mi-parti2

Not much to say but I thought that I could make a little update anyhow. I haven't sewn much lately because of Christmas, the NYE party and all but, here's what I've managed to do this week ; I managed to attach both front pieces, back pieces, front gore, side gores and gussets together. Half of it still isn't hem-stitched though and the back isn't closed. I've managed to finish hem stitching the front & a whole side of the dress (minus the sleeve). It's a lot of sewing because, each seam is opened flat so, it makes it double to hem stitch, way longer than to just do a backstitch to put the pieces together. Each gore means 6 rows of hem stitches of about one meter long and 4 rows for each gussets. Now, onto the gold side !

Another small update ; Both sides & gores are done, the back is closed & the gore is set, it only needs to be hem stitched. I realised that I had taken off the gussets on my first Moy gown, I had forgotten about that so now, the new one is a bit too big, I'll have to fix it. Today I've worked a bit on the buttons. I'm using the same technic as for the other one but instead of linen, I'm using wool. Here's a close-up of the center gore (and a bit of the side one) and a view of the bodice.

Last night I've managed to completely finish hem-stitching the black sleeve and all the insert's seams along with the linen buttoning band of the front opening last night. So it will take about another 6 hours to get the gold side done. After that, I'll start working on the button holes and than the skirt's bottom hem.

I'm done with the gold sleeve and the skirt's edge is hem-stitched as well. I'm currently making the button holes on the black sleeve so I think that it would be safe to say that there's about 5 hours of work left for that. Than I'll start working on the front buttoning and I'll be done with the gown and onto the hood !!!

For more info about the button construction, you can visit the diary to my first Moy gown at : http://cadieux.mediumaevum.com/yellowgown.html

It's now 3:00am and I thought that you'd all like to see what it looks like all together. I'm still not done with the button holes of the front opening but it's all that's left to do now. There's not much lighting in my house and since my son's sleeping, I had to use the self-timer so, the picture quality and colors are awful but it's better than nothing... Until I get some decent pictures with the hood and all after I'm done with it !

At Kellie's request, I decided to add a couple of close-ups of the buttons. A few people have been asking info about them since my first Moy and I always refered to Julia's gown because you can clearly see the stitches on hers as she used a contrasting thread. But since I've set mine a bit differently, I'll post a few pics so that you can all see what I'm doing differently ;

The button's construction isn't quite the same to begin with as she's going with the "compressed fabric" technique and I'm using the "wooden stud" one. But the assembly and the gathering technique is the same. There's a great page about it here . When I sew the button onto the garment, I sew it from the tip and not from the upper part of the button. It's tight enough that I don't need to roll the thread around it all when I'm done, as I already do that while assembling the "mushroom shape".

So here are pictures so that you can compare with Julia's buttons here. Her technique might be more esthetic and historical but I find mine to be more stable, solid and resistant to the tension that they have to hold-up to.
(Don't you just love that camera of mine, you can get a cristal clear view of my finger's digital ID !!!)

I based the construction of the hood on the "Sunnfjord" model but I removed the edge-band and added an integrated liripipe as seen on many different "Herjolfnes" finds. Here's a layout of what it looked like before I've put it together last night. The little white lines shows the approximative emplacement for the buttons...

This might take a while as I'll be making another similar hood for my 15th c. group at the same time. I decided not to use the extra handmade buttons that I had sewn because I find that they'll be too big. So I'll go buy smaller wooden pieces for that tomorow and I'll make a new batch all together.

Well, I'm mostly done though at the moment, what you're seing are actually the gown's buttons. I've pinned the hood on each side just for now. Of course, it will be buttoned-up 'til right under my chin and won't stick opened that way.

We just received about one foot of snow so, I don't think that I'll be able to take nice pictures in a more "period" context until spring. Until then, I'll be adding the actual buttons and I'll be handsewing the button holes. So this will be the last update until I get some nicer pictures taken.