Appliqued Banners

Our Barony recently wanted new banners.  We knew what we wanted to do and only a few folks had ever sewn a banner.  Three gold trees (of fashion fabric) with a laurel wreath, on a blue background with a gold border.

The approximate finished size will be 20” wide by 25” high with 4 tabs for hanging on a cross bar.  PLEASE READ THESE IN THEIR ENTIRETY BEFORE STARTING.

After cutting out your designs, iron all of the fabric.  Iron a fold in the middle of the large rectangle piece that is to be the background of the front and the backing.  This line will be the divider between front and back. (Cut out 2 half trees, 1 full tree, a border, a back, 4 tabs and the wreath.)

Take your gold border fabric and trim it to a 2" wide strip.  If one strip isn't enough to go around your background piece, add another strip to it and after sewing, iron the seam flat.

Using Stitch Witchery or some other iron on backing, iron a piece onto 
the green that you will be using for your laurel wreath.  On the 
remaining paper backing, trace your laurel wreath pattern on paper. 
This will be the back of your wreath.  Carefully, cut out the wreath and 
then iron it to the center tree.  By doing it in this order, you should 
have a clean and sturdy edge.

Place your wreath in the center tree and remove the paper 
backing.  Make sure it is nice and even before you iron it in 
place.  Iron according to instructions, usually 5-8 seconds, 
then set the trees aside.

Taking the border fabric, line it up on your background piece and if you have a seam, place it near a lower corner.  I like to sew the backing and border right sides together. This way when it is turned and ironed, you have a nice front bottom edge of the banner, and 1 seam is completed.   Pin the heck out of your border to keep it flat and in the right place.  

To make the corner pleats, line up the edge of your border and backing. Pin in place before and after your pleat.  Slowly tuck in the excess fabric until you have a square inside corner, pin and then sew in place.

begin fold

tuck it in

pin it down

sew in place

 On a scrap of fabric,  play with your zigzag stitch and make it tight/close together and wide. Sew the inside of the border down using your setting. Sew from the bottom, to the top on each side; left and up and right and up. This helps prevent wrinkles and puckers. Make sure that most of the stitch is on your border fabric and the opposite edge of your stitch just past the edge of the border fabric. This will help  your border from fraying.

Once you are at your border ends, wherever they may fall, pin a seam into the ends, sew, trim and iron flat. Finish with your tight zig zag stitch.

Line up your trees in the center of the banner, inside the border.  The trees should not touch the border fabric.  Again pin the heck out of your trees, they have an amazing tendency to creep across your fabric and could be crooked. I like to sew from the top to the bottom here.  Place your two back trees down and the center tree over them.

I sew down one side, from the top of the center tree to the bottom, then do the same on the other side.  This helps prevent unwanted puckers. The outside trees are similar. Sew from the top to the bottom, then the other side of the trunk and root.  Then do the third tree the same.

From here, you are ready to finish the wreath in the trees.  Using a regular but narrow zig zag stitch, sew down along the edge of the wreath.  This makes a permanaite attachment of the wreath to the trees and to the backing fabric!

The banner is finished except for the edges and tabs at this point.

      Iron the trees using a ironing cloth. (I like an old scrap of white cotton). Using a 3-1 ratio of water and white vinegar. Dip your cloth and lay over the trees. Iron until the cloth is dry. (I don’t know why, but using the vinegar solution helps the ironing, whether flat or a fold, stay.) Your banner front is almost complete at this point.  

      Turn your banner in half at your earlier ironed fold which is now the bottom of the banner. Pin your banner, front to back along the sides. Using a long stitch, sew/baste up the sides of your banner to the top, but not along the top. Fold the banner inside out and check your border width. You should have about a 2” border. Make any adjustments and if it looks good, turn your banner again with the wrong side out and re-stitch using a normal length stitch. Iron flat making sure the back does not show around the edges past your gold border. Iron your top edges, matching the width of the rest of the border. 

      For the tabs, sew a single seam along the long edges then iron them flat; placing the seams on what will be the inside of the fold. Pin your tabs to the banner, spacing them evenly out. Pin the back to the front with the tabs stuck down between the sides. Make sure the banner hangs even. Sew either by hand or machine carefully along the top edge, sealing the banner shut.

      WaLa... you are done.  Hopefully you will have a banner that is pleasing to the eye.  Remember they don't have to be perfect.  Step 5 feet back and most errors disappear!  

And one last note: This isn't the only way to do a banner!

Henriette's Dress

A friend of mine who is living in Nigeria, asked me to make a dress for her as a surprise for a visit home. She told everyone she was coming for a visit in July, but made it home for a big SCA event in June. I did my best to keep it quite on what I was doing.

I consider myself a pretty good seamstress but I knew her figure would be a challenge. She's pear shaped and a lot bigger than me.

She chose a dress from "The Romance of Alexander", but with buttons. So she ordered the fabric online and low and behold, I got it just 3 days later. The buttons were also speedy, I received them in about 4 days.

We'd had her take all of her measurements which in itself was tough. She couldn't find a tape measure for about a day. Sending the cook in to the village to purchase a chicken or something, she asked for her to pick up a tape measure.

So after getting measurements, I set out to make a pattern for her. I took one of my patterns, copied it and quartered it. The stretched the pattern out to fit her figure. I know I made it too large, but I'd rather take it in than panic and have to add inches.

It was a standard cotehardie with tippets on the sleeve and buttons down the front. I made a simple gold underdress for her, gores in the back and on the sides, pull over in style with long sleeves that would cup her hands in a style we both like. Who wants a tan line on their hands? I don't and I knew she wouldn't either.

The overdress was made the same way, but with the buttons. Tiny damn little buttons with a long shank  on the back. 25 buttons in an 18 inch space. Worked out fine, but were a bit of a pain to sew on though. The tippets on the sleeves in the illumination are lined with fur, you can tell by the little seam lines where the white furs were sewed together. She did not want fur, we used white linen.
                                                             
Two days before she was to wear the dress, she landed at LAX. But first things first, she had a business meeting to attend and then she would be mine for a few hours for the only fitting.

We took up the underdress a little bit in the front and quite a bit in the back. The sides were fine and so were the sleeves.  She tried the overdress on and we had to adjust the back seam and I shortened the shoulder seems a little as well, I didn't want her to have the gold chemise showing above the blue at her neckline.

It took me about 5 hours to do the hems, combined there were about 6 yards of hemline.

Her friend added the gold leaf fluer's
along the bottom of the dress after I
had turned it over to her.

A different friend made the cauls for
her hair and they were so freeking cute!

She loved it and looked marvelous!

Cristal's Elevation Dress

My friend Cristal was offered to become a member of the Order of the Laurel for Period Cooking a while ago.

Being me, I offered to make her dress. She chose an illumination from the Romance of Alexander, the blue dress to the right of the picture.

So we planned a weekday trip to the LA Garment District. It turned out that the forecast was rain, and I mean rain.  We went anyway and luckily for us, we found 3 patterned fabrics that she fell in love with: all in the same store!  Getting samples cut from the fabric guy, we wandered around for a while and dreamed and then settled on a medium blue with a dark blue and white swirly design. I don't think we could have found anything more perfect.  Then we found blue velvet for the faux sleeves and short white faux fur for the sleeves.

The next week, we got together at my house and began the task of cutting
out the dress from a pattern that she liked. (I liked it so much, that I copied
the sleeve pattern to use on another friends dress!)  She wanted a gore at
each of the 4 seams of the cotehardie.

I'm a pretty quick seamstress and I had the basic dress finished. The front
looked funny though. We'd done a gore in the front and it just didn't look
right. It made the dress hang funny both on the mannequin and from a
hanger so I removed it after a consultation. The picture to the right
is the before version.

Then I tackled the sleeves. Learning from my last dress, I cut the fur from the backside after tracing the pattern on it. For the top half of the lining, I used a very fine linen.  The idea of the sleeves is that a little of the turn shows on the outside. It was a bit of a challenge but I got it done. The fur wanted to roll under the fashion fabric so I tacked it down a little using invisible stitches.

After attaching the sleeves to the dress, I tackled the fore sleeves. Cristal wanted a curved sleeve to cut down on bunching in the elbow's. I love the idea!  It took me several attempts and about 3 yards of scrap fabric, but I got it figured out. I've never sewn on such fine and delicate fabric and after we got the pewter buttons and I sewed them in place up the arm, they look fabulous.

The day came at last, the day before her elevation she got to try it all on.  It fit really nice, the sleeves were a bit snug on her arms with the faux under sleeves on. We hadn't taken that in to consideration.

The only thing I'd do different, make the sleeves a little wider (which we plan on) and to wash the fabric before hand.  I always wash my fabric but because she wants to dry clean the dress, we didn't. I think it would have been much softer to work with and the smell would have gone away.

Katherine Parr Dress

This is the dress I wanted to make. I knew mine would not be an exact replica, that would be near impossible unless I was to weave my own cloth and to hire a jeweler.

The dress has a stomacher, fur lined sleeves, a drop front waist which means it probably has a bum roll and it the wearer has on a farthingale or hoop skirt. Pearls on the stomacher, fore-sleeves and the fore-dress. a jeweled chemise, don't forget the hat, belt and jewelry.

After several trips to the LA Garment District to find material that wasn't the standard "Oh look, she used the same fabric as the pillow's on my sofa",

material, I located what I wanted and purchased it. All 14 yards... just for the

overdress. I found the fabric, (another 12 yards) I liked for the fore-dress or underskirt and fore-sleeves at a local discount fabric shop.

I started off by making a "Dorthea"

style body, that is I made a corset. The original portrait has an elongated, low front. Mycorset needed to provide the under shape for theovergown. It was, I thought, pretty easy. I took my usual coset pattern and added a sloping point in the center front and then boned it well with metal stays. I added two eyelets to the center front down low for my bum roll strings to pass through. The strings need to stay low in order to keep the front of the roll out of the way of the stomacher's smoothness. The strings feed back to front. I also added two large snaps at the center front waist that the petticoat would fasten to.

I already had a chemise made that had red gems sewn around the

neckline and large sleeves with a bit of gold tone lace-like trim that looks to be embroidered at a distance. Perfect.

I needed to make a kirtle/petticoat or skirt for the underdress. I tried first, to make a boned kirtle with the skirt. It did not hang to my satisfaction and puckered right at the front where it needs to be smooth. Using one of the The Tudor Tailor's suggestions from the book, I made a Henrician petticoat. While I am not pleased with the pleat I made on the front sides, it looks great. I like the low cut front and back, those fewer layers made it cooler to wear. Each side is laced and has a minimal use of boning. At this point, I marked the front of the corset and attached my snaps. Yes I know, I should have used hooks. Bite me. :)

Then to tackle the bodice of the gown. I wrote to the ladies at The Tudor Tailor in England for a bit of advice and they suggested that for the part of bodice that was to be

under the stomacher to use some type of canvas. The photo to the right is my first attempt. The center point would have been to narrow and to short once the skirt was attached. Also the plain canvas was just wrong. I went to Jo Ann's Fabrics and found some nice tan canvas to use both as a lining and as the forefront where the laces are.

I revamped my pattern and cut a new front section and attached sewed it all together. The new design and fabric color made a nice difference.

First I knife pleated my fabric, making the pleats flow from the center back towards the front. Then carefully, I pinned the skirt to the bodice, checking every few pleats to make sure I had them even. There is nothing worse than sewing something like this and then having the silly pleats not be even! I also needed to attach the skirt in the front at a lower point on the fabric to keep the design going around me, even.

With great delicacy and a lot of care, I basted the skirt to the bodice using the longest stitch on my sewing machine. Before I did the final sewing I double checked the sizes of the pleats and where they landed on the bodice. I was in luck, I only needed to adjust one. Before I did the final attachment, I loaded up Regina the mannequin with chemise, bum roll, farthingale, and adjusted the height to match mine. It looks pretty spiffy at this point. After the skirt was sewn on and the bodice finished everywhere but the sleeves, I let the dress hang for 3 days before having a friend pin the hem's for me. Traveling to Paul's house, I dressed in the full undergarment regalia and the petticoat and stood on his coffee table while he pinned the hem. Then adding the gown, we did the same. Once I arrived home, I decided to use hem tape to make the bulk less and sewed both hems.

To make the fur sleeves, I followed the advice of David and cut from the back. Using a perma marker, I traced my pattern onto the back of the faux fur and then cut with a razor blade. This allows for the fur to be cut but not the individual hairs! What brilliance! Carefully pinning the fur to the outer sleeve every few inches, I basted it on, turned it and looked how the fur laid around the seams. It was pretty cool the way the hairs were kept from the seams. The few places that needed to be fixed I did by pulling the hairs with a corsage pin and then sewed the two together. I do not have a photo of this but you get the idea.

The only thing I had left to do was the fore-sleeves, the part that shows from under the fur. They were simple enough to make but took me all day to do the pair. I had made my pattern, cut the slashes, backed the slashes and turned them. Adding a strip of linen to the back of the sleeves, I puffed the fabric and stitched the backing and linen down by hand. There is a minimal amount of beading on the sleeves, they don't show much below the massive amounts of fur.

The hat was made by cutting out a crescent shape where the points would lay just in front of my ears. I used needlepoint plastic and covered it with black linen and made a coif of black linen. The beads and trim were hand sewn. The jewelry was easy to make, finding the right beads proved to be tough. The belt was made of cording and had knots and large holed beads. The original girdle or belt is made up of cording with mini cameos and a small clock at the base above the tassels.

Now that I have worn the dress there are a few minor changes. I need to trim the amount of fur from the underside of the sleeves around the elbow. I need to add a little more beading to the petticoat and I need to fix the hat, it didn't quite curve right over the head. Overall, I am very pleased with it.

Absent friends

HA!

Gotcha, I don't have any followers, so the absent friend has been myself.

After the last post a friend talked to me and said I hadn't been a happy camper for a while. They had noticed a decline in my attitude. Well yea, I hurt. So I talked to me Doctor and got a prescription for Celexa or happy pills as I like to call them. Damn it, after just three days of taking the little gems, I felt better. Wow, what a difference.

So I tackled a new dress to wear to Coronation in early November. It was based off of the Jane Seymour dress and other than one thing, I nailed it. My error was to lace the dress up the back instead of the front and then cover the lacing with a plastron, I didn't think I could that sleek/smooth front. Dresses back then were 99% of the time, laced up the front. And I even made the most uncomfortable hat in the world.

So my next task is to make a dress in the style of Katherine Parr, the one with the fur sleeves. And I will lace it up the front dog gone it.

I've been working on making a gambeson for my husband, it does not appear to fit but the person I got the pattern from said do the buttons and we'll take a look at it. Okay....