myhouppelande

Bliss' No Right Clicking

Yet another Houppelande construction theory...

I've been meaning to make myself a Houppelande forever. The problem was that, since early 15th c. houppelande were totaly circular, I evaluated that it would take at least 9 metres of fabric plus the lining. But i decided to go with a cheaper construction which i believe was done in the third part of the century. The wool i have is premium quality. One side is felted and on the other side, you can see something like undyed microscopic "cat hair" stuck in the weft. Of course, it's wool but i'm not sure that I like it so, I think that I'll go for the felted side... This picture doesn't do it justice at all but it gives a vague idea of the dark burgundy shade. On the left is the felt and on the right is the Hairy side. As for the lining, some of you will get totaly traumatised by this but, I've been collecting fur coats for years hoping that some day I'd finaly have enough of the same breed & color but this would mean at least 4 to 6 identical mink coats to make a houppelande of a decent width. Now I have 3 coats made of racoons, One of silver wolf, One of wild-cat and left overs of a mink coat. I've been spending like crazy in hopes that someday I'd have enough of one kind but I can't find any that has big usable pannels so, I gave-up the search. Since I find that fabric lining looks awfuly cheap for a houppelande, I decided to go with fur imitation. But not just any imitation, top quality, darn expensive imitation. You know, the type that you can look at and tell which animal it's suposed to be ! I know that I always said that I'd never *DO* fake fur but tha was before I saw samples of these. So they had mink, rabbit and all kind off stuff but I found that they were a bit too shiny. The wolf & fox were incredibly convincing (I would have bet my right hand that these were real skins) but I found that the hair were too long for lining purpuses. They didn't have anything such as squirel so, I went with the deer skin. Deer hunting was a major thing in medieval times so I figured that it was still a better choice than real Canadian racoon !!! I'm incredibly happy with it and for cause, the darn thing was 40$/yard (on sale). It looks so real that even *I* am having a hard time believing that this is fake, you can't see a darn thing even if you spread all the hair apart. Did you know that those crazy people even make faux-fur with actual suede lining now-a-days ? Sheesh, this is crazy ! So I'm putting-up a swatch even though this picture doesn't do it justice, just so that you can see the color... The hair looks long but they're in fact fairly short.

By looking closely to the pleats on some models, i think that it's almost impossible that they aren't boned with cord or the actual fur lining because they are so perfectly round. For that reason, i believe that this type of houppelandes weren't quite circular but somewhere closer to the cut of the "V" neck gown (But wider of course). So that's what i'll be experimenting. I already assembled most of the fur patches that creates the lining. I made it quite fitted so, I'll be gathering the outher layer's pleats and sew them-on to it, along with the corded boning. Here's the look that I'll be attempting to achieve... Well, maybe not as many pleats, but still !

Come back soon for more updates !

So here's what the crazy lady has been up to for the past two days... And it's been Hell ! Up 'til here I went through 5 packs of needles and 9 rolls of thread... And I'm only half done ! Lol !

I'm aware that the gore's patch seams don't meet with the others, I only thought of that when I was done cutting the front one but I'll do better with the back, I promise ! Sorry that it's such a bad pic but I was at the cieling level to take it so, that's the best I can do. The darn thing is huge !!!

I thought that the miss-matched patches were pretty disturbing and I would have felt anoyed and embarassed by it each time that I would need to lift my skirt-up to walk so, I went back to the store, bought some more and made a new gore. Now all the seams everywhere coincides from the gores, front, back and sides. I'm verry happy with the result.

So after being done with the lining, I started to cut the wool but Oh the catastrophe, I'm short of almost 2 meters. The fur was 60" wide but I figured that I still needed more since all the pieces had to be cut on the same side because of the hair and also, because of the numerous seams, I felt that it would be just fine in the end. I haden't realised that the wool was only 45" wide and that all the pieces needed to be twice the width of the lining because of the cord & pleats. So there's strictly no room anywhere to cut out my gores. I bought that wool just before the Hollidays so now, I can't get any more. Sadly, it looks like I'm gonna have to wait 'til I have the budget to get some more. I need close to 7 meters so, that means a lot of dough. This id *SO* frustrating, and the worst part is that, I had already cut all over that beautiful *AND* expensive wool. *sheesh* what am I gonna do now ? It looks like it's gonna have to be waisted on yet *ANOTHER* kirle of fitted gown because, there's not much more that I can do with the *already cut* pieces... *sigh*

OK, I'm back ! :-) I now have the wool and everything that's needed to get going. The only thing that I'm a bit disapointed about is that I really couldn't find any burgundy wool anywhere. I even waited a few months to see if they wouldn't get a bolt at some point but unfortunatly, I had to resort to dark green. So, this is how I'm going about with this :

I've cut every pieces to the lining's pattern except for the sides, neckline and shoulder line which I left uncut. I'm starting with the back and I've assembled all pieces as if the gown was whole, meaning center-back and gore. I than pined the center and gore back-to-back with it's respectable lining pieces. Here the skirt is folded under the gore or else it would have been way too circular to photograph, it's already taking most of my living room floor !!!

I'm using a raw cotton cord of about an inche of diameter, which will be tapped-in with the fabric and apear much smaller.
Here's a close-up of the cord ;

I started handsewing the corded bodice. I'm about 2/3 done with one side of the back.