Some better pictures of the striped fabrics

I managed to take some pictures of the blue striped fabric I was talking about in the last post, here they are:


And here is a close up:


I really like this fabric, but I still have a hard time deciding between this one and the light blue silk taffeta. Both are so terrific.

I've made a list of pros and cons for both fabrics:

Silk taffeta:
+ Historically accurate
+ I t will go with more than one gown
+ Natural material
- price tag is a bit high (I would need about 7 yads to make a petticoat + ruchings for the gown and petticoat and that would cost me about 730 SEK)
- It's ebay, I'm a bit worried that the silk fabric willl be a dupioni and therefore be not accurate after all...

Striped fabric
+ Natural material (cotton)
+ Low price (59 SEK/M)
+ I really love the pattern
+ I found it in a local shop
- Not 100% historiacally accurate
- Very bold fabric, might give a clown effect togheter with the other fabric that my gown wil be made of

/L

The fabrics so far

The velvet fabric that will turn into a stomacher and cuffs is in the top of the picture, at the bottom we have the cotton damask for the jacket/gown and in the middle you can se a small piece of upholstery velvet that I will use for redressing the shoes.
The colors are pretty accurate, but all the fabrics looks more shiny in the photo than in real life and the white parts on the damask are much stronger in the picture.
Here are a close up of the damask (with very distorted colors):


We move on to yesterdays major fabric finds, 6 meters of fine quality, light weight linen that I got for 49 SEK/M! (that's about 6$/m).
In the top right corner are the chemise fabric, in the middle we have a (coming to be) petticoat and on the bottom are an old linen sheet made of a twill weave that I found for 75 SEk in a thrift store.

On this picture below I'm trying to show the transparency of the white linen fabric, thats my hand barely showing under it.


And now for the hard decision...which one of those should I go with for the jupe...
First we have the striped fabric, it looks like the one in the picture below but instead of the green stripe there are a light blue one and the fabric are not so dark as i appears here. (I borrowed this picture from Fuschia , go check out her blog, it is awesome!).


Then we have this lovely silk taffeta from ebay:


I have a really hard time with this...should I listen to my wallet or not?

/L

The master plan

So, all projects need a plan and here is mine.
To make a complete outfit I need these items:

Chemise - I have bought fabric, a sheer white linen. I just need to shrink wash it then I can start cutting and sewing. I will sew it all by hand, with linen thread and I think I will make flat felled seams so this garment will be durable and feel nice to the skin.

"Modesy skirt- My plan is to find some old linen sheets either on tradera (a swedish auction site) or in a thriftstore to use for this skirt. I've already found one sheet, but that one is already booked for lining of the jacket/gown and for my pocket.

A pair of stays - I have stays that I made as my exam work when I was in tailor school. Due to the time restriction for the exam project they are not completely hand sewn. I have to change the boning in them, the old ones made of reed are broken. (I still recommend reed as bonig though, they are extremely light, easy to work with and gives good support. But if you cant store your corset lying flat, the will brake as mine has due to moving house approximately 2-4 times a year for a five year period). More info about the work with the stays will come in a post later.

Pocket Hoops - I'm currently working on those, these are also partly machine sewn, I had to have one done quick so I could calculate yardage for petticoats. (I live in the countryside and don't go in to town so often so when I do, I want to hunt for fabric.

Pocket - I've will make one out of linen and embroider it with button hole silk. I have not deiced on a motif yet, but I'm would really like to find some kind of traditional regional motifs from Östergötland (= a region in Sweden). My grandmother who was a great crafts person was from there, and I would like to make my pocket in some kind of hommage to her.

Under petticoat(s) - I've already bought some light blue linen of the same quality as the one in my chemise. I will start with one petticoat and see if and need to make another one to hide the pocket hoops.

Petticoat (jupe) - I have not decied about what fabric to use for this one yet. I'm torn between a light blue silk taffeta that I've found on ebay or a striped upholstery fabric I saw at my local fabric shop. I would like to use the same fabric that is in the petticoat as frills and other decorations on the jacket/gown.

Jacket/Gown - I have a beautyful light blue cotton damask that I want to use, but I don't know If I have enogh of it to make a gown. I found in a thrift store a couple of years ago and it is cut in panels. So I have a 55 cm wide fabric that are 12,26 m long and are cut up in four panels. I see a lot of cutting and piecing coming my way in the future...

Stomacher - At the same time I found the damask I also found some light blue cotton velvet, this one was also a curtain but a very narrow one. I have a pice that are 38 cm wide and 4,98 m long.
My plan is to use this velvet as a base for the stomacher and decorate it with pieces of the damask and frame it in silver trim. I'm also planning to use the velvet for the cuffs of the/jacket gown.

I also need to find some decent shoes to redress, figure out how to make a pair of period stockings and garters and try to get some kind of hat. But they are later problems :)
Now we'll end this post and move on fore something more fun...Fabric pictures ;)

/L