Pooh Tunics are DONE.

Her Majesty’s Pooh Tunic: > 3/4 assembled (one side complete, the other not).

His Majesty’s Pooh Tunic: 1/2 to assembled.

TRM came by on Monday to check necklines (I’m soooo paranoid about necklines) and a good thing, too, because I need to put bigger gussets in His Majesty’s sleeves.

If I am a good little worker bee I should be able to have them done by the middle of next week.

This pile of “Pooh” colored linen (Shoshanna’s color-description, not mine) is destined to be tunics for TRM, to be worn either solo or under their Viking overlayers.  To be done by Pennsic (eep!).  Good thing I’m machine-sewing them!  :)

Several months ago I agreed to put front & back gores in an otherwise-finished tunic for HRM Maynard.  It’s something I’ve done lots of times but I had never been totally satisfied with how it came out.  I can DO it, I just don’t LIKE it.

Then Tasha posted her instructions for setting a gore in a slit.  Tasha, it must be said, is a lifesaver, because while this is not anything that I hadn’t seen before, she put it in a way that I could make sense of.  (And I think having the instructions to refer back to really helped, too.  Previously I’ve only been SHOWN how to do it.)  And the gores, they came out beautifully.  Sadly, I didn’t manage to get any good pictures of them but HRM wore the tunic for court at Pax and it looked great, at least from afar.

I counted this for my A&S 50 because, while I didn’t do the whole garment, the re-learning how to do center gores was a pretty big thing for me and definitely will have an impact on how I go about constructing 13th century clothing.

I entered Caleb’s armor into Baronial A&S Championships last weekend.  It’s done except for the hosen.

Read more here.

Did I get your attention?

Here are Caleb’s braies.  I did them in the “quick and dirty” style – a wide center panel with legs attached, as pictured here.  This is how I did braies when I first started making them – they give the right impression, ESPECIALLY when worn with hosen, but are pretty fast to make and don’t require draping them on the wearer.  I leave a small portion of the front seams open for access to the drawstring; it’s left open on both sides so that we can attach points directly to the drawstring and leave them there for the duration.

I haven’t seen them on him yet, but he tells me that the fit very well.  If Alicia can make it to textile guild next week, we’re going to drape his hosen pattern.

I did a quick drive-by at practice tonight to let Caleb try on his fencing undergarment and to deliver his braies.  The undertunic is put together pretty much the same way as Shoshanna’s coat – this was not my initial intention but I messed up the math on the gores so that they didn’t reach into the sleeves like I wanted them to.  I’ll correct this on the overtunic for sure.  The garment fits him perfectly – I just have to fix the neckline because M’s head is much smaller than Caleb’s.

Tall Child wants me to make her a 13th century riding tunic.  The fashion layer will be the purple wool in the middle of this picture; the lining will be either the periwinkle blue on the right or white.

C, what do you think?  What does the peanut gallery think?

I finished hemming HRH’s gown last night and wrestled the layers together and onto the dress form for a photo shoot.

It lies so much better with the underdress filling it out – the fashion fabric is very drapey, so it looked kinda weird all by its lonesome.

I did recycle my seam finishing error on the outer layer, too.  I’m still a little torn about it.  This fabric is soft & drapey enough that you really can’t tell from the outside… but it’s bulkier than I would like, too.  The good news is, you can see it much better in this picture than you could in the one of the underdress.  The sleeve gusset is at the top of this shot; the side gores are at the bottom.

It’s in the laundry now, then will be hung to dry & pressed before it’s delivered in time to be worn at Three Ravens in 10 days.

More complete docs coming soon.

The fabric that I’m working with is still annoying, and the results are still beautiful.  I have the neckline finished (stay tuned for a post just about the neckline, once I’ve taken pictures of it), both sleeves put in, and the gores and side seam done on one side.  There’s a LOT of skirt, and it’s lovely.  I’m very pleased.