An attempt at the Moy Gown, part 1

First, yes, bedsheets work wonders for mock ups. Particularly the ones you've hated for the past 10 years since your mother got them and put them on your bed in the beach house. :-) You have no idea what pleasure it was to chop this baby up.

Second, the Moy gown. There are now several good write ups out there on the Moy Gown. The first of which is March Carlson's experiment on the construction of the gown. Another fabulous one is here by Matilda La Zouche.

Basically, the Moy gown was found in an Irish bog back in 1931. It's most likely from about the 1460's to the 1480's based on contemporary drawings of the time - however it might be a bit later than that as Ireland tended to be a bit behind the times when it came to fashion.

The above is from 'Sol und Siene Kinder' by the Housebook Master, the last quarter of the 15th century, South Germany.

This image done by Maître François in his illuminations of La Cité de dieu by Augustine around 1475-1480. This image is called Mysteries of Cybele (Virgo caelestis, Berecynthia) – fol. 86 verso. (I found it at Cottesimple.com.)




I want to create a Moy gown because I am fascinated by something that has lasted this long, clearly spans a few countries (France, Germany, Ireland), and it looks interesting in construction. However it's the construction that is getting me right now.

Although the body was easy enough -I used my 1790's bodice as a template since it has the weird back thing going on as well- the sleeve has me going crazy. I'm leaving it as is until the morning.

I had to play with the construction a bit in the body as well - the original neckline I had was too wide, which is why I have it pinned.  Other than that...it really was easy.  Now to figure out that sleeve...in the morning.  Hmm...

Edit: Me? Actually wait until the morning? Bwahaha! Yeah....no.

Fixed it! The sleeve fits perfectly now. The bodice is a bit tight but that I know how to adjust for. Now to do the second mock up, fully destroy these hideous sheets, and then work on the actual dress!

Mom's Corded Late Regency Petticoat

I decided I wanted to play with cording a petticoat. I honestly haven't tried before - I've bought all my hoopskirts- but I saw one of my buddies on my Livejournal friend's list do one a few months back using a zipper foot. It worked. Well, actually. I just did a couple of channels around the hem to give a bit of a puff. I used cotton/poly twine you get at Home Depot. I folded over the hem, held the cord inside the hem, and ran the zipper foot with the needle all the way over to the right. It's not super stiff, but it does add dimension to the dress.

Side view.  The mess is a couple of different projects.  One is my Edwardian UFO and the other is the pattern pieces to the spencer I'm working on next.

The dummy mummy and my Mom now have different dimensions- which is why the fit is a bit off on the dummy mummy.  However, you can see the skirt flares well for the 1810s/early 1820s look.

Side view with the petticoat.  It's not a big amount of puffiness - just enough to keep the dress "light" looking. 

A close up of the cording under the dress.  I added some wide eyelet edging to the hem of the petticoat - so, should it peek out, it's okay. You'll just see more muslin and embroidered lace.

If she likes this style, I might make her more petticoats in different colors - I have some green that would look fabulous beneath this dress.  Right now, she has a lovely blue bonnet with a white feather courtesy of the Bohemian Belle.  I'm trying to create a wardrobe for her that will match that.  Which means I should probably make a navy blue petticoat next rather than green.  ;-)

Food!

I apologize for not keeping up with this as much as I should. Last night, I had more of the cod with green sauce. I changed up the green sauce a bit. I used mint this time and I used only the cooking wine and vinegar to boil the herbs. I also used bread crumbs rather than fresh bread pieces for the sauce. OMG! It is so terribly good. I put it on the cod, cooked in cooking wine as well, and I think this may be a new favorite meal. It's really that delicious.

Today was a fasting day so I only had mushrooms (cooked with parsley) and bread with jam....and six glasses of wine. I think. ;-) The fun of the medieval diet is that you can have wine. I also had tea and water through out the day as well, of course.

I have a lot of sewing projects planned - one I will work on this weekend- but work has been crazy. I bought a bunch of saris as a thrift store recently. Most are synthetic but I did get a couple of cotton ones and a silk one. I want to use them to make some modern work dresses. There is one that is already claimed to be my Easter dress this year - once I make a pattern and cut it all out. Hopefully, next week will be less crazy.

Back From New York

That was the view from my hotel room. :-) Although I was traveling - and therefore couldn't cook Lenten meals each day- I did stay away from meat and eggs. Still, breakfast was typically rice krispies in vanilla soy milk (with a banana and OJ but those can be found in the 16th C) with dinner being shrimp cooked in salt, pepper, and olive oil (which is actually pretty period) and potatoes fried up in salt and rosemary. A couple of times, I got the shrimp stir fry down the street as well for lunch. It wasn't bad but I really wish I could have had a little more variety.

I did try to sew. I was going to make a pair of bodies - hand sewn- for the Bodice challenge and...I cut them out WAY too big. I didn't realize it until I sewed up the seams. It's pretty ridiculous. So, I'm going to do a "quick" machine version instead. It won't be H/A (I had silk thread, linen thread, reed, leather bias tape, and everything!) but it will give the correct shape.

So, tonight, hopefully, a new recipe and a pair of bodies!

Sewing Plans

This is a hint of what I will be working on tomorrow, hopefully. I need a new 18th C dress to match my beloved quilted petticoat and my newish (I haven't worn it yet) hat. The hat is trimmed in a lovely orange ruffled trim that I bought when I went out to Las Vegas last year. Katherine and I had gone to this store where I bought a ton of gorgeous trims and I really need to start using more of them. ;-) I have a larger version of the orange trim on the hat that I will use on the 18th C dress I plane on making to match all of this.

Right now, I'm working on accessories for an Elizabethan outfit for the Historical Fortnightly. I had a Spanish surcote languishing in the UFO pile that really needs to be finished. Since it's an overcoat and not the dress itself, I'm counting it as an accessory. I'm making some real Elizabethan accessories as well, a ruff and a coif with the forehead cloth. Those, hopefully, will be done today.

After these projects, I need to get started on my Dress U ones and on a dress I need to make for a social function (ie, not historical but the dress will be anyways. I'm totally making a 1920's dress!). I think I've settled on what I want to make for everything at Dress U now. We'll see.

Titanic Gown Part 1

I'm going to make multiple Edwardian dinner gowns this year since there are so many events to wear them too. My first one is a black and red number.

I just have the fabric pinned to the dress dummy. The bodice is an extant one I got years ago as a lot of discarded sewing items. The cut of the bodice is very similar to a House of Worth gown from the very late 1900's:

My sleeve style will be different than the gown above - more in keeping with the styles of 1912, of course- but I liked the idea of the sash around the raised waistline area. Although I didn't pin it in the pictures, I will have a black lace sash around the dress waist.

The underlayer is a red silk for the gown. It doesn't show in the pictures but you can just see it beneath the pallu front of the gown. The pallu - or decorated part of the sari- is being used as a skirt front panel over the red silk. It's a semi-sheer black silk pallu with black embroidery and copper beading. Detail picture:

Detail picture of the bodice:

I plan on adding lots of red details to the dress - red beads possible around the neckline, sheer red organza for the sleeves, ect. I also want to play up the copper beads. I'll be adding beading to the black silk overskirt that goes around the back but I'm not sure whether to cut up the sari more and use the copper beads on that as trim or to use the lovely extant black beaded trim I have. Or both. We'll see. I will be using some more of the sari for sleeves and things.

Tuesday will be boring when it comes to food

Today, I had Orange Juice for breakfast. Lunch is nothing more than pretzel sticks and Lemon Tea. (Yes, pretzel's are a Lenten food, thank goodness!) I do have almonds and I could sneak home again and get a salad but I'm just not that hungry. Tonight, I'm probably going to reheat the salmon I still have from last night, a salad, and maybe mushrooms. What I'd like to do for tomorrow is re-find that sweet potato recipe from the late 16th c and try that. It sounded good but I can't remember where I saw it.

In other news; I'm going to start my Regency dress for Sunday tonight. I know! So early! ;-) I'm planing on using this lovely blue twill I have in the stash, adding either silver or pink trim, and making a white skirt to go with the entire ensemble. I'm going with the 1790's look. Now, this may change because I do have a few days because I had this rather amusing dream a few days ago that I made this fabulous romper style early 1800's Regency dress out of orange linen that was completely embroidered in silver. Now, why orange linen rather than silk? Probably because I have a lot of orange linen and not a lot of orange silk in my stash - or my brain was trying to confuse me again. That happens. I sort of want to see if I have any saris that I could make into something but most of the saris I have are silk net (Edwardian stuffs). ...Or I could make a nice simple spencer out of some of the silk I have.....

Dress University Plans

Hello!   Rather than post pictures of a finished product (by Friday night I *should* have a new dress to post!), I figured I'd post my semi-finalized Dress U 2012 plans.

For the Welcome Party, rather than go 18th C, I figured I'd do something a bit different.  Ever since I heard of the upcoming movie "Mirror Mirror" a couple of months ago, I fell in love with this outfit Snow White wears:





I know where to get the silk for the bodice and I have the pattern for the outfit since the bodice looks to be a pseudo Elizabethan, but the silk for the skirt is going to be $$$.  It looks to be a Kravet Lampas Silk pattern.  I'm probably just going to go with something similar rather than exact since the cheapest price I've found is still $75 a yard.  Eeck!

I'm not sure about the Gibson Girl Pool Party other than I do want to make a turn of the century (if not earlier) swimdress.  I need to do more research on it as of right now. I know my colors will be red wool and probably black trim.

For the Mad Hatter Tea Party, I've decided to go with a somewhat Lolita 18th C styled dress to match the hat I want to make.  The hat (it is a Mad Hatter tea party after all, I need a hat!) is going to be styled after a cake.  For right now, I really like this cat as my inspiration:


...but that may change. BTW, click on the photo. The lady who made this cake has a ton of jaw droppingly gorgeous cakes and cupcakes up on her flickr page.

I'm keeping what I'm doing for the Titanic Party at Dress U a secret because I really want to see the reaction when I get there. Yes, it will be that different. :-)

For the "Let them eat crepes", I'm doing an 18th Century Turkish outfit. I have a pair of green, pink, and gold shoes that are perfect for a Turkish outfit so I'm planning around those.



The above is one of the many paintings I'm using for inspiration.

And now for the Tiaras and Jampagne. I was debating for a while on whether to go as Empress Sissi or as Buttercup from the Princess Bride. I scratched both after watching Van Helsing a couple of nights ago. I need Anna's red ball gown instead. Now, to find a tiara with red stars all over it... hmm... and way too many yards of red silk taffeta....


I'll bring a few more dresses -probably my pink 18th Century gown with the green trim and maybe an Elizabethan if not the 18th C Sack Back that will be done by then. However, I need to get all this done, plus three more projects by June.

In Jan, I need to finish an 18th C Jacket and the Catherine Parr gown (I have the materials for both, they are just in the need to be cut phase). For the beginning of Feb, I need the sack back gown. March, I might just be silly and not wear one of my four or five green gowns I already have for the Saint Paddy's Day party but make yet another one. April...we aren't even going into everything I need to do for April. And then...May. Which will be slowish costuming wise but I'll be gearing up for June! So, a lot of outfits will be posted over the next few months.

Oh, and for those that are not on my LJ blog as well, this is Jasper.


He adopted me the Friday before Thanksgiving. Poor darling was stuck in the crawlspace beneath my townhouse! Since it was 24 F out, I let him in and he's stayed ever since. (I did contact the local animal shelter/animal control but no one reported a cat missing so....he's mine! Ha!) Miss Ginsie is delighted at having a cat in the home.


As you can see, they get along perfectly fine. :-) Poor Jazz, he doesn't know what he's gotten himself into!