the difference Eleonora di Toledo and my size and our fabric widths.


So basically I've got a front panel, a back panel and 2 sets of gores. I got the front and back sections sewn together and decided to pin them onto Narcissa before I sewed them together. Wow, what a pretty shape! The front isn't as full as I was thinking it would be but I think it will be fine. The train is lovely though and once it's shaped and hemmed I think the pieces will indeed be similar in shape to the Arnold pattern.

Seeing the dress pinned on Narcissa did give me a little reality check though of how impractical this train is for the Ren Faire. I'm not going to change it (cut off something THAT gorgeous, no way!) but I do need to protect it. So I need to line the back of the skirt and add a guard to the bottom of the train. So the skirt is on hold until I can get to the store for appropriate fabric, since the stash has none to offer.

I got a refund on my trim so the search for a plan "B" is fully underway. SOOO bummed but at least I didn't lose any money.

Tags: z:archive:16th:pink.italian