I have now washed my eggplant, aubergine, plum, whatever gothic fitted dress. The wool itself isn't so bad, but the linen lining... I can't judge if the colour has changed since it's wet, but I don't think so. Still a cursory examination showed nothing amiss. It weighs a ton and a half wet and is now dangling off a hanger in my bathroom.

I also threw in the doublet bodice kirtle in the same wash - with the silver trim still on - and it came out looking just fine. It's all coarse linen so I put it in the warm air blowing dryer cupboard thingy.

Also with these two was my green linen tunic. All machine made and zig-zagged seam allowances. I threw that one in the dryer.

My pondering now has to do with the GFD. I don't know if I should just let it hang dry or if I should take it down and try to iron it dry. I will have to iron the doublet bodice dress before I put it away. I'm just letting it get manageably damp before I take it out of the dryer cupboard/closet/shed thingy. That thing also weighs a ton what with being made out of coarse, self-lined linen.

Well, I finished it. The trim is stitched on, the eyelet tape is stitched on, I even whipstitched the skirt to the bodice. All done. Except for hemming; so now I really only need to hem two dresses. Hemming is booooooring.


Anyway, pictures in the gallery, but I am warning you, it's not very pretty. I was right, the fronts pull apart and spread open when I have it laced on. Maybe if I try it with my corset on it won't do that, but it's not really meant to go over my corset so it will probably look horrible. I don't know what to do though. Maybe I can get someone to sew the flappy bits closed when I want to wear it. Or do it myself.

On the plus side. it's very comfortable. I also did remember to cut off an inch at the waist in the pattern, so there is none of the icky wrinkling that I got with my first fittings of the working class gown (on which this pattern is based). So that's good. And so far, the eyelet tape looks to be holding up, although I've only worn the dress for ten minutes total to take the pictures so that doesn't necessarily mean much.

It should at least be wearable, and something to change out with. I probably need to get the eyelet tape in around the arms now so I can lace on some sleeves.

Well, I got home today after reading a hundred pages of V. Woolf feeling energetic, so I stitched on the last bit of trim arond the arms and then set about pinning the rest of my trim around the front closing and neckline. I thought about the problem for a moment - thinking that I might want to remove this trim at some point, and possibly move it to another dress - and started pinning at one neckline, going down and back up, around the collar then down and back up the other front which left me with a piece with -just- made it around the collar a second turnd to make the whole look neat and symmetric.

I took a picture where you can also see my wings sewn on and the skirt pinned in place.

Yesterday was a good, and productive day. Today has been somewhat less so.
( Go on, whine whine )
Oh, yes: Seagate Barracuda -> Barracuda -> Bruce Springsteen + Monty Python = Bruce

Oh yes, sewing circle yesterday - Very Productive. I have my skirt made up, pinned to the bodice, just needs attaching and hemming. The lovely hostess got that amount done, plus she attached the skirt, stitched on hook and eye tape to her front closing and attached wings. Johan made almost an entire surcote to go over his armour, I also managed to stitch on and press down the extension piece to my GFD ready for hemming, and I made up the sleeves for the chemise - admittedly it was two left-sleeves so I had to fell the seam on one of them and call it the outside GRR - and pinned them into place.

Lots got done and I fell in love with the sewing machine there. It was loooovely.