#alki-sidequest

Here’s the concept drawing:

I went shopping at my local goodwill for good textiles to use, so I designed it with materials I had recently bought or already had in mind.

- My inspiration research originally started on viking clothing, and I originally wanted to make an apron dress, which is the cropped out sketch on the left

- I decided to scrap that though, since I have a HUGE stash of brocade from a thrifted set of tablecloths/napkins, and decided to go for something later and more Italian? to use it up. I’m not too familiar on historical costuming so I’m not sure what exactly to call it, but it’s definitely not viking

- I liked the concept of the viking apron dress though, so I’m designing the main dress to lace up the sides at least. The skirt will be pleated and sewn directly to the front/back bodice pieces, as it’d be with an apron dress, instead of a detached corset and skirt

- I also drew a lot of inspiration from Martha Boer’s work! Amidst the many, many photos of historical costumes on Pinterest, the beautiful dresses she makes for dolls really stood out to me. I love the way she combines textures, and the detail work is absolutely stunning. Looking at her photos, I instantly saw how I could use the textiles I already have to design a renaissance dress.

And here’s my progress on the front bodice so far! Over the years, I’ve realized I don’t exactly have the patience for properly patterning, and I prefer just to drape and cut. Luckily, I can get away with cutting a sufficiently large mess, hand stitching the edges together, and then binding those edges with tape.

The brocade is a poly satin tablecloth that I have an obscene amount of, and I’ll be using it for the rest of the main dress. The lining is just a cheap cotton print— I used layers of fabric (cotton and more of that brocade, I’m really just trying to get rid of it at this point) to give the bodice some stiffness, and then ultimately decided to add steel wire to the channels I incidentally created from sewing that altogether.

I have a big 10m roll of steel wire I had bought in accidentally too thick of a gauge for jewelry, so I’m happy to use that up for this project. I cut and looped the ends of wire for each of those channels— it didn’t use up as much as I was expecting. Then everything is just whip stitched together along the edges, save for the straps I’m still working on, no precise patterning required! I ordered some red velvet tape to bind the edges with.