Gallery of In Progress Projects

[Lady Kathleen of Olmsted]

I started work on the 2nd Captain Teague coat for a client who is getting married at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, mid September. His Best man is my Captain Barbossa. I hear Jack SParrow is supposed to crash the wedding saying.."I love weddings! Drinks all around."

[Ser Niall]

Made some major progress this week on my doublet.  Had a couple of issues I had to work through, mostly with the braided trim.  Where two pieces of trim met at a seam, the sewing machine ground to a halt due to the thickness.  I had to just hand sew those parts.  Other than that, I think it's coming along nicely for my first project.  All I really need to do is the bottom skirting and buttons.  Not sure if I'll have time to get the sleeves made before we head out to the MI Ren Fest, we'll see 





Close up of the trimming.  I really like the way it looks on the doublet.  It's a gold braid that has an emerald green ribbon through it that looks nice against the green brocade fabric:

[DonaCatalina]

Coming along very nicely indeed!

[Rennigirl]

  Not sure if I'll have time to get the sleeves made before we head out to the MI Ren Fest, we'll see 

I will have to make sure I am on the look out for you!  I am at MIRF usually every Saturday.

[Ser Niall]

One of the things my pattern instructions seem to gloss over is how to attach the sleeves to the doublet.  I'm not sure if I was supposed to sew something already to the doublet in the seam between the main body and the shoulder wings, but the instructions didn't say anything about it.  Am I supposed to put some sort of eyelet construction in there to tie the points from the sleeves to?   Any recommendations are highly appreciated!

[Lady Kathleen of Olmsted]

Sir Naill,

I use 1/2" Plastic Drapery rings that you can find at JoAnn Fabrics. I use the Sleeve where I have sewn the Ribbon Ties, line it up with the inside of the Doublet Armscythe, mark with a pin, then sew the rings onto the inside so they do not show. That way the ties attach.



Where you see the ribbons on the sleeves, there are ties sewn on the isnide of the doublet.

[Rennigirl]

One of the things my pattern instructions seem to gloss over is how to attach the sleeves to the doublet.  I'm not sure if I was supposed to sew something already to the doublet in the seam between the main body and the shoulder wings, but the instructions didn't say anything about it.  Am I supposed to put some sort of eyelet construction in there to tie the points from the sleeves to?   Any recommendations are highly appreciated!

There are more than a few ways to skin that cat. 

1. Find some sort of ring type thing (called lacing rings) as Kath suggested.  Sew that to the doublet under the armscrye (arm hole) and then sew ties to the sleeve. 

2.  Reverse #1 and sew the ties to the doublet and the lacing rings to the sleeve.

3.  Sew one tie to the doublet and one tie to the sleeve.  Tie together to attatch the sleeve.

4.  Sew decorative buttons over the top of the armscrye.  Sew loops to the sleeve (I usually cheat and use elastic).  Attatch sleeves by buttoning them.

I am sure there are more, but these are methods I have used in the past.  Also - you can hide your fastening of choice so you really don't notice the ties or you can make them as visable and as fancy as you want.   

[Rowan MacD]

Sir Naill,

I use 1/2" Plastic Drapery rings that you can find at JoAnn Fabrics. I use the Sleeve where I have sewn the Ribbon Ties, line it up with the inside of the Doublet Armscythe, mark with a pin, then sew the rings onto the inside so they do not show. That way the ties attach.

My daughter gifted me with her leftover jewelry supplies, I found that the rings form the ring/toggle sets for making bracelets work nicely as sleeve tie rings.  I have a set embellished with roses in the armholes of my bodice.
   Now I just need to figure out how to tie on the points to look nice.  What knot do I use? The points have aglets.

[gem]

http://www.florentine-persona.com/tying_bows.html

That link will take you to instructions for tying period knots, like the ones in this painting:

[Rowan MacD]

http://www.florentine-persona.com/tying_bows.html

That link will take you to instructions for tying period knots, like the ones in this painting:

This is great, I will use the idea on the sleeve openings, but I am using a ring/single point method to attach the sleeves to the arm holes (rings sewn to the doublet, one string to the top of the sleeve.)
 Is there a half hitch or some nice looking (and easy to do) knot I can use to tie off the point to a ring? I do not have two ends to work with so a bow will not do.

[isabelladangelo]

I know it doesn't look like much, but all that thread wrapped around the stand in the picture is thread I hand spun using a drop spindle. I started on it three years ago.  (I'd put the project away, a lot, and forget where I put it...for months.)  It's 100% wool and just needs to dry (after I wrapped it, I soaked it).   In a couple of days, I can use it for my next big embroidery project!   After I finished my current one.   

[Kate XXXXXX]

That's lovely!  Love the colour.

[Ser Niall]

Finally have my skirting attached, which was no small project.  Since I had to modify the size of the body pattern, I had to add length the skirting as well.  However, I always forget to account for seam allowance when doing this, so I had made up two perfectly good pieces of skirting that ended up being too short.  I've done this twice now with this project, let's hope I've learned my lesson!  I also did the side seams incorrectly, so I had to take them apart and redo.

Just about complete now.  I just have to add the buttons and loops to call it complete.  And then I'm onto the slops.

One question...   the skirting doesn't seem to want to hang nicely when I wear the doublet, it kind of looks mishapen in the front.  Is this something I'm going to have to press out with an iron, or should I have added something like a stiff interfacing to prevent this?


The corduroy fabric looks dirty in this picture, but it's just the lighting.



These are the metal shank buttons I'm going to use, they finally came in last night.  Purchased from ebay, they have a nice antique gold look to them.



I apologize for the photo quality, I just snapped these pictures quickly with my phone this morning.

[gem]

Looking awesome, Niall!

I'm working with the same kind of skirting on my FIL's doublet--it's deceptive, isn't it? Seems like it would be the most totally straightforward thing, but it's actually pretty tricky! I had to draft the pattern piece for mine (it came with split tabs instead of solid skirting), and deal with size alterations, plus I cut the back skirting pieces wrong the first time. Gah! So, yes. Right there with you!!

Definitely grab your iron and see if you can flatten those babies out. A little steam shrinkage can work wonders. If you can't, a couple of things might have happened. First, it looks like it might have stretched along the bias (the diagonal cut edges), which is really common. Less handling + some fusible interfacing would have helped that. A second possibility is that it's just a smidge too long (along the length of the piece, not top to bottom), and instead of crisp solid skirting, you've ended up with a bit of a flounce. A flounce is a sort of ruffle made of a curved pattern piece where the outside/bottom curve is much larger than the inside curve (where it attaches to the rest of the piece). This picture shows how to expand a simple curve into a flounce. Even a slight bit of excess will make that ruffly look--in fact, that's the same thing that would happen if it did get stretched along the bias slightly. (And I know this, too, because I drafted sleeve tabs for FIL's doublet that ended up flouncy instead of straight!)

[Ser Niall]

Even a slight bit of excess will make that ruffly look--in fact, that's the same thing that would happen if it did get stretched along the bias slightly. (And I know this, too, because I drafted sleeve tabs for FIL's doublet that ended up flouncy instead of straight!)

Were you able to fix it?  If steam pressing it doesn't help, do you think it would do much good to take the skirting apart and stick a piece of stiff interfacing in there?