Fixing costumes

[frualeydis]

I have been redoing a 16th century dress in pale green brocade with carnations in brass thread the last days. It was made of a skirt with a waistband and a separate side-back lacing bodice. Since the skirt is split in the front I needed to change the closure of the bodice before I attached the skirt to it. First I removed some trim and ripped the center front seam of the bodice, which thankfully was there thanks to the fabric being too narrow to make the bodice in one piece. The lining was made in one piece so I had to cut it and add strips of fabric to the edges before I sewed it together, with a thin cable tie at the edges. Then I whipstitched the openings in the back together and covered the eyelets with pieces of brocade. Then I hand sewed hook and eye tape to the opening and put back the trim. Then it was time to try i ton. Of course it was really, really tight! I wasn't too surprised since I thought probably still weigh more than I did when I made that dress in 2002, even if I have lost weight since I had Maja. But then, late at night, I decided to try it on with the same corset as I had then. Well, the good thing is that I now can close that corset wholly, which I never have done before. The bad thing is that I can barely close the dress when I'm wearing the corset! That dress was made for that corset and worn with it not closed. I have no idea how this happened. I must have done something when I stitched the skirt to the bodice that makes it less "stretchy" or something. Not that it was stretchy before, but that's all I can come up with. So I folded the dress and put in a chest, waiting for when I have lost some more weight and made a new corset. The latter will probably have to be done before I wear my 16th century clothes anyway, because my body has changed it's shape. I need to make my corsets wider at the bust and narrower at the waist, my first corset is really uncomfortably tight at the bust if I lace it so it fits in the waist. Not bad really, but surprising. The effigy corset also needs to be taken in at the waist while keeping the size it has at the bust (actually it could be a little bigger there). This means that I can't do what I had planned to do when I lost weight, just take it in at the front edges, instead I will have to take it apart at the sides and change the angle of the back piece. This will have to be done before I continue with my flemish dress since I'm going to wear that corset under it.

My mother just arrived and I'm going to start on the laundry and then we will work on a pattern for her for a dress from Patterns of fashion 2, the one to the right on the cover, with lots of "frills" down the back.