Saturday, August 20, 2011

Fabric Hunting

Just got back from fabric shopping at B. Black's & Sons in the L.A Fashion District with what I think is a fairly awesome stash!


Unfortunately they didn't have an appropriate blue grey fabric for the kirtle (at least not in the weight and weave that I wanted) so I went with my back-up design and bought a lovely burgundy/brown wool camel hair for the kirtle and a poor black or maybe it's a dark grey/brown wool Melton for the fitted gown.


However, as you can see from the photo I picked up a bit more than that...

Since the Camel hair was rather expensive, and since I haven't sewn anything is years (and certainly not by hand) Craig suggested that I try a simpler outfit it in a less expensive fabric.
While I had always intended to do a mockup I wasn't planning on making it up in the labour intensive period way I was planning (more on that later), so this didn't seem like a bad idea...especially since I had recently developed a hankering for a late 16th/early 17th century jacket.

So I decided on a mustard linen kirtle and a blue jacket:


I guess we'll see how it goes...
It's possible that by the time I've made up the kirtle I may feel more comfortable with tackling the fitted gown. That's the great thing about these pieces, they are ideally suiting to mixing and matching:


I also picked up some red linen for a petticoat and white for a shift.
Now to start sewing!