FO: Medieval Garb For A Madrigal Feast, Part 3

Sub title for this post: The Dress The Thrift Store Built. Sub-Sub title for this post: The Most Hand Sewing I Have Ever Done, lol.

This is the final post of a 3 part series on how I made this costume. If you haven't seen the previous ones, they can be viewed following these links:
Part 1: Top and Skirt here
Part 2: The Hat here

So, here is my finished costume :) Just slightly more medieval looking than my first post, eh?

So, after my first post about the base top and skirt, I did a little embellishing :) In a very fortuitous thrift store run, I found this brown floral printed poly organza material. It was completely random - I had already made the top and skirt, and I knew I wanted long, drapey sleeves, but I still was trying to figure out what fabric to use. Then I found this stuff. Fate! Finding this fabric also solved my other problem of what type of trim to use. I had a 10 yard bundle of the brown twisted upholstery piping that I had bought from The Sewing Studio during one of their sales intending to use it on a bench. Happily I still have enough left over for that if I want to make it someday :) But because the floral organza was brown, I went with the brown piping. Yay for everything coordinating!

Since I was adding the piping after the top was complete, I hand sewed the piping to the neckline and hem. The insides aren't as perfectly lovely as they were, but no one will see them but me. I had to do two lines of stitching to try and get the piping to lay flat at the neck, and it's still a bit wavy, but not enough to bug me. I kept telling myself, "It's a costume."

The sleeves were self drafted ... after I looked in the pattern booklet of a McCall's pattern with a drapey sleeve I liked, lol. Once I saw what the piece was shaped like, I just freehand cut my own. I made sure the top was the same width as my sleeves so they would line up, then did a circular curve down to the bottom hem. Since this is totally sheer, I french seamed the curved seam. Since the silk sleeve was already finished, I went ahead and finished this sleeve too before attaching them. I double turned the hem and top stitched at the top and bottom. I decided to add piping where the sleeves connect as well, which was ridiculously complicated, lol, mainly because everything was finished and there was no place to hide the end of my piping. Luckily there is so much going on right at my elbow that you don't notice the back of the piping through the sheer fabric at all. I deliberately made the sleeves to cover my hands, then I rolled them back at my wrist for added drama. The sleeves were fun until I needed to reach across the table while eating, lol.

I lucked out in the jewelry department. I knew I wanted a statement necklace that was long to add interest on my fairly plain front, so I dug through my costume jewelry I've collected over the years and came across this amazing brown and clear rhinestone set. The necklace was designed to be worn much, much higher on the neck, so I found a gold filled chain and added gold filled rings at the clasp pieces to connect them, giving me the perfect length of necklace :) I was worried it would look a little janky where the clasps connect, but happily they hit right at my neckline and the piping masks it. I also had matching clip on earrings that didn't hurt my ears (!), lol that never happens (I hate clip ons). The only other piece I had to hunt for was some other type of necklace that coordinated to wear at the base of my neck (every medieval portrait I saw had their necklaces double wrapped like this). I found a gold plated necklace with a few pearls periodically and called it good. I also borrowed a gold filled jade bracelet and a brown rhinestone bangle bracelet from work  - one of the big perks to working in the jewelry industry is that you generally always have access to the right jewelry for an occasion like this :)

I also broke out some shoes I've irrationally held onto for years yet never wear, lol. They are a more grass green color, but they are brocade and have little jewels at the top :) They worked great. Not that anyone saw them in my floor length skirt, but you can see a little peak in this photo.

Now for the big picture dump, lol. Our event was hosted at the First Presbyterian Church in Titusville, with madrigal music provided by Broadstreet, Soliloquy, and Cross Pointe (all local singing groups), as well as a fantastic guitar and mandolin player who played while we ate dinner. The event was catered and we had to eat with our hands (yes, really). All the performances were woven together with a (slightly cheesy) little play, all masterfully done by our jester, Walter. This was a big combined effort, and I think everyone looked great. Here is our whole group:

Everyone's costumes looked so good! And happily I didn't feel like I stuck out as the girl with a box on her head, lol.

Our whole group sat on the stage as the "Royal Court of King Mario", while the "peasants" sat at tables on the main floor. When we came in, we mingled as we walked forward, then we had toasts and sang a bit, then we had dinner. Dinner was followed by our singing performances.

The top picture was Soliloquy while performing (usually we have 2 more ladies, but they couldn't make it this time). Soliloquy sang The Lark in the Morn and Nightengale, The Organ of Delight (which is the best title ever, lol). The bottom picture is Broadstreet, and we sang April Is In My Mistress' Face and Fire, Fire In My Heart.

This was before we went out and started. Walter definitely had a lot of energy. lol.

Ok, so I have to pause and give amazing cred to Mario for his mad sewing skills. Not only did he make several dresses and tunics for others, he also made his whole costume. Look at that jacket! Isn't is fantastic?! 

Me and Walter with a little creepy Peggy photobomb, lol. Walter and I went to high school together, so it's really funny to do things together now. Oh how life ends up, right?

Chillin' with my honey on the side lines after we sang :) This is our first performance he's been able to attend, so it was nice having him there.

And he was kind enough to carry my hat out for me when we left :)

So that was my first experience with a madrigal feast :) In spite of the hectic sewing and planning I've done over the last month on this project, it was really nice to see everything come together. In spite of my initial reservations on my hat, I really enjoyed having it with my costume and I felt it tied everything in. I felt very put together, and I got a lot of compliments. We had some fun comments too - like since we were singing songs about birds I made a bird house for my head, lol. All in good fun. I'm pretty proud of this whole costume, and now I am ready if I ever want to go to a renaissance fair or something, lol.

Summary:
Fabric: Skirt: 2.5 yards of green raw silk - $3.75 (thrifted), embroidered quatre foil scrap piece - $0.10 (thrifted), Top: 2 yards cream raw silk - $7.50  (thrifted), 1 yard brown floral printed poly organza - $0.50 (thrifted), 1/2 yard (148" wide) white bridal muslin - $3 (remnant) Hat: 2/3 yards brown floral printed poly organza, scrap pieces of green and white silk, scraps of white bridal muslin, scraps of embroidered decorator fabric
Pattern: Kwik Sew 3381 - $0.50 (thrifted), Gabled Hood Tutorial by Hathaways of Hayworth - free
Notions: Skirt: interfacing - $1.00, zipper $0.10 (thrifted), green thread - $2.00, snap fastener - $0.10, 2 2/3 yards horsehair braid - $2.00, 1 yard brown twisted piping - $0.75 Top: zipper - $0.10 (thrifted), cream thread - $2.00, 3.5 yards brown twist trim - $2.25, brown thread - $1.00 Hat: cardboard box, packing tape, 1.5 yards of twisted brown piping - $1, 2 clear plastic hair combs - $2.00, thread (green, white, and brown)
Time: At least 40 hours spread over 1 month
Total Cost: $29.65

Woo hoo! I had no idea what my final total was until posting this, and I'm pretty proud that I was able to make something like this for less than $30 :) Yay for being cheap and thrifting! This was a fun project, but I'm hoping I don't have to make any other costumes for a while, lol.

FO: Medieval Gabled Hood (Medieval Garb For A Madrigal Feast Part 2)

I know - I said I would make this project 2 posts, but now it's turned into 3, lol. If you're not interested in construction of medieval hats, you may want to skip this one. But if you want to see me with a box on my head, read on...

Here's a little teaser shot of my costume - you'll see many more soon of the whole thing, but I wanted to give a proper post to my hat, because dang it if that thing wasn't a ton of work! My best estimate is that I spent about 10 hours just on the hat. Yeah. *sigh* Anyway, I've always loved this type of hat in movies. It's called a gabled hood (apparently - I didn't know until I wanted to make one, lol), and this hat was popular from 1500 to 1599. Granted, that's the end of the middle ages, but some of the other people in my group have aspects of the Tudor period in their costumes as well, so I just went for it.

I started out just searching for medieval hat tutorials and inspiration photos, which lead me to find the Hathaways of Hayworth website. Man, if you need to make a Tudor era costume, I highly recommend looking around her site. She has some pretty amazing costumes that she's made, and she shows the easiest way to produce them. I'll admit I was a little skeptical when I first read through the Easy Gabled Hood tutorial, but her hat did look awesome, so I went for it (and my emotions on the subject went very up and down, lol).

First, you construct a box out of corrugated cardboard, which lead to many Instragram photo ops. I used an obliging Amazon box that seemed big enough and started cutting. At first it stuck way off my head at that back, so I had to re-score and trim a few times before I liked the look from the side. It could still go a little closer to my head in the back, but I was really over cutting it and redoing it all at that point so I just kept it like this. You hold it all together with packing tape, and she advises you cover the entire thing in the tape (which I didn't exactly do, but I came close). The tape is what makes things more pliable, but I had a hell of a time trying to bend this closer to my face on the sides. The gabled hoods I always like angle toward the chin, but about this time is when I realized that I needed to be careful not to cover my ears completely since I needed to be able to hear to sing and not be off key - oops. So I tried to curve the sides a bit and then curve back out, which didn't really work and it mostly just looked like a regular box, lol. Ah well.

Next she tells you to "tack down lining material" on the inside. To do this I used hot glue to attach a large scrap of white bridal muslin to the upper front edge (with the fabric going down the back like a veil), then I flipped the fabric into the hat, covering the cardboard edge with the fabric. I had to pleat the fabric so it laid nicely at the corners (which was not fully necessary since this area was completely covered, but it made sewing the trim on easier). I kept the fabric taut in the back of the hat so my head didn't completely sink in, then I pleated the excess in the back so it looked nice, folded the bottom edge under and hot glued around the edge. I tried to keep this neat because you might be able to see it in the back (again, not necessary because my silk and veil covered everything, but still, lol). Next I took a large scrap of my green silk, folded the selvage under all the way down, and draped it over the hat. I pleated the silk so it laid nicely on the box frame, then sewed large darts with my sewing machine to keep the back nice and smooth. Then I hand sewed the green silk to the white lining all the way around. I wound up wrapping the excess silk around the bottom edge on the sides since you wouldn't be able to see this when worn and it made sewing it together much easier. I used a ladder stitch so the stitches are not visible at all. While all that was going on, I had to decide what trim would cover the front area framing my face. I wanted it to be interesting but also to match the rest of my outfit, so I decided to use the skinny scrap piece of embroidered quatre foil fabric that I used for my sash and put the same brown upholstery piping on either side. This was a challenge to figure out the final width, but I got there in the end. I machine sewed the piping to the fabric strip on both sides, then I had to make darts at all of the points so it would lay flat and each of these darts had to be sewn by hand since there was too much bulk to get under my machine foot.

My scraps of silk I used to cover the box were not quite long enough in the back. At this point I had not decided to add a veil and I wanted to make sure the back was nicely covered, so I used more scrap pieces and made a triangular piece of fabric to cover the area and still look nice on the back. I ladder stitched this in place as well, taking care to line up the point with the center seam for effect. This covered the last of the cardboard and kept everything completely sealed, which was nice :) I took a picture just to document how nice it looked since no one will see it like this now, lol. But I knew it looked nice!

Next came hand sewing all the way around the front to attach the trim piece. This was an interesting challenge. I used a ladder stitch to keep things invisible, and had to make sure everything stayed positioned correctly to line up at the corners. I also tried to curve the piping a bit on the lower sides to give more of the illusion of the whole piece curving. It worked a little.

Next I took the entire remaining piece of my brown floral poly organza I used for my sleeves (which you will see soon, lol), and made a veil. I kept the bottom straight and rounded the top to give the right shape. I did a narrow rolled hem all the way around this piece because I didn't want it to unravel and this stuff frayed like the Dickens. I gathered most of the top to give a good poof on the back, then hand sewed the veil in place. You can also see my sash here (which is what the trim fabric from the hat was originally used for). For the sash I used as much of my little fabric scrap as possible, angling to be slightly narrower at the top, and cutting beveled corners on the bottom to make it look fancier. This thing was super fiddly. I tried to be very careful with the print to make sure it was centered and even all the way down. Next I sewed my brown upholstery piping around the edges, then I sandwiched the whole thing with another scrap of the white bridal muslin to enclose everything on the back. It was really annoying to make (especially because I thought it would be such a quick thing to whip up), but I'm really happy with how it turned out and I think it really gave my outfit a more completed look. Since I want to be able to wear the skirt in a non-costume context, I just attached the sash with safety pins inside the edge of my waistband, so it's removable :)

The final design step on my hat was to add little white silk flaps. At this point I was really worried about looking like a medieval robot with a box on my head, lol, and I felt the flaps might give it more depth or something - a lot of the portraits I looked at had these white edges of the coif (a white cap that held their hair in place) sticking out from the sides, so I felt it might make it look more realistic. I was reaching for anything at that point, to be honest. I was extremely unsure about this thing I had just created. Anyway, these were extremely easy. I used scraps of the white silk from my top and cut squares, folded them in half and sewed the sides, flipped them right-side out and pressed, then folded the open side inward and top stitched it closed. Then I just had to position them and hand stitch them to the hat lining. After this the only remaining step was to sew in two clear hair combs at the front of the lining to keep the hat secure on my head as I moved around (which worked great).

Phew! You've lasted through my first ever millinery experience :) I'll be totally honest - I was still hesitant about my creation when I pulled up to the event. It's one of those bold statement pieces that you either feel super confident in or not, and I was definitely questioning my choices. Happily it looked great with everyone else's costumes. I was so worried I would stick out, being the only one with a box on my head, but it looked fine mixed with the other outfits and I felt much more confident about it. Anyone else ever have that happen? My husband even wore it after I finished, lol.

So that's the down low on my hat :) Next post will be all about the finished outfit and the event itself!

FO: Medieval Garb For A Madrigal Feast, Part 1

Sub title for this post: The Dress The Thrift Store Built.

If anyone has wondered what I've been up to the past month and a half or so, this is it, lol. This was shaping up to be a huge post with all the work that went into this project, so I decided to split it into two parts. This is actually how I went about making the dress too, so it works out :) So this post will have a very normal looking outfit, but don't you worry - this baby got a lot more costumey looking by the end, lol.

Anyway, the singing groups I am a part of, Soliloquy and Broadstreet, are performing in a Madrigal Feast at a local church. Having never done singing other than broadway style in high school, I had heard the term "madrigals" talked about by the chorus students, but I didn't really have any idea what it meant. So don't feel alone if you don't know what I'm talking about, lol. According to dictionary.com: noun

1. a secular part song without instrumental accompaniment, usually for four to six voices, making abundant use of contrapuntal imitation, popular especially in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Basically it's a medieval party with people singing difficult multi-part songs. And guys, this music is hard. Like you have to pay really close attention and you are the only one singing your part, and no one really has the melody because it is shared between the group, and if you get lost there is no real point you can jump back in because everyone is doing something different, lol. It's been an experience just to learn the music, but I also had to make myself a costume. I'll confess: I've always wanted to make a medieval costume. Back in the 90s, they were "the thing", and I always begged my mom to sew me one. Being a sane woman, she always said no, lol, but I've always appreciated the styles and the intricate patterns Andrea Schewe put out for Simplicity back then. I didn't have any of those patterns in my collection, and I wasn't about to spend $25 for their on demand printing service, so I hunted my pattern stash for something else I could manipulate into the medieval style.

Before I could pick a pattern, I had to figure out my fabric. I dug through my stash and set aside anything and everything that could work, but nothing really jumped out and inspired me. I decided to go thrifting and see what I could find, and over the course of a few weeks (and a few trips to different stores) I was able to find almost everything I needed for this outfit. I Know! Crazy. The biggest find was the fabric you see in this post. A local thrift store was having a clear out sale and marked everything in their back room at 50% off, plus they had a bag sale going on for their cut pieces of fabric (of which they had tubs and tubs full) where you got a grocery bag stuffed full of your choices of fabric for $5. I hunted through the tubs and managed to find some neat things, but nothing big enough for this project. That is always the issue with any dress of this time period - it takes a lot of fabric. Most patterns called for 5 to 7 yards just of your main fabric, some even more. There were a few rolls of fabric in the corner, so I walked over to check out that situation and what should I find but 2 rolls of real raw silk! I Know! I couldn't snatch them up fast enough. I walked out with 7 yards of tealy green and 2 yards (marked as 3 yards, but whatever) of white silk for $17.50. For 9 yards of silk! lol I'm still a bit in disbelief. The fabrics are very slubby and textured, particularly the white. I'm not sure what type of silk it is, but I didn't care. I knew they would be perfect for this project. So now I was able to make a medieval dress in fabric that was true to the time period - pretty cool :)

Next step was to pick a design. I had a few actual costume patterns, but in the end I decided to use Kwik Sew 3381. I picked this pattern up at a thrift store a few months ago for 50¢, and it's a nice formal wear design with a top and a full length skirt. I liked the idea of separates, mostly because that way I could wear this skirt in a non-costume setting as well if I wanted to. A skirt like this is a bit fancy for everyday, but it's a versatile thing for other costumes or if I need a fancy dress for another event or something. I used the green silk for the skirt (since I had plenty for that) and the white for the top.

The skirt came first since I knew it would be easiest to fit. I had to add a little bit to the waistband since my waist is slightly bigger than the largest size of this pattern, but it was very straight forward to make. I added 1/2" to the sides at the waist and hip at each side and at the CB, angling down to nothing after the hips. I added 3.5" to the length so it would cover my feet and skim the floor. I also had to change the angle of the bottom of the skirt because my fabric was not quite wide enough. I followed the angle of the pattern (slightly a-line) until just before the selvage, and then just curved a bit to go straight down. This made hemming more complicated, but the skirt is so full you can't tell anything was changed in person.

I had to do a bit of easing to get the skirt to match the waistband (maybe I shouldn't have added to all the seams - oh well), so I kept the gathered sections to the back of the skirt. It's a bit puckery, but I knew my top would cover it, so I didn't bother to redo it. I did a lapped zipper just to keep things fancy with my fancy fabric (and to keep the illusion of not having a zipper since they didn't exist back then), and it turned out beautifully if I do say so myself :) The waistband was really skinny, so I just added a sewn in metal snap to the overlap piece and hand sewed the edges of the tab closed. I've never been able to figure out how to close up the overlap pieces after a zip insertion with the machine in any way that looked good. Anyone know the trick? Anyway, because of my finagling the angle of the hem, things got a bit wonky at my side seams. No matter what I tried I just could not get a nice looking hem with my machine, so I decided to hand sew it. I machined some 5/8" wide horsehair braid to the edge first to keep the shape of the hem, then I folded it over double and hand stitched with a blind catch stitch. This took almost 2 hours of hand sewing, but once pressed it looked so good! I'm really happy with it. The close up here looks a bit wavy, but this was after wearing the dress that day and then transporting it in the car. Trust me - it was smooth and wonderful :)

The top was much, much more complicated. I cut out a muslin in the largest size and did everything the "couture" way since I knew I'd have to make adjustments. I had to make so many adjustments I can't even remember them all, lol. Here's a list of what I remember:

• I took it up at the shoulder joint of the neckline about 2.5" on each side for my hollow chest
• took the shoulder seams in 1"
• scooped out the neckline to compensate for raising the shoulder seam
• added 3.5" in length at the hem, extending the darts
• cut in armscye 1" on each side
• took in sleeves 5/8" at seam
• shortened sleeves by 4.5"
• took a 3" wedge out of upper center back seam angling to nothing (for "dowager's hump", lol)

I'm sure there were a few other changes in there as well. Basically I put on the muslin inside out, pinned out an adjustment, ripped the old seam and resewed the new alteration, tried it on again and repeated the cycle over and over for each change. I spent about 2 hours just taking the thing on and off, trying different things - some worked, some didn't. I got things pretty good in the muslin, so I moved on to my real top a few days later.

Cutting out the white silk was a complete nightmare. I didn't want to use colored wax paper since it would show through as this silk is a bit sheer, but I had to mark 8 darts. I tried the "couture" way of using white wax paper, but this fabric is so slubby that I couldn't tell if the lines I was seeing were the wax or just the weave of the fabric. I marking the darts completely with pins, but then came the problem of how to pin the legs together with all those pins lining them already? I finally had enough after a few hours of trying to cut this out and mark it, so I just used friction pens, lol. I've heard a few horror stories of the pen showing up as a ghosty mark later on, but since this top is just a costume I wasn't too worried about it. As long as it looks good on the day I need it, I'm fine. Maybe I'll just hit it with the iron again later if the mark show up again, lol. Once everything was cut and marked, the sewing itself was a breeze.

Since the silk is fairly sheer, I lined the top with a white bridal muslin remnant I had on hand. It felt a bit silly to go to this effort for a costume, but it really needed the lining. After wearing the top once, I see now that I really needs boning too, but I'm not going to worry about it. Can't be bothered since it's all sewn up!

I did a lapped zipper on the side, which turned out great :) I really love lapped zippers. The insides look so pretty and enclosed from the lining! I didn't fuss with lining the sleeves, and I just set them in like normal and finished the inside with pinking shears. I knew I was going to add fancy bell sleeves at the elbow, but I also knew I wouldn't have them finished in time for when I needed to wear something as a little ad plug for the show, so I just double turned the sleeve hem and top stitched for that day.

I realized it was still loose on that day of the ad plug, so I keep pulling it toward the back to look a bit tighter. In my muslin I deliberately left some ease at the waist because when I sit down I need the extra space in the tummy and we will be sitting and standing, but it doesn't give the most flattering silhouette standing :/ I thought that this silk would be stiffer, but it has a much softer look all sewn up. It's kind of a bummer, but the entire top is lined and I even hand sewed the openings so it is completely sealed. Technically I think it needs boning in the seams to hold the shape, and possibly a stiffer fabric for the lining, but that's not going to happen at this point, lol. I'm probably going to safety pin the back tighter for the performance and then remove the pins for the rest of the night (which would look like the first picture at the top where I'm holding it back, lol). We'll see what works.

So that's the story with the base of my medieval outfit :) The top feels kind of boring at this stage, but you will see how that changed in Part 2 of this post (coming soon to a blog near you, lol). I am pleasantly surprised at how much fun the skirt is to wear, so I am really happy I chose to do the separates since I am sure I will be wearing that skirt again. It's so swishy and light. I definitely see why people like silk (having never really worn it much, this is a learning experience).

I'll be wearing the completed costume tonight, so I will be able to report how it wore in my next post. So check back soon to see how I jazzed this baby up to look like a costume!