I’m making a set of 13th century gowns for HRH Liadain and took today (while watching the inauguration) to do the bulk of the construction on the underdress.  It’s all together now… I’m a little concerned about the fit of the sleeves, but we’ll know for sure how they’re fitting on Thursday.

The whole thing, inside out and not hemmed or anything.

These garments really don’t read well on the dress form, but what can you do? I’m definitely going to do center gores on the gown itself – HRH wants a keyhole neckline, too, so I’ll just do seams up the center front & back to facilitate the placement of those gores.

Sleeves… the top one is right side out; the bottom one is inside out.

Details of the gussets & gore tops, one of each side.  As I work to make the silhouette of these gowns more true to the contemporary illustrations, I’m putting more and more of the fullness of the top into the gussets – because otherwise you end up with VERY droopy shoulders, which just doesn’t look (or seem like it would feel) right to me.

So it’s hanging on the form to let the bias stretch out before I hand-fell the seams and hem it.  Once I know how well it’s fitting, I’ll be able to settle on the sizes of the various pieces of the gown (which will be done in a navy blue 85% wool blend) and get going on that.  Like the underdress, I’ll be doing the structural seams of that garment on the machine and the finishing by hand.