While I do not claim to be ANY sort of expert when it comes to sewing or creating period garb, due to the complete lack of directions and detailed information regarding the creation of Spanish garb, I want to chronicle what I do. Suggestions, tips or tricks that you have are more than welcome -- feel free to leave a comment.
Today's adventure....
Despite wanting to be further along on this project by now, work things have conspired against me. That said, the original chemise has been taken apart and I have marked the sleeves for applying the black ribbon.
First, I folded the sleeve in half (lengthwise) and ironed it. Then I folded the already halved sleeve in half again and ironed the fold to a crisp edge. I continued this 'halving' of the sleeve until I had made 4 folds. Upon opening the sleeve I had 13 ironed 'lines' (see picture on right). Since Anderson (1979) notes that the most stripes seen on a sleeve was 11, I decided to turn every other ironed line into a 'stripe' line. (see picture to right, click to enlarge)
Once the ironing was done, I turned the sleeve wrong-side up. Using a blue wash-out pen (available at most fabric stores) I placed small dots every 1/2 inch along the length of every other ironed line. This put the resulting dotted lines approximately 3-4 inches apart. (see picture on right, click to enlarge)
By marking the dots on what is effectively the 'inside' of the shirt sleeve, when I turn it over to the 'right' side to apply the ribbons, I will be able to cover the dots on the outside. The beauty of this is if the dots (by some misfortune) do not wash out, they will be covered by ribbon and not show on the outside of the shirt.
Random notes
In taking apart the original chemise I noticed several stains on the sleeves. Originally I was a bit bummed about that and considered scrapping the project until I could afford some new cotton, but then I had an epiphany. In period, a stain would not immediately result in scrapping the material. So I've decided to put the striped chemise back together, applying stripes over the stains if they happen to be over one of the marked dots. While the ribbons won't cover all of the staining (there is one rather large-ish one) it will mimimize them somewhat. Also, I'm going to replace the sleeves on the chemise so that the worst stain is on the back of the arm -- a little creative license. :)
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