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Amateur cosplayers and ren faire goers are easily spotted by their lack of proper undergarments. You see paintings and pictures of the outer most layers, of course. And to be fair it takes a bit of research to find appropriate underclothes, but that's where I started on "L"'s dress. To keep costs at an absolute minimum I just used inexpensive percale flat sheets purchased from hotel suppliers on Amazon. Seriously - if you can break away from the traditional fabric store format of 44" wide fabric, sheets are a fabulous way to go. Some of the better ones are cut more on the grain than others, so I highly recommend taking out the hems and straightening the fabric right after washing in the hottest water possible. It may be plain, but these underclothes can undoubtedly take a rough beating and stand up to wear for years and years.
The original pattern I found for making a hoop skirt used a VERY LARGE rectangle with channels sewn in at intervals for the hoop insertion. The hoop material I was using wouldn't stand up in a channel on its own; it was made to be sewn down to the fabric directly. So, I though I'd use separate strips that were gathered at each level. In the future I'm not sure I'd use this method again, but it worked out ok this time.
I didn't take a picture of the top of my last-minute floating dress contraption, but the set up happened because I have a lower part of my ceiling that is covered duct work. I was able to put a nail in the trim and suspend an embroidery hoop, which I then used to hang the hoop skirt at the right height for "L"'s actual measurements. I used heavy duty button thread actually sewn through the hoop skirt waistband and tied plus taped at the embroidery hoop at the top. The polyester sew-in boning needed time to adjust to the skirt and I didn't want to leave it flat on my floor. But on to the chemise.
I had offered both the gathered raglan sleeve style above and a skinny arm version, and "L" chose the raglan sleeve. It really does fit better around the arm, and allows for lovely poofy bits on the outfit later on. Of all the pieces that make up a ren faire outfit, the underskirt is by far the easiest. In fact, I recommend it to beginning tailors who are comfortable buying other elements of their costume. It was the final piece of "underwear" for this costume, and came together in just a couple of hours. First, the chemise added to the outfit.  I guesstimated the height from the bodice pieces and hung a hanger on a separate string from the nail in the ceiling. Surprisingly through all of this the trim on the ceiling duct didn't come crashing down! There really aren't any construction photos of the underskirt, so here it is together on the floating thing.
There are two reasons I didn't build this on a dress dummy:
1. Kate has my real dress dummy at her house still, while she works on other dresses. 2. That dress dummy is a plus size model and "L" is a size 6-8. No way I can squeeze it down far enough! After a while my contraption suspended from the ceiling became known as the "floating lady." It worked just fine as a stand in dress dummy and even doubled for the basement ghost for a while! The dog kept walking underneath it, setting it twirling and spinning just out of the corner of my eye. However, this is actually preferable to the dog laying on the incomplete dress, which certainly would have happened otherwise. Next post will be the pretty stuff!
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You may recall these green/black Renaissance dresses I'm making are meant to be matching. As such, the pictures of the garment construction up until the little differences DO start to appear is a little confusing. I didn't even try to post photos on Facebook, although I did keep Kate up to date with progress pictures.
Sewing this chemise the second time around took waaaaay less time. This could also be because I already had the pieces cut out, but I'm sticking to my initial sense of accomplishment. Similarly, the underskirt took almost no time at all. Granted, the pleats aren't even, and I didn't even use a style of skirt closure that requires me to get even close to Kate's waist measurement. If I ever sell these skirts on Etsy, this is how I'm making the closure. So, so easy and can cover a variety of waist measurements! Plus, I didn't even melt any fabric with my iron this time around!
Part of the reason the underskirt took less time was because this time around I knew exactly how much fabric I could use for it and how much would need to be left over for the color blocking on the bodice and skirt. I didn't take any pictures of the construction process, and the bodice even looks the same as my own, even if the decoration on the sari is different.
What I didn't get last time was a progress picture of my cheater's method of putting in even-ish box pleats. Having a dress dummy around for this part of the construction saved my bacon. And sanity. Also, because of the way Kate's sari was embroidered she actually has a little more fabric in her skirt than me, but I did have to do some extra hemming and the pattern at the waistband meant the seam allowance on the bodice/skirt seam has no extra wiggle room. I serged the inside edges just to be safe.
And that's all she wrote folks!
No, I did actually get her dress done and delivered. Funny story about the sleeves though: I ran out of wunder-under for the black bands on her sleeves. (Wunder under is a sort of iron-activated web of glue to fuse larger pieces of fabric together.) 3M heavy duty spray adhesive to the rescue! Seriously, it worked almost as well. And of course there were slight adjustments to be done to the shoulder seam, but otherwise it fit pretty well. Kate and I were also able to work on the headpieces to be worn under the black hats for this dress, and for the outfits she's designing. I was relieved because now I can concentrate on Ryan's outfit and...my dress commission! I'm excited, so look for future posts about the dress for Ms. De La Cruz. :) I have a lot more to update than I realized… so I’m dividing the posts up. I also realized if I want to refer back to these it would be easier to divide things. So, on to part 2: the short chemise! I wanted to try a short chemise ever since I heard of it on a little website called GermanRenaissance.net. I bought voile fabric since it was cheaper and easier to find in the fabric store than tissue-weight linen. We’ll see how a polyester/cotton blend holds up for a full day in costume.  So filmy! It was a little squirrely to cut out. Because I bought the fabric before seeing the pattern, AND the pattern is for upholstery sized fabric I had to do a little piecing at the bottom to get two chemises cut out without having to buy more.  I laid out the sleeves wrong at first and nearly had a panic attack that I'd ruined the small amount of fabric I did have... But rotating it 90 degrees solved the problem, and you'll see why later on. I used fancy French seams and flat felled seams on most of it. Really, the serger would have been easier, but less durable. Of course, this turned a simple one-evening worth of work into two, as French or flat-felled seams take double the sewing and ironing time.  There were definitely regrettable decisions made on which order to sew the seams in, but this is why I made mine before Kate's. After the seams comes what I had been dreading for a while: learning how to smock a piece of fabric. The instructions online seemed overwhelming, and the examples of fancy work I had seen looked incredibly time consuming. Here goes nothing!
The honeycomb smocking was so soft against my neck. I was surprised at how easy it was! Sure, the marking took a while, but I completed the neck smocking in one evening. More complicated smocking leaves the pleats together and a pattern is sewn on top in place of the even green stitches, but who has time for that? Smocking has been called "Renaissance elastic" and it does work a bit like gentle elastic. Neat-O!  The wrist smocking was a little trickier in a smaller space, but I was practiced! It took just over an evening for both wrists. The green thread was limited, and this would be hidden so I just used black. I could finally put a piece of the costume on my dress dummy! Sure, she was a little risque with how thin the fabric was, and her hoop skirt is in a fun print, to say the least. But progress! I was thrilled!  And yes, the sleeves really are supposed to be that long. On to the underskirt next!
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