Holiday Faire Sale!

 

For the first time, I sold stuff at an SCA event.  95% of the stuff I was selling was fabric I've accidentally collected, rather than used, over the years.  The above is a picture of my booth.  It was a bit messy but I knew people would be digging through the piles to find items.  

I had saris, dupattas, silks, linens, wools, a bit of geeky quilting cottons, velvets, and mystery fibers.  These were all from cleaning out my fabric stash.  Sadly, this is only 25% of the stash.  It will go down another 10% for Christmas (quilts and blankets!  Real fabric gift bags!) which should get the stash down to manageable.  

Because I had only finished clearing out everything Friday morning, I decided rather than pricing everything, just to make everything flat rates.  Linens were $6 a yard, wools were $5, and silks were $7.  The saris and dupattas were $25.  Mystery fibers and some of the cotton fabric were $3 a yard.  

What I learned?   Trying to add and multiple at the same time in your head doesn't work when you are already tired.  :-)  Really though, the wools went quick.  Almost all of them were "boring" colors (various shades of gray, literally) but the guys, especially, seemed to love them.  The saris pared down well but I was shocked that the velvet didn't sell.  I ended up selling the 4~5 yards of lavender silk velvet (upper left corner of the photo) to a friend this morning.  She wants it for her daughter.  The linen, of course, sold well as did a lot of the mystery pieces.  

This is what the table looked like towards the end of the event.  The thread holder draped with ribbon and trim is a good indicator of how much sold.  You can barely see the top of it in the first picture.  I had to take a Uhaul to bring everything and managed to fit what is left into only three Rubbermaid containers!   I even had a fourth one that was fully empty!   (Plus, the stupid heavy large moving box filled with fabric when I got there was now empty!)  Everything left ended up fitting into the back of my car.  

I didn't get to see much of the event beyond court, sadly.  The life of a vendor means you need to man your booth.  My brother did come and help out half the day but I wasn't able to go and see the pretty horses.  

One thing that did help with selling was being able to take tap credit card payments on my phone.  I set up a business account on paypal for my real side hustle.  I just had to enable the app to take payments via credit card and that ended up accounting for about half of my sales.  Not trying to shill for them, just pointing out if anyone else is considering becoming a vendor, this might be a good way to accept payment.  

Halloween: Vannozza Cattanei's gray/green archery dress in the Borgias Part 1

The problem - because there is always a problem before the start of a project: I wanted something Venetian for Halloween - living here in Veneto- but I didn't want to do the 1550's/1560's thing because I'm trying to lose weight again. I wanted a dress that will fit for a while - which are typically the higher waisted gowns. However, I have a TON of the early 16th C gowns and didn't want to add another to my already bloated collection. Solution?

This.

I saw the gown and was immediately in love. It's very similar to many 1520's/1530's styles. Also, I happened to have a nice five yards of a lighter gray silk stashed away that was perfect for this gown. I'm not coping it exactly - mainly because I'm trying to go with mostly stash fabric - but I'm trying to copy most of the lines. So, the back...

The sleeves are detachable. There is a seam at the back sides but it looks like it has a zipper (not very Renaissance...) up the center back. Because I want to wear this to SCA events later on, I'm just doing lacing at the back sides. Also, it helps with losing/gaining weight that way. The skirt is gathered around and appears to really be just the typical rectangles with maybe some extra in the back. Again, SCA events, I'm just doing rectangles because trains and SCA events do not mix. Ever.

To start, I'm using a base I made from McCall's pattern 2806:

Really, the only thing you need to do to the above pattern to make it perfect for 1490s/1500s is take out the darts in the bodice. That's really it. The skirt is already just three rectangles put together.

I modified it slightly more than that - the shoulder straps are a bit long and the neckline is umm...more early 1520s and not sensible for anyone more than an A cup? So I raised the neckline, cut the straps slightly, also made the width a bit tighter, and I drafted out the darts so I could use this as a base.

The base!   I knew I had to add an inch or two to lengthen the bodice; I also wanted to move the side seam a bit and square out the neckline.  So, first, I drew around the existing base in brown marker.

Then, I took a red frixion (the kind you can erase!) marker and matched up the existing base back with the brown outline I just did.  I wanted to mark where I was moving the seem on both pieces and make sure the curve of the armscye was preserved.  

I only moved it over an inch, really.  You can see the new "red" outline for where I moved the seam over too.  

Inversely, on the back piece outline, I drew a red line to mark the new back side seam.

This picture is a bit hard to see but I squared off the back neckline.  I ended up doing the neckline in the back even deeper than this once I tried the mock up on.  However, the red lines mark the new template.

Front side bodice piece!   It has the new squared neckline and is lengthened.   

However, I realized when I tried to draw the correct length for the back piece that I didn't have enough room.  I ended up erasing the back piece and redrawing it all a lot higher on the paper.  

New back piece as well!!!

Comparison to the original bodice front, with the dart pinched and the new bodice front for the 1530's dress.  It's a lot longer and the neckline is higher.  Still, I realized I had a couple more issues that needed fixing still.  The underbust/rib cage waistline was 2" smaller than my actual rib cage.  My ribs do not shrink like my waist will.  They just don't.  So I ended up adding a bit to the bottom of the bodice so I can breathe.   Also, I didn't like the shoulder strap angle on the front bodice piece so I changed that as well.

The lining fabric!   I'm using teal silk dupioni for the lining.  The actual dress is out of the fabric pictured below.

This is going to be the skirt front.  It's just a 45" cut of the fabric.  The pink silk is silk I had on hand that I thought went well with the lighter gray/silver silk.  The dark lines are hunter green velvet trim.

This is the fabric for the upper sleeve as well as some trim ideas for it.  I like the idea of the pink with the silver trim.  I ordered some light green trim but it's not good for anything more than knitting or crocheting - it's recycled sari ribbon that was sewn together hastily.  I might check out the trim store here in town but, this is the direction I'm going so far.  

Small Break: Fabric Stores

So, I realized I haven't posted in a while.  Mea culpa.  In between Pennsic (in which I did make a few new dresses and chemises for!), Grad School, and now moving, I've had zero time to post anything here.     Earlier today, I was looking for what I thought I had posted months ago, a list of fabric stores, and couldn't find it.   At least, I can post that  (and then stop procrastinating and continue packing...)

This is by no means a comprehensive list. If you have a favorite fabric store that is not listed and isn't Joanns, then add it to the comments. These are just stores I've dealt with and have some idea of the quality of the fabrics they sell.

[Fabric Guru] has mostly drapery fabrics but some pretty good buys as well.

[Fabric dot com] has all the things. They used to be awesome but Amazon bought them out so now that Steve is no longer in charge, the coupons aren't fast and furious anymore.


[Denver Fabrics] and [Fashion Fabrics Club] are the same store. Denver fabrics was a privately owned business that got bought out years ago. Unfortunately, I've had a few bad experiences with them (they'll say something is 100% wool and I doubt it even had wool in it!) so be wary.


[Renaissance Fabrics] is droolable. I love all their fabrics. Of course, they are on the pricey side but it's worth it for a few of their fabrics.

[Syfabrics] is a seller on ebay but also has a website. I've never had a problem with them and love a lot of the fabrics I've gotten.


[B & J fabrics] probably stands for Broke & Jobless because their fabrics tend to be so $$$ that that's what you'll be. However, they sometimes have some rare fabrics that are impossible to find elsewhere.

[Pure silks] is a great place to go if you need that specific color of silk taffeta. They aren't outrageous in their prices (about $19 a yard on average) but they are shipping from overseas so it can be slow sometimes.


[Dharma Trading] is one I've used mainly for dyes. I know others have bought fabric from them. I've never heard a complaint.

[Fabric Store] is where you go if you want linen. You do not bother with anywhere else - except Carolina Fabrics who only travel to SCA events.

[Prism Silks] used to be [Golden Silks]. I've bought silk velvet and silk taffeta from them. They are simply fabulous.

[Burnley & Trowbridge] focus mostly on 18th C fabrics. However, a lot of their stuff can be used for almost any era. Price wise, they are pretty comparable to everyone else

[William Booth Draper] is another 18th C specialty store.

[Sartor] focuses on medieval and Renaissance fabrics. I've seen every one of their fabrics in person. You want all of them. Considering the work that goes into some of the reproductions, their prices are pretty reasonable. I bought some of their fabric on special order at Pennsic.

[Fabric Mart] - watch out for their sales! They have daily sales, the as-is fabric (typically, it's a line through the fabric that you can easily work around), and monthly sales.  I've gotten a TON of wool and linen from them for well under $10 a yard.   Sign up for their newsletters!

[Anne George's] is another good one. It's very similar to dharmatrading in terms of the types of items they sell. However, I've bought the natural dyes from here and I LOVE them. Indigo, madder, and safflower dyes are all a lot of fun to play with. They sell wool gauze for a very decent price as well. They are based out of India but I haven't had any issues getting items fairly quickly.

And, of course, there is good ole ebay & etsy.  However, you are taking a chance for the most part with either of those.