Spanish split pane cap sleeves ...or more sewing math

Well, today was the Owl's Nest open house/work day. Ken and I toddled off around 11-ish with a whole car boot FULL of our various odds and sods: sewing machine, knitting, SCA craft box, embroidery, Ken's fencing gear, etc.... the works. With the fire roaring in the back yard grate and several tables set up on the back porch, I set about with a piece of newsprint and my sewing notebook to design a pattern for the Spanish split pane, cap sleeves that I have wanted to add to my dresses for a long time (see the picture to the right, the top half of the sleeve). But pattern drafting is never easy for me.

One word -- MATH.

Numbers and I just do NOT get along. The difficulty is that I can start to visualize how things SHOULD go, but I struggle with getting the figures right.

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And that is why....I am not a mathematician!

So, I am working on the farthingale using the Algeca pattern (check my previous post for a picture of the pattern). Now anyone who knows me knows that I went into journalism because I like words - NOT numbers. So, it should come as no surprise that working out the math for the farthingale pattern was a time consuming process. In fact, it took me nearly 4 hours of crunching the numbers before I was pretty sure I got it right.

Guess again, Einstein!

I used the Algeca pattern shapes and worked out how wide the bottom of each cut piece needed to be so that the finished hem would be somewhere in the order of 110 inches. Seemed simple enough - WRONG!

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Spanish Farthingale....part one

My SCA goal for the year was to create a completely period outfit from the skin out. Since I pfaffed the summer away, I won't meet the goal, but I am still making progress toward it. I finished the first part in the spring when I converted a plain, gathered neck chemise into a striped, round neck chemise. This past week I have finished the corset (minus the shoulder straps) and now on to part 3 - the farthingale.

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SUCCESS! The Corded Corset is DONE!

Well, thanks to a relaxing day off work I was able to finish my corset. I'm really pleased with how it turned out since it is my first attempt. I even added lacing holes to the sides so that I will be able to tie the farthingale onto the corset. Sometime in the next week I'll get around to adding tie-on shoulder straps to it.

As you can see from the back pictures (click 'read more' to see the pics), it laces completely shut - which wasn't expected. I'm thinking that I will eventually cut it up the front so that it laces from both the front and back. That would be useful as I'll be able to lace myself into the corset rather than needing Ken to do it each time I get dressed.

Next up on the agenda - Spanish hood/veil out of velvet and silk satin and marking out the embroidery for the muff.

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Corset Pictures...

I've been promising pictures of the corset, so here you go.

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Yet more projects and plans...deadline Nov. 20 :)

I had a perfectly lovely day running errands with Ken yesterday. We ran all over hill and dale (namely Atlanta and the regions around it). Our goals were to hit the army/navy surplus stores hoping to get lucky and score some cheap camping equipment for the November SCA event we want to go to. While we didn't score cheap camping equipment, we DID pick up some nifty things for some sewing projects for that event.

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Corset update....

Well, the corset is coming along. When trimming the plastic cable ties, the tin nips and gently melting the cut ends worked very well. After trimming all of the ties and the jute cord, the corset was pronounced by others as 'really neat'.

Now I'm on the odious task of putting lacing holes in the back. Since I am trying to maintain SOME form of authenticity, no metal grommets are being used, which means simply, that I am doing all of the lacing holes by hand. Yup, I use an awl, split the fibers apart and then with doubled red thread I hand stitch around each hole. It takes about 10-15 minutes per hole and I have 22 holes total to finish.

I don't really mind doing this. I actually like doing this type of hand sewing. The worst part is that I tend to kink my neck in an odd fashion while doing these things, and because of the tension I have to keep on the thread, after awhile it cuts my hands. So, if all goes well, I should have the lacing holes finished and the binding on the corset by the end of the weekend. Heres hoping anyway.... (pictures soon).