Miss Philomena

The auction for the damask I was bidding on was pulled. D: But there were six days left and bidding was almost up to my limit anyway, so even if it had run the full time, I probably would've lost it anyway. Sooooo I went looking for something else and snatched this damask as a BIN. It's pink and gold, obviously, but as the V&A mantua was a blue and silver damask in what looks like a large, repeating pattern, I figure it will do just fine. There's 8 yards of the pink and gold, which is what I was figuring on needing.

It didn't process when I first started looking at the Met's mantua, but it has a center back measurement of 104 inches. Now, going by my own measurements at 5'6, from the back of my neck to the floor is about 54 inches. That means the train of the mantua is 50 inches, or over 4 feet long. Now that's a lot of brocade dragging on the floor. But for the sake of pictures being faithful to the original, I'm going to make mine that long as well. Because of the way the Met has it draped, I think I can sneak some type of lining/backing for the train. I'm toying with the idea of flatlining it with silk organza, because it won't add much bulk. Do you have any thoughts on that, flist?

I also (finally) stopped dragging my feet about the stays I'll need for under this. My original thought was that I'd either have to use steel boning or order reed. But then I realized there might be something left over from when my dad used to re-cane chairs. His stuff was all either round or square, so I grabbed the smallest he had, which is about 1/8" diameter. (It's been hanging in the garage for who knows how many years collecting dust and dirt, so I'm soaking it in the tub overnight to get it a bit cleaner.) I'm hoping two reeds per channel will be strong enough. I might also do every fourth or fifth channel with steel anyway, to add a little extra support.

And now, to bring back an old theme~ The Mom chronicles! I convinced her to make a journal (gwenevereofisis) a couple weeks ago, and she's been lurking around in the comms I added her to, but apart from me she has no friends yet. D: But that's not why I'm bringing her up now. We're going to an SCA event on Saturday, and I've been helping her make a basic 6 gore kirtle. I draped a muslin on her, and then drafted the pattern off of that. We were a bit short on the teal-green wool for it, only about 4.5 yards, so I laid it out and did all the cutting and pinning, but she's done all the piecing on her own. Tomorrow we need to put in the sleeves and sew the lining in, and then it'll be picture time! And then mom will be on her own for doing all the hand sewing, i.e. the eyelets for the front lacing, the buttonholes for the sleeves, and the hem. I've got my own hand sewing to do to finish up my outfit for Saturday, after all.